Foreshadow ahead of me

everyone always told you that you had terrible luck. this applied to most things: friendships, competitions, meeting a friend’s parents, even.

but love? oh, love was where it stung. this was somehow more painful than everything else, because while you could flaunt at least one instance where a friendship didn’t explode in your face, or a parent actually liked you, or you won a gold star—you could never say you hit it off with a guy, ever.

perhaps the men of this generation were simply too terrible for this to ever be a matter of luck. it felt more like a rigged casino: every bet placed in good faith, every hand played carefully, and still you walked away lighter, bled dry all the same.

you weren’t desperate. no. far from it. you did everything right. you waited, chose the boys who made you feel safe instead of reckless, who offered steadiness instead of the dizzy thrill everyone else swore by. you could say, with a quiet sense of pride, that you followed the rules and played it by the book. hell, even after all that, every guy’s true colours somehow emerged victorious by the end of it: they just want sex, sex, or sex.

the truth was that deep down, you didn’t want anything to do with it. even if it was indeed the sexiest, biggest, smartest guy on campus… there was only one guy you set your sights on. just one, with the light brown hair and charming smile, shooting hoops at the basketball court by the cafeteria—lee heeseung.

though, the problem was simple: you’d never actually talked to the guy. this could’ve been easily solved if you shared even one class, but of course, he’d signed up late—every elective already full, while you, being the good student you are, had locked your choices in the moment the portal opened.

the second solution, proposed by oh jiwon herself, was rejected the instant it left her mouth. you were sprawled in her dorm room on a normal saturday night—you, legs spread indecently across the tiny couch she’d smuggled past security in first year, and her, upside down on the bed, hair brushing the floor.

“why don’t you just bump into him and knock all his books down?” she muttered, teeth chomping down on a stack of (probably) expired bbq-xtra-hot chips.

oh, heeeell no. what the fuck was this? a poorly produced drama plotline?

“was he born yesterday?”

the third option, though, felt a little more… dignified. it came to you on a random thursday evening, when the rain felt a little too heavy and you were wishing that lee heeseung would swoop in and hold a $5 umbrella over your heads.

replaying the events of the day in your head as your boots sloshed in muddy puddles, kim sunoo’s annoyingly pretty face comes into view.

“the fundraiser’s gonna be so busy this year, gosh…”

yes. indeed, it will.

the annual fundraiser organised by the student relations club. you remembered being ridiculously excited for it last year—around the same time you’d first started noticing heeseung. after some careful “asking around”, you’d learned he was attending, too. and, as if the universe was personally apologising to you for your tragic love life: he was trying his luck at the blind date booth.

what a sweet guy. donating his hard-earned money to charity and putting himself out there? he had your heart in his hands, and you came to understand that his was the target of many others.

so, it was obvious what had to be done. you signed up the moment sunoo—thank the angels for him—let the information slip. it’s nothing short of fate that you shared an elective with him; it took a bit of coaxing and more than a few judgmental looks, but by that sunny wednesday afternoon, good had prevailed in the world.

it’s safe to say you did not get lee heeseung as your date. instead, you endured a miserable twenty-minute speed dinner listening to a stranger ramble about his league rank. ou’d never been more thoroughly turned off in your life.

but this year?

this year, it will be different.

─────────────────────────

the house smells like weed and alcohol, and also everything that you should not be doing on a thursday night. you got the call from jiwon in the middle of your assignment, head half buried in your hands as the glow from the laptop screen burned your retinas—it’s twelve midnight now, and you have class in eight hours, but the impending sleep deprivation still beats handing in sloppy work.

the house belongs to the frat heeseung’s in. sigma alpha eta, if you remembered correctly. it’s three stories tall, tacky, and reeks of soju and everything wrong with the male species. you’re not even sure if the place ever gets cleaned, but considering it’s full of rich mama’s boys, they’ve probably hired someone to deal with the mess for them.

“what the fuck is going on?”

oh jiwon’s staring at you like you’re the one who dragged her here. you scan the room for no one in particular (lie), and when you turn back—

she’s gone.

“who’s ready to party?!”

the dj is embarrassingly bad. like, physically painful to listen to. the bass is cranked up so high it rattles the floorboards, vibrating straight through your bones. you cringe, already picturing the culprit: some frat guy who bought a $100 mixing set off amazon last week and now calls himself “up and coming”.

everyone you know seems to be here. you’d brushed shoulders with ahn yunjin and danielle on the way in, only to watch them dart toward the porch with a joint already lit.

you snake your way through narrow hallways packed wall-to-wall—overlapping conversations, smoke blown straight into your face, bodies pressing in from every side as you aim for the kitchen. instead, you stumble into the living room. leather couches are occupied by unconscious adults—drunk, high, or some lethal combination of both—bathed in warm overhead light that all but promises brutal hangovers tomorrow.

it seems like the party started long before you got here. where the hell did your jiwon go, anyway?

your feet start to move again, carrying you mindlessly through the first floor—you cross the hallway, take a turn into another doorway, and finally stumble upon the kitchen; it’s less crowded, with fewer drunk people and comparably quiet in contrast to whatever’s waiting for you outside the threshold of that door. your eyes are hesitant, oddly enough, though you know why.

parties like this usually mean hookups. and when hookups are involved, lee heeseung is the first name that comes to mind. the guy’s practically a walking target—especially in his own frat house, swarming with every girl who’s been blessed enough to know the name.

this whole situation feels like a ticking time bomb. your chest tightens. how long before someone else gets to him? how long before you turn a corner and see his face buried in someone else’s neck? 10 minutes? 10 seconds?

“hellooooo!”

and as fast as the thoughts come, they go; head snapping toward the sound, locking onto oh fucking jiwon—standing there, smiling innocently, as if she hadn’t abandoned you to die in the crowd.

“where the fuck have you been?” you sigh, hands running through your hair, like you’d just spent a whole day looking for her. to be fair, time moves weirdly in places like this.

“refilling!” she hiccups. “see?” she tips her red cup to show a dubious mix of jack and coke.

she’s tipsy—no surprise there. jiwon’s always been a lightweight. still, she manages to wobble over and hop onto the marble island, scooting back until her legs dangle comfortably. she looks down at you with glassy, sparkly eyes.

“sooo… heeseung’s place, huh? didn’t know their frat was so fancy. they literally have wine older than my grandparents in here.”

you roll your eyes and drag a stool out from under the island. it screeches against the tile, making you wince, before you climb up onto it.

“you’ve been snooping in their alcohol?” you giggle, shaking your head in mock disapproval. you’ll have to look through it later, too. “you’re a shit guest.”

“guest is always right!” jiwon babbles, before abruptly sneezing. the action makes you flinch. “oh… sorry. anyways,”

you cross your arms, waiting. she’s halfway to blackout, but you humor her anyway.

“fundraiser!” she slurs. “heeseung’s in the pantry. think he’s lookin’ for chips. i dunno. he was with sunghoon, and then i ran into him while lookin’ for more soju—”

and it’s like the universe wants to show you how much it wants you to stay in this lifetime, as a form of divine mercy, or something similar to an apology, because lee heeseung slides the pantry door open and waltzes right out with chips tucked under his armpit, as he munches on something else. your eyes follow him, and so does everyone else’s, and naturally they trail towards the slightly shorter man behind him.

park sunghoon. the guy with the ridiculously sharp, thick eyebrows, a staring problem, and close to half of the campus’s female population wanting to lick his boots. there’s often two responses to the question ‘who’s the cutest guy on campus’, and many of your peers often utter one or the other: heeseung, or his colder counterpart, sunghoon.

you took an economics class with him last year, and thank god you didn’t hit the lottery and end up in the same group, because you’d heard… things. too many things. stories about him tearing into a girl’s work so viciously, she had to beg the professor to let her switch groups with sunoo (it’s strange, how he seemed to be in almost every class you took, now that you think about it).

you’d never talked to him, or anyone from that little group, really, aside from kim sunoo. you knew sim jaeyun was popular over in the engineering block; all brains and good looks, apparently. nishimura riki was another name you heard in passing—always surrounded by a crowd whenever he danced with his crew in some random corner with a giant mirror. as for jongseong and jungwon… you didn’t even want to think about the things people said. absolutely vile in nature.

it seems like the whole lot of them were heartthrobs, in every sense of the word.

it’s just… park sunghoon?

that guy didn’t deserve half the glowing reviews he got.

you were half convinced that if people had star ratings floating above their heads—complete with scrollable comments—he’d be inflating his own with burner emails.

park sunghoon. 5 stars. wow, this guy is sooooo hot and rich! — nothoon12345. he just looked like the kind of guy who did that kind of thing.

okay, maybe you were being a little harsh, considering you’d never actually spoken to him. still, it felt telling when even other men talked shit about him: apparently being both the most disliked and the most respected player on the ice hockey team was impressive enough to land him the captain title.

he walks a few steps behind heeseung, his own bag of chips in hand. you don’t realise you’re staring until his gaze snaps towards you as he passes—a look equal parts smug, disgusted, and painfully punchable.

“what the hell is that guy’s issue?”

“stop looking at him,” jiwon waves you off, swinging her feet. her heel accidentally thuds against the wood. “heeseung's right there.”

your eyes flick back to heeseung, now hovering near the front door, greeting the flood of people streaming in—tonight’s barely started, but somehow, you feel ten times heavier than when you walked in.

lee heeseung, leaning casually against the wall, all perfect teeth, perfect hair, perfectly charming face… and park sunghoon, just a step behind him, stiff, scanning the crowd until his gaze finally locks on you.

before you can tear your eyes away, he cocks his head and gives you a smile—all mockery, all challenge, like he just told a joke you’d never understand. you shift your weight on the stool, cross one leg over the other, but your eyes stay zeroed on him.

“i don’t like that sunghoon guy,” you mutter, dragging a hand through your hair and pretending to look elsewhere.

oh jiwon rolls her eyes, snorts, and leans her weight back on the counter. “you’d be surprised how many people wanna get in his pants—”

“don’t. talk. to. me. about. park. sunghoon’s. pants.” you snap, stabbing a finger toward her chest for emphasis—she giggles at the action, and you do, too. though your eyes flick back, just once, toward where he was.

but when you do, he’s gone. no sunghoon, no heeseung. just the occasional partygoer opening and closing doors, the sound barely registering to your ears through the shitty music.

“how have you not drank anything yet?”

“i literally just got here!”

────────────────────────

it’s one in the morning, and the party seems to be at it’s peak—there’s no one else coming through the front door, and it’s more packed than you could imagine; you’re leaning against the staircase with a cup swirling in your hands, only having taken two sips out of it. jiwon’s still next to you, chatting to a guy you’ve never seen before.

you look at him, then at her. unimpressive, if anything. you’re turning to look at your cup again and the feeling hits, sudden and sharp as it claws at your chest: you feel extremely out of place, even in a house full of people and possibility. people shove their way past you and you hold your cup tight to your chest as it happens. you barely hear anything with the laughter, chatter, and music all at once.

your eyes drift toward the window—yunjin’s with someone else; danielle must’ve left earlier. you scan the room again, half-heartedly looking for a familiar face to talk to—sunoo, maybe, even if the guy doesn’t really think you’re normal. or for park sunghoon, perhaps for some explanation as to why he’d looked at you like that earlier.

“looking for hee?”

that voice. too close. it sends shivers down your spine, every hair standing before your neck snaps to your left—jiwon’s gone, and so is that guy, instead replaced by a girl you know all too well.

she’s smiling at you with her lips curled in a way that makes your stomach drop—unsettling by its very nature. the lights strobe across her face, red and white, purple and blue, painting her in something eerie as her expression lingers, sharp and all-knowing.

“what the fuck do you want?”

she laughs softly, hands coming up to her face to cover her mouth like she’s some gentle, kind creature that’s come to save the day. kim sooha’s always been like that. ever since high school, ever since you’ve been bestowed the honour of knowing how ruthless she gets when she wants to be.

her hair falls over her face before she moves to tuck it behind her ear.

god, you want to slap her. some things never change, no matter how many years pass.

“you need to learn how to relax. you’ve been staring all night,” she sighs, leaning her back against the wall as she talks—like you two are friends, always have been—and that this is the most normal conversation ever. “you’re definitely looking for heeseung, aren’t you? i got a shortcut, if you’re interested.”

you don’t answer. you’ve learnt it’s best to shut your mouth instead of lie, because with girls like sooha, the snake always bites first.

your mind flashes, briefly, to the image of him again: light brown hair falling over his face, his genuine smile as people poured in from the front door, eyes squinting as he spots a good friend from a few feet away. your eyes had never truly left him, until you caught park sunghoon staring daggers at you right behind.

and, strangely, it’s never found him again since.

“listen, i have his number—it’ll save you a looot of trouble.”

you don’t realise you’ve turned away from her until you glance back. her smile widens as you meet her eyes—glinting with something dangerous, like this isn’t truly all there is to her offer.

kim sooha is not about goodwill and donating to charities. the charity would have to return her 110% before she could ever consider doing so; in this case, the charity seems to be you.

“what do you want?”

and it feels like you’ve just sold your soul to the damn devil with how bright her face gets. like a child on christmas morning, unwrapping a brand new toy. well—you suppose you’re a toy, too, in this.

she reaches into the back pocket of her jeans, the jingle of her phone charm barely cutting through the kendrick lamar song that’s causing the floor to vibrate. you wonder how long until someone calls the cops on this place—it’s too loud, too much, and you don’t even want to think about what the second and third floor looks like right now.

“one click, and i’ll send it to you.”

you scoff, breaking the eye contact to take a sip of the peach soju in your hands. you almost roll your eyes before remembering that this was sooha you were getting in bed with—one wrong move, and she’s retracting, and you’ll be left to awkward waves and stuttered hello’s at the fundraiser three months from now.

“my jacket’s upstairs, and i need you to get it.”

if you weren’t confused before, you definitely are now.

“your fucking jacket?” you repeat, and it almost comes out as a laugh. she doesn’t think it’s funny, though, because she’s quick to fire back a response:

“i don’t want to bump into whoever you’re gonna bump into. not in the mood. consider it a gift from me,” she pokes a finger at your collarbone, “to you.”

you flinch, her sharp nail making you stumble back, just a little. her eyebrows raise as you tilt your head towards the stairs, watching you glance up and towards the flight of stairs above your heads—there’s people moving up and down, and it just doesn’t click—why not someone else?

“so… are you doing it? don’t have time to sleep on—“

you chew on the lining of your cheek. something isn’t right. she’s looking at you like she doesn’t care if her jacket actually makes it back to her—all that matters is that you fall into whatever she’s setting up.

“fine. keep your fucking word when i get back down here.”

the smile that spreads across her face makes your heart drop straight to your ass. you don’t like this—not the feeling of being a step behind, not the way it feels like she’s holding something over you.

but… like she said. it’s not as if you have a whole day to sit on your ass and think it through.

