#mr moon

But no matter how much you dissuaded him, or even outright ignored him, he stayed committed to the bit. So, really, it meant you were forced into having an underling. You had him carry your bag, fetch your lunch, run errands, do your cleaning duties, even take the fall and subsequent punishments for you. You waited and waited, and waited some more for him to finally give up and quit following you around. It was uncomfortable to watch him be bossed around by you without any respect or dignity— why was it taking so long for him to grow a spine?

He stuck out like a sore thumb. Always on the peripheries of cliques and friend groups. It wasn’t for the lack of trying, too. He was always the most loud, extroverted, over-the-top in any group project in class. He only received reluctant, faux chuckles before everyone turned to ignore him. It was truly too painful to watch— the dead silence that followed his boisterous laugh at his own joke was enough to make you shiver with second-hand embarrassment.

That sort of vibe was akin to blood in shark infested waters. You were unsurprised to see him one day sporting a myriad of bruises and scrapes, his uniform rumpled, and his school bag open and emptied. It had nothing to do with you, and you should’ve stayed out of it so he would finally understand that they would never be friends. His eyes had been watery with tears, his chin faintly trembling. But it was definitely those stupid, big cow eyes of his that were always solemn even when they twinkled at you for approval. He was like a little puppy, and which assholes would harm puppies?

Moon Gwang Mu knew you weren’t inherently a bad person, he had seen enough of true evil to recognise that you were simply distant and taciturn. He just hadn’t proven himself worthy of being your friend. He was touched, he might have even cried a little, when you had shoved your lunchbox at him after some bastards had stolen his money. He had fought them off until they’d put a hand on his uniform in the scuffle— a little money wasn’t worth ruining his new uniform. You had warned him to eat every single bite, “It breaks my father’s heart when I come home with a half-empty lunchbox. He thinks it’s because he didn’t cook well.”

He had eaten with relish and without any concern when you had assured him you had other lunch arrangements. It was the best meal he’d ever had. It was only after he had waited a while after school to return the empty lunchbox to you, that he discovered your ‘lunch arrangements’ included shaking down the bullies for the lunch money they had stolen from him. He had watched awed, his heart fluttering with what had to be love, as you shoved one of their heads into the trash can.

He’d applauded diligently and enthusiastically as you counted your loot, greedily eyeing the wad of cash in your hands. You hadn’t returned his money to him, pocketing the cash as you joined your friends to buy snacks. He had been sad to not be invited, lingering behind you and twiddling his thumbs in hopes you would reconsider. He tried to comfort himself as you walked away without a single glance back towards him, it’s not like he had the money for it, even if you did include him.

But the knot wringing his stomach loosened the very next day, all the sadness evaporating at the sight of another lunchbox— the same design as yours but in a different colours. You firmly denied it being your plan, just that your father insisted on making him lunch too since he ate it so well the last time. He was ecstatic to share lunch with you, eagerly offering to do your homework as thanks. You had been skeptical, at first, and hadn’t handed over your homework until he insisted, prying the books out of your hands.

It was his fault entirely that you descended on him a few days later like a demon from hell, all screeching curses and claws for hands. He thought he had done well on the homework, except he’d completely flunked it and marred your stellar grades. He’d obediently and solicitously apologised, vowing to work like a dog to make up for his sins.

It had been truly painful to repent, you had taken it upon yourself to personally tutor him. He would rather you just beat him up some more. But, instead, he was strapped into a chair like a man to be tortured while you stuffed calculus and literature down his throat. His grades had miraculously improved for how unwilling he had been to study, but it came at the cost of his crushed whimsy and freedom.

Turns out the secret to running off Moon Gwang Mu was a study session. He had practically sprinted away from you the moment exams had ended, establishing himself over the summer as an integral vertex of a trio of friends you’d dubbed ‘dumb, dumber and dumbest’ with each of its members competing for the prestigious position of ‘dumbest’ at any given time.

Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest had convinced themselves and each other that you were dating their very own Moon Gwang Mu. You had gifted him a Walkman for his birthday, along with cassettes of his favourite artists. How would you know Gwang Mu only listens to sad ballads and shed manly tears while staring out of the bus window, unless you were paying attention to him. You told him not to lose his player, clearly you were worried about it being snatched by those hooligans that took his lunch money! And they had tried to take it from him, but Gwang Mu had fought them off. However, when he had brandished the cassette player at you as some sort of trophy, you fussed over him and his injuries— it was true love!

He twisted and fidgeted on his seat in the school nurse’s office, nervously adjusting and folding his hands over his thighs or stomach to hide the growing tent in his pants that refused to stand down no matter how many unpleasant thoughts he forced into his brain because you were so close. He could peek at your cleavage, and the two soft, round curves of your boobs, over the buttons of your shirt as you leaned over to dab some ointment on his chin. He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, determined to be a gentleman, while sweat trailed down his temple which stung as it caught on some dried blood and scratches. He hadn’t been able to contain the yelp and shudder when you had blown on the scrape on his cheek, shooting out of his seat in surprise and staring down at the adorable way your lips were still pulled into a pout. Fuck, were you about to kiss him and he blew it?

