#wonwoo ff

He had known it since senior high school. You used to sit behind him, slumping low in your seat and hiding your face behind your arms to sneak in sleep during morning classes. It was always after training, always after another night where you pushed yourself too far. Quietly, without a word, Wonwoo would stay awake for the both of you. He wasn’t doing it out of kindness—at least that’s what he told himself. Someone had to make sure you two didn’t end up stuck in the detention room again.

You never spoke much. Sometimes he wondered if you even knew his name.

It stayed that way… until university.

Somehow both of you ended up in the same drama club—him by accident, you by deliberate choice. You had quit idol training by then, shedding years of pressure in exchange for a dream you were still piecing together: acting. Meanwhile, Wonwoo debuted first, his quiet high-school self pushed under the spotlight of the boyband life.

One night after practice for the club’s upcoming performance, you stopped him—breathless, hair messy from rehearsal, cheeks still warm under the fluorescent lights.

“I need someone,” you said suddenly.

Wonwoo turned, one eyebrow lifting. He still found it hard to understand how two people who trained in the same label for years, who literally sat an arm’s length apart in high school, somehow never actually formed a real conversation until now. Maybe that was your magic: appearing chaotic but always on your own path.

“I’m not following,” he said.

“Do you have a friend who’s handsome and nice too?” you asked casually, as if you weren’t dropping a bomb on him. You leaned back on the studio’s dusty wall, stretching your tired neck as though this was the most normal question in the world.

Wonwoo didn’t bother asking why—you were always unpredictable anyway. Handsome people? He knew plenty in the industry. But nice? Truly nice? That narrowed the list to exactly one person.

Kim Mingyu.

“Do you think he’ll go on a date with me?” you added before he could open his mouth. “Just one time. For acting observation.” Your shrug was light, practical, as though you were asking for an extra pen. Wonwoo watched you for a moment, then the reasoning clicked. Observation. You needed a reference for a role.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll let him know and give him your number.”

He didn’t wait for your reaction. He simply picked up his bag, pushed open the studio door, and walked out. The hallway lights flickered for a second, and he didn’t even look back.

“She’s… she’s crazy…” Mingyu said, biting his bottom lip so hard it almost left a mark. Wonwoo had only asked a simple question—How was the date?—but Mingyu looked like he had just survived a hurricane.

“Or maybe I was the crazy one,” Mingyu muttered, eyes fluttering shut as if replaying a scene he wasn’t ready to see again. His shoulders rose, fell. Then rose again. Wonwoo could practically hear his brain malfunctioning.

“I’m definitely the crazy one,” he concluded finally, pressing his forehead to the dining table with a sigh so dramatic it echoed in their dorm kitchen.

Wonwoo chuckled under his breath. “What’s wrong? What happened?” His voice was calm, almost too calm, but curiosity glinted at the edges.

Mingyu mumbled something into the wood—completely incoherent.

Wonwoo kicked his shin. “Talk louder.”

Mingyu snapped upright.

“We had sex!”

The words hit the room like a brick. Wonwoo blinked, stunned into silence as he watched Mingyu flail in embarrassment, cheeks burning red.

“And… and… she could walk. She can walk!”

Wonwoo’s brows knitted. “What do you mean she walked?”

Mingyu ran a hand through his hair, frustrated and overwhelmed.

“She was in a wheelchair the whole time, hyung! And I— I thought I should be a gentleman. She looked so pretty, and she was so kind. I was trying to be respectful!”

Wonwoo’s jaw dropped a little, disbelief spreading across his face.

“It was a really nice date,” Mingyu went on, words tumbling out too fast. “But I screwed up, because we kissed— and that was it, that was it for me— I lost control and… and… we slept together. Hyung, it was my first time. God damn it.”

Wonwoo exhaled sharply, putting the pieces together at last. Kyoko. You were playing Kyoko. The character from Beautiful Life—the adaptation script for their upcoming show. The girl in the wheelchair.

You were crazy. Acting so well you dragged Kim Mingyu into the role with you.

And that— that was the exact moment Wonwoo realized something uncomfortable, something undeniable. You were dangerous. Reckless, immersive, impossible to predict. The kind of person who blurred the line between performance and reality. The kind of person who could pull even the sanest man into your orbit.

And just like Mingyu, Wonwoo felt the pull. He told himself you were crazy. But maybe—just maybe—he was becoming crazy too.

*

You failed to debut as an actress too—though not because you weren’t good enough. Everyone knew you were brilliant. You had the kind of presence casting directors remembered even after fifty auditions. But talent didn’t matter when your father was rich enough to buy three production houses and strict enough to crush your dreams with a signature.

He didn’t want you on screen. He wanted you behind a desk, your name printed neatly on the director board, part of the family empire he’d been grooming you for since you were ten. So you disappeared from the industry without a sound.

Wonwoo didn’t see you for years after that. Life pulled him in a different direction too—his group disbanded, and he threw himself into acting, slowly building a name for himself through bit roles, supporting roles, then finally leads.

He thought the memories of you would fade with time. The two a.m. practices in the university drama room— The stolen kisses to “practice the scene”. The way you flirted like it was breathing—without effort, without guilt. He assumed all of that would stay locked in that smoke-filled, dusty rehearsal room forever.

But then he met you again. You weren’t the girl in baggy training pants and smudged eyeliner anymore. You were polished now—hair sleek, suit tailored, confidence sharpened into something business-like. You approached him at a gala, champagne in hand, as if years hadn’t carved an entire lifetime between you.

“I’m working on a beauty brand,” you said, your tone friendly but your posture all CEO. “I want you as the face of it.”

Wonwoo didn’t even pretend to think it over. There was no reason to reject you. No reason he wanted to. And somehow, the things you both left behind in university— all of it stirred back to life. Not loudly. Not suddenly. Before either of you consciously decided anything, you were dating.

And somehow, Wonwoo found that your craziness—your impulsiveness, your unpredictability—wasn’t just tolerable. It was sexy.

“It’s called a business strategy, love,” you whispered one night, your voice velvety in the dark. “You may date that actress in public. It’s good for your image too.”

You said it so casually despite having him pinned beneath you, despite how his breath kept catching every time you rolled your hips. His hands trembled where they held your waist, not in fear but in the helplessness of wanting you too much. No one had ever undone him like this.

“I’ll be the only one…” you murmured, leaning close enough for your breath to brush his lips, “…to have you like this. Right?”

Your words were hardly more than a whisper, but they hit him with the force of a confession and a demand all at once.

Wonwoo gasped for air, his self-control slipping with every shift of your body. He was too far gone in whatever spell you wove around him—this dizzying blend of chaos, confidence, and tenderness that was so uniquely yours.

You were heaven in a form he’d never expected. Not the polished actress you once aimed to be, not the exhausted trainee he used to sit in front of in class, not the girl he shared detention hours with because you couldn’t stay awake through morning lessons.

But this you. Unrestrained. Certain. Beautiful in a way that didn’t need permission. And God—he didn’t even try to resist you.

“Y/n… I— I can’t…”

Wonwoo’s voice broke, strained and trembling, the way it only ever did with you. His fingers curled helplessly against your sides, his breath coming out in short, pleading bursts. He wasn’t even trying to hide how undone he was.

“Please… let me…” His desperation hit you first, then the memory of why you had him like this in the first place. “Not yet, baby.”

Your voice was low, controlled, edged with something dangerous. “Remember what you did.”

His eyes flickered—shame, frustration, overwhelming want.

The scandal. The staged kiss with an actress. Fabricated by his label to bury a political issue. He didn’t choose it, but the public didn’t care.

Wonwoo let out a sound—half moan, half apology—and tried to steady himself by gripping your waist, but you pushed his hands back down firmly, pinning him with a gaze that made him shiver.

You leaned down, your forehead brushing his, letting him feel the warmth of your breath, the firmness of your control.

“Look at me,” you whispered.

He obeyed instantly. Your hand slid up to cup his jaw, your thumb brushing his lower lip with deliberate possession, your touch turning his entire body into electricity.

“These,” you murmured, eyes dropping to his mouth, “belong to me.”

Your voice softened but never lost its dominance.

“All of you… is mine.”

Wonwoo’s breath hitched, eyes fluttering, completely undone by the certainty in your tone — by how effortlessly you could take him apart without needing to raise your voice or even touch him more.

In that moment, he wasn’t thinking about cameras, labels, scandals, or the actress he’d been forced to kiss. He was thinking only of you. Of how no one had ever owned him the way you did.

Of how no one ever could.

*

Jeon Wonwoo, the rising idol-actor, was found dead in the Han River after missing for a month.

The headline spread like wildfire. Everyone whispered the same thing: suicide. It had only been three months since Jang Yani — the actress he was publicly dating — died in a car accident.

“It must’ve been hard for him.”

“Rest in peace, both of them.”

“They’re flying together in heaven now.”

You chuckled as you scrolled through the comments under a news article announcing Wonwoo’s death. The sound was light, almost amused — completely at odds with the gravity of the situation.

Across from you, Mingyu stood trembling in all black, eyes swollen and red from crying. He looked like the ghost of the boy he used to be, shoulders shaking, breaths uneven. He had run straight from the funeral to your office, still smelling faintly of incense and wet soil.

“You don’t look sad at all,” Mingyu said, voice hoarse, disappointment coating every syllable. “You didn’t even send him off for the last time.”

Your finger paused mid-scroll. Slowly, your eyes lifted to meet his. “Why would I?” You spun your chair to face him fully. “Why should I mourn someone who's cheating? He’s going straight to hell, anyway.”

The words were cold. Too cold. Mingyu snapped. He stormed forward and shoved your chair so hard it slammed into the desk behind you. The wheels screeched; pens rattled; a picture frame fell face down. He leaned in close, eyes blazing with a fury you had never seen from him.

“Don’t you dare badmouth him,” Mingyu hissed.

You tilted your head, unbothered. “Are you threatening me?”

“I’m not threatening,” he growled. “I’m promising.”

“I’ll find proof,” Mingyu continued, chest heaving. “I know you killed him. I know it. Because I knew how he loved you — and I know he would never leave you on his own. Not like this.”

Your expression didn’t move, but something sharp flickered in your gaze.

“I swear to God,” Mingyu said, voice breaking, “I’ll do everything to show the world who you really are, Y/n.”

A brief silence stretched between you — heavy, humming, dangerous. Then you leaned back in your chair, calm as a blade being sheathed.

“Good luck with that, Kim Mingyu.” He flinched at the way you said his name.

“You better not be swayed,” you smirked as you delivered the line that caused Mingyu's eyes to tremble.

Wonwoo had mentioned once — almost too casually — that Mingyu used to have a crush on you. Or maybe it wasn’t just a crush. Maybe it was the remnants of your shared early twenties, when the two of you briefly dated after that one impulsive night neither of you talked about afterward.

Mingyu would insist on dropping by the drama club just to watch rehearsals. Just to see you. Wonwoo always noticed.

“He told you that?” you asked, laughing softly as you lay against Wonwoo’s bare chest, your cheek rising and falling with each steady breath he took. “He really does overshare.”