“you should know by now. i always do,” she sings, voice lilting and smug, watching as you turn away and head for the stairs. “thank you, dear [name].”

you pause at the bottom, fingers curling tighter around your cup as you glance upward. bodies move through the hallways above—laughing, stumbling, disappearing into rooms that smell like sweat, alcohol and poor decisions. the music thumps faintly through the walls, distorted here, like a heartbeat that doesn’t belong to you.

your head feels light, almost dizzy, but you go anyway. one step. then another. your shoes stick slightly to the floor as you climb, each step feeling heavier than the last.

“this yours?”

your head cocks up, eyes locking onto a familiar face—park sunghoon, standing at the top of the staircase, with a leather jacket haphazardly folded into his hands. it looks expensive when it’s under this kind of light, and knowing sooha, it probably is.

“yup,” you say, the word coming out more clipped than you intend. reluctant, wary—but who the hell could blame you? the guy who’s been staring all psycho and weird, treating you like an out-of-earth entity is holding onto the one thing you need to finish this amazing deal. “thank you!”

he’s tall. towering. with you two steps below him, he’s giving himself a stiff neck just looking at you. his face gives nothing away—not surprise, barely any curiosity, perhaps slight irritation. more than anything, there’s that unreadable calm, like he’s not only three steps ahead of whatever this is, but also skies above it.

your arms reach out to grab it from him, but sunghoon’s quick to retract his hand. he dangles it in front of you, an eyebrow raised, still staring as if you were some kind of odd specimen—you blink a few times, waiting for him to say something, anything.

“i’d watch out if i were you.”

his voice is low, nearly lost beneath the bass thudding through the floor below. it’s flat enough that it barely registers as a voice at all.

but just why the hell is he telling you this? park sunghoon’s talking like he knows kim sooha personally.

really, if you had to pick between the two of you… you’d have to consider yourself the expert.

“o… kay?” you mouth, the word barely audible over the bass thrumming through the walls.

for a moment longer, he just looks at you, then lowers the jacket into your hands. you don’t manage to thank him, because you’re turning around before you can even utter another word.

nothing else matters right now. you’re praying that by the time you reach the bottom of the stairs, sooha will be there—phone in hand, ready to send those digits your way, just like she promised.

though, even if she isn’t, you’re not entirely sure what you’d do about it. there’s no backup plan. you’re definitely not asking sunoo—because you’re not an idiot with a weird obsession with lee heeseung (lie), and you’re not that desperate to talk to him (lie), enough to corner one of his closest friends and expose yourself completely (truth).

well… you guess you’ve already done so by poking around about the fundraiser, but his number is crossing the line. apparently.

you square your shoulders and keep walking, clinging to the thought that this will all be worth it once lee heeseung’s finally a button away, instead of thirty meters and 6 men apart.

“you’re quick with it,” sooha yells over the song playing, now a remix of some chainsmokers single. roses, a classic, which also means people are starting to get oddly energetic despite it reaching two in the morning.

you watch her eyes flick down to her phone, the screen lighting up her face as she brings it to her chest—typing, swiping, pausing just long enough to be irritating—until your own phone vibrates against the back pocket of your shorts.

“thanks a bunch, y/n.” she says lightly. “always so obedient.”

your jaw tightens. you don’t bother responding—just thrust the jacket into her abdomen, harder than necessary. kim sooha doesn’t take it personally, she never does. the flare of your nostrils, the way your fingers curl like you’re holding yourself back—that’s more than enough to make her night.

a sweet, disingenuous smile blooms across your face, as if to say: ‘no problem, bitch.’

she slips past you, shoulders barely brushing, already headed for the front door. just before she disappears, you catch it—the smudged eyeshadow, the eyeliner dragged unevenly beneath her eyes, foundation streaked down her cheeks like she hasn’t bothered to check herself in a mirror.

for a fraction of a second, you find yourself worrying—for her, and for yourself. you’ve never once seen sooha with makeup this (for lack of a better word) bad; she’s always immaculate, flawless, even if that bruises your ego to admit out loud.

which means there are only two possibilities: she’s just fucked someone and realised, far too late, what a mistake it was—or her heart has just been torn into a million tiny, irreparable pieces.

you don’t take much time to dwell on it, before you tear your eyes away from sooha’s figure slowly fading into the distance. her boots clack against the concrete pavement before it comes to a stop, and for a moment, she just stands—until a car pulls up and she ducks her head to fit into it.

what the hell was that?

the front door slams shut from someone else pulling it closed, the sound cutting clean through the music, and your head turns instinctively toward the staircase.

park sunghoon.

the second floor is quieter, stripped of the flashing colours and strobe lights below. in that softer, warmer glow, park sunghoon comes sharply into focus.

he’s leaning over the railing, forearms bearing his weight. an empty soju bottle hangs loosely from his hand, head bowed, expression obscured by shadow—almost like he’s staring straight down at you.

he’s annoyingly gorgeous. his side profile is so lethal that you think if not for his shitty attitude and tendency to stare at everyone sideways, he’d be a model.

you catch yourself wishing he’d just fuck off and do that instead.

your breath catches in your throat. you’re not really sure why—but your body makes the decisions for you tonight, thoughts of sunghoon quickly dissolving as fast as they invaded, feet carrying you toward the front door.

sleek wood and cold metal doorknobs in all their unassuming glory. it’s an exit. a way out of the noise, the lights, and the man upstairs who feels far too aware of your existence.

you move. fluid, deliberate, like this was always the plan.

sunghoon’s gaze tracks you as you slip through the crowd, hair brushing shoulders, bodies pressing in too close. the lights repaint you with every step—pink, purple, red—until you glance back once, just for a second, and the colours smear into something unreadable.

when you finally cross the threshold of the front door, your body is hit with cold wind; unsurprisingly, there’s scattered groups of people across the front yard, smoking and drinking in their quiet bubbles. you inhale the relatively cleaner air, deep, slow, until it settles in your lungs and you’re spared from the remnants of vape flavours and fruity alcohol.

the music dulls behind you, but the vibrations still reach your feet nonetheless.

you sigh, a hand dragging through your hair, before you make your way towards a stone pillar, only to lean your weight against it. you didn’t realise how quiet it could be, after almost two hours in that god forsaken party—the quiet chatter doesn’t make your head spin out here and the occasional laugh isn’t as annoying as the screams inside.

that’s when you see him.

lee heeseung—smoking—with that guy from engineering. jake sim.

the cigarette is pinched between his fingers, and he takes slow drags like it’s the only thing anchoring him to this messy, overgrown scene. jake’s rambling beside him, hands flying as he retells some story you can’t hear, and heeseung just nods along, offering the occasional laugh that reassures his friend that he finds it equally as funny.

everything feels slowed down. time is suspended. his hair slips into his eyes, and every now and then he shakes his head, a small, unconscious motion to clear his vision.

this is kind of creepy. you’re watching lee heeseung smoke at two in the morning from his front porch. you, a year ago, wouldn’t have believed this even if someone swore on it.

okay. that’s enough. you’re leaving—immediately.

but not before you bring your phone to your face—the blue light stings, almost burns your retinas. you blink hard once, twice, until the haze clears. your thumb swipes into your messages.

kim sooha has kept her word.

sooha (do not reply): +82-xx-xxxx-xxxx 01:53

sooha (do not reply): enjoy yourself! <3 01:53

bitch.

you add the contact while lee heeseung is still laughing in your peripheral vision, smoke curling into the dark, completely unaware that—through totally legitimate and ethical means—he’s now a button away.

─────────────────────────

park sunghoon was not interested in love.

this was, somehow, a known fact across campus.

anyone could guess by that stoic look on his face and that gigantic duffle bag he drags around everywhere, that the man couldn’t be paid a million dollars to be locked down—that’s what so little time and too many (non-romantic) commitments does to you.

mondays were the gym. tuesdays, practice. wednesdays, rest. thursdays, practice again. fridays, the gym, and a night run. saturdays and sundays, practice too. he was surprised he even had time to fit kim sooha into his schedule, though, it was not as often as she preferred.

okay, he admits it was just sex—but an hour or two once or twice a week was already cutting it close.

sunghoon was an ex-figure skater turned ice hockey player, so it was clear what the future held for him: he’s talented, rich, disciplined, a genius—the world was his oyster. everyone around him was in his court.

who would he be if he let someone make the rules for him?

you see: park sunghoon couldn’t be bothered with the girls throwing themselves at him, or the ones who acted shy. in his eyes, it all ended the same.

they wanted more. he couldn’t give more. he didn’t want to give more.

kim sooha was no different. of course she wasn’t—park sunghoon couldn’t deny it, because she fit the stereotype of every girl who’d ever wanted him: bashful, a little self-deprecating, and far too clingy.

at least he had been decent enough to tell her that sex was all it would ever be, and all he could afford to give. but what do you know (park sunghoon always knows), someone ends up wanting more.

the night of the party, around ten, sunghoon found himself holed up in his bedroom trying to finish up a paper before the house had started swarming with people. one moment he’s typing, fingers mashing away at his keyboard as the words flow flawlessly, perfectly, and his mind occasionally drifts to the grade he’d get for this assignment. nothing less than 100, of course. he wouldn’t expect anything less from himself.

“hoon!”

and his genius flow is disrupted by none other than jake, peeking his head from behind the doorway, with an idiotic smile painted across his glowing face.

“what do you want?” sunghoon mutters, head turning back to the screen of his laptop. jake sim’s prsesence usually meant the message wasn’t all that important—if it was, it’d be jungwon up here instead. “i’m busy.”

“sooha’s here,” he says. “she wants to see you.”

sunghoon kisses his teeth in annoyance, solely out of instinct, an action which jake pretends not to notice. it only irritates sunghoon even more, really—he’d rather jake just be honest with him, instead of pretending to be polite just for the sake of being polite. he knows better than anyone that all of his brothers hate when kim sooha is around, and that hiding it won’t convince park sunghoon otherwise.

for varying reasons.

he recalls that one dinner two weeks ago, when jay told sunghoon to ‘do a better job at shutting sooha up’. he could barely eat the rest of his food.

“please don’t send her up here. i’ll be downstairs soon,” and jake is almost ready to turn his pretty face right around and back downstairs to help set up the speakers, before sunghoon asks: “why is she even here?”

“hey, you’re the one fucking her, man.” jake shrugs, before he turns around for the final time. sunghoon’s face morphs into one of disgust, weirdly fast, even though the statement isn’t exactly false—still, it doesn’t stop him from wanting to crawl into a hole and die.

there’s something wrong with him. he can’t deny the sex was good, and yes, kim sooha was gorgeous… but commitment? staying? forever? that was different.

he remembers when yang jungwon had a girlfriend. those were not good times. definitely. the guy refused to leave his bedroom for two days after they broke it off—and sunghoon, as much as he cared for poor jungwon, couldn’t stop thinking about how two days meant two lifetimes of missed productivity.

just how much of an asshole could he be?

so, that’s precisely why he settles for sex. a dopamine hit to get himself off edge, so he’s ready to stretch himself thin all over again.

lee heeseung says it’s not healthy, but what the hell would he know? he’s too busy drowning in love letters, home-baked cookies, and instagram requests to understand why this is the best option out of any presented to him. the golden boy doesn’t know what he’s talking about—the only reason he even bothers giving advice is because of the one, maybe two girlfriends he had in first year, which he seems to think qualifies him as an expert in sweet, innocent, and healthy love.

park sunghoon doesn’t even have instagram. it’s a waste of time.

why the fuck doesn’t he get cookies, anyway? why don’t girls approach him just to talk, instead of trying to grind on his crotch at parties? why doesn’t he have someone sweet and steady, sitting in the stands and watching his games—wiping his tears when he plays like shit, or being the first one he looks for when he scores an amazing shot?

never mind the way he takes their hand and leads them upstairs. never mind how easily he leans into a stranger’s touch and lets himself pretend it means something. never mind that he’s learned to let names slip past him, unheard, while his gaze drifts instead to the shape of their lips.

never mind all of it.

he tells himself it’s circumstantial—something inevitable, something learnt. that he would be different, could be different, if the world around him didn’t demand this version of him in return.

lee heeseung gets to commit. he gets to feel it all—the highs, the warmth, the quiet safety of having someone stay, and he makes it out unscathed, unhurt. he gets to ground himself in knowing that she won’t walk out of that door when shit hits the fan, too—fuck, he doesn’t know anything at all.

footsteps thud from the hallway, but he knows it’s just jay and riki shifting furniture around—boards scraping, chairs sliding—enough to rattle the plaster on the walls. jake’s voice cuts through the mess, yelling at heeseung to find the extra loud speakers jungwon had “borrowed” for his own use. somewhere upstairs, sunoo’s probably napping, blissfully unaware of the chaos below.

sunghoon doesn’t mind. five people are more than enough to handle party prep, and he refuses to be dragged into it. the music, the clatter, the erratic shouts—it all feels like someone else’s life, a background noise he doesn’t need to claim.

instead, up here, he can focus on what matters: finishing his paper, keeping his head down, staying untangled in this mess that’s about to spill over the entire house in about an hour.

he leans back against the leather of his chair, shoulders finally relaxing, and lets his gaze wander over the room. the house smells like air freshener, a somewhat helpful idea proposed by riki, but the sharp tang in his nose makes him grit his teeth.

for the first time that evening, he almost smiles at the absurdity of it all, the chaos of his brothers trying to pull off another last-minute party. he knows it’ll all work out fine, and that this will be the talk of campus until it fizzles out in two weeks, but it’s still ridiculous how these people never learn to plan ahead.

he remembers the last party sigma alpha eta threw—someone broke a table, then went swimming naked in the pool. safe to say, jake and him had to track the culprit down the next morning and demand the funds to get it cleaned.

“hoonie?”

a soft click from the front door snaps him out of his thoughts.

he knows exactly who it is.

kim sooha. standing by the dark frame of his door, dressed in something that would’ve had him weak in the knees if he was some random horny loser—skirt smooth, tight against her skin, a leather jacket framing her small body. it’s too bad that he doesn’t give two shits, though.

“you’ve been avoiding me,” she announces, voice sharp yet playful, as if she owns the room that sunghoon’s made his. it irks him.

she leans against the doorframe, one hip jutting out, arms crossed with a face so smug that it makes him want to flip her off. “so, i came early. just to… check in.”

he looks back at the screen of his laptop, bright blue light shining in his face, and barely moves another muscle. “you know where the rules stand. i’m busy.”

“hoonie—“

“told you to stop calling me that.” sunghoon cuts her off, “i don’t need you checking on me, thanks. party’s not starting for another hour. maybe you can help them prep?”

the words land like a slap. sooha’s jaw tightens, but she forces a smile, refusing to let him see the way it stings.

she steps closer anyway, as if proximity can wear him down, break the walls that are already hardening—or climb over whatever’s already there.

“come on. it doesn’t have to be like this.” she tilts her head, letting her hair fall over one shoulder, “i’ve been asking you for weeks, hoon. i’ve always wanted—”

“no.” sunghoon exhales, forcefully slow, as if that’ll help him calm down. “i’ve been saying the same shit for weeks. you’re pushing me.”

she takes two steps closer, heels tapping against the shiny wood floor. the space between them closes as she leans over his desk, shadow casting over the dark oak. he feels like slamming his head into it—the bruise would be less painful than this, the sharp smell of her fruity perfume that sunghoon never bothered to register, but hates anyway now that it finally has.

he never thought he’d have to tell her that he hates the notes of citrus. it didn’t matter if she never stayed long enough to get the words out.