You handed him a box of milk and a piece of bread, which he had accepted with slightly sweaty hands noting that it was your favourite flavour. He’d felt giddy and flustered that you would give him your favourite snacks. Whenever your father made your favourites for lunch, he would have to give up some of his share to you. Frankly, he would rather fight a dog for a bone than come between you and your food. So, you must really like him.

You didn’t like him. And if he ever shared his delusions, you would have laughed in his face. You had only given him the snacks because he seemed to be shaking, and you would be a monster to not care for a kicked puppy. “Good job.” You proudly patted his shoulder, counselling him with all the dignified flair of a sage, “Always remember, people can hit you. They can pull your hair. But they can never take your money. Why? Because money can always buy you more hair.”

Money could also buy him a uniform. But you noticed he was quite attached to the one he owned. He washed it gently between his own two hands, rubbing the collar between his knuckles instead of using a hard brush. He had gone back to hit those boys a few more times when he noticed a few of his shirt buttons were sacrificed in their skirmish.

Moon Gwang Mu loved you, wholeheartedly, when you pulled a sewing kit out of thin air and sewed three mismatched buttons to his shirt. He adored the furrow of concentration in your brows and the way your lips puffed out when you were focused. He treasured those three buttons, they were his lucky charm— in the future, he would even sew them onto his Marines formal uniform.

That love for you was obvious to anyone with eyes. Your father’s hand had itched to smack the little brat when he’d had slipped up and addressed him as he would a father-in-law. But Moon Gwang Mu’s panicked, phony guffaws had been so funny that several people had to muffle or hide their snorts and snickering. Despite the boy’s floundering and your hardheadedness, you father knew that the both of you were meant to grow into something quite special to each other. However, the knowing didn’t help the exasperation and irritation as he watched you both constantly bicker around him over every little thing from how much salt is too much salt, to which side of the couch belonged to whom, along with the mad scramble for the remote if he came home with you— leaving the old man to stumble over the shoes haphazardly strewn in the entryway.

According to Moon Gwang Mu, you were dating him. But you just weren’t aware of it yet. He didn’t know if you were just slow or dense or both. Once he’d been peacefully eating his ice cream on a park bench, you halfheartedly licking at yours as you stood over him, leaning precariously to the side since you made no effort to hide your ogling as one of your friends kissed a boy. He’d made a noise of disgust, at first, thinking some bird had pooped on him until he realised the dollop on his forehead was cold instead of shit-warm. And then it was searing. Your lips pressed against his forehead, your mouth burning hot against his skin as your tongue licked off the melted ice cream over his brow. Followed by a lightening that shot from where your lips touched him straight down to his cock. Then it was cold, the wind felt freezing against the wet patch on his face where you had just licked him— with your tongue!

You had scrunched your nose at him in disgust, “Ugh. It tastes like your sweat.” He had been too gobsmacked to finish his own ice cream that you had claimed your own after biting off your melted one. He had been lifeless and dazed as he shifted his schoolbag, wearing it on his front to cover his growing bulge. He was too shocked to complain and whine that the rack on your bicycle hurt his butt while you rode it roughshod over the bumps. He had sat behind you, clutching the sides of your shirt in astonished silence while you cycled them home. He was stunned. He’d just experienced his first forehead kiss with his future wife, and she’d used tongue— all because of greed. What would they tell their kids? That their mother was a glutton?

The most hurtful realisation of Moon Gwang Mu’s life was that you didn’t love him. It wasn’t that you didn’t have a romantic bone in your body… But you drew hearts on someone else’s coffee cup. You looked at someone else with stars in your eyes. It had felt worse than a punch to the gut. His stomach had tightened and burned; if he hadn’t left immediately, he was sure to have thrown up all over that college senior of yours. He had cried quietly into his pillows that night even though nobody could hear him in his empty apartment.

But he had been so embarrassed, hesitant to go back to work the next day out of fear that others would smell the stupidity off of him. All these years of feelings had been nothing but wishful thinking on his part. He wondered if everybody knew, and just didn’t bother to let him in on the joke. Worse, what if they knew and laughed at him for thinking you could ever love him.

Your paths had diverged after high school; you had gone off to college, and he had never applied. He chose to work for your dad as he had always planned. Your schedules and lives were so different, he had expected it to be difficult to still remain as close as before. However, he was so determined to support your dreams, happy to carve out time from work to visit you even if it meant he was napping beside you while you worked in the library.

The first pangs of unease and discomfort had slithered under his skin, banding across his chest to constrict his ribs, when he just couldn’t fit in with your friends. He didn’t much care for them other than hearing of them in your stories, and they in turn didn’t care for him. He was well aware he would never fit into that circle of intellectuals, but there was a trace of vicious, mean-spiritedness in the way they treated him. It started with snide comments, too vague to call for a confrontation but just noticeable enough to get the message across that he was unwelcome. He would seemingly sit on pins and needles with a group that thought it beneath them to hangout with someone like him simply because it was the only time he could have with you that week.