Wonwoo’s arm tightened around your waist, pulling you closer until your legs tangled with his. He brushed aside the damp strands of hair clinging to your forehead, his touch slow and lazy, the way he always got after moments like these.

“And,” he murmured, “I think he also told me he found being intimate with you… was unforgettable.”

Your eyes narrowed playfully. “He needs to stuff his mouth with a dozen shirts.”

Wonwoo chuckled, the sound low and warm against your ear.

“And that,” he said, tilting his head so his lips grazed your skin, “is how I discovered your little secret.”

He let his breath tickle your ear before whispering, voice dipped in amusement and something darker: “…your kink.”

*

You liked being in charge. Wonwoo found it endlessly amusing, mostly because your day-to-day life didn’t show much of that authority at all. Your secretary, Seungkwan, practically ran your schedule with surgical precision, handling calls, organizing meetings, smoothing out conflicts before they ever reached your desk. You only had to walk in during major presentations—poised, calm, immaculate—looking every bit like the woman who had everything under control.

But Wonwoo knew better. Knew you. Deep down, you loved authority. You just rarely got the chance to show it. That was why he was leaning against the counter now, arms crossed, watching the untouched vegetables you’d insisted on chopping yourself.

“Do you want me to do it, baby?” Wonwoo asked gently, voice warm as honey. His eyes drifted from the knife to your stubborn expression, and he smiled.

“No, you sit.” You told him, without looking up.

He bit back a bigger grin. He loved that tone in your voice—gentle but firm, soft but commanding. “I like when you act tough like that,” he murmured.

You turned your head just enough to give him a look. “What do you mean?”

Wonwoo tilted his head, that familiar smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. The kitchen light caught on his jaw, making him look unfairly handsome. “Nothing,” he said, teasing. “Just admiring my sexy girlfriend.”

You scoffed under your breath. “What’s so sexy about a bossy woman?”

He chuckled, stepping closer so his chest brushed your shoulder. His voice lowered, turning almost intimate. “You don’t understand, baby.”

You raised a brow, challenging him. “Then explain.”

He let the silence linger for a beat—just long enough for the air between you to warm.

“It’s not just bossy women,” he said finally. His fingers gently brushed your waist. “It’s bossy you.”

Your heartbeat kicked up, but you kept your expression cool. “You like it when someone tells you what to do?”

Wonwoo shook his head slowly, leaning in so his breath tickled your ear. His voice dropped to a low whisper—honest, playful, and a little too soft.

“I like it,” he said, “when you tell me what to do.”

“Liar.”

The word slipped from your mouth before you could stop it, sharp and instinctive.

“Don’t you also like it when your boss tells you to do everything?” you added, your tone edged with something brittle—jealousy, maybe, though you hated admitting that.

Park Miran.

The director of the company Wonwoo had been signed to ever since his acting career took off. You never met her, yet her name felt like a splinter you couldn’t pull out.

“You let her cook your public dating life for years,” you said, slicing the vegetables a little too aggressively.

Wonwoo blinked, taken aback. He took a small step back—not because he was afraid, but because he recognized the storm in your eyes. “Baby… you know it’s just for the public.”

You hummed, noncommittal, the sound low and unamused.

“And you seem to enjoy it more than you’re supposed to. Does Jang Yani cook you breakfast too?” you asked, the sarcasm dripping like honey laced with poison.

Wonwoo exhaled slowly. “Baby… no. Never.”

Your jaw tightened. “Or Park Miran?” you pressed. “You tend to do everything for her.”

His eyes softened immediately. “I’ll do everything for you, baby.”

Your hands paused mid-motion. The knife hovered over the cutting board, and the kitchen suddenly felt too quiet, too still.

“For real?” you asked, your voice quieter—less sharp, less defensive. Almost fragile.

Wonwoo stepped closer, his hand brushing your lower back with cautious affection. He nodded once, firmly. “For real.”

You swallowed, searching his eyes. The question left your lips in a whisper that tasted like challenge and vulnerability mixed together.

“Even kill for me? Die for me?”

Silence unfurled between you. Heavy. Charged. Wonwoo didn’t look away—not even for a heartbeat. Then he nodded. Slow. Deliberate. “Even kill for you,” he said, voice low, unwavering.

“And die for you.”

*

Wonwoo drank far too much. The world tilted every time he blinked, and he could barely keep his eyes open long enough to recognize where he was. But the moment his blurred gaze caught the familiar ceiling—the faint crack near the light fixture—he exhaled shakily.

Home. He was in his apartment.

“Y/n…? Is that you, baby…?” His voice came out slurred and weak, as if his tongue couldn’t keep up with his thoughts.

Warm hands touched his torso, guiding him to sit up, helping him out of his shirt. Wonwoo didn’t resist. He didn’t even question it. It felt familiar—something you always did when he came home too exhausted from schedules to take care of himself.

His head lolled to the side, consciousness slipping. “Cold…” he whispered when those hands didn’t dress him again, only left him bare to the air.

A slow, unfamiliar touch slid lower, drifting into territory that made his fogged brain spark with faint alarm. But he was too drunk, too sedated, too far from control.

“Baby… I don’t think I can…” he murmured, his voice cracking in confusion and discomfort.

His eyelids fluttered, refusing to stay open, the world sinking into a dark blur.

He didn’t fight. He couldn’t. His body felt captured in sleep even while waking terror pulsed somewhere deep inside.

Eventually, everything went black.

Morning light seeped through the curtains, warm across his eyes. Wonwoo groaned softly, hand reaching out instinctively to the other side of the bed. For once, you were still there—he thought. Sleeping in.

A small smile tugged at his lips.

“Good morning…” he breathed, his voice rough.

But the second his fingers brushed hair that felt wrong—shorter, unfamiliar—an icy chill shot up his spine.

Wonwoo froze.

His vision snapped into focus. His heart began to race. Inches away from him lay a woman who wasn’t you. He scrambled back, breath quivering, a cold sweat breaking over his skin.

The woman shifted in her sleep, turning over. Jang Yani. His stomach twisted violently.

Fragments of the night before flickered in his mind—the wrong hands, the wrong voice, the heavy sense of sinking into unconsciousness before he could form words. He remembered drinking. But not enough to black out. Not enough to forget everything. Not enough to be this defenseless.

A horrifying realization crawled up his spine as his pulse hammered in his ears. She had drugged him. Driven him home. Taken advantage of him while he was unconscious.

Wonwoo’s breath broke. His hands trembled. He felt sick. This wasn’t a mistake. This wasn't a drunken misunderstanding. This was a violation—deliberate and calculated. His voice trembled in the quiet morning air. “…What did you do to me?”

Months later, it was a quiet afternoon when the elevator to his apartment opened and Jang Yani walked out like she owned the air in the hallway.

Wonwoo had barely enough strength to stand. He watched her place a hand over her stomach as if she expected him to disintegrate on the spot.

“We need to talk,” she said, voice too calm for what she was about to ruin.

Wonwoo didn’t answer. His jaw clenched until he tasted metal.

“It’s yours,” she whispered, sliding a sonogram photo on the countertop between them. “I’m pregnant.”

His heart didn’t drop. It didn’t break. It simply stopped. Time moved, but he stayed frozen.

“That’s impossible,” he forced out.

Yani looked away, then back at him with watery eyes. “It happened. That night—”

“No.” His voice cracked. “You drugged me. You took me home. You—”

“Wonwoo, I didn’t mean—”

He stepped away from her like she was fire. His hands shook. His breath trembled. And he felt something inside him collapse, quietly, like a building giving up from the inside.

It didn’t take long before the company entered the picture because they always do. They always know.

By morning, six executives sat around a table, as if discussing a marketing strategy instead of his life.

“This is an opportunity,” one of them said.

“For who?” Wonwoo asked.

“For everyone.”

They spoke about timing. Public sympathy. Brand value. Synergy. Words that didn’t belong to human lives but to numbers on a screen.

“We’ll release the announcement tomorrow,” the manager said, sliding a press statement toward him.

“You and Yani are getting married.”

The room blurred. Wonwoo blinked through it, but the walls didn’t come back into focus.

“I’m already with someone,” he whispered.

They smiled politely. Insincerely.

“And she isn’t publicly known. Her involvement won’t damage the company’s reputation if she disappears quietly.”

He laughed once—broken. Too broken. He tried to reach you. He tried until his fingers cramped and his voice cracked and every unanswered call cut a little deeper.

But you didn’t pick up. Your line went dead. Your number—blocked or changed. Seungkwan kept sending back the same message: She doesn’t want to see you.

Wonwoo understood. He had spent months hiding the truth from you, and the truth came back to swallow him whole.

He stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. Stopped functioning. His apartment smelled like spilled alcohol and cold air. He kept the curtains closed because daylight felt like a punishment he didn’t deserve. His manager started picking him up for schedules, dragging him out like a ghost. He acted. He smiled. He answered questions about his upcoming marriage and “the blessing” on the way.

Every camera flash made him feel further from himself. Every congratulatory message pushed him deeper into the dark. You were everywhere in that darkness. Your voice. Your fingerprints on his skin. Your perfume lingering on the collar of the jacket he refused to wash.

Wonwoo kept wondering, if he had told you sooner, if he had confessed everything the morning after, if he had held onto you tighter that night—

Would you still be here?

*

You let him see you after a full month of punishing silence. A month of unanswered calls, deleted messages, and unopened gifts he kept sending like a man trying to bargain with fate. He never expected you’d come back on your own. Not like this.

Wonwoo had just finished his schedule, showered, and was half-drifting toward bed when the doorbell rang. The sound cut through the quiet like a blade. He frowned, checked the monitor and his heart dropped.

You stood there. Slightly wobbly on your feet. Hair messy from the night wind. Eyes unfocused, cheeks flushed from alcohol. But unmistakably you.

“Baby…” he breathed out, voice cracking as he sprinted to the door.

He almost threw himself into your arms but you stopped him with a single raised palm, an invisible wall he could feel physically slam into.

Your expression was unreadable as you stepped past him. You removed your shoes slowly, neatly, like you were entering a stranger’s house. Then you walked inside without waiting for him, heading straight for the living room with the gait of someone trying very hard to stay balanced.

Wonwoo followed behind you like a shadow. Terrified. Hopeful. Desperate to touch you but afraid of breaking what little space you allowed him.

You collapsed onto the couch with a soft thud. He stayed standing, too scared to come close, too afraid you’d disappear again if he breathed wrong.

You let out a low chuckle, not a happy one. More like someone laughing at a cruel joke the universe had played on them. Your eyes roamed the room lazily, taking in the space with a kind of drunken clarity.

“So,” you muttered, your voice slicing through the silence, “this is where you touched her.”

Wonwoo’s breath stuttered. The words hit him like a punch.

Your gaze drifted toward him, unfocused but sharp enough to wound.

“All that acting with her for years…”

Your smirk curled, bitter and broken. “…maybe it wasn’t really acting, huh?”

The air between you tightened, suffocating. Wonwoo felt the burn of shame crawl up his throat, felt panic settle into his lungs like smoke. Wonwoo took a breath that trembled on the way out.

“Y/n, I swear—”

“Swear what?” You cut him off, fingers dragging down your face before pushing roughly through your hair. Your voice cracked. “Swear you didn’t do it? I met her, Wonwoo. She’s fucking pregnant!”