“hoonie,” sooha mumbles, hands bracing the surface of his table. “i thought we were getting somewhere.”

“even after i told you we weren’t?” sunghoon shifts his chair backwards, widening the gap just so he could feel like he wasn’t going to choke at the smell of her perfume. “know what? i’m done. can’t fucking draw any lines with you—“

“that’s it? we’re just—“

sunghoon’s jaw tightens, and he leans back slightly in his chair. “i said it was just sex. nothing more. if you’re begging for a hug and some kisses, go somewhere else.”

the silence hangs in the air, thick, impenetrable. for a minute, sunghoon wonders if he’s gone too far—sooha’s face falters, her sultry smile now replaced by lips that tremble before her teeth bite down on them. she nods once, slow, looking at park sunghoon like he’s driven a ten-foot pole straight through her chest, twisted it, and ripped it back out.

his eyes flick from his laptop screen to her irises. if one thing’s admirable about park sunghoon, is that if he was going to tear you to pieces, he’ll have the decency to look you in the eye.

at least, for that final word. it’s about as much emotion as he can manage.

“get out.”

so she does—nods slow, before turning on her heel, the sharp click of her shoes echoing once, twice, until it fades down the hallway.

the door shuts behind her with a quiet finality. sunghoon doesn’t watch it close.

the smell of sooha’s perfume lingers in the air, unwanted, and he feels petty for even trying to block it out. after all, they’ve shared a bed before, even if they skipped every prerequisite to get there—but it rarely ever felt worth it to him, if at all.

he’s had his fair share of women. he’s always prided himself on being honest about what he wants—in his mind, there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as everyone’s on the same page.

no promises, no expectations, yet it always ends the same way. someone always reaches for more pieces of him than he’s willing—or able—to give. pieces that have were never there to begin with.

jake tells him he’s lucky. says it with a laugh, like sunghoon should be grateful for the attention, the bodies, the ease of it all. heeseung tries to offer half-assed couch therapy, something about “opening up” and “not shutting people out,” advice sunghoon knows was pulled straight out of his ass—or worse, his tiktok feed.

god, if he wanted someone to tell him what was wrong with him, he’d just pay someone with a degree five hundred a session to do just that.

park sunghoon is not interested in love. park sunghoon is not interested in love. park sunghoon is not. interested. in. love.

it’s inefficient—unstructured, demanding, and prone to spilling into places it doesn’t belong. it asks for time he doesn’t have, space he’s already accounted for, pieces of him that are scheduled, measured, calculated and spent elsewhere, where it should be.

he repeats it like a mantra: no one is looking at him and realizing he’s absent more than he’s present—because sooner or later, they always want more, and he’s learnt that it’s better to draw the line early than to watch disappointment set in later.

this is mercy.

but to whom, he can’t answer.

─────────────────────────

you’re not very sure where you’re going with this.

there’s a list of problems so long it could double as a grocery store receipt:

one) how do you even explain that you got lee heeseung’s number, and

two) what excuse do you have to actually talk to him?

still, you’re laid in bed, the glow from your screen washing your face in harsh white light, painting the ceiling in sharp rectangles. your eyes squint, blinking against the burn, as if staring long enough might make this whole thing less terrifying.

it’s nearing four in the morning, and you’re fairly certain the party has been over for hours—probably everyone has stumbled home or collapsed on some couch somewhere, except for you, hovering in your room like a guilty ghost.

okay, no. these are excuses, and this is you overthinking, twisting your brain into knots. once you finally text that damn number kim sooha “gifted” you—reluctantly, no less—you’ll either regret it or… regret it. either way, there’s no turning back.

you: hiiiii

creep.

you: hi

ominous…

you: is this heeseung?

too direct.

this isn’t working. your thumb hovers over the screen, trembling slightly, and the numbers stare back at you like a puzzle you’re too tired to solve. maybe, if you stare long enough, they’ll rearrange themselves into an opening line that isn’t mortifying.

though, instead of the numbers moving, your thumb does.

“shit. shit, shit, shit—“

oh, yes, your butter fingers saved you the trouble of texting him: why don’t you just fucking call him, instead? like that’s so much better, real smooth of you.

riiing. riiing. riiing.

you barely have time to process before the line goes quiet.

the silence swallows you whole—your ears ring with it. it’s the kind of quiet that makes you question if you’ve suddenly lost all ability to hear.

oh my god. this is hell. you’re either died, or the world has ended, or some black hole just opened up in your room, because it’s too silent for it to be even remotely normal.

“hello?”

the voice on the other end of the line sounds sharp, clipped, like you’ve interrupted something important—or worse, like you’ve woken him up.

you can’t even fault him for it. it’s four in the morning, after the biggest party this term, and you’re an unknown number calling like you’ve lost your damn mind. still, it makes your heart twist a little.

“who is this?”

it’s not rude… not exactly. still, something in your chest sinks because you know what that tone usually means.

you have, roughly, three seconds to justify your existence before lee heeseung hangs up and you become another embarrassing almost in your own head.

maybe one.

“hi,” you mumble, and somehow almost stutter—if that’s even possible over the phone, with a single word—it comes out thin, fragile, and utterly useless.

the line goes quiet again, and you genuinely consider slamming your head into the wall just to feel something else other than the tiny voices evil-laughing in your head. “heeseung, right?”

more damn silence.

not the dead-line kind. it’s worse. it’s the thinking kind.

you picture him on the other end, phone held away from his ear, brow furrowed as he debates whether this is worth his time. unknown caller. 4 in the morning. zero context. and it’s some girl who can’t even say ‘hi’ right.

if you were him, you’d hang up. you’d block the number, move on, this becoming nothing but a blip in your already eventful life.

your grip tightens around your phone. “i—sorry,” you rush out, words tumbling over each other now that the dam’s broken. “this is probably really weird, i know. i wouldn’t usually call, i swear. i just—i got your number earlier and—”

“earlier?” he cuts in.

there’s something in his voice now—not annoyance. interest, maybe. a sprinkle of curiosity edged with suspicion that you weren’t exactly authorized to clear.

your pulse stutters. you should’ve consulted with jiwon before doing something as stupid as this—or sunoo. hell, even the neighbour next door. anyone would’ve been better than diving into this unprepared.

“yeah. tonight, at the party.” you say quickly, like saying it fast will make it make more sense. lee heeseung, pleaaaase be hungover. just this once. “you hosted, right? sigma alpha eta?”

“riiight,” he says slowly, like he’s testing the word on his tongue. “and who gave you my number?”

your stomach drops.

shit.

“uh,” you hesitate, immediately regretting it.

lying feels wrong. lying is wrong, actually, according to everyone ever—but the truth feels… way messier.

you weren’t going to hang kim sooha to dry—who knows what she’ll do to you? you can’t risk heeseung finding out the lengths you went to for some digits. besides, you practically played fetch with her.

“a friend,” you say finally, wearing a prideful grin on your face, as if anyone couldn’t have come up with that ridiculous excuse. “yep.”

“a friend,” he repeats, flatly, like he doesn’t believe a single thing coming out of your mouth. “what friend?”

you squeeze your eyes shut. god, this is going terribly. divert!

“look, if this is a bad time, i can hang up. i really didn’t mean to bother you, i just—”

“you already are,” he says, but there’s something off about it. his tired voice crackles, but it barely sounds angry. almost amused in nature.

you blink. “oh.”

there’s a heavy breath on the other end. you can hear it clearly, like he’s shifted positions, maybe sitting up now, or turning over in bed. definitely more awake than he was a minute ago.

gosh. you’re imagining bed-hair heeseung now. this isn’t good.

“you usually call people you don’t know at four in the morning?” he asks.

“no,” you respond immediately. “never. absolutely not. this is a first and hopefully, a last.”

that gets him—you can tell, even without seeing him. there’s a soft huff through the speaker, not quite a laugh, but close enough to make your chest flutter traitorously.

“so, i’m the trial run?”

you hesitate, then answer honestly, because at this point, what do you have left to lose? your dignity that’s already been thrown out the window and run over by a car?

“i wanted to talk to you.”

another pause. this one lingers, stretching just long enough to make your fingers tingle around your phone. strangely, it comforts you, the idea that he might hang up—that this could end cleanly right here, because you’ve (smartly, or accidentally) yet to tell him your name.

he’ll never have to know if he just—

“yeah?” he says, quieter now.

“yeah,” you echo, barely above a whisper.

something shifts. you can feel it, even through the line—the way he’s genuinely listening now, leaning into every word instead of brushing you off. your heart flutters, warmth blooming from somewhere in your chest (you can’t pinpoint it), and lee heeseung seems to be at the center of it all.

“well,” he says finally, voice way smoother now, like he’s got all the time in the world to offer you. “you’ve got my attention.”

“i do?” you ask, genuinely amazed by yourself. “you’re not hanging up?”

“do you want me to?”

“no,” the word slips out before you can stop it—soft, a little too quick, and much too honest to take back.

for a beat, there’s nothing, then a breath on the other end of the line—slow, deep—followed by a low sound that might be a laugh, or might just be him exhaling tension.

“yeah,” he murmurs. “i thought so.”

you roll onto your side, sheets whispering against your skin. the ceiling blurs above you, white and featureless, while the rest of the world stays asleep—unaware that something small yet irreversible is happening at four in the morning, right in this room, in your hands.

“so,” he says, “why’d you really call?”

your fingers tighten around your phone. your phone peels away from your cheek, and for a brief moment, you just stare at the glow of the screen, at his contact—*heeseung lee—*like it might blow up if you lie.

“well,” you mumble, chewing on the lining of your cheek. “i just wanted to introduce myself.”

“ah,” he says. there’s movement again, like he’s forcing himself to stay awake and hear you out. “did your… friend warn you i’m not friendly at this hour?”

you can almost picture him now. propped up against his headboard, hair a mess from sleep. his arm slipping under the hem of his shirt to scratch absentmindedly at an itch on his lower abdomen. knuckles rubbing hard at his eyes, chasing away the last stretch of drowsiness you interrupted—before you called, that is.

“i don’t think she mentioned that,” you say, a nervous smile tugging at your lips despite the fact that he can’t see it. your knees draw tighter to your chest, arms locking around them like you’re bracing for impact. it feels like there are insects beneath your skin—restless, frantic, crawling along the lining of your stomach. “she just said you wouldn’t hang up.”

“you trusted that?” his laugh filters through the speaker, low and unexpectedly warm, the sharpness from earlier dulled into something almost fond. “what if she gave you a fake?”

“then i guess i just woke up some random guy at four in the morning,” you say after a second, attempting nonchalance and failing spectacularly. “which would be… humiliating.”

“hm.” there’s movement on his end again—fabric shifting, a quiet thud like he’s moving around the room. god, you wish you knew what his room looked like. “so, you’d just apologize and hang up?”

“…literally what else would i do?”

there’s a pause before he speaks. you can almost hear him think out loud. “don’t know. try harder?”

the words are simple, but they settle heavy in your chest. what the hell does he mean by try harder?

“try harder?” you repeat, incredulous, a little astonished that the man you’ve dreamt up is a little different from what you’re hearing.

“yeah.” his voice lowers a fraction, losing the teasing edge and gaining something steadier. “if you wanted to talk to someone that bad, i’d hope you wouldn’t give up after one wrong number.”

your fingers curl tighter around your phone. “you don’t even know why i called.”

“don’t i, though?”

okay—what the fuck? you’ve moved somewhere closer to your window by now, staring at bright windows, counting the very few amount of people walking around at this hour downstairs. anything that’ll fill the silence between his words and your reply, which your brain has yet to compute.

do not call boys you like at four in the morning. note taken.

“anyway,” his voice sends a soothing relief through your body. “what’s your name?”

the question feels strangely intimate.

“why?” you deflect, suddenly hyper-aware of how exposed you are. there’s no going back from this—once he knows you’re you, it’s sealed.

you might have to discuss… alternative routes tomorrow. there is no way in god’s green earth that you’ll be able to face lee heeseung in those hallways once this is done.

“because,” he say purposefully slow, like he’s explaining things to a toddler. “if you went through the trouble of getting my number, i should at least know who i’m losing sleep over.”

“y/n.”

okay—flights to antarctica. a new name. a new identity is what you need right now, in order to combat the nerves in your body going into overdrive.

he goes quiet for slightly less than ten seconds—though you’re not exactly sure why you’re counting—and the quiet literally burns. it’s embarrassing to hear his breathing on the other end of the line, because what does it mean? is he disgusted? is he shocked? is he going to block you, or fall in love with you right now?

“it’s a pretty name,” he says. “haven’t heard it before.”

you’re fighting every urge in you to scream.

this feels oddly reminiscent of that middle school crush you had back when you were 13. it’s all butterflies and shaky hands, and even sweatier palms.

lee heeseung’s voice is silky smooth at this hour. exhaustion creeps up on him like it’s claiming his sleep debt, and you hear it in the tiny yawn that sounds through your speakers. you hoped that not holding your screen to your cheek would aid in the worry that he could hear your nervous breathing.

“well, we’ve never talked directly before, so…”

he hums in response. “well, it’s almost five.”

“trying to get rid of me?” you joke, and boy, does the post-flirt-humiliation hit—your eyes screw shut as you silently mutter a ’what the fuck?’.

he scoffs, “am i?” with the faintest trace of a smile in his voice. you can hear it well enough without the need to look at him—though that would be preferable—which only sends you further into a delusional spiral.

lee heeseung finds you funny.

you bite back a grin, pressing your lips into a thin line. your cheeks ache. you’re probably flushed tomato red from this conversation alone.

you stand up just to keep yourself busy. sittig still feels dangerous, like if you let your body settle, your mind will only follow.

the fear of focusing too much on him—on the way his voice dips at the end of certain words, on how easily he fills the quiet with that strangely confident tone—could be catastrophic.

your fingers trail along the edge of your desk, feeling the shallow nicks in the wood, the uneven varnish near the corner. you latch onto the smallest details: the coolness of the surface, the faint tremor in your hand.

anything to keep yourself grounded to the earth, in the very possible case that lee heeseung sends you into orbit.

on the other end, there’s the muted shift of fabric, like he’s rolling onto his side. you picture him staring at the ceiling, one arm tucked behind his head, the phone resting against his cheek.

“didn’t think you’d be the type to be so responsible.”

“one of us has to be,” he says easily. “you don’t sound like someone who keeps track of time, no?”

us.

the word slides into your chest and sits there, heavy and bright all at once.

us, us, us.

you hook a finger through the metal ring of the keychain hanging from your backpack and start spinning it slowly, watching the small charm catch the faint light from your desk lamp. “i absolutely do,” you protest, but the retort comes out thinner than intended.

“do you?” he presses, gentle but unrelenting. “you called me at four in the morning.”

“it wasn’t exactly planned,” you mutter.