You weren’t a bad friend, most of what was said to him was typically out of your earshot. But he had wanted you to notice how they treat him… was it childish of him to crave your attention? You had always stood between him and the people who picked on him, he was under your caring wings through high-school. Hence, he wanted you to still defend him from these so-called friends of yours. Sure, his pride wouldn’t allow him to lay out his grievances before you. However, could you not perceive their cruelty towards him? Moon Gwang Mu believed you would never have to tell him these things had the situation been reversed. He would notice. He would care.

One of your friend’s boyfriend, the wannabe idol, had slipped in front you, his voice both over-eager and taunting when he had asked you if your ‘criminal friend’ could arrange some drugs for them. He had to restrain his scoff, who calls it drugs like a narc— don’t you know the name of the shit you want to try? He’d abruptly paused at the thought, that asshole had just called him a criminal. His first instinct had been to get up in that jerk’s face, dare the bastard to pick a fight he was sure to be thrashed in. He wasn’t some gangly school kid anymore that would lose in a fight.

But nipping at the heels of that bravado was stark fear, the kind that made his heart drop with a thud. He glanced at you; he knew you wouldn’t laugh at him, but the thought of your indifference was just as oppressive and suffocating. He waited for you to say something like a man waiting for a verdict he hadn’t even braced for— all his hopes pinned on you. Your friends tried to laugh the comment off to defuse the tension, but your gaze was already unperturbed and still. You sounded unnervingly casual, “He works for my father… do you think we’re a family of drug dealing criminals? Since that’s how it is you shouldn’t come with us.”

Then you just stood there, indifferent but willful, taking up the sidewalk while others glanced as they passed by. Even he had shuffled his feet, stifling the urge to break the tension and pull you away from the group. You never asked him to leave, but it was immensely clear by how patiently your feet were rooted to the pavement that you weren’t going anywhere with that clown. The guy had scoffed, infuriated and indignant that you would choose to side with someone like him instead of your own friends, before his girlfriend had tugged him away— still cursing at you as they left.

You had reverted to polite smiles and easy laughter almost immediately, ushering the rest of the group for the show they were running late to. You’d spent the evening by his side, sticking uncharacteristically close. He knew you were trying to comfort him, but there was a sense of finality that had settled like lead in his stomach. He would always be seen as a criminal, someone unfit to be by your side. It was something your father had said, which he hadn’t understood then in his naivety, he wanted a respectable life for you— firmly on the right side of the law, and afforded enough acceptability that nobody would look down on you as they just had to him.

He’d spent that evening memorising the moment— all the parts of you he already knew so well, but couldn’t help but appreciate once more. His heart soared with your laughter, gaze tracing the curve of your lashes. He wallowed and revelled in that small moment when you paused to take a breath before launching into a monologue with a fire lit behind your eyes for something you were passionate about. His heart danced at your every little mannerism, the way you pronounced certain words tickled under his ribs. He could even listen to you talk about a hole in your sock for hours, let alone witness the way you came alive when sharing your love for art. His thumb caressed along yours, committing to memory the weight of your hand in his, your warmth in his palms, and the ease with which your fingers settled between his. He didn’t know how he would follow through his decision when he felt so homesick for you while you stood right by his side.

But follow through his decision he did, stubborn as a mule as he walked away from you— his heart still tethered to your sleeve. He’d been hollow since, weighed down by the sort of emptiness that made him sigh with exhaustion. He missed you. He missed you. He missed you. So much that he senselessly grabbed at the phone, his ears ringing with the call tone thinking you’d called. You hadn’t called, why would you after he had others pick up your calls for him a few times, making excuses for why he couldn’t talk. He missed your gossipy eavesdropping, your sarcasm, and your incessant griping about the things that irritated you even though you swore you never take it too seriously. He missed your silly humour which was sure to lift his moods. The world was so terribly silent without you.

Moon Gwang Mu left your life rather unexpectedly, hiding behind excuses of how busy he was with setting up his own business after your father had wrapped his up. At first you’d worried he had gotten into a disagreement with your dad. But your father had sworn that it wasn’t the case, claiming he’d even passed his contacts onto your friend since he was retiring from the business. You’d considered showing up at his house, or maybe his new office with a gift to wish him well.

But he had slipped back into your life like a breeze, as if he’d never truly left— like he was always meant to be there. And suddenly it didn’t matter why he’d left, because he was back when you’d needed him most. He had returned when it mattered, when your father was hospitalised after being attacked. You had been so stressed and anxious, your mind too foggy and dazed to work. You’d stood there in an elevator at the hospital, eyes unseeing while waiting for the dumb thing to move, but too dissociated to have pressed the floor button. The elevator doors had dinged open, he’d peeked in as if he was looking for you all along.