Your arms lifted helplessly, the liquor thinning the walls around your feelings. Your eyes shone wet, red, and full of something far worse than anger—disappointment. The kind that crushes more than it burns.

And Wonwoo broke. He dropped to his knees in front of you so fast it was almost a collapse, head bowed, shoulders tight, hands trembling against his thighs.

“I wouldn’t do it,” he whispered, voice wrecked. “You know I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t.”

“But you did.” Your tone was soft, but it hit harder than any yell could have.

Wonwoo’s breath hitched. His eyes burned instantly, hot with tears he had been forcing down for months. Just hearing the accusation—hearing your disbelief—made his chest fold in on itself.

He shook his head violently, as if he could get the memory out if he denied it hard enough. As if he could undo it. But that night stayed with him like poison.

“I didn’t know,” he choked out. “I was— I was too unconscious. I wasn’t aware. And she—”

His voice shattered. “She used me. She took advantage of me.”

The words scraped his throat raw. The shame in his expression was unbearable—his jaw trembling, breath stuttering, his shoulders shaking as months of swallowed guilt finally clawed their way out.

A sob escaped him. Then another. His whole body folded, like the weight of everything finally crushed him into the floor.

You watched him unravel, watched the man you loved break open in front of you. The alcohol fog thinned just enough for clarity to slip in, and suddenly the room felt unbearably still.

Just the ticking of the clock, the soft hum of the refrigerator, Wonwoo’s muffled cries—and that dizzying ring in your skull that had followed you since the moment you woke up this morning.

He didn’t try to touch you. He didn’t dare.

“I swear,” he whispered again, voice barely holding together, “I would never touch anyone but you.”

He lifted his face just enough for you to see the devastation in his expression—eyes swollen, cheeks streaked, lips trembling.

“I love you too much.”

You didn’t say anything for a long moment. The air in the room felt like it was burning, thick enough to choke on. Wonwoo’s voice kept breaking as he explained everything — how that night, in his drunken haze and guilt, he thought it was you; how he didn’t push away because some pathetic part of him wanted it to be you; how he let it happen because he missed you so much it twisted him blind.

Your hands were cold, but your head felt like it was boiling. He said it. He actually said it out loud.

Jeon Wonwoo. Your Jeon Wonwoo. The man who claimed to love you more than anything in his life. The man who swore that he would never, ever touch a woman the way he touched you. The man who looked at you now with his chest visibly shaking, eyes rimmed red, terrified of losing you.

“I thought it was you,” he whispered, and the words made your stomach turn. “I knew the moment I sobered up— I knew it was wrong. I knew it wasn’t you. And I can’t forgive myself.”

You didn’t blink. You didn’t breathe. You couldn’t.

“Jeon Wonwoo…”

He swallowed hard. He looked like he was already on the floor, even while standing in front of you. His eyes lifted to yours slowly, afraid of what he’d see.

“There are only two options that I can think about— that will let go of this sting in my chest.”

Wonwoo’s breath hitched. But he didn’t interrupt. He waited. He waited because he knew he deserved whatever came out of your mouth.

Your face didn’t move. Your voice didn’t shake.

“Either I kill her,” you said quietly, like you were stating a fact.

“Or I kill you.”

The look on his face shattered into something beyond fear — something close to acceptance, like he already expected it, like he had rehearsed his death in his head every night since that mistake.

He didn’t step back. He didn’t defend himself. He didn’t even flinch.

“If that’s what it takes,” Wonwoo whispered, voice trembling, “I won’t run.”

He looked at you like he was already saying goodbye — like he knew he had no right to ask for mercy, no right to beg, no right to breathe the same air as you anymore.

The silence that followed was not quiet.

It screamed.

*

Wonwoo had witnessed you kill someone before. It was on your second anniversary — a day he still couldn’t think about without feeling his lungs tighten. You told him you’d be home early to prepare dinner for the two of you. He was excited, almost embarrassingly so. He’d said goodbye to everyone on set with such unusual cheer that even the staff joked about him going on a date.

He drove straight to your place afterward, making sure he looked presentable. Nice shirt, neat hair, no traces of fatigue. Perfect enough to greet the woman he loved.

But the moment he stepped out of the car, something felt off. The walk from the parking lot to your unit felt heavy, as if the air was pushing against him. The quiet of the hallway pressed into his ears. He stopped in front of your door, breath caught somewhere between anticipation and dread.

He could’ve entered the passcode immediately — he’d done it a thousand times. Your home was his second home. Your kitchen, your couch, your bed were familiar enough for him to navigate blindfolded.

But today… today he wanted you to greet him. He imagined you opening the door with your hair tied back, apron strings hanging loosely at your waist, the warm smell of your cooking spilling out into the hallway. Maybe you’d smile shyly, maybe you’d tease him for being early, maybe you’d kiss him before dragging him inside.

He wanted that moment. He waited for it. So he rang the doorbell. Once. Twice. A third time. Nothing. No footsteps approaching. No locks clicking. No soft voice calling his name from the other side.

His heart began to beat in the wrong places — throat, temples, palms. His fingers trembled as he finally reached for the keypad. He entered the passcode, and the door unlocked with that familiar soft beep. But the moment he stepped inside, something was wrong.

Your unit was silent. Completely still. No sizzling pan, no humming, no sound of running water, not even the faint creak of you moving around. Just stillness. Stillness so thick it felt alive.

He closed the door behind him slowly, his breath barely moving, a feeling he couldn’t explain crawling up his spine as he took his first step into the darkness of your home.

He walked slowly, careful not to startle you. He assumed you might be in the kitchen with your back turned, perhaps too focused on slicing vegetables to hear the door. So he called your name softly as he stepped further inside.

“Y/n?”

No answer. The air felt wrong again. He rounded the corner toward the dining area, expecting your usual anniversary setup — candles, wine glasses, the soft warmth you always crafted for him.

Instead, he froze. His breath vanished so fast it punched a hole through his chest. You were there, but not the way he imagined.

You were kneeling on the floor, your back rising and falling with sharp breaths. Blood splattered across your face, your clothes, your hands. It dripped from your fingers in slow, sticky lines.

And beneath you—a man he recognized instantly. Your uncle. Motionless.

Your hand was still wrapped around the handle of the knife lodged in his chest, the blade gleaming red under the dining room lights.

For a long moment, all he could do was stare. He didn’t shout. Didn’t move. Couldn’t.

You slowly lifted your head at the sound of his breath catching. Your eyes met his — wild, trembling, something unhinged and yet heartbreakingly familiar buried underneath.

“Wonwoo…” you whispered, as if waking from a trance.

The knife slipped from your hand and clattered onto the tiles. He took a single step back, but only because his knees nearly buckled. The metallic smell of blood thickened the air between you, and he realized with a sickening twist that his mind couldn’t process the scene fast enough.

Your lips trembled as Wonwoo stared at you, still frozen in the doorway. Blood pooled beneath your knees, thick and dark, and yet all you could focus on was the sound of your own heartbeat—so loud you wondered if he could hear it too.

“Wonwoo…” you whispered again, your voice cracking, no longer sounding like yourself. “I—he—”

But the words died before they reached your tongue.

“He hurt me.” Your voice was thin. Detached. Almost childlike.

Wonwoo’s breath hitched.

Your eyes drifted to the man beneath you—your uncle’s face twisted into a slack, lifeless expression. You killed your uncle that night—not out of rage, not out of impulse, but out of survival. Out of reclaiming every piece of yourself stolen from you since you were ten years old.

Wonwoo didn’t ask for details. Not then. Not while you were kneeling over a corpse with blood drying on your fingers. Instead, he moved toward you with the kind of carefulness he usually reserved for fragile artifacts or newborn kittens—slow, deliberate, terrified of breaking you even further.

“Give me the knife,” he whispered.

You blinked at him, dazed. “Wonwoo…”

“Give it to me, sweetheart.”

Your fingers unclenched. The blade slipped into his palm without resistance. He didn’t flinch at the blood, didn’t recoil from the warmth still lingering on the metal. He simply set it aside on the tile before gently taking your wrists.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured.

You hadn’t noticed. You looked down. Your hands trembled so violently they blurred in your vision.

“Come,” he said softly.

He helped you stand—not with force, but with a steady guiding touch, the way someone might lead a frightened animal out of a storm. You allowed him to pull you to the bathroom, each step feeling too light, too unreal. Wonwoo turned on the tap, warm water rushing in a soft hiss.

“Let me,” he murmured.

He washed your hands himself. Every finger. Every knuckle. Every stain. His touch was gentle, as if he thought scrubbing too hard would wound you, as if he feared the water might wash away more than just blood. When he lifted your chin, you saw his eyes—dark, steady, and broken.

“You’re safe now.”

You didn’t feel safe. Not until he said it. He guided you back into the living room after he finished cleaning your hands and face. The body was still there, sprawled across the wooden floor like an abandoned shadow.

Wonwoo stared at it for a long moment, his jaw tight. Not shocked. Not disgusted. Resolute.

“Y/n,” he said quietly, “wait in the bedroom.”

You shook your head instantly. “No. I—I should—”

“You’ve done enough,” he said, a tremble in his voice. “Please. Let me take care of the rest.”

There was something in his tone that made your knees give in. The exhaustion finally clawed through your adrenaline, sinking you. You backed away slowly, your eyes still glued to the lifeless body until the bedroom door closed behind you.

Wonwoo stayed in the living room. And he cleaned. He wiped the floor, scrubbing until there wasn’t a trace of red left. He gathered the clothes soaked in blood and stuffed them into bags. He moved with an eerie calmness, his mind blank except for one repeating thought:

You must never face this alone again.

Finally, when everything around the room was spotless, when only the body remained. He approached it, his jaw clenched so tightly it ached.

He rolled the body into the tarp he had found in your storage closet—something you kept for painting projects. How ironic, he thought bitterly. The tarp made no sound when the corpse thudded into it. He tied it securely, lifted it with a quiet grunt, and carried it out with the kind of steadiness that only came from absolute determination.

He hid it. Disposed of it. Erased it. For you. By the time he returned, your apartment smelled faintly of a cleaning solution and cooling dinner—the dinner you’d tried to prepare before the night shattered.

Wonwoo entered your bedroom quietly.

You were sitting on the floor, knees hugged to your chest, staring at nothing.

He lowered himself beside you.

Your head slowly turned toward him, eyes hollow.

“It’s done,” he whispered.

Something inside you cracked—not loudly, not violently, but in a quiet shatter, like thin ice breaking underfoot.

You leaned into him.

And for the first time that night, you allowed yourself to cry. Wonwoo held you, his hand on the back of your head, his voice buried in your hair.

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Not after this.”

He meant it. Every word. Even if he had to stain his hands forever. Even if he had to carry your darkness as his own. He would. He already had.

*

Mingyu chuckled—quiet, disbelieving, a sound edged with bitterness. Of course you would twist the situation. Of course money and power would fold the world to your will, just like they always had.

He stood in the living room with his arms crossed, eyes fixed on the television as the breaking-news banner flashed red across the bottom of the screen.