“impulsive, then.”

there’s no judgment in his tone. he talks to you like you’re something intriguing under the lens of a microscope.

you cross your room in slow, restless steps, phone held up to chest-level as if the added distance will somehow steady you. the floor is cool beneath your feet. outside your window, the sky is beginning to pale, the darkness thinning into something bluish and uncertain.

“you picked up, though. you didn’t have to.”

the counter-argument is weak. there’s a brief pause before he admits, “yeah, so?”

“so, what does that say about you?”

your fingers still against the keychain. your feet stand still across from it, refusing to move until he says something to keep this seemingly empty conversation moving. there’s a short, succinct moment of quiet that makes you swallow.

and then—a breath. a faint exhale that sounds nothing like a laugh, but more acknowledgement than anything else.

“i make bad decisions before sunrise. i need my sleep,” he answers. “i got an early morning.”

huh. okay. your eyes are narrowing in suspicion before he can get the last word out. “how early?”

“early enough.”

you let it go, though the curiosity lingers. instead, you’re turning around to lean your weight back against your desk, pressing yourself against the solid wood edge, focusing on the cadence of his breathing. “you don’t sound tired anymore."

“that’s your fault.”

your pulse stutters. “mine?”

“hard to sleep when someone’s interrogating you.”

you huff out a quiet laugh, but your grip on the phone tightens. “i’m not interrogating you.”

“right.” the sound vibrates low through the speaker. you imagine him dragging a hand down his face, sitting up now, feet touching the floor. there’s a faint creak—wood under weight—followed by the soft scrape of something being nudged aside.

“i should probably end this,” he says after a moment, words slowed. “tomorrow’s going to be brutal.”

right—he’s crazy popular. probably has a lot going on.

you straighten instinctively. the conversation has shifted into its closing act without warning. “right, yeah. of course.”

“don’t stay up,” he adds, tone a smidge lighter, yet it doesn’t quite hide the undercurrent. “you’ll blame me when you miss your alarm.”

“bold of you to assume i’d admit that.”

“you wouldn’t,” he agrees easily. “you’d just call again. wake me up for the second time to complain, yeah?”

again.

“goodnight, heeseung,” you say before you can dissect the word further. any longer and you might’ve memorised the oxford definition for it.

a beat. you can hear a snicker on the other end of the line, but before you can say much, lee heeseung beats you to it.

“goodnight.”

the line disconnects. you remain standing in the corner of your room, keychain still looped around your finger. your heart’s drumming against your ribs as the early light creeps further across your walls.

your mind’s swirling again—it’s sending you further into that rabbit hole that looks a lot like heeseung’s perfect hair and charming smile.

note to self: call lee heeseung again. tomorrow. four in the morning.

─────────────────────────

the line goes dead.

the sun is barely peeking above the trees now, as if easing it’s way into the sky. he thinks it’ll be fully up by the time he finishes brushing his shower—and there’s that faint smell of citrus. again. disgusting.

a dull, faint thudding sound comes from downstairs. the sound of glasses clinking together reaches all the way up here; echoing in the dimly lit house.

it must be sunoo. making breakfast, he guesses.

there’s sunlight diffusing into the room, divided into slits by his white blinds that’ve all but stayed drawn throughout the night. skin’s sunken in under his eyes, partially, as a result of microsoft word creeping it’s way into his routine again—he supposes he should know better by now, but still. time is short.

his hands trail under his tank, scratching at a small itch under his chest. the metal hanging on the far wall catches the widening morning light, thin ribbons casting fragile shadows against white paint. a golden trophy sits dead centre on his dark oak bookshelf, polished to an almost obnoxious shine.

“fuck…” he groans, dragging both hands through his hair, fingers pressing against his scalp like he can physically push the night out of his system.

the strands fall back obediently, barely disturbed—as if exhaustion has weighed them into submission. there’s something irritating about that, too. like even his body refuses to reflect the fact that he was up until sunrise.

the weekend usually goes like this: brush. shower. dress. breakfast. run. shower. practice. assignments fit somewhere in between.

he begins to crawl out of his duvet. it’s cold—it always is when it’s this early into dawn. the wind kisses his skin like it’s reminding him of this fact, clinging to him as he drags his feet against the wood floor: slow, lazy shuffles until he actually manages to wake up.

open the door, down the hall, to the right. he passes by rooms, involuntarily listening to the muffled snores through wood as his feet carry him to the tiled room at the end of the hallway. the light in sunoo’s room casts shadows at his feet, peeking under the door, which confirms his suspicion: the waffle smell is coming from downstairs.

the door hits the wall with a soft thud. one perk about being the first one up is that the bathroom is almost always spotless.

his toothbrush sits in a black mug, along with six others. it’s a plain white, his name written in permanent marker at the handle. just in case a repeat of five months ago happened—nishimura riki, of course, making that mistake.

toothbrush in the mouth. bristles against teeth. back and forth, left and right, circles. gums. tongue. he stares at the stupid smiski figurine that jake left on the shelf just to give himself an excuse not to look at how tired he is.

and as he spits the mint paste out of his mouth—his phone vibrates against the marble counter. there’s water on his screen from putting it face down.

we2fuckincold🥶 (informal gc)

yeonjun (vice): good morning princesses 06:01

yeonjun (vice): rink opens at 6pm 06:02

yeonjun (vice): game’s coming up. do not be late or our dear captain will not be happy! 06:05

yeonjun (vice): can we all strive for a happy hoonie today 06:05

yeonjun (vice): also send ur fucking food logs bro @nicho 06:07

for fuck’s sake.

he groans, yanking the phone closer, tilting it to shake off the water droplets. the screen lights up his tired face in brief flashes of fluorescence, each message a reminder that the world outside this house has already started without him.

shower. breakfast. run. practice. the ritual is looping in his head, mechanical, familiar—but today, each step feels like it’s being forced through molasses. it’s definitely the microsoft word.

he squints against the glare, ignoring the faint taste of toothpaste still clinging to his tongue, scrolling past the ridiculous group chat chatter to land on the pinned schedule.

2027 training schedule.pdf

and at the top—his name, in bold, for everyone to remember, as if he hasn’t spent long enough drilling it into his team’s heads.

“captain: park sunghoon/vice captain: choi yeonjun”

sunghoon leans against the counter, elbows braced, letting the faint vibrations of the phone thrum through his fingers. the early sunlight, spilling in at an angle the shitty blinds can’t fully block, makes him want to shut his eyes and go back to bed—jungwon’s interior design choices continue to do him no favors.

he stares at the phone a moment longer, thumb hovering over the text threads he knows he should respond to. teasing from his fellow teammates that they know gets under his skin. stupid morning selfies that no one asked for, because the informal group chat is run by no one but the noisiest.

he showers. he’s downstairs. he’s shoving a spoonful of oats into his mouth, gulping down a protein smoothie like it’s water, and only then is he outside and tying his laces. it’s like he’s fucking teleporting around this place.

something feels off. he almost forgets his apple watch before crossing the threshold called sigma alpha beta’s front door. forty minutes later and the morning air is still damp with dew, the neighbourhood quiet save for the distant hum of traffic that hasn’t fully reached it’s potential yet.

the door shuts behind him with a click. heart rate: 93 bpm.

sunghoon begins his run like any other morning. the stretch of his limbs feels mechanical at first, the stiffness in his bones finally relenting after hours spent hunched over his laptop. he jogs in place, letting his blood move, allowing his muscles to remember their morning rhythm.

the street around him is quiet, edges softened by dawn—a stray leaf skitters across the sidewalk and the faint smell of a house’s breakfast drifts through the wind. everything is ordinary, almost painfully so, except for the faint pull in his chest.

god knows why.

a heavy sigh leaves him, curling into vapour the second it meets the cold. his calves are warm, ready to move, muscles primed for the first push forward—

bbrrr. bbrrr. brrrr.

choi fucking yeonjun.

“the hell?” he mutters, wrist lifting automatically as he taps the flashing green icon. “what the fuck do you want?”

there’s a small, sacred list of things that can truly get under park sunghoon’s skin. missed passes. sloppy drills. people who don’t keep their word. anyone who interrupts him. and now, apparently, choi yeonjun calling him at six-fifty in the morning, on a fucking sunday.

“are you on your period or something?” yeonjun’s voice comes through crisp and far too alive. “good morning, my honey bun.”

“stop bothering me.”

“how did you sleep, huh? why do you sound so angry? you usually save it for practice, in case you don’t remembe—”

the thought interrupts him so abruptly it almost throws off his breathing.

okay, to be fair, it was the assignments first. the blinking cursor, and the way microsoft word has this sick habit of stretching minutes into hours until the sky outside starts lightening without permission. he’d told himself he’d sleep right after submitting. just one more paragraph. one more edit. one more citation.

it sounded a lot like a random girl calling his phone at four in the morning. asking about lee heeseung, no less.

gravel crunches harder beneath his shoes as he picks up his pace without meaning to, breath sharpening on the exhale.

“i slept,” sunghoon says flatly, somehow. his eyes stay fixed on the long stretch of road before him.

“no,” yeonjun replies instantly. “you sound tired. sooha kept you up?”

he doesn’t bother to address that. not worth his time. “i’m running.”

a snort crackles through the tiny speaker. “yeah, no shit. i can hear you trying to outrun your personality.”

sunghoon rolls his eyes, though there’s no one there to see it. the park path stretches ahead, thin and empty, washed in early gold. right foot over the left, his stride perfect, pace never faltering. “why are you psychoanalysing me at seven in the morning?”

“it’s six fifty,” yeonjun corrects. he keeps running. “and it’s only cause you sound like you died yesterday.”

and just what the hell am i supposed to do about that, he thinks—it’s not his fault someone rang him in the middle of the night, asked for his best friend like it was urgent, like it mattered at all. it’s not his fault she ate up the remaining hours of sleep he’d planned to ration carefully. it’s not his fault she sounded so intent—so utterly determined—to talk to lee heeseung.

his jaw tightens slightly.

it’s also not his fault that she doesn’t know anything—who she was actually talking to. how easily she let the conversation stretch. how readily she laughed. how she filled silences that would’ve seemed suspicious to anyone else.

you’re so fucking naive. it makes him sick.

“are you trying to break a record right now?”

sunghoon glances down at his watch. his pace has increased by almost thirty seconds per kilometre.

what exactly was he supposed to do, anyway? interrupt her mid-laugh and tell her she’d reached the wrong person? tell her she’d misdialed and should try again? hand her off like a misplaced package?

park sunghoon tells himself he only kept the call going because it was easier, and that it was late—and most of all, it’ll only happen once.

that’s all.

“sunghoon.”

“what?”

“did you hit your head or something?”

sunghoon exhales sharply through his nose, pace steady, shoulders squared like they always are when he runs. unshakeable. “focus on your own head.”

yeonjun laughs. “wow. so cold. captain, your bedside manner is terrible.”

“goodbye, yeonjun.”

he ends the call before the vice captain can squeeze in another comment. silence rushes back in, thick and uninterrupted, save for the steady impact of rubber against pavement. sunghoon’s eyebrows knit together as he continues down the path, watching windows flicker to life in real time—one square of yellow, then another, then three in a row. the campus is waking up, unaware of the private absurdities that unfolded at the expense of park sunghoon’s rest.

and he wonders, briefly, if you slept soundly after that call.

if you rolled onto your side with a faint smile, phone still warm in your palm, thinking about lee heeseung.

or if he were the one you believed you were talking to, would it have sounded the same?

would you have laughed like that—would you have fallen for every word?

the thought is almost amusing.

perfect lee heeseung, who forgets half his deadlines. who shows up five minutes late with an apology grin that fixes everything. who doesn’t have to hold a locker room together or pretend his moods don’t exist. who can afford to be charming because nothing rests on his shoulders long enough to bruise. and still, you never fucking noticed the difference.

but the thing is this: park sunghoon might as well have his face plastered on billboards, because everyone around him knows—or thinks they do. they all see him. they’re all watching him.

a slightly clipped tone. a delayed response in the group chat. half a second too long between reps at practice. they notice. they always notice.

if he’s irritated, the team feels it. if he’s distracted, the drills get sloppy. if he’s quiet, the locker room gets tense. his mood isn’t just his—it’s contagious. spreading like hazardous, passionate wildfire. a fucking plague that everyone’s afraid to upset.

heeseung doesn’t need to think about that, does he?

heeseung doesn’t have thirty pairs of eyes scanning his expression the second he walks into the rink. doesn’t have rookies straightening their posture when he passes. he doesn’t have to calculate the weight of every word because one careless comment could echo for weeks.

how pathetic. sunghoon really has to stop throwing himself into self-deprecating chains of thought in the middle of his morning runs.

─────────────────────────

you move through the day like you’re on autopilot.

your alarming lack of errands feels like the source of your misery—nothing fills the time well enough. the clock drags its feet out of spite, each minute stretching thinner than the last, and there are simply not enough tiktoks in the world to scroll through until four in the morning.

…does it even have to be four in the morning?

you’re sprawled across the couch in your apartment, limbs loose, attention even looser. jiwon’s out tonight—dinner with that guy she met at sigma alpha eta—and you waved her off earlier with a distracted nod after sitting through a solid hour of her spiralling about how she’s “not sure if he’s the one.”

your fingers tapped impatiently against your phone while she twirled in front of you, once, twice, the fabric of her dress catching in the stale air of the living room. you were slumped against the backrest, head heavy in your palms, fighting sleep that had nothing to do with exhaustion and everything to do with boredom.

“i literally told you my opinion,” it escapes as a groan, your lashes fluttering shut before your head lands against the cushions. “if you’re just gonna keep going back to this dress, just wear this one.”

jiwon looked at you like you’d shot her in the chest. “you’re just so patient, aren’t you?”

your arm drifted lazily toward the glass table, fingers stretching for your phone like a dying man reaching for water. it’s barely out of reach, but somehow still too far.

you hook it toward you at last. the screen lights up: nothing. of course.

and then she continues to talk—something about silhouettes, about first impressions, about how boys apparently notice everything—but her voice dissolves into background noise. you nod when it feels appropriate. hum when she pauses, look over when she calls your name.

sorry, oh jiwon. you do not have the capacity to give a fuck right now—lee heeseung’s name is sitting on the top of your call log like a secret, ready to be shown off to the world.

“fine. i’ll just wear this—“

she leaves with her keys jingling down the hallway. you chew your lip like the short-lived guilt might manifest into an apology and hunt her down that corridor, but between you and literally anyone else?

it will be forgiven and forgotten when she returns tomorrow morning, you assume, only because there’s smuggled condoms in her purse—like she’s starring in some coming-of-age film.

the rest of the evening passes in a strange, slippery blur.

you’re cooking dinner at one point, staring absently at the stove while oil crackles in the pan, nearly burning the garlic because you drifted too far into your own head. later, you’re in the shower, steam clinging to your skin while you tilt your face away from the showerhead, replaying last night’s conversation in fragments—the way he laughed. the pause before he answered certain questions. the tone of his voice when he teased you.

you’re checking your phone again. this is definitely worse than that crush you had when you were thirteen.

