I want a hundred of your time
GAEUL × FEM! READER
SUMMARY: Student notices that a new classmate with a frighteningly gentle look always turns out to be nearby and the more she wants to be closer, the more difficult it is to understand whether you want to escape or stay.
WARNING: stalking, violation of personal boundaries, elements of psychological tension, angst(I'M SSRY😭) The author's native language isn't English. Sorry for any possible mistakes.
You noticed her in the first week of March. The days were still cool, the scent of cherry blossoms hung in the air, and the university campus in Seoul was coming back to life after winter break. The new art student was tall, with long ash-gray hair tied in a low ponytail, and a cold, studying gaze. Her name was Gaeul. She kept to herself, yet somehow always ended up wherever you were.In the library, when you were looking for a book on Korean art history, she sat at the neighboring table, running her finger along a page but looking at your hands.
In the student cafeteria, where they served bibimbap and tteokbokki, she took the same salad as you and sat where she could see your profile. You chalked it up to coincidence. Could happen to anyone, right? But the coincidences became too frequent.
One day, you dropped your hairpin. It was expensive, vintage, with mother-of-pearl inlay, bought in Insa-dong. You searched for it for half an hour, scoured the entire building, but never found it. The next day, when you opened your locker in the gym changing room, there it was.
Clean, as if it had just been polished, and pinned to it was a small note folded into a triangle. In blue ink, in neat handwriting, it read:
"You always look perfect, but with it, even more beautiful. I couldn't help myself I took it as a keepsake. But then I realized it's your happiness, so I returned it <3"
Your heart pounded wildly. You spun around, but the hallway was empty. Only at the far end, beyond the glass door leading outside, did a shadow flicker. A familiar silhouette with long hair, vanishing the instant you turned your head.
You didn't tell anyone. Were you scared? No. More like… curious. Someone found you so beautiful that they followed your every move? It was intoxicating.
The next three weeks became even more intriguing. Gaeul no longer hid. She appeared in your life drawing class just as the April sun was streaming through the studio windows. The instructor introduced her as a talented sophomore repeating the course to strengthen her foundation because she'd missed the fall semester due to family issues. But you knew the truth. Family issues were just a cover…She sat directly across from you. You were drawing a plaster vase with dried cherry blossom branches; she was drawing you. You couldn't see her paper, but you felt her gaze gliding over your neck and shoulders.
"You have a beautiful grip," Gaeul said quietly, leaning toward your easel. Her voice was low, velvety, with a slight rasp. It sent goosebumps across your skin. "You hold your brush like you're afraid of hurting the paper. I hold mine like I want to pierce right through it. We're just perfectly complementary, aren't we!" She smiled, and in that smile was innocence and madness and a piercing tenderness all at once.
You tried to joke back, but the words stuck in your throat. Gaeul ran her finger along your arm, leaving a barely visible trail of blue watercolor paint just like the note on the hairpin.
"Leave it," she whispered. "Blue suits you."
That evening, back in your rented room in a small studio you found a photo on your pillow. Of you. You were asleep in it… last Wednesday, you thought, curled up on the sofa, wrapped in a cat-eared blanket. You distinctly remembered pulling the thick curtains shut. Someone had taken it from outside, through the tiny gap between the drape and the wall. Or… someone had been inside?!
On the back, in the same neat handwriting, written in gel pen:
"You look so peaceful when you sleep. I stood and watched you for two hours. I'm sorry I couldn't resist coming in. I just wanted to fix your blanket you'd kicked it off in your sleep. You deserve only the best. P.S. I left before you woke up. Don't worry. I didn't touch anything, just looked."
You crumpled the photo but didn't throw it away. You hid it in your desk drawer, under lock and key, among old receipts and cosmetics. Somehow, it had become your secret.
You started noticing that you were scanning the crowds for her. It was a sickness you didn't want to cure.
The day came when Gaeul stopped hiding entirely. It happened at the end of April, during Punchwichon the traditional flower festival. She approached you in the park as you sat on a bench by the pond, reading a book and sipping boba tea. She sat beside you, too close, almost touching your thigh, and brushed a strand of hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear.
"You let me in" she said, without greeting, staring at the cherry blossom reflection in the water. "I… I can feel it. You're not angry. I know you reread my notes at night. I see the light in your window until three in the morning. You think about me all the time, don't you?" You tried to stand, but her hand gripped your wrist. Not painfully but with such insistence, as if she were holding a fragile porcelain cup. "Are you scared?" she asked, and in her dark eyes, little shards of ice danced. "Or do you like it? Be honest, Y/N. I can smell a lie from a kilometer away." "Gaeul, this… this isn't normal," you breathed, feeling your throat tighten with emotion. "You can't just follow me around. That's stalking. People get arrested for this." She laughed. Her laugh was quiet, mesmerizing. "It's not stalking, Y/N. It's art. The art of seeing. Only I see the real you.
"Everything finally flipped on Friday, the last day of April. You were returning from an evening supplementary lecture on the philosophy of art, which had dragged on until nine. A cold, nasty rain had set in over Seoul, and you took shelter under the awning of a bus stop, staring at the wet asphalt. The glass of the bus shelter had fogged up from your breath, and suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a message appeared, traced by a finger in the condensation:
"Don't turn around. Just smile for your beloved."
You froze. Your heart plummeted somewhere down to your stomach. Blood rushed in your ears.
"Surprise," came a voice right by your ear, cutting through the sound of rain. You smelled vanilla mixed with wet leaves, and felt hot breath on your neck that sent shivers down your spine. "You thought I'd let you walk away today? You don't even know what you want, Y/N. You're afraid to admit it even to yourself. But I know. I know that inside you lives the same darkness that lives in me. You're just too scared to pull the trigger. I'll do it for you." Gaeul took your hand, and you didn't resist. She led you to a black SUV parked in a shadowy alley between two old buildings. The door opened; the cabin smelled of dried lavender, expensive wood, and something familiar, something like home. "Get in," she said softly, holding the door. "I won't hurt you. I give you my word. I just want you to be where I can see you. Always. Every second. I've been suffocating without you for four months, and I can't breathe from a distance anymore…"
You got in. Why? Maybe out of morbid curiosity. Maybe from mental and physical exhaustion after the past month. Or maybe because a part of you really did want this.
YOU'RE MINE