PARK MIRAN ARRESTED FOR ARTIST ABUSE, MONEY LAUNDERING SCHEME

The footage showed her being escorted by officers, hands cuffed, her face stony behind the cameras, as reporters clawed for statements. The nation exploded in chaos—an uproar of betrayal, shock, and sudden “empathy” for the actors she exploited.

Mingyu’s jaw shifted as he watched. You had buried her. Neatly. Efficiently. Like flicking a chess piece off the board. With your parents’ influence and your own connections, the scandal had erupted overnight—brutal, precise. The woman who once controlled Wonwoo’s life was now nothing but a headline.

Mingyu exhaled sharply through his nose. He grabbed his coat, unable to stand in that room anymore. He needed to face you. Needed answers. Needed to know how much of this was vengeance—and how much of it was guilt.

By the time he reached your office, he was already fuming. The security guard bowed to him, letting him in without question, and Mingyu stalked through the hallway with long, purposeful strides.

Your door wasn’t even fully closed. You were inside, legs crossed at your desk, tapping your pen against a document with bored calm. As if the world outside wasn’t burning. As if a woman you had silently declared war on wasn’t being dragged away on national television.

Mingyu didn’t bother knocking. He shoved the door open. You didn’t flinch. You didn’t even look up at first. You simply murmured, “I told you to stop stomping around my office like a stray dog. It ruins the carpet.”

Finally, your eyes lifted. Mingyu stood in the doorway, chest rising and falling, anger coiled so tightly inside him he looked ready to snap. He took a slow step in.

“I’m done,” he said, voice low, trembling not with fear but with fury. “I’m done with your attitude. With your games. With the way you treat everyone like pieces on a board.”

Your pen paused mid-tap. Mingyu continued, voice sharpening, “You think I don’t see what you’re doing? You think I don’t know you’re pulling strings behind all this? Park Miran’s downfall, the articles, the sudden investigations—”

He pointed at you, his hand shaking. “You’re cleaning the board. You’re sweeping every obstacle out of Wonwoo’s name like you’re preparing for something.”

You leaned back in your chair, expression unreadable. He swallowed hard. “And I want to know why.”

Silence. Heavy. Dense. Unmoving. You smiled—slow, thin, dangerous. “Mingyu,” you murmured, “isn’t it obvious?”

He stared. You set your pen down, leaned forward, and rested your chin on your hand. “I told her,” you began, voice steady, almost lazy, “to keep her nose out of my business.”

Mingyu froze. Your eyes lifted to him—calm, cold, and carrying something he couldn’t name. “But she came to me anyway,” you continued, your fingers absently tracing the rim of your coffee cup, “storming in, pointing her finger in my face… accusing me of killing Wonwoo.”

You scoffed—a tiny, humorless sound.

“We both know,” you said, leaning back in your chair, “how she treated him.”

The air seemed to shrink around Mingyu. A chill crawled down his arms as he studied your expression—too composed, too deliberate, too unbothered by the accusation of murder.

And the worst part? You didn’t deny it.

“And didn’t I tell you, Mingyu,” you said quietly, almost gently, as if scolding a child rather than warning a grown man, “that if you keep doing this—”

You lifted your eyes, and Mingyu felt something primal jolt in his chest.

“—poking at my side,” you finished, voice dropping to a low whisper, “it’ll only leave you with more harm than good.”

The words weren’t loud. They didn’t need to be. They settled into the room like a cold fog, crawling up Mingyu’s spine until his breath hitched. You didn’t blink. You didn’t raise your voice. You didn’t threaten him outright. You didn’t have to. Your calm was the threat.

Mingyu swallowed hard, feeling suddenly aware of how small your office felt… how close the walls were… how far the door seemed. And for the very first time, as your gaze pinned him in place, he realized. You weren’t someone who made empty promises.

Bad news traveled fast in the industry, but that month it traveled like wildfire.

An actor from another label was caught in a drug scandal. A well-known producer was arrested for embezzlement. A manager from a top company was charged with assault. A director—someone Mingyu had worked with in his rookie days—was hospitalized after a mysterious car accident.

At first, Mingyu thought it was just the usual cycle of the entertainment world. People rose, people fell. Rumors turned into scandals. Scandals turned into headlines.

But the more he watched from the sidelines, the more the pattern began to form—quietly, eerily, unmistakably. These weren’t random people. They were connected. Connected to him. Connected to Wonwoo.

The director who forced Wonwoo to redo a kiss scene 11 times. The producer who threatened to blacklist him if he didn’t play along with fake dating. The management rep who took Yani’s side in every argument, even the ones clearly unfair. The old manager who once hit Wonwoo during training days, and everyone pretended not to see.

One by one, they fell. One by one, their lives were ruined. Mingyu felt it settle in his chest like cold ice.

This… This couldn’t be you. You killed Wonwoo—or at least Mingyu believed you did. You could manipulate, twist, deceive. But punish people… for Wonwoo? It didn’t make sense.

Why avenge a man you claimed to despise? Why bring justice to people who wronged him… after you supposedly ended him yourself? His breath hitched.

It wasn’t you. But then… who?

Mingyu closed his eyes, replaying every headline, every ruined career, every person disappearing from the spotlight.

It was too neat. Too clean. Too perfectly arranged.

Someone was targeting everyone who ever hurt Wonwoo. Someone with knowledge. Someone with resources. Someone with motives deeper than the industry gossip could ever scrape.

And then a darker, colder realization clawed at the back of Mingyu’s mind—

What if Wonwoo didn’t die?

What if the body they found wasn’t his?

What if someone else was doing all of this… for him?

*

It was never Wonwoo who drowned in the waters of the Han River. The truth was quieter, stranger, and far more deliberate. The body pulled from the current had no name. No history. No fingerprints in any system. A man who seemed to exist for no one and belonged to nothing. Even you didn’t know him. Wonwoo didn’t either.

No family searched. No friends called. No one mourned. That was precisely why he was chosen. A man the world would never look for, taking the place of a man the world wanted dead.

Wonwoo drew a long breath as he sank deeper into the couch inside the villa he’d bought years ago—under a name that was now legally, publicly, and thoroughly his. The living room was dim, the only light spilling from the window where evening rain tapped against the glass like a quiet metronome.

He’d lived like this before. A man wearing other men’s lives. Taxi driver. Police officer. A king in a past life. A broke college student. An heir with too much money and not enough soul. Gentle, cruel, romantic, detached—he had slipped into all of them like second skins.

Becoming a new version of himself now wasn’t difficult. It was almost disturbingly natural.

He leaned back, eyes on the ceiling as the truth breathed back at him in the silence.

Jeon Wonwoo had died in the public eye. But the man sitting here—breathing, thinking, planning—was simply another role, another identity waiting to be shaped.

“You saved me… This is the least I can do to help you.”

Your voice was soft through the phone, almost fragile beneath the hum of the international line.

Wonwoo sat on the balcony of the villa, foreign night air brushing against his skin. Thousands of kilometers away, you were in Seoul, handling the chaos he could not touch. Cleaning the mess he left behind.

Cleaning him from the world.

He glanced at the glowing screen of his tablet—article after article reporting scandals, arrests, sudden “accidents.”

Directors. Producers. Managers.

Everyone who had wronged him falling one by one, exactly as planned.

A slow smile tugged at his lips each time a new headline appeared. Not because he enjoyed cruelty. But because for once… the world was bending in his favor.

“I wish I was with you right now,” Wonwoo murmured, eyes drifting closed as he imagined it—your warmth pressed into him, your scent, your steady heartbeat grounding him instead of all this emptiness.

“You miss me, Jeon Wonwoo?”

Your tone was teasing, but he could hear the exhaustion you were trying to hide.

Wonwoo hummed. “Of course. It’s been two months since I last saw you.”

There was a soft breath on the other side—almost a laugh, almost a sigh.

“It’s only one month left,” you said quietly, “then you’ll see me again.”

He leaned back in his chair, fingers tightening around the phone, holding onto your voice like it was the only thing keeping him alive.

There was a brief pause on your end—quiet enough that Wonwoo thought the call had cut for a second.

Then you spoke, voice turning strangely thoughtful.

“Wonwoo… Your friend, Mingyu..”

Wonwoo’s brows drew together. “Mingyu? Why bring him up?”

You exhaled, a faint rustle suggesting you had leaned back into a chair. “He’s been hovering around me these days. Coming to my office, trying to question things. I think he notices something.”

Wonwoo’s jaw tightened.

Of course Mingyu would notice. He had always been perceptive—too perceptive for his own good.

“Is he bothering you?” Wonwoo asked, a protective edge slipping into his tone.

“Not exactly,” you murmured. “But he keeps poking at the truth. And you know how I feel about that.”

A cold breeze slipped across Wonwoo’s skin. Your voice wasn’t threatening—it never was. But the softness in it was always the most dangerous part.

“Y/n,” he warned gently, “don’t do anything reckless. Not with him.”

“I haven’t,” you whispered. “Not yet.”

Silence.

Wonwoo swallowed, pressing a hand to his forehead. “He’s innocent. He didn’t hurt me.”

“I know,” you replied, and the way you said it… felt like you were thinking far deeper than the surface. “But innocence doesn’t stop trouble. And I don’t like trouble around you.”

Wonwoo’s chest tightened with a mix of fear and affection—because he knew you meant every word, and you would go as far as necessary for him.

“Y/n,” he said slowly, “promise me you won’t touch him.”

This time, the silence was longer.

Finally, you gave a soft hum—uncertain, noncommittal. The kind of sound that could mean yes, could mean no, or could mean I’ll decide when the time comes.

“I’ll handle him,” you said. “Just… you don’t worry about it. You stay where you are. Stay safe. I’ll handle Seoul.”

Wonwoo leaned forward, voice low and raw. “I only care about you being safe.”

“I am.”

There was a smile in your tone, but it didn’t ease him.

“If anything happens,” you added lightly, “you’ll be the first to know.”

*

Planning Wonwoo’s revenge wasn’t hard for you. It was instinct. It was breath.

After his confession that night, you had gone home feeling devastated—hollow in a way you hadn’t been since childhood. You felt like you had lost something essential, and you hated losing. Losing was weakness. Losing was death. Losing was the ten-year-old version of you, silent and obedient, forced to survive horrors you never chose.

But Wonwoo… he had never let you lose. Not once.

Wonwoo had been your strongest anchor since the beginning—though you couldn’t pinpoint when it started. Maybe the first time he covered for you during a scandal. Maybe the night he stood between you and a manager who raised his voice. Or maybe it was much earlier, a quiet moment neither of you thought twice about.

You always believed the man you loved was calm, composed, with a heart sturdy enough to hold the storms you never learned to control. With him, every problem felt… survivable. Even the ones you buried so deep you pretended they didn’t exist.

And then that night came.

He saw you in your truest, ugliest form—blood splattered across your face, your hands shaking around a knife buried in your uncle’s chest. A scene no one should have walked into. A scene that should have made him recoil.

But Wonwoo didn’t step back. He didn’t yell. He didn’t call the police.He approached you like you weren’t dangerous at all, like the blood meant nothing, like you weren’t already ruined beyond saving. His hands were steady when he cupped your face. His voice was soft when he told you to breathe.