─────────────────────────

a few miles away on campus soil, practice runs longer than it should. park sunghoon has sweat clinging to his skin, darkening the collar of his shirt, tracing the lines of muscle that took years to carve into something worth respecting. every movement feels marginally heavier than usual despite the near-flawless precision of his drills. his turns are clean. his stops sharp. his passes calculated.

still, there’s just something about today.

he pushes the team harder than usual. he tells himself it has nothing to do with your voice bouncing around in his head like an insufferable little ping-pong ball. absolutely nothing to do with the way you laughed at something he said at four in the morning.

it’s discipline. that’s all.

there’s hesitation in the juniors’ movements. it’s especially obvious in the way they avoid him—questions rerouted to choi yeonjun instead, who is currently preoccupied with his self-assigned duty of shooting nicholas with two pucks at once for reasons known only to him. sunghoon watches it unfold with a faint twitch of annoyance—he has to take off his helmet just to breathe right. sometimes, he genuinely wonders how yeonjun managed to snag vice captain.

eventually, though, the confusion climbs its way back to him like it always does. a hesitant shuffle. a cough. a poorly disguised glance in his direction.

“captain—”

his voice cuts through the rink’s cold air with surgical clarity. he explains every movement, every angle, every adjustment with mechanical perfection. there is no room for misunderstanding when he speaks. there rarely ever is when he’s this worked up.

by the time he gets back to sigma alpha eta, his muscles ache and his head feels heavier than it should—his skull weighing on his spine, every knot tightening in a body that was already rigid to begin with. even if he swears he warmed up enough, his gait still comes out stiff.

he heads straight for the bathroom after tossing his bag onto the floor, haphazardly by the doorframe of his room. the tiled floor is slightly slippery from someone else’s shower, much to his dismay.

he peels his clothes off, the overhead light catching the sheen of sweat still clinging to his skin. his gaze lingers, unintentional, over the familiar outline of his body—something he built, piece by piece, over years of repetition and restraint.

it’s taken him so long to get here.

park sunghoon turns slightly, glancing over his shoulder. his eyes squint at the subtle tints of blue and purple, an occasional yellow and familiar reds.

a faint bruise blooms along his back—noticeable enough to catch his attention, but still subtle enough to ignore. his thumb presses into it briefly. it doesn’t hurt much, sitting in a valley between his shoulder blade and the deep impression of his spine.

he doesn’t dwell. no time. there’s roughly ten minutes before his eyes have to shut and his cells get to work at repairing the strain he never fails to put himself through.

the shower is quick. burning hot water pelts his shoulders, steam gathering thick against the tiles as the tension in his body dulls into something manageable. afterward, he downs another protein shake, the grainy texture catching in his throat like it’s meant to fill more than just hunger.

then, the sheets rustle as he settles in. tonight feels cooler than usual, though that might have more to do with the window he left wide open—jake sim always made the habit of reminding him to, otherwise, it’d be too stuffy. the blinds sway with the wind, wood tapping lightly against the glass in a steady, hollow rhythm.

no assignments. class begins early tomorrow. park sunghoon needs all the energy he can get if he wants to maintain that stellar gpa of his—it’s reason enough to shut his screen off and reach for the charger without hesitation.

this is what most nights look like. the temperature shifts by a degree or two. the sounds outside change. the air moves differently. but if he squints, it’s all the same, really. park sunghoon—the captain, the leader, the one everyone watches—falls asleep the same way every night, staring at what he’s built.

his gaze drifts back, almost involuntarily, to his now-dimmed phone. the last item on his mental checklist has been crossed off, but the weight on his shoulders doesn’t lift. if anything, it settles deeper, heavier, as the thought of monday presses in.

there will be mondays for the rest of his life. obviously.

it’s sunday nights like this—quiet, cold, stretching endlessly before them—that serve as meaningless prologues that do nothing but make park sunghoon feel like the loneliest man in the world, at the top of the chain that he’s tried so desperately to scale.

his eyes shift to the wall instead. an attempt at distracting himself.

medals, trophies, certificates. plaques stacked where there’s no space left for more.

there’s boxes shoved beneath his bed, too. filled with the rest of it, or rather, everything that didn’t make the cut. almost all of it’s in there—wrinkled homework from the when he first learned how to write his name coherently, all the way to the year he left his hometown.

it’s taped shut with cheap, barely-there adhesive, the kind that curls at the edges if you look at it for too long. he’s almost certain his mother shoved it in the car, insisted he bring it with him to college—something about keeping memories close, about not forgetting where he came from. he can’t recall how else it would’ve ended up here, with him, haunting his conscience like a guilty ghost.

sunghoon plugs the cord in, the battery icon flashing obediently on the corner of his screen. that should be the end—

ding!

his jaw tightens. his tooth almost cracks from how hard he’s gritting them. it’s even more annoying, because his arm’s already bent over the table, ready to drop the device on his small night stand.

so god help him, if it’s choi yeonjun asking for the practice footage again, or sending another half-coherent voice note about formations he absolutely should have memorised by now—

ding!

sunghoon exhales sharply through his nose and retracts his hand. the attention-aware feature on his phone causes his screen to light up almost immediately, and despite the fact that he was just staring at it moments ago, it burns all the same.

unknown contact.

he doesn’t even need to see the name. sunghoon sees the call log from last night, ending at five in the morning, and immediately knows.

y/n l/n: day went great btw 01:21

y/n l/n: not a single yawn 01:21

he’s going to bed. he’s tired, and he’s not definitely past dealing with a girl who doesn’t even care that he doesn’t sound like lee heeseung—or at the very least, not enough to verify that it is indeed park sunghoon on the other end of the line.

y/n l/n: i know you said 4am but i have class at 8 tmr sooo 01:21

absolutely. fucking. not.

riiiiing. riiiing.

park sunghoon is not picking up the phone.

─────────────────────────

“and then?”

he lied.

there are a few things park sunghoon would never admit to anyone else. firstly, that he’s terrible at making his own coffee and still gets riki to do it for him. secondly, that he needs to hug his ridiculously large, sausage-shaped pillow to fall asleep, or he wakes up worse than usual.

and third—

that he’s genuinely listening to a random girl on the phone, without slipping in a quiet, so are you coming over or not? somewhere between her sentences.

it doesn’t feel like a decision. there’s something settling into place, clicking in his chest before he has a real chance to question his own intentions. the words come out easily, slipping off his tongue and past his lips like water, because that’s what this is—natural, for reasons beyond him.

sunghoon lies back with one arm tucked behind his head, the other holding his phone loosely against his cheek. moonlight spills into the room through the half-open blinds, stretching across his ceiling like it has nowhere else to go. he knows he should’ve closed them earlier, but the thought passes without consequence, dissolving somewhere between the moment your name lit up his screen and now.

his hair falls in soft streaks across his forehead, long since dried from the aggressive towel action he’d put himself through not even half an hour ago—something he refuses to think about too meticulously, especially not in relation to the notification that had pulled him back to his phone.

incoming call from y/n l/n.

there’s a dull ache pressing at his temples, insistent, like it’s trying to remind him of something he’s choosing to ignore. he knows better than this, he really does. in the same way he knows that you think he’s someone else entirely.

he breathes, slow and deep like it’ll undo all the knots in his muscles. it’s strange that it’s working now, compared to all the times where he got a sports massage after practice with no real effect, and he wonders—no matter how absurd it is—that if it’s your voice that’s making him so, so sleepy.

on the other end, you never hesitate. you answer him with a kind of ease he isn’t used to, words flowing like there’s nothing in the world worth holding back. there’s something almost intimate in it—not intentional, barely meaningful, but there all the same. like two people who have already decided, somewhere along the way, that they belong in each other’s space.

the thought comes uninvited.

is this what couples do?

it makes him want to shut his eyes and forget he ever had it.

your voice carries through the line with the same unfiltered simplicity that he’s already starting to recognize—light, animated despite the hour, spilling from one thought to the next with barely any pause. there’s a lack of calculation in the way you speak, a clear absence of consideration in what words were okay to say, and what details were appropriate to omit—in which there were none. you even told him about your ten minute doomscroll session on the toilet midway through biochemistry.

it fills the silence before it can exist. it’s not like he’s not used to the noise—he’s surrounded by idiots who can’t keep their mouth shut, and god, has he wished for years that everyone around him would just be quiet for at least ten minutes—but when your soft, sweet voice rings in his ears, he’s not even sure what he’s feeling.

the realistic part of him, however useless he may be now, knows that everything is a lie. there’s you, rambling to him solely because you think he is the man you have that miserable crush on, and then there’s him: feeding your delusions, for his own selfish intents, as if that makes him any less dumber than you.

you’re talking to him because you think he’s someone else. because you’ve attached yourself to a version of a person that doesn’t exist on this end of the line.

he lets it happen, anyway.

sunghoon shifts against his pillows and the mattress dips slightly beneath his weight. the room remains dim, lit faintly by the fluorescent lighting radiating from his screen, probably killing off all his melatonin receptors by now—the dull wash of streetlight slips in, occasionally cut off by a passing car through half-open blinds. the air moves lazily, wind brushing past his skin, cooling what little heat still lingers from his shower.

his responses lag. he lets you talk. it’s intentional at first, an easy excuse for something he can fall back on. you seemed like the type who didn’t need much prompting, anyway—your words come in soft bursts of laughter, half-finished thoughts and tangents that circle back around before he can fully follow them. it should be difficult to keep up with, but as with everything that’s occuring, it’s unknown to him why it isn’t.

somewhere along the way, it stops being passive. there’s things that he’s noticing that he doesn’t want to notice. hearing things that he never means to. it’s lodged into his brain that’s already fighting for more storage space—your tone that shifts when you’re about to say something embarrassing, or how you rush through it a little faster, before doubling back as if to justify it. there’s pauses that aren’t quite pauses, just brief breaths where he can almost picture you thinking, deciding whether to keep going or jump to the next part of your day.

he remembers that party. he remembers how your hair fell on your face, and in the moment, sunghoon thought you’d just be passing in his already busy life—he finds it extremely irritating that he can recall almost every mundane feature on your face as if you were the most beautiful girl he’d seen. that dress that you probably found deep in your dresser and didn’t bother to smooth out, or that cup in your hand that’s barely holding any liquor. you were there for someone, after all.

he stood at that stairwell, watching, as if you were someone he couldn’t approach. please—if lee heeseung wasn’t the one you already set your sights on, he bets he could have you in his bed that very night.

if only he hadn’t froze.

you’re not anyone meaningful to him. you’re not supposed to take up what precious space he has for himself, and yet, here you are, barging into his life like you demand his attention.

it’s not like he’s any better, honestly. he knows that much.

“i was wondering if i should call, y’know,” you mumble through his phone’s speaker. he raises an eyebrow, as if you could see it. “it’s really late. don’t you have class tomorrow, too?”

“i do,” sunghoon sighs. he makes a conscious effort to stop himself from sharing which. “all day.”

unknown to park sunghoon, you’re lying upside down on your pink duvet, hair falling over the edge of your bed. you’re acting like you have no real responsibilities or hour long classes tomorrow morning, and that energy is somehow infecting him, too.

his grip around the phone shifts, thumb brushing absentmindedly along the edge of his thick case. the thought of telling you who he really is comes and goes without fully forming, though the feeling that claws at his ribs is quieter than guilt. it’s not sharp enough for him to address just yet.

you say something. he doesn’t catch all of it, only the way your laughter follows right after. sunghoon almost thinks you must love hearing your own voice with how giggly you are.

nevertheless, it pulls something out of him before it can be stopped. a response—low and tired in nature, slipping into the conversation as if he didn’t spend the past ten minutes wondering if anything he’ll say will give him away.

and still, you respond, picking it up without hesitation, folding his words into yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“i didn’t even realise the time until i checked my phone,” you lie. “i’m sorry if you were just kidding yesterday… and didn’t want me to actually call. i wasn’t sure.”

“it’s fine, really.” sunghoon murmurs, voice low and threaded with sleep. “but you really should’ve called earlier. i’m about to knock out.”

there’s a soft scoff on your end, fabric shifting faintly. sunghoon’s ears pick that up, too. “you picked up anyway, didn’t you?”

he doesn’t respond to that, and the silence continues. it’s not empty or uncomfortable, filled with something else that simmers under his skin. he lets it stay.

you don’t push, instead humming like you’ve already moved on. you talk more about your day, admitting to things that you probably shouldn’t, voice drifting back into that easy rhythm that makes him want to turn over and shut his eyes for the night. “i kept checking my phone like something interesting would happen today, but…”

“nothing did?” he asks, eyes half-lidded—his eyelashes feel heavier now.

“wellll…” you drag out the word slightly, a hint of a smile tucked into it, like sunghoon couldn’t already hear the teeth in your voice. “i’m telling you about my day now, so i guess it all worked out.”

he exhales softly. his finger comes up to his face to rub at his nose, and he sniffles before responding, “that’s a really low bar.”

“i’m being honest,” you admit, voice dipping just slightly, unaware of the cliff you’re driving yourself off of. “you seem like someone who’s always busy.”

he supposes, in a sense, he is. just not in a lee heeseung way. “i’m not that busy.”

there’s a hint of disbelief in your laugh that fades quickly. it gives way to something more curious, and all it does is ease the conversation into something quieter and more fluid. your voice lowers as words blend together, and sunghoon finds his shoulders caving into his chest.

he shifts against the pillows, letting the weight of the night settle into his tired limbs. you wrap around him like a thread pulling taut—he doesn’t need to respond immediately; the words coming from you are enough to fill spaces he’s left behind.

sunghoon blinks slowly. “you’ve got me wrong.”

“yeah, now that i think about it,” you whisper. “i don’t think i know enough to be right.”

park sunghoon rarely gets nervous, if ever. there were a few times in fifth grade that he’d gotten a tummy ache before going up on stage, or in middle school when he had to give a presentation on the cultural history of korean calligraphy. he supposes the habit just vanished, because by the time he turned sixteen and played in his first hockey match, it never manifested again.

there’s a relief that comes with finding your coping mechanism. sunghoon never really examined why he would feel like throwing up before getting in front of a bunch of strangers, but he understood, even if on a very basic level, that hockey took that away from him—it’s the smooth slide of his skates against ice that tends to narrow down the world to just him, where nothing and no one else matters.

he’s not exactly sure why that is; reflection wasn’t really his thing. he knew it when his teacher would set him aside from other kids and ask ’how are things at home?’, to which he had no answers.

as long as it works, right?

still, it’s here now. that feeling of his heart dropping straight through his mattress, and his stomach churning something that refuses to let him speak.