You’d taken a deep, shaky breath— the first time it seemed since you’d last seen him. Your lungs had stung and ached at being overexerted, your eyes burning before you’d buried yourself and your sobs in his embrace. You didn’t realise when that doe-eyed kid grew to be so strong. But his hands were firm as they held yours, his arms warm as they clutched you to him, his shoulders so sturdy when you rested your head on them. Those eyes of his were devastating, they always had been so guileless and tender, open and twinkling as if someone had left the lights on, waiting for you to come home. He’d stayed offering strength and support, ensuring you ate and slept so you could care for your father.

In hindsight, you would realise this was love— the greatest expression of love is to be there, to sincerely show up, to care. However, you were slow on the uptake then, your mind filled with countless different matters snatching and warring for your attention. He went off to the marines, while years later you found yourself surrounded by wealth and fame, feeling a longing so stark it made you gasp for air. You were surrounded by people, you wouldn’t call them friends or well-wishers— acquaintances, perhaps— but the loneliness still plagued you. It filled this room full of people, voraciously feeding on the empty space between them until it was all you could see.

Moon Gwang Mu believed it was a special brand of humiliation— and a cruel karmic joke— that you always found him when he was being extorted, wounded and banged up from being shaken down for money. His mouth had dried, his heart rising into throat like the dawn chorus of birds welcoming the morning sun. It had taken him an embarrassingly long moment to realise that you were truly here, standing at the door of his office, instead of a mirage his brain manifested because he missed you. And then he had wanted to dig a hole to disappear into, so you wouldn’t see how much of catastrophic wreck he was. How much of a loser he still was.

Your eyes altered between him and that bitch from Smile Capital as you tried to piece the situation together. His pride rooted him in place even though he wanted to lay his head down on your lap and cry over every large and small inconveniences he’d suffered since you’d left. You were back. He didn’t know why, but you were sitting on the ratty couch of his office— when was the last time he’d aired this place out? He’d been so clumsy, shuffling around aimlessly, fussing over two cups of coffee. Why hadn’t he thought to buy proper cups? All his mugs were chipped, now he was serving you shitty instant coffee in a paper cup— or maybe he should pour it into the chipped cups anyway? The other lady had long been dismissed by your sheer aura. You’d raised a quizzical brow at her, a polite smile gracing your features while you angled your body to offer her space to walk out in one fluid, dismissive and cool motion.

He’d meandered around topics— the weather, life, your dad, the restaurant, Yang Jung hyung and his ever-improving knife skills. He considered asking you what brought you back— rather what brought you back here, to him. But he was just glad you’d returned. It didn’t matter what the reason was, they’d deal with it together. There would always be a place for you with him, he’d tear down any wall, smooth over any aching lumps to carve out the most comfortable, well-lit space within his heart and soul for you. No matter why or for how long you’d returned, he wanted to gather you in his arms to thank you for coming back anyway— thank you for remembering him.

“You have my painting.” You’d said the statement without any intonation, and he hadn’t known what to make of it. He’d whirled around to look at it once more, he’d meant to take it home soon. A guy had tried to repay his debt with the painting, and while he was strapped for cash because of the deal with Smile Capital, he’d accepted it because it was yours. He assumed you came for your painting, did artists buy back their paintings? But he was so unwilling to part with it, couldn’t he keep this small part of you?

You’d looked at him wide-eyed and affronted, “He cheated you out of your money. There’s no way my painting is that expensive.” He’d known that, but it was worth much more to him. So, he’d guffawed at your panic, “It’s okay. It’s basically an investment. It’ll be worth way more than that one day,” he assured you. You were bewildered and outraged, it was so like you to be distressed over losing money. He swiftly turned down your offer to compensate him for “being duped” into taking your painting. Of course, weeks later you’d chewed him out for not taking up your offer when those loan sharks had thrashed his office and roughed him up— they’d even destroyed your painting.

But worst of all, they’d taken you. It had been the most harrowing phone call from President Choi. He’d felt the world lurch beneath his feet, his vision twisting off kilter. He’d barely heard the details over the uneven, furious palpitations of his heart. He shivered from the sweat trailing down his spine that felt chilled even in the heat. He had barely managed to squeeze words out of his choked throat, struggling to breath so it wouldn’t make him nauseous. They’d attacked your home, injured Woo Jin, and kidnapped you. They’d taken Mr Oh too. He needed to find you. He needed to rescue you.

Luckily, you had been out on an errand and noticed the fleet of cars rushing towards your home. You’d called the cops, sensing the impending danger, and they’d shown up just in time to prevent any tragedy— scattering Myeong Gil’s men in the process. You had moved to a safe house with your father. But when his boxer marine juniors had tried to take down Smile Capital, you had been inevitably placed in danger.