And then, without hesitation, he helped you clean the body. The floor. The walls. The knife. You remember thinking: He shouldn’t be doing this. But he did.

He became your shoulder to lean on. Your shelter. Your absolution. And that was the final strike—the last, irreversible blow.

You would do anything for him. Absolutely anything.

Because in your mind, that was the price of someone who loved you even when you were monstrous. Just like how—if you needed him to—Wonwoo would kill for you.

And if fate demanded it, he’d die for you too.

Wonwoo helped you discard your uncle’s body—the man who had been sexually harassing you since you were ten. Your uncle used to call it a secret between the two of you. Used to tell you that you were being a “good niece.”

And you were too young to understand what he was doing, too young to know that obedience wasn’t kindness.

Running away from home to become a trainee was supposed to fix everything. Getting swallowed by the drama club, filling every second with practice, and forcing exhaustion onto yourself—it wasn’t enough. Nothing ever kept him away. He kept coming back for you. Even years later.

Even until that night when he made the mistake of cornering you again—only this time, you were older, stronger, and holding a weapon. You finally had a reason to kill him. You finally saw the motive clearly.

And when it came to Wonwoo, finding a second motive wasn’t hard at all.

A woman dared to touch your man while he was unconscious… a woman who forced herself into his life, claimed pregnancy, and expected you to sit still. Someone proper, clean, fragile-looking—perfect as the first step of your plan.

Jang Yani.

You made a single phone call, using a burner phone that evaporated in acid after. Just a little interference with her car’s system. Just enough to make her vacation trip with friends… impossible. She didn’t deserve a vacation. Not when she had left Wonwoo traumatized, violated, and suffocating in guilt.

Her death was fast. Almost gentle. And it was only the beginning.

“Believe me… I’ll handle the rest.”

You handed Wonwoo a plane ticket—the one that would take him far away, safely out of the country. The ticket he needed after the news broke of “his body” being found in the Han River.

He looked at it, then at you, his expression unreadable. “What’s your plan, baby?”

You shrugged lightly, as if you were talking about doing laundry, not orchestrating a purge.

“Just a few things. People who put you in uncomfortable situations… I’ll take care of them.”

Wonwoo reached out, taking both of your hands, holding them tightly. He knew he had to go. He knew he had to disappear. And today was the last day he could.

But the fear in his eyes wasn’t for himself. “Are you gonna be okay?”

His voice was small, pained.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

You leaned closer, brushing your thumb over his cheek. A slow smile grew on your face—one that only he ever saw, soft at the edges and deadly underneath.

“I’ll be fine, love,” you whispered.

“Trust me.”

*

“Is he alive?”

Mingyu sat across from you at your dining table that night, both hands clasped so tightly his knuckles had turned white. His voice cracked from the weight of weeks—no, months—of suspicion. He had finally connected all the dots. And now he wanted an answer.

“Is he alive?” he asked again, desperation bleeding through every syllable.

You leaned back in your chair, unfazed. “Why?”

It wasn’t a question. It was a challenge.

Mingyu bowed his head. His voice softened in a way you had never heard from him—not even when he begged you to stop harming the people around him.

“I just need to know that he’s alive…”

You stared at him for a long second. Then, slowly, deliberately, you reached for the phone resting on the table. You dialed the number you memorized down to the breath it took for him to pick up.

After a few rings, a familiar voice answered—warm, low, safe. “Baby? What’s wrong? You said you were going to sleep.”

“I was about to,” you replied calmly, eyes never leaving Mingyu’s trembling form, “but your friend Mingyu came to my place. He wants to know whether you’re still alive or not.”

There was a small pause on the other end. Then Wonwoo’s voice softened. “Mingyu?”

Mingyu froze. His lips parted. A sound escaped him—half a choke, half a sob.

“Hyung…” His voice broke completely, shattering into a dozen pieces.

A quiet chuckle came from the phone. “You’re also one with ambition, huh?”

The warmth, the familiarity—you watched it hit Mingyu like a collapsing wave. A big man was now crying silently at your table, shoulders shaking from relief.

“Hyung!” Mingyu called again, as if saying it once wasn’t enough to convince himself.

You leaned your chin on your hand, smirking at the sight. He looked nothing like the man who stormed into your office months ago, throwing warnings and suspicion like knives.

Now he was just… a friend who finally found the ghost he’d been mourning.

“Tell me this is real,” Mingyu said breathlessly as he grabbed your phone with both hands, turning his whole body toward it like it was a lifeline.

“Tell me you’re really alive.”

“Mingyu-ah,” Wonwoo’s voice softened on the other end, the way it only did with people he once considered family. “Breathe.”

Mingyu tried. A shaky inhale. A broken exhale. His hand trembled as he held the phone closer to his ear.

“I thought you were dead,” he whispered, the words ripped out of someplace deep. “Hyung, I—I thought I killed you.”

You froze at the phrasing, but Wonwoo only let out a low hum. Not angry. Not mocking. Just… sad.

“You didn’t,” he said calmly. “And even if things had gone that far, it wouldn’t have been your doing. You know that.”

Mingyu bit down hard on his lip, trying to keep the sob from crawling out of his throat.

Wonwoo sighed, steady and patient. “Listen carefully.”

Mingyu nodded even though Wonwoo couldn’t see him.

From your seat, you watched the shift — the way Wonwoo’s tone sharpened, becoming something colder, steadier. The tone of a man who planned everything, who never spoke without intention.

“I’m alive,” Wonwoo said firmly. “And the only reason I stayed alive this long is because she”—a pause, gentle but weighted—“kept me that way.”

Mingyu swallowed hard.

“I know,” he whispered. “I know everything now. I know what she did. Hyung… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Wonwoo let the apology settle for a moment. Then, “You can’t undo what’s happened. Neither can I.” His tone was strangely compassionate. “But you can do one thing right from now on.”

Mingyu straightened slightly, waiting.

“Protect her,” Wonwoo said.

Your breath caught.

Mingyu blinked in disbelief. “Hyung—”

“Not out of debt,” Wonwoo clarified, voice low but unwavering. “Not out of guilt. Not because I’m asking as your friend… but because she deserves to live without watching her back.”

Mingyu wiped his cheek with the heel of his palm. “I will,” he promised immediately. “Hyung, I will. I’ll protect her with my life if I have to.”

Wonwoo made a small approving sound.

“Good. I trust you, Mingyu.”

The line fell quiet for a few seconds, heavy with everything unspoken — regret, reunion, the kind of bond that bends but never breaks.

Then Wonwoo added, softer, almost fond, “and don’t show up crying at her house again without calling first. She’ll think I only befriended dramatic people.”

You snorted. Mingyu choked out a wet laugh.

Wonwoo’s warmth seeped through the call. “Go home, Gyu. And make sure she sleeps.”

Mingyu nodded again, voice hushed. “Goodnight, hyung.”

“Goodnight.”

When you took your phone back, Mingyu finally lifted his head. His eyes were red, swollen, but clearer than you’d ever seen them.

He looked at you like you had done something sacred.

*

A month later, the world was finally quiet.

Everything that needed to be hidden was buried. Everything that needed to be manipulated had already been pushed into the shadows. Loose ends were cut cleanly, lies were fed to the press, and those who needed convincing had been coerced or threatened into compliance.

Mingyu, true to his word, checked on you like clockwork — quietly, carefully, without stepping past boundaries. It was almost strange, how gentle he treated you now. How he watched your back the way Wonwoo asked him to.

But even with Mingyu keeping watch, the nights felt long. Empty. Haunted by the shape of a man who wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.

So when the final task was done — the last bribe delivered, the final piece of evidence destroyed — you packed a single suitcase and booked a flight to the city Wonwoo now called home.

The airport was crowded, but you felt detached from the noise around you. Your fingers traced the zipper of your bag, the ridges of your passport. The boarding announcement echoed overhead, muffled by the static in your mind.

For the first time in weeks, you let yourself breathe.

I'm going to him. He's alive. He's waiting.

The plane ride felt unreal — clouds drifting past the window, a stranger asleep beside you, the low hum of the engine blending into your heartbeat. You dozed off in fragments, drifting between exhaustion and anticipation and the quiet ache of wanting.

When you finally landed, the time difference hit like a wave. The air here smelled different — clean, crisp, cooler. A foreign language rippled around you in soft waves. You walked through the terminal with your hood up, sunglasses low, blending into the flow of travelers.

Your phone buzzed.

Wonwoo:

Baby? Did you land safely?

Your chest tightened.

You:

Just landed. I’m on my way.

There was a pause — just long enough to feel like he might cry or laugh or breathe out relief.

Wonwoo:

I’m at the apartment. Door’s unlocked.

Hurry.

You took a taxi, the city lights blurring into long strokes of gold and white. Foreign signs passed by, unfamiliar streets weaving in and out of your view, but all you cared about was the one destination — the apartment nestled on the 14th floor of a quiet building overlooking the river.

When you reached the door, your hand hesitated for a moment. Not out of fear — but because everything you fought for, killed for, survived for… was behind it.

You turned the handle.

Inside, the apartment was dim, the soft glow of a single lamp spilling across the small living room. The curtains were drawn. The air smelled faintly of coffee and laundry detergent — his scent, unmistakable.

And then he appeared from the hallway.

Wonwoo. Alive. Real. Standing barefoot in loose sweats and a plain black shirt, hair slightly messy as if he’d been pacing or running his hands through it.

His eyes met yours first. And in them — relief so deep it almost broke you in half. He whispered your name like a prayer.

You dropped your suitcase. He stepped forward at the same time you did. The distance closed in a heartbeat. His hands cupped your face. Yours gripped the front of his shirt. Your foreheads pressed together.

“I missed you,” he breathed. Voice cracked. Body trembling.

You didn’t answer. You just pulled him in and kissed him like you were reclaiming a part of your soul.

The month apart, the blood spilled, the lies, the fear — all of it dissolved the moment he held you again. You were home.

His lips were warm, almost feverish against yours — like he’d been holding himself together by threads and your presence finally let him come undone. He didn’t rush. Didn’t devour. He kissed you like someone memorizing a ghost, terrified you might vanish if he went too fast.

Your hands slid up to the back of his neck, fingers threading through the soft hair there, pulling him closer until your chests pressed tight. You felt the shudder run through him. Felt his heartbeat stumble.

Wonwoo exhaled shakily against your mouth. “Baby… you’re really here.”

You hummed an answer, tugging him into another kiss — deeper this time, slower, laden with everything you couldn’t say for a month. His palms traveled down your arms, brushing the sides of your ribs, stopping at your waist as if checking you were real, alive, whole.

He pulled back only a breath away, eyes dark, glassy, relief and want tangled together. “Let me see you,” he whispered.

He guided you backward, step by step, toward the bedroom. His fingers stayed laced with yours, his thumb brushing your knuckles as if afraid you might slip away again. When the back of your knees touched the mattress, he leaned in, his forehead brushing your cheek.

“You did all of that alone,” he murmured, voice low. “While I was here breathing because of you.”

Your hand slid beneath his jaw, tilting his face toward you.

“I lived because of you too,” you whispered.