“i feel like i’ve just been yapping,” you say. you aren’t wrong. it’s barely your fault, though he can’t really tell you that.

sunghoon swallows, throat dry and constricting around nothing. the grip he has on his phone tightens momentarily before easing again, his gaze darting around the room like he’s searching desperately for answers that’ll magically manifest.

he could say something. he should. something vague would be good. easy to follow up with, or be mysterious about. slightly personal so you don’t pry too much, that doesn’t let this tip any further than it already has.

and yet—the words don’t come. it barely makes it past his throat.

sunghoon exhales and the sound is almost lost against the line. “it’s getting late.”

it’s been ’getting late’ for the past two hours. his voice sounds worn, and he blames no one but himself—for letting his schedule fall apart like this, and still picking up the phone anyway.

and you, being the unsuspecting, naive girl you are—humming softly as if to tell him you understand. “yeah, i guess so.”

park sunghoon tears his screen away from the warmth of his cheek. only now does he realise how long it’s truly been; the absence of his warm device and the presence of cold wind hitting his face helps him remember how absurd this is.

he looks at the duration of the call, now barely over two hours.

the number sits there, steady and indifferent, as if it doesn’t account for the way time had slipped past him without resistance. as if it doesn’t mean anything at all.

for a moment, he just stares at it, his thoughts lagging behind the reality of it. two hours of listening, of responding, of letting himself exist in something that shouldn’t have been this easy.

this should end here.

sunghoon brings the phone back to his ear, the warmth returning in a way that feels almost deceptive now. he blinks once, twice, before clearing his throat. “goodnight, y/n.”

“goodnight, heeseung.”

the line cuts. sunghoon lies still in his white sheets, the duvet crinkling softly beneath his weight—though it feels heavier than it should, like it’s dragging him deeper into the earth. he stares blankly into the space above him, eyes fixed on nothing, as if he can’t quite register the way the room seems to close in, inch by inch.

outside, the world goes on, completely unaware.

cars pass. lights flicker somewhere beyond his window. time moves the way it always does—steady, indifferent to him, and for a fleeting moment, he wishes he wasn’t in this body.

the thought comes quietly, almost absurd in its simplicity. the thought that he could step out of himself and into someone else—someone forgettable, someone ordinary—someone who doesn’t carry the weight of expectation so tightly wound around his chest. he imagines it briefly, the ease of it: letting tomorrow belong to someone else.

letting the responsibilities, the precision, the constant awareness slip from his grasp for just a day.

just once where he doesn’t have to move like he knows exactly what he’s doing, or carry himself like someone people look up to—like someone who has everything under control, when the truth is that he’s no different from anyone else. just one fucking day is all he asks.

it was nice—the two hours sunghoon got to pretend like he wasn’t sunghoon. he could say it was almost natural, which only unsettles him even more.

he shifts slightly against his sheets, and the loud rustle only anchors him further into the reality he’s in. he blinks slowly before letting his eyelids shut, and almost as if to say ‘you’re never living this down’, your face appears right behind them.

here you are, reconstructed behind his shut eyes like you’re something worth remembering—it's your perfect hair. your eyes that dulled the lights strobing in your face. that dress that looked weirdly good on you.

this is so fucking frustrating.

─────────────────────────

you only see kim sunoo once a week. there’s careful planning that goes behind the days leading up to psychology of mass media—it’s the only hour you can get any intel, if at all, due to the convenient fact that sunoo likes to be the first to leave and last to arrive.

in reality, it’s just you showing up earlier than necessary, and lingering a little longer than you should in hopes that you’ll catch sunoo again.

you have one question. just one. he won’t mind, would he?

the lecture hall is still half-empty when you slip in, and the fluorescent lights actually burn—rows of seats stretching out in that familiar, uninspired gradient of grey and black. there are a few scattered groups that have already settled in, most of them slumped over their desks with jackets thrown over their heads. the sound of keyboard clicking echoes, bouncing off the sterile walls, and you do your best to tune it out.

it takes two minutes for kim sunoo to walk in, beige tote slung over his shoulder, stride light and easy—he always looked put together despite the hour. there were times you considered if he was a vampire, considering how he never looks tired, but the thought never sticks long enough to matter.

he slides into his usual seat without much ceremony, setting his bag beside him before pulling out his macbook. there’s a faint glow of white casts over his face, highlighting the smoothness of his skin, and it feels ridiculous—that split second when you feel a little jealous of him.

fifty five minutes left.

you move before you can think too hard about it, because you already know how that ends. your sneakers thud softly against the carpeted floor as you make your way down the steps, gaze flickering briefly around the room—not because there’s anything to actually be wary of, but because it feels like there should be.

as if anyone here could read your mind, and as if they’d even care enough to judge you for it. the thought lingers in the back of your mind all the same.

you slow just a fraction as you near his row, like the sensible part of your brain’s giving you one last chance to turn around and act like the normal girl who doesn’t care that much. there’d be some grace in taking that empty seat behind him and pretending like the thought of snooping around lee heeseung’s love life never crossed your mind at all—but it has to happen, and unless the gift of time travel is suddenly bestowed upon you, your ass is about to meet the plastic chair beneath you.

the chair creaks softly under your weight, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the low hum of the room. everyone’s blissfully unaware of the humiliation you’re about to put yourself through, though it somehow makes your courage muster a little easier.

“you’re staring at me.”

sunoo’s voice is monotonous. he doesn’t bother to spare you a look, because in truth, he doesn’t need to turn his head to see the way you’re burning holes through his.

“i’m not.”

he scoffs, though he means nothing spiteful of it. as much as he hates to admit, you were one of the nicer seatmates he had this year. “you are.”

“okay, well,” you begin, hands coming up from under the long, laminated wooden desk in front of you. you press them together, like that’d make things less awkward—your fingers fidget just for the sake of doing something other than staring at sunoo. “i was thinking—”

“about me?” kim sunoo smiles, still not looking at you. the corner of his lip is lifted up in something similar to genuine amusement, but it does nothing to help the embarrassment that’s stabbing at your nerves. “you’re blunt, [name].”

“ha ha,” you mock. sunoo can’t help but giggle at that. “the posters. outside. i saw them.”

ah. he sees what this is about.

soul searching ✦ booth 35, level 1, outside block A friday, 10th september 2026, 1pm-8pm ❤︎ love life in shambles? wanna meet new people? come visit our booth to find your perfect match! ❤︎ a quick questionnaire, a curated pairing—one conversation might change everything. rumour has it that the first person you meet… might just be the one. for early bird tickets, scan here!

the promotional poster that you stumbled upon was one of many pasted across campus. there were a few that jiwon mumbled to you about this morning, over the phone, and while you can’t exactly recall the exact details of the conversation, you just know it made her reconsider attending. it was obvious in the way she kept asking, ‘should i?’ followed by ‘i don’t know, maybe i should’, circled back with ‘i’ll think about it’.

it was for, roughly, five seconds that you wondered just how many girls would be lining up for it as well. you remember standing there a little longer than necessary, eyes skimming over the bold lettering like it was supposed to mean more than it did. the paper had been slightly wrinkled at the edges, tape barely holding it against the wall like it had been put up in a rush—but it was bright, unapologetically pink, and you almost grimaced at the thought of other people stopping to stare at it the same way you did.

you’d already decided you were going to go.

scanned the qr code right then and there, shamelessly, in the middle of the hallway on the way here—thumb hovering for less than a second before pressing submit, like hesitation would somehow make it worse.

the soulmate part, though—that stuck, unfortunately. it clung in a way that was irritatingly persistent, like gum pressed into the grooves of your thoughts. not because you believed it, necessarily, but because it was the kind of idea that refused to leave once it had somewhere to sit.

“so…. details?” you ask, a bright and inviting smile plastered onto your cheeks. “is heeseung going for sure? how does it even work?”

kim sunoo shrugs, typing briefly into his laptop before looking at you. “it’s a fundraiser booth. students sign up and get paired at random. i think, like, five seniors found their husbands here a few years back, and it’s been a myth ever since.”

you blink. “wait—so the first person you meet thing, that’s real? the soulmate shit?”

“yeah. haven’t you seen how many campus couples made it because of us? it’s really weird.”

soulmates. it’s all bullshit.

people talked about fate like it was something clean and predictable, like they didn’t sit behind the steering wheel of their own life. it’s as if someone or something invisible was guiding them—like there was a line drawn somewhere out there with your name on it, waiting for you to follow it without question until it led you to the right person.

you’ve never experienced it that way. if anything, your history with relationships feels like the opposite: bad timing, poor judgement, moments that almost worked until they didn’t. near misses are dressed up as something meaningful, but conversations fizzle out just when they start to feel like they might matter.

nothing stayed. nothing was ever meant to. you, having a soulmate—in that sense—it felt extremely unlikely.

it isn’t in a dramatic, self-pitying way—it’s the same way you understand that most things in life don’t fall neatly into place without sustained effort and consistency. relationships aren’t something pre-built that you stumble into, perfectly right and accommodating despite yourself, and they’re definitely not something you keep just because the universe decided you should.

couples will look you in the eye and tell you they’re meant to be, like it was written somewhere long before they ever met, but they barely talk about the parts where they almost walked away, or the moments where instinct told them to leave and they didn’t. the hesitation. the doubt. the very real option of not choosing each other.

fate, soul ties, forever. there are a lot of excuses people make when they don’t want to admit their own fault in something. it’s easier to dress things up as something inevitable than to acknowledge the effort it took to keep it going—or the moments where it almost didn’t.

do people just like pretending that they don’t have a say in what they do?

sunoo pauses, shifting his dark hair from his eyes before glancing at you. “do you think it’s cringey? saeri told me to remove that part of the poster… but i didn’t. it’s the charm of our booth, i think.”

“i don’t think so,” you lie, adrenaline humming through your veins. it is kind of corny, but who would admit that to him—kim sunoo probably doesn’t need more people hating on his poor slogan choices, and the more you act like it was a wise move, the better the chance you get paired with heeseung once he realizes you signed up. “i think it’s… uhm, plausible.”

anything but asking him directly, though.

“anyway,” sunoo glances back at his screen. microsoft word fills the entire monitor with graphs and figures you’re sure are from jiwon’s econ class. “i think everyone’s coming, except sunghoon. that guy…”

you raise an eyebrow. this is the first you’ve heard of him since that party two weeks ago—at this point, he almost feels like a hallucination. “sunghoon? what’s his deal?”

“he’s not a relationship guy. i think he knows it’d be a waste of time to sign up and make the girl feel like shit for five minutes straight,” sunoo sighs, leaning into his palm as if this were the harsh reality he’s learned to accept. “he cares, but has no idea how to show it. he’s like a three year old.”

you nod slowly, like you understand. you don’t.

though, something’s happening in your body that’s reminiscent of sunday night. it’s that odd, simmering sensation—proof. it flickers at the edge of your mind like a fuzzy memory, echoing that same low, lingering pull that sat right in the centre of your sternum.

sunoo’s cheek leans back into his palm, his eyes following professor choi’s figure that’s just strolled in. it’s your queue to shut the hell up and start preparing your materials for class, but it sets something else off.

you try, briefly, to chase it. to trace it back, to link it to something tangible and real and concrete. a face, a voice, a moment that would justify the way it settles into you so easily, but it slips through your fingers just as quickly, dissolving before it can really take shape.

“i see,” you hum. “well, i’ll come. don’t worr—”

“i wasn’t worried.”

“okay, then.”

─────────────────────────

the text comes while he’s brushing his teeth. his hair’s a mess as he stares into himself, eyes flicking down to the sink where some of his toothpaste’s fallen off his toothbrush—your voice is replaying in his head like a sick alarm, though he knows that it’s only because he’d hung up the phone only two hours ago.

sunghoon found himself silently praying that practice was cancelled. it was unlike him; the way he lingered in his sheets and had to take a deep breath before getting up. he dragged himself to the bathroom, hand swiping at the towel rack outside the door—hoping that he didn’t take jake’s by mistake, and begging (to whom?) that he wouldn’t need to use it.

snu hockey boys ’26 ⛸️🏒

yeonjun: practice is cancelled 06:32

yeonjun: coach has an emergency but pls send your food logs by 2200. whoever misses = double ur distance tmr 06:32

yeonjun: rink is still open tho 06:32

he took one good look at his to-do list this morning and resolved that he was going to the library. he’s fully convinced that if he lets his assignments pile up any more, his professors will start to think he’s slipping. god forbid—as if the boy hasn’t gotten less than a a in years.

we2fuckincold🥶 (informal gc)

nicho: guys pls stop eating by the benches too the janitors r gonna beat us :( 06:45

yeonjun: u guys cant fucking control yourselves can you 06:56

park sunghoon moves through the early dawn like he usually does, except that he walks right past the folded jersey and duffle bag already sitting on his desk. he lets himself slouch a little as he walks downstairs; the tiredness is already seeping in despite the constant self-correction.

it’s going to be a long day of cramming if he wants to get anything done, clearly—so he decides on unplugging his laptop charger, folding it neatly into the small zipper of his backpack, and leaving the house without his running shoes packed.

he’s still stretching when he hears the shuffle of footsteps outside. it’s too early for any one of his brothers to be up—on weekdays like this, park sunghoon was always the first to get moving, followed by jay in another hour.

it’s only six. nobody else gets up at six.

sunghoon reaches for the strap of his backpack as he makes his way towards the door—slightly ajar, swaying faintly with the draft, about to shut itself. it’s only when he’s a step away from the frame that he catches sight of lee heeseung walking past.

lee heeseung doesn’t get up until eleven.

reaching for the metal knob, sunghoon pulls back the door with more force than he’d like to admit, only to see heeseung—already at the top of the stairs, leaning lazily against the railing like the early hour means nothing—plaid boxers slung low on his hips, hair flattened in odd directions, and the faint imprint of wrinkled sheets still pressed into his back.

he just watches. doesn’t want to ask. the answer is already written across heeseung’s body in fading purples and reds, scattered along his neck and arms, threaded between the pale, healed superficiality of old scars.

instead, park sunghoon makes his way towards the stairs as well, with a backpack slung over his shoulder and an undeniable tiredness in his bones. he passes his dear friend before making his way down the flight of wood steps, feet thudding against the floor, eyes occasionally glancing towards the big entryway before him.

there’s a girl by the front door, half-crouched as she slips her shoes back on. her hair is messy in an unmistakable way, fingers combing through it as she balances herself against the wall using her other hand. she doesn’t look up, too preoccupied with fixing herself—it’s the last thing on her mind, and all she wants is to fit her heel into the mary janes she’s got sitting outside.

she pulls the metal handle, and looks back up at lee heeseung. nothing else is said, not even a wave, nor does he dismiss her presence—he just watches her warm smile curve up.

it feels like he’s walked in on something intimate. heeseung has a faint smirk that sunghoon was never able to wear when sooha was around, no matter how satisfied she made him feel, and he’s wearing that look of comfortable, guilt-free laziness that he recognises in the mirror every morning, after he hangs up on you.