He’d tried not to let his fear and panic show, he couldn’t let it impede on his focus and vigilance. Even though his stomach churned with dread and terror at the thought of what these people could do to you, he’d forced himself to repress every emotion that wasn’t strictly necessary until he found you. Until you were safe.

He’d collapsed when he’d found you, the sheer relief had been debilitating as the tension seeped out of his bones. He held your hands, checking for injuries before clutching you to his chest to feel your heart beat against his own. His laughs had been shaky as he pet your head, soothing himself more that you as the action pushed your face into the crook of his neck and he felt your steady breaths roll over his skin like a reminder that you were alive. You were well. You were unharmed. Safe. And in his arms.

You’d invited him to an exhibition of yours, mostly to thank him for saving your life, with the promise of gifting him any painting of his choice. It was an elaborate ruse, you had a proxy lined up to buy that painting from him. He’d never straightforwardly accept your help financially, or your father’s it seemed, but he needed it after Smile Capital had bled him dry. He also had to renovate and fix his office that those goons had destroyed.

However, you’d realised the hiccup in your plan almost immediately. He’d looked delighted at your offer, a gummy smile splitting across his face that was so blindingly sweet and achingly familiar— tugging at your heart in the way that was so nauseatingly needy. Then he’d lingered over each work, eyes half-lidded and warm as he admired each frame with a soft sigh. Of course. Of course, the Moon Gwang Mu who wallowed in sentimentality and sad songs would indulge and bask in art with the same misty-eyed passion. You’d felt nervous, your hands clammy and belly unnervingly wrenching. You had wavered between letting him have peace and silence as he engrossed himself in your work, or grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him for his thoughts and opinions on what he saw.

You’d learned to be thick-skinned with critics, not everyone was going to like what you do— and especially not in a line of work where being a hater is both an ambition and a joy. But you’d been in a slump. The pandemic had taken a toll on everything, and the burnout had left you not only uninspired but dangerously numb. At first, there was no sense of fulfilment or joy at having finished a project, and then creating anything seemed like an impossible task. To see him so entranced by your artwork made you truly elated.

His compliments of your work were unvarnished and utterly honest. Sometimes, he found a particular shade you had used delightful. Other times, he’d tell you about how your paintings made him feel— he’d reminisce over small, innocuous moments you’d shared while growing up. These moments often didn’t have a memorable story, they were routines you hadn’t thought about in so long; running late for the bus, the after school window shopping, the Sunday morning movies, a summer trip to the beach. It was refreshing to hear something that wasn’t unbearably pretentious and pompous about technique, gradient, artistic intention, or value.

Perhaps it was something about his smile and the way he looked a bit like an artwork himself under the exhibition lighting, but your fingers itched for a pencil for the first time in months. You wanted to paint him. There was something endearing about how the crinkles by his eyes curved over his cheekbones. And you planned how to best inscribe the way his smile lines were accented by dimples on paper. His liveliness would be a challenge to capture, he spoke so animatedly that the muscles of his face moved with his words and tone— sometimes a small crease between his short brows, or tiny scrunches at the top of his nose. Then there were those lips which would be a joy to shade on paper with the shark cupid’s bow and defined edges. They curled into the most irresistible little moue when he was preoccupied. There was a firmness to his mouth that belied the lighthearted chortles he’d let loose once in a while. And even though his laughs were often a little forced, more than a little phony, they softened the rigid, square set of his jaw. You could fill entire books drawing that mouth alone from the sneer that pulled at the left side of his upper lip, the scoff that tugged at the right corner of his bottom lip to the small smile when he thinks nobody is looking and the easy grins where his upper lip mimics the curve of his cupid’s bow.

You didn’t dream of his mouth… No. Instead, you had dreamt of your mouth—on him. You’d filled pages that would have made your anatomy drawing instructor puff his chest with pride. You had sketched him with a desperate sort of urgency without any flair or finish— the slope of his nose, the curve of his mouth, the swoop of his hair, the profile of his face, his throat and the devastating dip at its base formed between two sturdy collar bones, the contours of his chest and the ruinous little trail of hair that slipped into his pants, his torso with the deep line along his spine that carved his back symmetrically into halves, his hands in a dizzying array of motions, and embarrassingly, even the curves and soles of his feet once he’d propped them onto the armrest of the couch. And, sadly, you imagined your mouth on every inch of skin on his body— tasting, sucking, nibbling on him until he was coloured with your attention and making expressions you had yet to see.

You needed to get a grip. It was ruining your day that you couldn’t draw every minuscule detail of his swiftly changing expressions and mannerisms like a camera taking rapid snapshots at any given time while the memory of moments lingers and hovers and bounces around in your brain like a poltergeist haunting an abandoned room. It wasn’t feelings or anything icky, it was simply… artistic curiosity. It was like watching the apple on a table from every angle before deciding which phase you wished to put on paper. However, in your case, deciding you wanted to put every angle and face on paper.