Something broke in his expression — not pain, but devotion so fierce it made your breath hitch. And then his mouth was on your neck, soft at first, then a little hungrier, tracing the line beneath your ear. His hands slipped under your coat, pushing it off your shoulders with a slow drag. Every inch of skin he exposed, he touched — not rushing, not claiming, but grounding himself in you.

You tugged his shirt up, your fingers brushing his skin, warm and familiar. He let out a quiet sigh — the kind that only left him when he was with you like this, safe.

He climbed onto the bed with you, bracing himself above you, his nose brushing yours. His hair fell slightly over his eyes, his breath hitting your lips.

“Do you know,” he whispered, “how many times I imagined this? How many nights I couldn’t sleep because I didn’t know if you were okay?”

You pulled him down, your lips finding his again — slow, deep, pulling a quiet groan from his chest.

Your hand slid down his back, feeling the tension melt out of him as he molded himself against you. He kissed you with more urgency now, but still careful — as if the month apart had turned him fragile and starved all at once.

“Wonwoo…” you breathed his name.

He kissed the corner of your mouth, your cheek, your jaw — worshipping every part he missed.

“I’m here,” he whispered against your skin. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Your bodies tangled together, warmth meeting warmth, breath mixing, hearts steadying against each other. His hands explored you with reverence, your fingers gripping him back with equal desperation.

And when he finally pushed the blankets over both of you, pulling you tightly against his chest, it wasn’t lust that filled the room — it was relief, need, devotion, survival.

Two people who killed and bled and ran for each other finally lying in the same bed again. He kissed your shoulder softly, slowly, almost shyly, as if the intimacy itself was sacred.

“I love you,” he whispered into your skin. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just true.

You turned your head, meeting his eyes.

“I love you more.”

His hand slid to your hip, pulling you closer. Your leg draped over his. Your forehead pressed to his collarbone.

And his breathing finally steadied.

For the first time in months, both of you slept — wrapped around each other, bodies warm and intertwined — without fear.

*

Rain hammered down like a curse that morning. The hall was filled with black umbrellas, black suits, black dresses — but Mingyu stood quietly at the back, hands folded in front of him, face unreadable.

He wasn’t grieving. Not in the way everyone thought. He stared at your framed photo — the soft, practiced smile — and almost laughed at how perfectly you would have hated that picture.

“Too boring,” you would’ve said.

“Too cute,” Wonwoo would’ve teased.

Mingyu exhaled. He was the only one in the room who knew the truth. You weren’t in the coffin. You weren’t dead. This was a performance.

The fire had been fast. Professional. Controlled. Only the apartment, only the right room, only the staged body.

Only the diary you wrote months ago for this exact moment — the one that described your pain, your trauma, your family’s abuse. A diary written in your handwriting but with your intent.

Not a confession.

A weapon.

A weapon meant to cut your family down to nothing.

When Mingyu arrived at the scene that night, the firefighters pulled him aside—

“Kim Mingyu-ssi? Are you able to identify the body?”

He bowed his head, eyes filling with well-performed despair.

“I can… but I know it’s her.”

That was his cue. Your cue. The cue to let the world burn exactly the way you wanted.

Your parents were crying too loudly — like they wanted their grief to be heard by the stockholders. Your relatives stayed in the front row, hands over their mouths, hiding the guilt that rubbed under their skin like a stain.

Mingyu’s fist tightened. He knew which parts of your diary were real — and which parts were sharpened for maximum damage. You played the victim so you could become the executioner. And this funeral, this theater, was the climax of your revenge.

Mingyu approached the coffin last. He placed a single white chrysanthemum on the lid — the flower that symbolized truth revealed after death.

Except the truth was alive. Breathing. Waiting overseas with a man who would set the world on fire for you.

“Rest peacefully,” Mingyu said with a respectful bow.

Then quietly — so quietly that no one standing near could hear — “Until you come back.”

He straightened his posture, cool and composed.

Your family believed they finally got rid of you. The business thought you snapped under pressure. The public pitied you.

Only Mingyu knew the truth. You were giving your family the funeral they should have given you years ago.

And when you returned —

and you would —

You had spent years pretending he didn’t exist.

"Tell me your name." He had asked it so casually, so effortlessly, like it wasn’t the beginning of something that would ruin you. "Why?" you had asked, teasing. He had smiled, lopsided and warm. "Because I think I was meant to know you." And just like that, you had been lost.

You had erased him in every way a person could be erased—deleted his number, blocked his calls, ripped every reminder of him from your life.

But before you erased him, he had been everywhere. His laughter in your ears. His touch on your skin. His promises—so soft, so real—that you had been foolish enough to believe in. "You’ll stay?" you had whispered once, buried in his arms, afraid of the answer. And he had kissed your forehead. "Always."

You had spent every second since trying to forget.

And for a while, it worked.

Until tonight.

Until now.

Until the moment you heard your name.

"Love isn’t real." He had said it so casually, as if the words weren’t a knife. They were lying in his bed, tangled in sheets and moonlight, your fingers tracing patterns against his bare shoulder. You had looked at him then, waiting for the teasing smile, the flicker of hesitation. But there was none. Just quiet certainty. "You don’t believe in it?" you had whispered, voice small. "No." You could have left right then. You should have. But instead, you pressed closer. "That’s okay," you had said. "I’ll believe enough for the both of us."

You had been moving through the city like a ghost, head down, heart carefully buried somewhere it couldn’t be reached. The streets were alive, chaotic, full—voices and neon lights colliding in a blur of sound. The kind of noise that made it easier to breathe, easier to pretend that nothing was missing.

But then—

"Chaeyoung."

Soft. Familiar.

A voice you had sworn you would never hear again.

Your heart stopped.

No. No, it can’t be.

But you turned anyway.

And he was there.

"Promise me." His voice had been raw that night, his fingers tight around yours, desperate. "Promise me we’ll always find our way back." And you had smiled, because you had been naïve, because you had believed that love was enough. "I promise."

You felt sick.

You had spent so long trying to forget him, to convince herself that he was just a ghost, a figment of your past that couldn’t hurt you anymore.

But he wasn’t a ghost.

He was here.

And he was looking at you.

And the worst part?

He wasn’t alone.

"You’ll leave one day," he had told you once, arms crossed, gaze unreadable. You had shaken your head, smiling as if it was the easiest truth in the world. "No, I won’t." His jaw had clenched then, eyes flickering with something unreadable. "You say that now." "I mean it." But it didn’t matter. He never believed you. Never trusted that someone could want him without conditions, without expectations. So he kept his walls high, locked every door, kept you at a safe distance even when you were right beside him. And you let him. You had been so desperate just to be near him that you accepted every cold shoulder, every dismissive word, every quiet rejection masked as indifference. Because you thought one day he would see. That one day he would believe in love, too. But he had.

You breath hitched.

The world kept moving, kept spinning, but you—you were stuck.

Because he was standing right there, close enough to touch, close enough that you could almost imagine it had all been a nightmare, that none of it was real, that you could still reach for him and—

But then you saw her.

The girl beside him.

The one with her hand in his.

The diamond on the woman’s hand catches the light, and your stomach twists violently.

Because now, you know.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t love. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how.

He just didn’t want to love you.

And suddenly, you couldn’t breathe.

"You’ll forget me," you had whispered. He had laughed, shaking his head. "How could I?" But now— Now you were nothing but a forgotten name on his lips.

He blinked. For a second—just a second—he looked almost surprised to see you. Like he hadn’t been expecting this, like he hadn’t considered what it would mean to run into you again.

And then—

His fingers curled tighter around the other girl’s hand.

And just like that—

You knew.

"Wonwoo, I love you." You voice cracked, but you didn’t care. You were past the point of pride, past the point of pretending this didn’t hurt. Your heart was breaking in real time, splintering into pieces right in front of him, and he just stood there. You took a shaky breath, stepping closer, searching his face for something—anything. A reaction, a flicker of emotion, even pity. "Why can’t you love me too?" Your voice was louder this time, desperation bleeding into every syllable. "Why can’t you just—" you stopped, pressing a trembling hand to your chest. "Just say something, Wonwoo. Just—please." He looked at you. For a minute too long. And you thought, maybe this is it. Maybe he would finally let himself feel, let himself see you the way you had always seen him. Maybe he would reach for you, pull you close, whisper something that could make all this worth it. But then— He blinked. Turned around. And walked away. No hesitation. No final words. No second glance. The air left your lungs. You stood there, frozen, watching as he disappeared, waiting for him to stop, to turn back, to realize. He didn’t.

The crowd surged.

A wave of people moved between them, breaking them apart, tearing her away from him before you could even think, before you could even move.

You stumbled back, your chest caving in, your hands shaking.

No. No, no, no—

You pushed forward, desperate, needing to see him, needing to find him—

And then—

There.

He was still there.

Still standing in the same spot.

Still looking at you.

But this time—

He wasn’t reaching for you.

He wasn’t fighting the crowd, wasn’t calling your name, wasn’t trying.

He was just watching.

And then—

He turned.

And walked away.

With her.

"We’ll always find our way back." But they hadn’t. He had found someone else instead.

Your vision blurred. Your fingers curled into fists.

You could run after him.

You could call his name.

You could fight against the tide, push through the crowd, make him remember.

But you didn’t.

You just stood there.

Because this—this was how it ended.

Not with screaming. Not with a fight. Not with desperate pleas or broken promises.

But with him walking away—and not looking back.

And that— That was what hurt the most.

College dorms were a topic you didn’t want to talk about. You hated the idea of having to share a room with a stranger?? When you got accepted into your dream college there was no way you could afford to rent a place without facing the same problem….strangers, that was until your best friend Wonwoo got accepted too. You and him have been friends since middle school, he was the quiet kid and you were a nerd but you saw his Pokémon backpack and immediately knew you needed to be his friend.

You both decided to take a gap year before going to college, you didn’t have financial help from your parents so you worked hard every day to save up.

After jumping up and down with excitement when he told you he had been accepted too the idea sparked that maybe you won’t have to live with a stranger he wasn’t too sure about the idea since he was unemployed but that could change! And you knew his social anxiety was bad, almost worse than yours.

“A one-bedroom apartment would be the cheapest, one of us could take the bedroom and we can turn the living room into a bedroom and if we both get jobs within walking distance of the university we could take the bus to school and walk to work, I believe that this is a perfectly thought out plan that would work in both of our favors. Wonwoo please please please”

Wonwoo was very smart, so he did the math on if this would work and we wouldn’t drown in debt lucky for you it would be cutting it close with groceries and extra spending money but it can work. You held in your pure excitement and whipped out your laptop to look at apartments.

“hey y/n. This one looks like what you were looking for except better it has a loft and a bedroom so we would still have a living room the loft goes above the kitchen, and the kitchen looks pretty nice too, not that you would be cooking since you’re terrible at it”

You punch him in the arm and take the laptop to look at the price.

“Hey, this is lower than our max price too!! Did you look at the surrounding shops or any place that would hire college students?”

Wonwoo takes back the laptop and adjusts his glasses while looking on Google Maps at the surrounding buildings.

“There are a few restaurants a tea shop and what looks like a coffee and bake shop”

“Bro they’re gonna so want me with my espresso experience, maybe they’ll hire you too! but I don’t know if I want to live and work with you that might be too much for me I might O.D from too much Wonwoo y-know?”