─────────────────────────

sunghoon walks into the library like he owns it. professional poker face and all, heading straight for that seat by the windows that aren’t facing east, so the sun doesn’t burn his face off. just how he likes it.

the air-conditioning hits his skin and the lights above him are bright enough to sting. it’s enough to keep him awake for the next few hours, combined with the warm black coffee swishing around in his tumbler as he takes his time setting his stuff down.

a few stares and silent whispers are expected as he passes by the busier sections. he takes his usual seat—not many people know about it, due to the fact that it’s shoved so far away in isolation, miles from the bathroom and entrance, but park sunghoon appreciates this fact. nobody is around to stare at him sideways while he does his work, and there won’t be any eyes that refuse to leave his when he finally looks up.

the large, wood-laminate six-seat table was completely empty, and spotless. no coffee stains or broken sockets, and completely cut off from student civilization.

he settles into a bright orange chair by the window, where his face is obstructed by a large pillar—the sun warms his hands up as they pull his laptop out, already booted up from the night before, on the microsoft word home screen.

he groans when he sees at least three empty documents, all of which he meant to start yesterday. of course, that was the plan prior to your call, and sunghoon swore he’d at least try to multitask, if only not to feel the guilt later on. it’s obvious that he can’t do that anymore.

his slender fingers slide over the touchpad, navigating to his most urgent assignment for economics.

the cursor blinks at the top of his toolbar—it’s waiting for him to click something, anything, and he almost does. it circles around the add text box and darts away again, to open chrome. park sunghoon is staring at his screen like it’s a foreign, alien-sent object.

once upon a time, this would’ve sufficed. a quiet corner, an uninterrupted day, and his laptop on full-charge. work and productivity comes easily to someone as hard-working as him, and when there’s nothing else competing for his attention. compartmentalization is an incredibly common skill, but sunghoon is different, in the sense that he could live two separate lives in a single day, if need be.

though, these days, concentration feels far rarer than he’d like to admit.

the sound of soft, carpeted footsteps approaching barely registers in his ears. he’s too focused reading over the same one line he’s written—his name and student id number—to shift his eyes elsewhere.

his peers pass through this section all the time. not many, but enough for it not to be alarming. this was still a public space, after all.

his eyes remain fixed on the screen as he reaches for his tumbler, taking a slow sip of coffee. outside, the sky is finally brightening into that familiar golden, instead of a depressing, cold blue. few students pass by the large glass panels, some in clusters and others alone.

this is simple enough. all he has to do is write. sunghoon has the brains for this, the attention span, and overall capability to complete this useless assignment—so he adjusts himself further into the chair and begins skimming through the brief for what feels like the tenth time since it’s released. it’s all market trends, consumer psychology, something about forecasting models by the time the words begin to blur together.

the caffeine isn’t circulating fast enough. he reaches, sips again, and draws a deep breath in through his nose. halfway through his second paragraph, a chair thuds quietly against the carpeted floor, before the faintest “shit” is heard.

libraries are full of idiots. nobody can even drag a chair out properly anymore, apparently. now that the sound has derailed his train of thought, sunghoon can’t help but to flick his dark brown irises up, locking right onto you.

for a second, he genuinely wonders if his sleep deprivation has evolved into hallucinations.

of all the tables and empty seats scattered across four. fucking. floors.

park sunghoon’s grip tightens slightly around his black, metal rimmed tumbler, an action you thankfully do not notice. this corner of the library is so damn meaningless to him—but now that you’re here, it’s like this is all he’ll ever remember, all he’ll ever associate with the place.

the moment of recognition doesn’t last very long. surprisingly, it doesn’t send panic through his bloodstream, nor does it get his heart bursting out of his chest—though, he can still feel it pounding a little harder—instead, it’s just vague acknowledgement written all over that pretty face of yours, reserved for familiar faces.

park sunghoon. hockey captain guy. heeseung’s friend, the one who unintentionally stared at you sideways that one friday night (that he’ll never forget).

“oh.”

the tension binding his shoulders tight is loosened, just a fraction. the tiny sound leaves your mouth quietly, though it sounds nothing like shock, and it’s more to yourself than to him.

“hope you don’t mind if i—”

sunghoon’s response comes out rougher than intended. “no.”

you smile in response, and god, sunghoon wants to fucking drive a ten foot pole into his chest at the sight of your cheeks puffing up. there’s a faint flush on your cheeks from walking in the morning sun, and he notices a few blemishes on your skin as the sun almost blinds you—he can tell it’s getting into your eyes because you’re squinting. “you can sit here.”

you almost choke by the time sunghoon realises what he’s just said. “what?”

“it’s hot on that side.”

there’s three chairs on his side of the long, dark side of the table. it’s oddly poetic how he’s sat in the dark and you’re standing across from him, bathed in that golden sun like it’s your rightful place, and how he can’t help but have you next to him, even now, even selfishly.

fortunately, you save him the humiliation of walking away or just planting your ass down in the sun. you circle around the table, keychains on your backpack jingling as you do, and pull out the plastic chair two seats away from him.

perfect. it’s enough distance for him to pretend like you’re not even there. your gaze flickers between him in the corner of your eye, to the span of other empty seats in front of you. why the hell are you even here?

there’s a moment where he thinks you’re going to change your mind, get up, and walk away without looking back. it’s mostly due to the fact that you haven’t even set your things down yet, organised your stationery or even took out your sleek, plastic-shielded macbook. sitting next to park sunghoon when there was an entire eight-seat table like, ten feet away made most people nervous.

and still, when he turns (or merely pretends to by reaching for his tumbler again), he realises you’re far from nervous, and instead very confused.

your eyebrows are still raised in slight confusion, and you’re scrambling to find a pen you lost somewhere deep in your bag. flecks of dust float in the air, and one lands right on the top of your head—shining so beautifully in this terribly congested space, warmth bouncing off the dull carpet and reflecting back onto your face, dusting your skin like it knows how exactly to make him weak.

you don’t notice, but he does. park sunghoon is noticing everything, and for suddenly, painfully, and very unpredictably, he realises why people write songs about these kinds of feelings.

“do you need something?”

god, you’re so pretty. your eyebrows lift slightly, out of genuine curiosity (or perhaps concern, with the way sunghoon is staring at you… he can’t find a fault), and those lips of yours look so effortlessly perfect, soft, a faint sheen veiling it thanks to the lip-balm chained to your backpack zipper.

“no.”

and it’s like he’s slammed the door on you again.

again?

you’re not sure why you dwell on it too much, actually. most of the evening is spent staring at blank documents, because this module unfortunately included math, and for some odd reason, lee heeseung was always good at math despite being an arts major. he’d know what to do, and for a good minute you wonder if you should just call him right now.

you pause for a moment before your attention slips away from him again. turning back to your bag, hands still searching for something you apparently cannot find, your fingers moving with growing frustration through compartments that seem to hold everything except what you actually want.

sunghoon should probably mind his own business now, yet instead, he’s glancing over your shoulder and at your empty document.

he turns back to his laptop, slightly, or pretends to, lifting his tumbler just enough to give himself something to look at that isn’t you. in doing so he finally catches the full spread of your movement as you settle in, pulling your laptop out, then your charger, then your pencil case, then a small pouch that seems to contain an entire separate ecosystem of items, all of which you organise with a kind of quiet determination that feels oddly intimate to witness.

your brow furrows as you dig deeper into your bag, hand disappearing and reappearing empty more than once, and he notices the way your mouth presses into a line of mild frustration that never fully escalates into anything outright upset, just plastered there as an expression of someone mildly inconvenienced by their own decisions.

somewhere between your second and third attempt at finding whatever it is you’re looking for, your phone appears in your hand, screen lighting up briefly before you unlock it. sunghoon’s attention shifts almost against his will because the movement is too familiar now, even to him, with something he shouldn’t be aware of.

your thumb hesitates over the contacts screen. lee heeseung.

god, please don’t call. please, please, please, please, please.

his eyes are beginning to strain with how hard he’s trying to make himself appear unsuspicious. you hover over his contact, before looking back up at your empty document, and then down again. hesitantly you settle for resting your phone atop the mahogany, letting the screen darken on the words ‘lee heeseung’, then typing your very first words.

the mistake on your screen comes predictably. that’s not to say sunghoon thought you were stupid—it’s only honest for him to say many people messed up the way you did. careless, happens when you haven’t spent the days prior drilling these kinds of theorems into your head. his eyes were starting to hurt, squinting, trying to see how to help you.

the guilt creeps up on him, unexpectedly. he just can’t.

it’s unfortunate that sunghoon already knows exactly what he’d do if he were sitting right next to you, looking over your shoulder properly instead of pretending not to while still catching every mistake you make.

unfortunate that the assignment in front of him is something he could finish in less than an hour if he actually tried, something so mindless it doesn’t even deserve the amount of attention he’s currently refusing to give it, and yet he keeps sitting there anyway as if the decision is more complicated than it actually is.

“swap your x and y values.”

sunghoon has never in his life packed his things so quickly. he’s already moving before he fully processes what he’s done.

his chair scrapes back lightly against the carpet as he gathers his things in motions so quick it almost feels automatic—laptop closing before his assignment is anywhere near complete, tumbler shoved into his bag without care for whether it spills or not.

you’re still looking at him when he straightens, your brows drawn together slightly as you glance down at your screen again, scrolling back to where you left off.

your expression only changes the moment you realise what he said was correct. the mistake is exactly what he pointed out, sitting there so obviously wrong now that it feels almost insulting that you didn’t see it earlier.

sunghoon slings his bag over his shoulder too quickly, the strap wrong-side up, before he quickly settles it in place. he doesn’t look at you directly again, even though he can feel your attention still on him.

there is no explanation he can give that wouldn’t make it worse. no version of this situation exists where staying longer feels safer than leaving immediately, because the longer he sits here, the more likely it becomes that something small will slip.

you will notice. it may be something in the way he speaks or pauses or breathes that does not belong to heeseung at all. he knows you will put it together, because these are things he notices about you, unwillingly.

so, he leaves.

sunghoon’s footsteps are steady as he moves between tables, fiddling with his car keys between his slender fingers—until he reaches the aisle where the library opens up toward the exit.

only then does he allow himself one brief glance back.

you’re looking at him, still. like you haven’t decided whether you’re supposed to stop or keep watching, eyes slightly wider than they were a moment ago, as if you’re still catching up to the fact that he actually spoke, actually stood up, and actually left without giving you anything close to an explanation.

it’s not like he owed you one, anyway. right?

there’s a faint crease between your brows now, nothing like frustration, instead softened into something that makes his heart twist and do all sorts of things against his ribs. it’s not an exaggeration to say that he’s never felt such a feeling, and it’s even more of an understatement when he says it scares him.

he almost trips over his jeans when he crosses the threshold of the library, out into the pavement and in front of the carpark.

sunghoon needs to go home. he needs to get his shit together and go to practice, like how he’s always done in the months before this, and how he’ll continue to do—and yet, god knows why he can’t even drive out of the lot, instead he’s glued to his seat with his feet planted on the mat like it’ll kill him if he stepped on the gas pedal.

sunghoon is already outside the library by the time he’s back in his own body, aware that he’s moving.

the air hits him colder than expected. sharp against skin still warmed by the inside of the building, and for a moment he just stands there, half between steps, like his body has forgotten what it was supposed to do next. the carpark stretches out in front of him in clean, repetitive lines, familiar enough that it should be automatic, but nothing about his movements feels familiar anymore.

“fuck—“

sunghoon almost trips when he steps down the last curb, not because he isn’t paying attention, but because his body is slightly ahead of his thoughts and neither of them are aligned with anything resembling control. he corrects himself quickly, hand tightening briefly around the strap of his bag, and continues forward in a way that would look normal to anyone watching from a distance.

sunghoon’s car is where it always is. he gets in, sits his ass down, and doesn’t move.

the engine is not on yet, keys resting in his hand without being inserted, and his foot stays planted on the mat as if there is some unspoken rule that says starting the car will make something irreversible happen. he stares at the steering wheel for a long time without really seeing it, jaw set in a way that suggests focus but is really just restraint.

that look on your face is so easy to remember. park sunghoon knows he has to tell you, if there’s any chance—any at all—that he gets to look at you like that again.

a curse, truly, because now he knows what it feels like to be so close to you, to have such a feeling strike him so deep, lodging itself in his chest; whenever your face pops up uninvited in his peripheral, or in his daydreams, or on his cell. almost humiliating and actively consuming his sick brain.

the honesty might not even make you stay, and it probably will not make the confession noble—it feels ridiculous to him, almost absurd, because the only thing keeping him tethered to his car mat is the replay of your face in his mind: so painfully uncomplicated that he can’t stand the thought of touching it with borrowed hands and stolen time.

he can still picture the way you looked at him across that table, brows faintly drawn together in confusion, not because you were intimidated or nervous or trying to figure out if sunghoon was really as the rumours say, but because you genuinely did not understand why he had stood up and left.

no expectant eyes, no carefulness, barely any fear. frowned when you were confused and smiled when something amused you, all with the kind of ease that feels so natural on you that he doubts you even notice it yourself. it is the sort of thing most people take for granted, he thinks. the sort of thing people are lucky enough to have for so long that they stop recognizing it as freedom.

sunghoon only notices because he does not have it.

hockey captain, top student, dependable, intimidating, disciplined, the guy could make his own dictionary with the obnoxious amount of adverbs attached to his image. almost every room he walks into seems to demand something from him before he even opens his mouth, and somewhere along the way he stopped questioning it. teammates watch his reactions before deciding how to react themselves. juniors reroute questions through other people because they are too nervous to ask him directly. professors talk to him like they actually have expectations—classmates wait for him to know the answer. even the fraternity treats him like a fixed object, something solid and predictable that will always be exactly where it is supposed to be.

then, there’s you. all perfect hair and soft lips and weirdly adorable frustration carved onto your face, sitting beside him with a pen between your fingers with the other hand on your keyboard. your entire life is on the verge of spilling out your mouth whenever you talk, completely unaware of how rare it looks from where he stands, saying things because you want to say them—because it’s funny, even if it’s meaningless, even if it contributes nothing of value to the conversation.

you call when you miss him, you laugh at his unintentionally self-deprecating humour, you ask questions when you don’t know. you get sad, you cry on the phone, and you get so ridiculously angry about such trivial matters, that he can’t help but smile at his screen.

for one brief, stupid, and careless moment in that library, sunghoon thinks he wanted to stay because you were pretty.

the thought survives all of five seconds. pretty girls are not exactly rare, but the feeling stirring in his chest and the warmth spreading through his body definitely is.

barely any of it has to do with the curve of your smile or the sunlight caught in your hair. instead, it had everything to do with the feeling of being around you, the uncomplicated nature of it all, and the subtle identity crisis where he did not have to be a captain, student, impressive or disciplined.

you will probably leave him, he thinks. the only other option seemed much too cruel, even for him, stripping that choice from you.

You: can we meet up? 12:34

─────────────────────────

ever since you moved into your apartment, you’ve been trying to build a routine—something efficient and optimal, taking up the least amount of time and effort, while maximizing the amount of tasks done.

the first few weeks were horrible—every small decision felt disproportionate and too time-consuming. there’s ten minutes you could’ve used to get ready for bed that you spent cooking dinner, which you should’ve made prior to leaving the house, bla bla bla. you knew it was bad when the sequence after unlocking your door alone was enough to irritate you: whether to eat first or shower, how long to wait before brushing your teeth so you wouldn’t scrub your enamel off. it was stupid, the amount of thought you poured into things that were supposed to be automatic, but you couldn’t help it. everything had to fall into place in this busy life of yours and serve it’s rightful purpose.

there were too many small decisions like that. too many things to get right.

maybe that’s why this feels so off. because there’s nothing to figure out, and no reason for it to happen so often.

there’s no adjustment period, no careful slotting of time or reshuffling of habits. he just fits into the spaces you’ve already made. it’s incredibly mundane and underwhelming in the way it happens.

for now, heeseung calls you almost every damn night, and you feel weirdly normal about it.

it starts on a random thursday. then it’s saturday, then monday, then tuesday. somewhere along the way, it stops being a coincidence or convenience.

by wednesday, you’re calling him to help you pick out an outfit for a department event, holding up different tops to your mirror like he can somehow see through the line. you’re describing the colours, the cut, every minute detail, assuming his imagination could keep up with your rambling.

on thursday, you’re complaining about how much you hate psych, words spilling faster than you can filter them. by the time friday rolls around, he’s the one calling—something about needing help with an assignment, though it diverges quickly into him venting about a useless groupmate in his behavioural economics class.

it morphs into something consistent, though, still strange regardless.

you could’ve sworn lee heeseung took his electives in art culture this year. yet, with the way he’s talking about stock markets and all rationality being lost on the modern day consumer, it sounds like he’s well-versed with the contents.