You blamed the gold chain. You’d noticed it when he was working out— gaudy, thick and snaking over his glistening tanned skin. And you’d wanted to trace it with your tongue, feeling the cold metal and warm skin contrast in your mouth. He’d been huffing for air, wiping the sweat over his brow. Your traitorous brain painted images of him gasping for air with his mouth agape, those dulcet eyes blown wide and befuddled making him look… fucked out.

You’d felt a small twinge of nervousness squeezing your heart at the numerous salacious sketches you had made of him during lazy evenings. But the guilt only came after you had made yourself cum, fingers circling and massaging your clit to your own thoughts and drawings. It was… a new fucking low. Not even the cavemen had drawn nudes on walls before jacking off to them. You needed to get laid. Promptly and expeditiously. However, making a move on your childhood friend because you were horny and desperate was all sorts of taboo.

You didn’t want to lose this friendship. It was embarrassing to realise at your big age that you were quite friendless, with everyone you cared for and vice versa had either drifted away in their own lives or were geographically too far to give you a hug. The world after the pandemic didn’t make it any easier since everyone had receded into their tight-knit inner circles— or simply gotten used to the isolation. You made friends through your craft and work, but you realised perhaps too late when your ambition for fame and money— for critic praise— had moved you into some luxury enclave surrounded by heartless people who were snobbish, cruel and not just a little out of touch with the world. You needed your only friend to be an anchor of support as you shifted into a different sort of art world, a warmer one with more public appeal. You needed Moon Gwang Mu to be his usual simple, uncomplicated, steady self. The only familiar, comforting factor amidst anxious change and uncertainty.

So, it was unfair— truly, extremely unfair— that he looked at your lips in a drunken haze with that pouty, sad look on his face looking like a puppy denied a treat. Firstly, you were supposed to be sketching him. He might have been a little tipsy when he threw off his t-shirt and quoted Titanic at you, demanding that you draw him like a french girl. It might have been a little indulgent on your part when you had agreed. He was cocky and preening, his poses far too comedic to resemble any sexy french girl you’d ever seen. You had turned on the television to grab his attention, so he would hold still for you to sketch. He was easily impressed at the baking show playing in the background, oohing and aahing at each technical step. You briefly wondered if this was what mothers felt like when they turned on their screens to feed their kids.

You didn’t realise when he had stopped watching his show to stare at you instead, but your eyes had met his languid and half-closed ones. It would have been easy to misunderstand that he was almost asleep and drowsy under the low lighting of his room, had you not keenly felt his attention like a warm current under your skin. For a moment, you’d been glad that you had chosen to sit on his stupid Bean Bag pouf because it prevented you from leaping across the scant few steps between you to give into your most base desires. You were never going to struggle with a fucking sack to waddle and roll out of it before kissing someone.

You just hadn’t counted on him to drop himself from his couch into a lithe, agile, cat-like prowl. The ripple, stretch and contraction of the muscles of his hands and back had been hypnotic to watch as he crawled on his hands and knees towards you— the bones protruding out of his back like small broken wings. He looked like a devil, and just as tempting too. You were far too stunned to protest when he had snatched your pencil to throw it over his shoulder. You were still speechless, unable to look away from those eyes as the world fell away, when he tugged the sketchbook out of your grip and tossed it aside.

The first kiss was painfully gentle— far too sensual and slow to be a peck, and yet not nearly thorough enough to be a kiss. He didn’t even touch you, his hands too busy propping him up. And, yet, you’d felt that first caress of his lips against yours like a lightening strike all the way down to your toes which curled into the carpet beneath. His mouth had been warm and slightly chapped, the grain of his moustache tickled the lining of your lips. The want, the craving, hadn’t surprised you but you had not expected the need. It took you completely by surprise. You needed him. The kiss wasn’t nearly enough. Nothing would ever be enough. You wanted to coax bits of his soul out his mouth and fold them into your being.

And he must’ve felt the same because he’d retreated, his lips hovering over yours once more, his nose nudging yours tentatively. You thought he would tilt his head and finally, finally, kiss you properly. Your hands found the curve of his arm, fingers pressing soft indents in the muscle to hold him in place. But the coward he was still warred against the inevitable. His lips fell on yours again in another hesitant, timid kiss. His lips closed around your bottom lip, and you felt a shiver down your back pushing you into his mouth. His lips slid over yours once, and then once more. You could taste his unwillingness to pull away, he gave your lip a reluctant, puppyish tug as he withdrew.

You sighed into the empty space between you. And perhaps if you’d opened your eyes you would’ve seen him, guarded and wary, studying your face as you absorbed what he had just done. You felt his fear, his doubt, in the cold air that rushed between you, chilling your skin as he leaned away and knelt before you. You heard the start of his apology, his voice low and cracking before you slapped him. The sound was deafening, effectively cutting off his words as his head whipped to the side from the force of your smack. Then you grasped for him and yanked him down, urgently and desperately, noses bumping awkwardly and your stomach protesting with a grunt as his weight gracelessly tumbled onto you.