He gives you a side eye that sends a chill down your spine

“or we could work together because I could never get enough of you”

You give him a sarcastic smile.

“anyways… we should start saving now you have the money from your parents and I’ve been saving from work lets send an application for the apartment”

You both send in a few more applications for other places as well a month goes by you receive emails for the confirmation of tours Wonwoo goes to half while you go to the others in the end you both fall in love with the first apartment you look at the one with the loft and a bedroom it was so cheap and perfect up in the loft there was a whole wall of outlets so Wonwoo takes the loft for his gaming set up (thank god because you wanted your full privacy the loft was cute but the open walls made it feel too out in the open)

Time flew by and just like that you both were moving in together, you were a little nervous since you hear horror stories about friendships being ruined while moving in together where the two end up hating each other from seeing them so much but you had a feeling that wouldn’t happen Wonwoo and you both liked your alone time with the two separate rooms and getting jobs at separate places things seemed to be looking perfect you worked at the cafe and Wonwoo is working as a waiter for a nicer restaurant he has to take the bus but it pays well so it’s worth the journey.

———————————————————————

“Wonwoo please can we host a housewarming party it doesn’t even have to be a lot of people just my close friends and your close friends more of a get-together than a party. I KNOW that Jeonghan has been dying to see this place since we moved in and since we’re all unpacked and-“

Wonwoo cuts you off.

“forget it y/n you know how I hate social gatherings. Jeonghan can come over eventually, we don’t need a bunch of people in our apartment to trash the place and make our neighbors hate us right away”

You cross your arms and pout, but after seeing that stern look on your arms pull your victim card.

“I was going to invite my girls anyway because I miss them. I was offering the party so you would have your friends too. I was just trying to be nice so you wouldn’t feel awkward I know you don’t talk to them. But when they come over we can just be in my room and not disturb you it’s okay”

Wonwoo huffs and pinches his nose bridge.

“fine”

You start jittering with excitement.

“thank you thank you thank you. I’m gonna text the girls.”

———————————————————————

The morning of the party you and Wonwoo went to the store you get alcohol he turned 21 a few months ago and you were turning 21 soon but you weren’t there yet so he had to go in alone but you gave him a list.

1. 2x bottles of pink Whitney

2. 3x packs of mikes hard lemonade

3. 1x bottle of Smirnoff vodka (raspberry)

While he was getting the alcohol you went to the grocery store for snacks and cups.

When everyone was there you and Wonwoo gave them a very professional tour it was very short since the apartment is very small. But made things easier for you two. You all start playing drinking games when you hear a knock on the door, you open it to see DK one of Wonwoo’s friends he is late but he is also holding two bags full of Chinese take-out.

“dk you are an angel sent from heaven”

“sorry for being late, thought I’d bring some food”

He said with a big smile while walking in.

After lots of eating and lots of drinking DK and Jeonghan went home, Mingyu stayed over, they played video games up in his loft and you and your friends all went to your room. Soyeon and Yuqi get comfortable on the floor while you and Yeji decide to share your bed it was a queen so there was more than enough room.

“hey y/n”

You hear Yuqi say from the floor.

“what’s up?”

“don’t you think it’s a little weird moving in with a boy? I mean I know you guys are just friends but at the end of the day you are a straight single woman and he’s a straight single man who knows when animal instincts kick in” They all start giggling at her comment.

“oh my god I can’t even think about doing something like that with him, I've known him for so long his this gamer nerd and I'm positive he sees me as a geek”

You turn over so your back faces them giving off the ‘im done with this conversation’ energy but Yeji had a comment.

“yeah except you’re both hot now”

“Yeji oh my god you did not just call Wonwoo hot”

“he is though!? Girl are you blind???”

“I’m going to bed goodnight, no more of this stupid talk”

The next morning all the girls went home super early you slept in a little but woke up to the smell of food, your nose followed you to the kitchen and found two tall tan beefy shirtless men in your kitchen cooking.

“what the fuck?”

They turn around and it’s Mingyu and Wonwoo, you knew Mingyu was buff because he’s constantly showing it off with his muscle tee’s and tank tops but you swear Wonwoo lives in hoodies and crewnecks it’s like they’re attached to him.

“oh good morning y/n”

Mingyu says with a smile. Wonwoo looks a little shocked to see you like he knows you’ve never seen him like this, like he’s been hiding he even gets a little flustered looking away and back to the food, Mingyu walks over to you.

“sleep well? We’re making breakfast do you want some?”

“oh um yeah I slept good and breakfast sounds great, thank you”

Mingyu was standing very close to you but you never felt intimidated by him his eyes are just so soft and it’s like there’s an imaginary tail wagging behind him at all times.

You went and sat on the couch and saw Wonwoo walk up to his loft and come back down fully clothed he was embarrassed you couldn’t help but wonder why he would be though like if you have a body like that show it off!! When Mingyu brought you over breakfast you paused him from leaving.

“hey wait, do you and Wonwoo go to the gym together or something? Because how come I had no idea he was built? I did notice that when I punch his arm when he's pissing me off it does hurt my fist but I didn’t think anything of it”

“oh yeah! We go all the time. He didn’t tell you?”

“no…. he didn’t. This whole time I thought he was a bit chubby. Like not in a bad way in a cute way but not in a cute way like like him yk but kind of endearing I guess?? That’s not the point he’s always wearing those oversized hoodies and sweats how was I supposed to know?? He was a chubby kid too”

Mingyu suppresses his laughter and walks back to the kitchen.

You can’t help but still stare at Wonwoo, for so long you had no idea he had been going to the gym, his back was so perfectly sculpted and when he turned around his abs were so defined, it was just so shocking.

———————————————————————

When school started you and Wonwoo barely saw each other, you’re classes started early and he went late and on the weekends you both worked, sometimes you would see each other in passing but it was always just a small “hey” or “how are you” never an actual conversation. You were just about to leave for work when Wonwoo came down from his loft, you didn’t even know he was home.

“hey Wonwoo, we should go get dinner i haven’t been able to talk to you in so long, like I live with you, I go to school with you, but I never see you. I miss you”

“oh. yeah, I can look at my schedule probably not till next week I have a date for my one day off this week”

“a date? You have a date!!?”

“is it that surprising y/n?”

“n-no of course not I mean-, I’m just hurt you didn’t tell me sooner”

“well I’m telling you now”

“I guess, just text me when you have a day we’ll figure it out”

It makes sense that Wonwoo has a date he’s sweet, respectful, and surprisingly built. I don’t know why I'm upset about this date that he has. You dated a guy in high school for a while maybe it’s because he’s never dated anyone or maybe he has and just didn’t tell you would have even told me if it wasn’t for today?? “fuck why am I so upset.”

You and Wonwoo never ended up having that dinner, your schedules never aligned and he ended up going on more dates with that girl he even asked you to spend the night at a friend's so he could bring her home!? if you weren’t pissed about this before you’re pissed now. When you came home she was still over.

“oh sorry, I thought you’d be gone by now, I’m y/n”

She was pretty. You take your time examining her, she is shorter than you, slimmer too.

“oh my god, Wonwoo told me about you! You’re so pretty and tall. I would hug you but sorry I'm a little sweaty right now”

You stare at her in shock, why is she sweaty!? Wonwoo walks in wearing a muscle tee and sweats.

“oh hey y/n we just got back from the gym”

Oh, thank god. Wait they’re close enough to be going to the gym together? You and Wonwoo never go to the gym together.

Another month went by without seeing Wonwoo he was completely occupied with her. That was until he out of nowhere Wonwoo started staying home doing nothing but eat sleep and games, your winter break was coming up and you hadn’t talked about going home in fact you still haven’t talked at all even though he’s home all the time now.

It was a Saturday night both of you were off work it was fairly late and you were pacing your room “I’m tired of his silent treatment I'm gonna go talk to him” You storm out of your room and climb up to the loft, there he was in his gaming chair like always.

“Wonwoo”

He doesn’t answer.

“Wonwoo!!”

Still, no answer so you walk over to him and tap him on the shoulder he jumps a little under your touch, so he didn’t hear you…he takes off his headphones and pauses his game.

“what’s up y/n?”

He looks up at you completely blank-minded.

“Are you serious right now”

“huh?”

“Wonwoo what is wrong with you, we live together, we go to school together, but I haven’t seen you in months did something happen and where did your girlfriend go i mean you were with her all the time so that was a good excuse for not seeing me but now there’s no excuse you’re just avoiding me”

You feel like you are about to cry his emotionless face while you’re expressing your feelings to him and all he does is just look at you.

“well say something Wonwoo don’t just stare at me”

He stands up out of his chair and moves over to his bed and takes a deep breath,

“I’m sorry y/n”

The apology was unexpected.

“the girl I was seeing…… she uh cheated on me so that’s why she’s not around anymore”

He puts his head down like he cannot look you in the eyes while saying this, you cannot believe she cheated on him.

“Wonwoo-“

He cuts you off.

“Please don’t feel bad, please. That’s why I didn’t say anything, I feel like it was my fault like I didn’t give her enough I didn’t satisfy her”

You crouch done onto your knees in front of him so you can look him in the eyes.

“Wonwoo don’t say that you’re so much better than any man I’ve ever met you’re kind, respectful, loyal, and fuck you are hot okay. So don’t you ever doubt yourself because any girl you’re with is lucky to have you she just doesn’t see that”

He looks at you his, eyes glossy. You place your hand on his cheek

“you’re wrong,” he says a tear streaming down his cheek.

“What?”

“you’re wrong, I wasn’t giving her my all when my mind was on another girl”

You take your hands off of his face taken back.

“oh” is all you manage to say.

“fuck, y/n I can explain”

“it’s fine you don’t need to you have your feelings I mean she still cheated on you that’s her fault, she could have talked to you about her emotions instead of going out and fucking some guy… so um who’s the girl who owns your heart.”

Wonwoo holds his breath you can tell he’s thinking hard and thinking for a while.

“I- it’s unimportant”

“Wonwoo you need to talk to me more you keep pushing me away. We’ve been friends forever i know you’re not the most comfortable all the time with me but you’ve always been able to tell me if something’s wrong, that’s why I’m here”

Wonwoo stands up off the bed.

“I can’t tell you this”

He tries to walk away but you grab ahold of his leg and wrap your arms and legs around his leg to hold him in place

“NO!!”

“y/n what are you doing”

“I’m not going to let you ignore me anymore i can’t we haven’t talked in months i won’t let you get away from me I won't let you shut me out again”

“This isn’t about that I'm not shutting you out i just can’t tell you this”

Wonwoo tries to get away from you grunting and struggling and dragging you while you still latched onto his leg. He try’s to take your hands off of his leg but he trips and falls over you, you lay beneath him his hands on opposite sides of you, you notice how flustered he got and heavy his breath became, you look at him in the eyes looking back and forth between each eye you two are so close you’ve never been this close to him you can see each line on his skin. You wrap your arms around his neck and wrap your legs around his waist clinging to him like a monkey.

“you’re insane what are you doing?”

“I’m not letting go till you tell me.

“fuck.”