You hated the stupid Bean Bag, and you would love to burn it as soon as you were done. The kiss was clumsy, your tooth ached due to the pressure of his mouth against yours while he struggled for balance. It was a frenzied struggle, his lips sliding over yours while your tongue slipped past his lips to stroke along his. You were panting, your chest struggling to expand against his. He was burning, he felt so hot under your icy fingers. You felt his tongue swipe under the hard roof of your mouth, ticklish and electrifying. His mouth was searing. It was all too much and at the same time not nearly enough.

He responded to the strangled sound in your throat which was somewhere between a whine and a sob, his large hand edging under your neck to cradle your head. His bicep flexed, the muscle bunching and relaxing under your touch. You wanted to see it. You wanted to see him. It occurred to you, quite salaciously, that you should record it— place a camera somewhere close so you can watch later for reference as you paint him fucking into you. The thought scattered with a gasp as he rolled with you in his arms.

You had imagined the sight beneath you countless times, and yet it was better than anything you could have pictured. He stared up at you with awe and disbelief while you straddled him— those soft, beseeching, decadent eyes. “If we do this, I’ll belong to you,” he rasped. “No,” he reconsidered. His hands trembled over your skin before holding your waist, “You’ll belong to me.”

He stared like an idiot, mouth agape and eyes just as wide, with his hands back to himself folded shyly over his chest like he was upholding the last of his modesty as you stood to shimmy out of your clothes. Your panties clung to your folds, embarrassingly wet as you pulled them down, smearing some of of your arousal on your thigh. You made a small disgruntled sound when you realised he was too gobsmacked to have removed his shorts. His hand extended towards your tits while you forced his shorts down to his thighs, giving up before taking them off entirely. He palmed your flesh, moulding the weight in his hands. His knuckles grazed over your nipples when you straddled him again, the caress made a shudder spread across your shoulders. A shared moan sounded between you when you settled over his cock, slotting the length between the lips of your pussy.

He’s been delightfully long, and curiously curved when you freed him, standing over coarse, thick curls. His tip was weepy and red, you would taste him later— take your time to give it the extensive attention it deserved, leave marks on the inside of those muscled, athletic thighs, and study the way they rippled and moved under your mouth. You settled for a slow grind, sliding your wet pussy over his cock while you leaned down to kiss him again. You felt his cock pulsating and throbbing with each slow drag of your hips while he whimpered into your mouth.

He had gasped as you propped yourself higher, his tongue chasing the string of spit connecting him to your mouth. You tucked a hand between your bodies, growing antsy with the pace you had set and reaching for your clit. He’d giggled at you. Because, of course, you’d be greedy and impatient. His laughter soon melted into a keening sort of groan as you notched him at your opening, your fingers obstinately rubbing tight circles over your clit to ease his cock inside you. It was a deliciously stinging ache, followed by the overwhelming fullness as you fluttered and clenched around him.

You sighed with satisfaction once he bottomed out inside, his balls nestling in the crevice of your ass. You bit your lip to stifle the embarrassing moan that had been about to fly out of your mouth— long, desperate and low— as you swivelled your hips. His tip rubbed against some spot so deep inside you which made your spine feel strangely liquid and languid. You felt yourself slipping, drowning in the pool of currents spreading from your quivering cunt while you settled into little humps punctuated by your hips dragging forward so your oversensitive little nub rubbed into the hair at the base of his cock. He was made for you, his cock was made to fuck you and stuff you full of him. He fit so perfectly inside you, it was just that he was so… fucking loud.

Moon Gwang Mu was mouthy and noisy, he was continuously talking— most of it gibberish peppered with reverent praise. He was babbling slurred little phrases, ‘feel so good’, ‘taking me so well’, ‘baby, please’ when you clasped a hand on his throat with a gasped command for him to just shut up as the mushroom head of his tip dragged along the wall of your pussy, scraping against nerve endings that had your vision darkening at the edges. You felt him jump inside you, a tiny pulsing movement that made him feel bigger somehow. His cock felt so heavy in your pussy.

Your fingers dug into the sides of his throat, feeling his heart beat in your hands at the same rhythm of the pulse throbbing inside you. You leaned down to lick into his open mouth, he was obedient and bleary-eyed, too slack-jawed to do anything but whine as you suckled his tongue. The rub of your nipples against his heated skin with each undulating pump on his cock sent jolts of electricity from your erect little buds straight down to your spasming pussy. You tumbled into your orgasm, your body stiffening as your walls clenched around him before you shattered. You collapsed onto him, body trembling as tremors shook your limbs. Your muscles felt strangely fuzzy and warm. You might’ve seen stars, panting against his neck and struggling to gather yourself again.

He’d started thrusting up into you, his arms banding around your waist to hold you in place while he lifted his hips, bouncing your ass as he fucked up into your hole. You vaguely registered how wet the noises were, there was a steady, repetitive squelch every time he shoved his cock deeper into you. You could feel how much you had soaked him, your combined juices were sticky and cool on your ass cheeks and smeared over his thighs, strings of your release clung to both of you feeling cold as his cock receded from your cunt. You felt a gush of warmth inside you as he came. And it only stoked the warmth swirling under your skin, you wanted him to pull him deeper inside you and hold him there.

There were sparkles spreading from the base of your spine that begged for another release even when you snuggled deeper into his chest feeling sleepy and replete. You allow him to caress your back for a few minutes, blinking through your post coital haze as he deposited your slumped form beside him, pulling his rug under you so you weren’t lying on the cold ground. He kissed down your body, truly quiet for the first time this evening, spreading your legs, making you unusually self conscious, also for the first time that evening. He watched with a feverish sort of rapture as his cum seeped out of your hole.

He’d fumbled for the remote, turning the TV on that you hadn’t even realised he’d switched off before crawling over to permanently change your life. He turned on the screen, tilting his chin towards it in a silent command for you to watch. It wasn’t muted, but you couldn’t hear a single thing over the ringing in your ears. Then he settled in, your jittering thighs thrown over his shoulders as he lapped at your oversensitive cunt in a single flat-tongued lick from the puckered hole of your ass to the clit peeking out of your hood.

You couldn’t quite place how long he’d been down there playing with his own cum— sucking it out of your pussy and pushing it back in with his fingers as if he hadn’t quite made up his mind where he wanted it. But the images on TV had long blurred into nondescript colours and there was a crick in the side of your hips that twinged every time you humped into his mouth. His hands were everywhere, either lightly grazing your skin or tightly pinching your nipples. He mapped your body in detailed explorations and curious caresses which you rewarded with soft sighs and quiet moans until you were shaking under another release. This one started as a wave, faintly tingling and warm until you were convulsing, spraying sticky, salty-sweet cum all over him until drops of it trailed from his jaw down onto his chest.

Even though he’d tucked you into his chest, folding his body along the length of yours so his chest was pressed to your back, your ass on his lap and his knees curving with yours, there was still the strange, hungry glow behind his eyes. Your puppy had grown a taste for this. It didn’t take long for dawn to spread over the sky in pretty colours, so similar to the ones dancing under your eye lids as he coaxed his hardened length into your pussy again, his fingers playing with your clit. He’d slid your knee higher so his balls rested heavy on the inside of your thigh. He pressed kisses over swathes of your sweaty skin, nibbling at the thin skin of your throat as he lazily rocked into you.

He cradled your throat, squeezing the column ever so slightly before shifting higher to cup your jaw, his fingers pressing into your cheeks so they bulged around the digits. He guided your mouth to his, sliding past your teeth to lick at the gummy walls of your mouth. There was nothing hesitant or nervous about this kiss, it was tender and slow and terrifyingly right. It wasn’t the sort of embrace that led to other things, it wasn’t meant to excite or titillate— he kissed you for the simple pleasure of kissing you, because he enjoyed his lips on yours and he revelled in sharing a breath and taste.

“You came back for me, didn’t you?” He whispered into your mouth. And it made you feel undone, exposed in a way that made you shiver. Because you had returned for him. You could’ve gone back to your life after visiting your father, started anew somewhere else and made new friends. There had been no reason to stay, there had been no other reason to walk along his neighbourhood for days before building the courage to knock on his office door. “I’m glad you came back,” he murmured, your tears catching on his thumbs.

He’d just left. He was there one day, and then gone the next with no rhyme or reason. And you had never figured out the why. Sometimes, you had raged at him in your mind for abandoning you and your friendship. Other times, when you were more vulnerable, you blamed yourself for being… difficult to put up with. Men don’t like women with strong personalities— and you prided yourself on being too headstrong, too stubborn, too unyielding. Maybe he had just grown tired one day and walked out. But he’d been a saint, always patient and compliant with all your moods and whims, if not enthusiastic in your company. He was the ray of sunshine that never dimmed at the sight of your scowls and grumbling.

You had forced yourself to not attach labels or expect anything more than just this night. It would have to be nothing more than a one-night stand, and your friendship hinged on the ability to still remain steady, uncomplicated friends despite having fucked. There was a small, needling voice in your head that reminded you that you had no such ability. You would never recover, and would despise him for not being as affected as you were. Hence, it was deeply, deeply, unfair that he wasn’t fucking you, he was making love. You almost wished his touch was greedy, purposeful and selfish. Instead, he made you feel full in ways you never knew it was possible to feel complete.

Much later, you would be shocked into silence, too stunned to react when he answers your shaky, uncertain insecurities about a relationship with the most devastating confession of how he’d loved you since high school— high school! And had decided to be a noble idiot to give you some sort of a better life. You’d wanted to bash his stupid head in. It’s okay, you had reassured him, you would rather date someone with no brain, rather than someone with a brain like his. But he’d only foolishly giggled at your threat, “So today is our first day of dating?”