“why is it so hard for you to open up” your voice is muffled since your face is pushed into his arm from clinging to him.

“I’ll tell you if you let go I can’t think the way you latched onto me”

“promise you won’t run away”

“Promise”

You let go and you’re beneath him again so you move out from under him and lean against the bed and he sits on the floor cris-crossed.

“so who is she? Is it someone I know? Is that why it’s so hard I promise I won't tell”

“y/n you’re so stupid”

“well that’s rude”

He bites his bottom lip and just stares at you.

“y/n… I like you, now please don’t say anything that you don’t mean because I’m only telling you since you’re relentless for an answer and I couldn’t lie, I know you don’t feel the same way and our friendship means so much to me truly”

You were shocked, this was the last thing you thought he was gonna say, but you were confused you’d never thought about him like… that but every time he was with that girl you were jealous and it made you think. He is an amazing person and he is everything you look for in a man… so why not him?

“okay but at least say something because now I’m nervous”

“I don’t know what to say Wonwoo. I love you I do, I've just never thought about being anything more than friends, it’s so cliché girls and guys can’t be friends i was always so focused on beating the stereotypes. But when you were with her I admit I was jealous. She got to see you in ways I’ve never seen you, she was taking you from me. But again that could be only platonic for me. I’m a little confused right now I need to think okay?”

You stand up and he stands up too, you give him a small hug then walk away. You go to your room to think. You stay up super late just thinking and thinking and thinking. And think some more you try and picture yourself with him what would it be like? Going on dates, holding hands, kissing… your face gets flushed just thinking about him like that. You think about doing more things with him what it would feel like to have your bodies together warm and sweaty in dark rooms, how he would touch you how his large frame would tower over you, it turns you on just thinking about him like that. You lock your door and crawl into bed pulling down your pj shorts and underwear circling your clit, you were so wet just thinking about him you place two of your fingers into yourself imagining him hey we’re Wonwoos imagining his large dominant hands you let out a moan without even realizing. If just thinking about him got you off this much you were sure you liked him more than just a friend. You needed him.

———————————————————————

It was the last week of school before winter break and so you were both cramming for exams you didn’t see each other till Friday night. He was in the kitchen making ramen when you got home he noticed you and smiled.

“want some?”

“yeah that would be great I’m starving”

You both eat in silence the only noise being the clinking of the chopsticks against the bowels. Till you clear your throat when you are finished.

“so, how were your finals?”

Wonwoo says breaking the silence.

“stressful but I think I did well”

“that’s good i think I did okay, so um we never talked about the break do we want to go home?”

“I was going to go down the 20th wait a bit, what were you thinking?”

It was strange being able to talk to him so normally after your last talk together you wanted to tell him so bad how you felt but you were scared what if the relationship doesn’t last will you be able to go back to how it used to be? You’re more than just friends now you live together. A breakup could ruin everything.

“y/n. you look lost in thought you didn’t answer my question”

“oh! Right, I was planning on going down the 17th, are you finished with your bowl?”

“yeah I'm done”

You take your bowl and his and walk over to the sink to wash them the room grows awkward the sense of waiting is present you can tell he is waiting for your answer. You finished washing the bowls and put them to the side, let out a small sign and turned around to face him.

“Wonwoo.”

“hmm?”

“I didn’t have to think too hard about my feelings for you, they were clear that I like you, you’re everything I’ve ever looked for in a man and more you’ve always been by my side but my only worry is this, how close we are right now. You’re my best friend, we’ve gone through so much together and I would never want to ruin what we have. We live together for fuck sake.”

All he does is grin and walk over to you.

“you like me?”

“didn’t you hear the rest of what I said this is something we need to seriously think about”

He walks closer to you and puts his hands on your waist.

“I’ve thought about it. Many times, all the time”

He slowly walks you to the back of the counter hands still on your waist. You’re heart is pounding his eyes are stern not his usual soft doe eyes they’re cat-like and focused you’ve never seen him like this, it was so hot.

“Wonwoo,” you say in a soft voice you don’t even know why you said his name maybe you weren’t sure if this was real or not.

“yeah?”

You don’t respond you can feel him getting close to you trapping your body beneath him one of his hands move from your waist onto the counter him peering down at you was so intimidating yet you felt safe.

“I want you to say it again but with more meaning, tell me how you feel”

Wonwoo was so close you could feel his breath as he spoke.

“I- Wonwoo I like you a lot”

“yeah?” he says with a smile then leaning in and kissing you softly and pulling away leaving you wanting more.

“you know, the night after our talk I heard this noise it was a little loud I wasn’t sure what it was though so I climbed down my loft and saw you were in your room when I heard the noise again”

His hand moves to the side of your neck grazing your chin with his thumb.

“do you want to tell me what you were doing or who you were thinking about while doing it?”

You bite your lip and look up at him and look away flushed feeling embarrassed.

“aw don’t be embarrassed baby I’m just sad I couldn’t help you. All you could do was think about me when I was just outside your room”

He leans in and whispers.

“your moans are so pretty, I bet they’re prettier when I’m fucking you for real though”

His voice was so deep and smooth it’s never like this it sounded like it was just melting. All you could do was stare at him and listen to him.

“cat caught your tongue?”

He goes into another kiss this time more passionate and possessive his hand still on your waist and the other on your neck his tongue meets your lips asking for permission to enter, and you give it to him. Your tongues intertwining with each other both getting desperate he pulls away and you whine at the sudden stop of contact. he only stops to take off his glasses and put them on the counter beside you then lifts you onto the counter grabbing ahold of your thigh and squeezing while going back into the kiss. You place your hand beneath his shirt and a groan from the back of his throat reacts to your touch. He moves your legs to either side of him so now he’s fully pressed up against you. You tug on his shirt wanting him to take it off, he pulls away again and takes off his shirt. When going back into the kiss he goes to your neck this time leaving soft wet kisses down your neck then takes off your sleep shirt, since it was your sleep shirt you didn’t have a bra on underneath. Wonwoo places his hand on your breast and softly brushes his thumb over your hard sensitive nipple, you moan quietly from his touch.

“so sensitive and we haven’t even gotten to the good part yet”

Both his hands are now on your thighs he strokes them up and down while what looks like he’s thinking.

“my bed? Or your bed?”

You’re still a little out of breath and you think for a moment.

“my bed is closer”

Wonwoo smiles picks you up off the counter and throws you over his shoulder as if you weigh nothing and walks into your bedroom gets onto your bed them places you down. You start to take off your shorts when he stops you.

“patience”

Is all he says before leaning down on top of you and kissing you again, your fingers slide into his hair slightly pulling each time he pinches your nipple. he leaves a kiss trail down your neck onto your stomach and the waistband of your shorts. he pulls them off and spreads your legs you suddenly feel very bare. He kisses your folds then slides his index and middle finger into you, a gasp leaves your lips while he slowly pumping them in and out.

“is this what I was doing when you were touching yourself thinking about me?”

“it’s better-“ is all you managed to get out before he picks up his pace fucking you with his fingers.

You notice the bulge in his pants while it slightly rubs against your leg while he continues to do wonders with his fingers, he slightly curls them hitting your G spot and causing you to moan.

“Wonwoo, take off your pants. I want to feel your dick inside me”

He pauses and grins taking his fingers out of you linking them clean and taking off his sweats along with his briefs, it was big and had girth, a drip of pre-cum on his tip, it’s not like you were a virgin you had a boyfriend your last two years of high school but this was different you’ve never wanted it this bad.

He pulls your legs closer to him and teases you, circling his tip around your hole.

“so wet for me princess”

He fully inserts himself into you starting off slow, one hand ahold of your leg while the other beside you keeping him up while he towers over you.

“fuck, you feel so good”

He picks up his pace leaning over you burying his face into your neck breathing heavily groaning and cursing under his breath every time you pull his hair. he goes even faster thrusting into you, and the sound of moaning, clapping, and bed squeaks filling the room, wonwoo was so desperate for you, your body’s were so close they were practically molding together.

“Wonu,” you say in between breaths “I’m close”

“me too princess, where do you want me to cum”

“in me….. I want you to cum in me”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m on the pill, I need you to fill me”

He smiles into your neck and bites down leaving a hickey, thrusting even faster than before a loud moan leaves your mouth as your walls clench around him cumming down his cock, he quickly cums right after you riding out his high fucking the cum right back into you. After pulling out he moves to the side of you, the room is hot and you are both sticky. You both lay on your bed panting.

“you can shower first,” Wonwoo says already standing.

You get up and give him a quick kiss on the cheek before walking out of your bedroom still fully naked and into the bathroom. You could feel his eyes on you until you were completely out of his sight.

The bathroom quickly steams up from the hot water and you hop in and start rinsing off your body, your eyes were closed you didn’t even notice the presence behind you until you felt soapy hands down your back. You jump at first and quickly turn around to face him.

“oh my god Wonwoo you scared me”

After the fear leaves you realize that Wonwoo is in the shower with you Wonwoo is in the shower with you…

“I didn’t mean to scare you, but I wasn’t quite done with you yet. I’ve waited so long for this I’m not waisting a second”

He grabs your chin and pulls you into a kiss this was rougher and more intense he was hungry for you, humming into the kiss, your bodies pressed together and you feel his cock harden instantly and pull away for a moment. Licking your lips you kiss his neck, putting your hands on his hips and walking him to the wall of the shower, you slick your hair back with the water before getting onto your knees in front of him. Kitten licking his tip before pulling your mouth over it you only take a third of him in sucking on his tip and stroking the rest with your hands.

“fuck y/n, you’re so hot”

His comment made you want to please him even more so you take in more of him a little over half bobbing your head slightly sucking, causing him to groan and tilt his head back. So you take even more, taking in all of him his tip hits the back of your throat causing you to gag, which causes him to groan even louder and grab your hair.

“Jesus fucking Christ y/n if you keep up with that I’m already gonna cum”

And so you do. Taking his full length down your throat, wonwoo holds the back of your hair slightly for support, his head is now fully tilted back against the shower wall you can tell he’s close so you pick up your pace a little bobbing up and down his cock.

“I’m gonna cum” Wonwoo says basically out of breath.

You go back to the third of it being in your mouth and jerk off his high with your hands while his seed spills into your mouth and down your throat. After taking his cock out of your mouth you stick out your tongue to show him that you swallowed, then you stand up keeping eye contact while licking your lips and the corners of your mouth making sure not to miss a single drop of him. You give him a small smile and go back to washing your body and hair while he’s still slightly leaning against the wall panting. He watches you finish showering and step out blowing him a kiss before leaving the bathroom, Wonwoo then finishes up his shower.

Once he finishes up and is all dressed he finds you lying on your stomach in bed on your phone. He jumps in and lays beside you.

“You changed the sheets”

“I had to…”

Wonwoo leans in and kisses you on the cheek.

“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?” Wonwoo says wrapping his arms around you.

“If you turn off the lights I'm too lazy”

Wonwoo quickly jumps up, turns off the lights and snuggles under the covers.

“We should go down the 20th,” you say getting beneath the covers.

“I fully one hundred percent agree,” Wonwoo says hugging you tightly.

“Goodnight Wonwoo.”

“Goodnight y/n”

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