“you ate an entire block of cheese for dinner?” he repeats back to you. now that you’ve retold the entire process of cooking dinner, down to the amount of parmesan cheese you used, hearing it repeated back to you makes it sound a little insane. “you couldn’t just salt it?”

“are you judging me?” you giggle, turning over in your sheets. the fabric twists with you, cool against your skin and your joints protest almost immediately—your right shoulder’s starting to cramp from how long you’ve been hunched over on your side.

you let out a quiet sigh into the air. “it was a better choice. tasted good, so… i don’t see any problem.”

there’s a pause on his end. you fidget as you wait—picking at your cuticles, long overgrown and in desperate need of a maintenance check, even cracking your knuckles just to fill the silence.

“i think that’s the issue,” he huffs. your shoulders finally relax at the sound of him—lacking any true judgment despite his words.

there’s faint rustling that crackles through your device, and for a minute, you imagine how he must look like right now: laid up in bed in some old jersey, shorts barely hanging onto his hips from how lazy he is to tie the drawstrings tighter. the night’s winding down and you’re still here, with him, like this is an absolute must-do before your eyes shut.

and the routine must repeat tomorrow, of course. not that you’re complaining.

the rest of the conversation flows without much resistance. lee heeseung talks about his afternoon run that seemed to piss him off a great deal, because he got a call from choi yeonjun—something about being five minutes late to the gym and how he’s clearly not committed.

“oh. you’re friends with him? isn’t he in a completely different department from you, though?” you mumble, hoping that it doesn’t come off as blunt—you very well could have missed this detail in your earlier conversations. *“*how do you guys get to the point of going to the gym together?”

“he’s been bothering me ever since freshman year.” heeseung responds, “seriously. i don’t know how i haven’t strangled him yet.”

you chew on your bottom lip, searching for a response. the silence stretches just a little too long, and something about it starts to itch—like you’ve asked the wrong question and you’re pushing somewhere you shouldn’t.

“ah,” you say finally. “i see… he’s really popular, so i’m not surprised.”

“yeah, he is. it gets annoying as fuck when he brings his girls to lunch…” heeseung mutters under his breath—you’re toying with the string of your hoodie, if only to make yourself feel less awkward. there’s another long and excruciating pause before you finally decide to push the conversation in another direction:

“are you going to that fundraiser?” your voice comes out softer than intended. you can only hope that heeseung doesn’t make you repeat yourself. “sunoo’s… one. you know.”

“sunoo’s one…” he repeats back to you, slower. the concept almost sounds abstract to him. “no. not my thing.”

not his thing.

you’re back to fiddling with your fingers again. suddenly, the drawstring of your sweats seems more interesting than anything else you can hear from the other end of the line.

his voice fizzles out. you hear him, yes—his tired, monotonous voice crackling through the speaker reaches your ears and lands straight in your stomach. between short breaths and awkward pauses, you hyperfocus on the wind howling past your thin curtains.

“oh,” you manage after a moment. the word escapes weakly, scratching at your throat before you clear it up. “thought you were. my bad.”

you don’t realise how sweat-slicked your palms are until your phone almost slips from your hand. you turn over in bed, just to save your eyeballs from the sting of streetlights hanging outside your window—it’s almost three in the morning, and despite that dreadful fact, cars are still honking like they own the neighbourhood.

“are you?” heeseung asks. “probably, huh?”

“shut up,” you laugh. “what’s that supposed to mean?”

a quiet huff escapes through the line. your free hand traces the hem of your blanket, now tangled between your legs, serving no real purpose.

“it just sounds like something you’d be into.” heeseung states without a hint of laughter or a smile. “trying new things, even if they’re childish and embarrassing.”

“well—”

“it’s not a bad thing.”

you don’t respond immediately. a soft hum of acknowledgment is heard through the device—it’s barely triumphant or teasing—like he understands the reasoning behind why you’re throwing yourself out there, unknowingly, to him.

you roll onto your back again, tucking your arm over your belly. the cotton’s cold from the absence of your body against it, pillows still damp from your wet hair and impatient self; phone pressed awkwardly against your cheek, the heat almost battles that of sunday mornings.

speaking of, you haven’t experienced in it’s entirety for the past few weeks.

“why don’t you try it, then? it could be fun.” you murmur, eyes screwing shut at the instant the words rolled off your tongue. “sorry. you don’t have to… if you find it weird.”

his laugh makes your heart rate stutter, then spike.

it’s sweet. genuine. warm and unrehearsed in it’s charm, filling the dimness of your room and settling right under your ribs. your face burns up like you’ve just swallowed something hot, and the heat blooms right in your abdomen and crawls up your neck ridiculously fast.

“relationships aren’t my thing.”

lee heeseung says it like it’s already been decided—something fixed and immovable, written in bold or carved into a rock somewhere far beyond him. existing outside of his control, predetermined, and he’s made peace with it—it’s simply the way things are—though the heavy sigh that follows betrays him, outlined faintly with something that sounds nothing like acceptance.

the past few weeks have unfolded into something more than they should’ve. conversations stretching deeper than expected, softening and melting into quiet teasing that feels almost familiar, like you’ve known each other your entire lives.

“really?” your lips can’t help but to curl slightly upward. “you’ve never dated?”

“never had time for that. i’m not the best with affection. people talk to me like they’re scared of me, that kind of thing. even at that stupid party, i just drank by myself upstairs.”

perhaps your memory is failing you, then.

it’s strange, in hindsight, how most of your attention that night had never really stayed where it was supposed to. you remember the first few times you saw lee heeseung—his best friend following shortly after—and your gaze always seemed to lag behind who you claimed to like.

just how did those two end up together?

your seniors used to tell you to look forward to college. new place, new faces, new prospects—like the world finally opens up and hands you options you didn’t know you had. one day, you’re trapped in a classroom from seven to six; the next, you’re weaving through a campus that doesn’t know you yet, trying to decide who you get to be in it.

lee heeseung made it easy to know. he was the kind of person people noticed without trying. effortless in a way that felt almost unfair—hair falling exactly how it should, skin catching the light like it was always meant to. you’d pass by his friend group and hear him before you saw him, laughter loud and uncontained, a basketball tucked under his arm like it never knew how else to store itself. he fit into everything so naturally that it almost felt like the world was his and his alone.

it made sense to like him. and even then, your attention seemed to stray—slipping quietly and slowly just past him.

sunghoon hangs behind like it pained him to be around other people. always a little removed and distant enough to not involve himself in the conversation but not to turn around and walk away unnoticed; broad shoulders angling themselves slightly away, eyes flicking over other people like it physically pained him to see other humans.

it’s small, useless things. the way he’d shift his weight from one foot to the other when conversations dragged on and he was tired of it. his hands would stay tucked into his pockets like he didn’t know what to do with them otherwise. watching more than he spoke, like he was just slightly out of sync with everyone else.

you’ve only ever seen him laugh once*.* it was weirdly off-timed and the rest of his friends laughed only three seconds later. you wondered if all of heeseung’s friends were as strange as that, or if it was just him.

it’s weird, actually. thinking about it now, you realise you remember more about park sunghoon than you should for someone you never consciously paid attention to. his name seemed to be the last piece to his mysterious identity, no thanks to oh jiwon.

“i’m sure that’s not true.”

“it is,” he says. “i try to stay, but things don’t work out. rarely ever do.”

you raise an eyebrow. “work out? so you almost dated?”

“i show up. i do what i’m supposed to. it just stops feeling like something i want to be in after a while.”

“so you just dip?” you question.

“not all at once. i get scared. i pull back and i cancel things that i already fought to fit into my schedule,” he pauses. “i say it’s nothing. they don’t press much after that.”

you hum. the line goes quiet for a few seconds. you’re trying hard not to bombard him with every invasive question on your mind: who’s your most recent girlfriend? how long ago was the relationship? why do you run away?

he continues regardless.

“people get frustrated with me,” he mutters. “i can’t even handle my own emotions. i run from my issues and go on pre-workout to deal with my baggage. nobody sane does that shit.”

“heeseung—”

the name slips from your tongue like a mistake. you bite down on your bottom lip as if that would stop the words from echoing into his ears, somewhere, miles away.

“you’re the only girl that doesn’t treat me like that. i still don’t get it.”

just where did all these thoughts come from? there's weeks of conversations that stretched until midnight. unfiltered words that you silently agreed to keep between you two. your heart’s begun to match the rhythm of his voice, unintentionally, from the moment he picks up the phone to the second he cuts the line. somewhere between your first call to now, you’ve gotten to know him—it’s exactly why you can’t blame the confusion bubbling in your head or the pit in your stomach that only seems to sink deeper.

“aren’t you scared of me, too?”

and here you were, thinking that the answer was abundantly clear. he cuts himself off when you want to start rambling. he finishes your sentences when you’re falling asleep. he asks what ridiculous, unhealthy dish you cook up for dinner every single day without fail—so why does he still sound like that?

you shift slightly against your sheets, phone pressed a little tighter to your ear as if proximity could make sense of it. “i don’t get it,” you admit quietly. “why would anyone be scared of you?”

there’s a pause on the other end. it doesn’t feel empty. things rarely ever do when you’re on the phone with him; it feels more like he’s weighing whether to answer honestly, soften the blow or leave it alone entirely. “this is what i mean, [name].”

you frown. there’s a shuffle of feet upstairs, thudding against your ceiling, which momentarily distracts you. it’s almost four in the morning and nothing feels any clearer than it did ten minutes ago. “what?”

“you don’t care,” he continues. “simple.”

he doesn’t bother to explain further. he hasn’t bothered to say much at all, actually—not in a way that should make sense to you or anyone that knows the name heeseung. still, you understand it anyway, in that vague, unspoken way that two people manage to do, where language feels slightly too slow for what’s already being felt, and too shallow to tell the other person what you really mean.

there’s a hollow kind of discomfort sitting low in your stomach. you’ve learned by now that this is usually a warning sign, even if you don’t always know what it’s warning you about.

you’ve never had particularly good luck with these things, anyway. whatever invisible logic governs timing, people, attachment—it has never seemed especially fond of you.

you exhale softly, pulling your blanket higher over your shoulder, as if that might settle something internally. your gaze drifts to the empty space beside you, unoccupied, waiting in a way that feels louder than it should at this hour.

“what don’t i care about?”

your voice comes out as a whisper, unintentionally. the sound barely makes it past your lips, weak and soft like it’s embarrassing that you even thought about saying it and just plain humiliating that you let it out. either way, heeseung’s answering it seconds later.

“what people say about me,” he sighs, “i like it better like that.”

you don’t really know what he means by that—your hair scratches against the cold, crisp pillowcase under your head as you turn over anxiously. lee heeseung was very known, yes, but the way the words land just feels so… odd.

sniffling when he speaks again, the responses that follow never reaches your ears.

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finals week has made you it’s bitch.

there’s something almost childish in how irritable you get in the days leading up to exams. you’ve never learnt to move past it, and soon enough, the people around you eventually adapted to the sensitive storm that is you, minimally three days before a major paper.

three rules:

one) do not disrupt y/n l/n’s naps;

two) do not text, call, or approach first, and

do not ask how studying is going. the answer is never changing: it’s bad, i’m going to fail, my life is over.

okay, to be fair, these rules were not as strict as they sound. most of the time, people are already cooped up in study rooms and occupied with their own revision—clearly much too busy to talk to anyone else, much less you. so, when your entire friend group goes awol, you do nothing but let it happen.

though, there is just one person that remains.

lee heeseung, sounding entirely too relaxed over the phone with a blender going somewhere in the background, because he’s making his second protein shake of the day. he doesn’t sound very… worried about the approaching three-hour exam.

your feet are folded together, criss-cross on your office chair as you hunch over your desk. your room is pitch dark, save for the bright, white light radiating from your study lamp—sprawled over the surface of your cheap table is rewritten notes, scribbled equations and the occasional bible verse (for good measure).

“you sound upset,” he says.

“oh, do i, now?”

you almost drop your phone at that. you’ve been silently panicking for the last forty minutes without realising you’ve been breathing like that, and talking like this. you’ve spent even more time, close to five hours on this laptop that’s crying for you to shut it down, on lectures that you should’ve watched weeks back.

there’s a pause on his end, something shifting in the background—cupboard, blender stopping, maybe him leaning against the counter—and when he speaks again, it’s slower. “which one are you on?”

“twenty,” you say.

“how many left?”

“twelve,” you admit, already hating how it sounds when spoken out loud. somehow, all hope seems lost when you utter that forsaken number, despite it being (very) obviously displayed on the top left of your screen for the past few hours. “…fuck.”

this morning felt like hell. you’re sure your eye-bags have magically darkened themselves in the past few hours, and for a minute, you grimace at the thought of having to show up to school like that every damn day, all because you’re too tired to seem put together. breakfast was skipped, which was unfortunate, cause the guilt of preparing a heavy lunch only made the stress worse. heavy eyelids blinking open, slow, regretful for every delayed hour of sleep—limbs still tangled in cold sheets like it physically pained you to leave.

the sun bled through your blinds, warm over your ankles and blinding you through your eyelashes. you walked around the house in nothing but your underwear, even forgetting your slippers under the bedframe; there was only one thing on your mind. that much stayed consistent today, with the only variable factor being lee heeseung on the phone.

you didn’t think he’d call. schedules do that.

“it’s manageable,” his voice crackles through the speaker, and then there’s the sound of a cupboard slamming shut, along with the soft shuffling of… something. you actually consider hanging up on him, just for a brief moment. “how many topics?”

to be honest, you’d half-expected heeseung to tease you. laugh, even. maybe even tell you to stop being so dramatic, to answer his texts, and that he doesn’t understand why you’re freaking out over a dumb test—but here you are, and here he is, telling you that you have it figured out.

“four. it’s over,” you answer flatly, staring at the lecture list like if you looked hard enough another topic might spontaneously disappear. “it’s actually so over.”

“it’s not, y/n.”

heeseung’s voice stays annoyingly level. the speaker crackles with something that sounds like a spoon scraping against plastic and the jealousy almost gives you whiplash. he’s making a fucking protein shake while you’re stuck here memorising lecture slides on two-times speed and slowly developing permanent neck damage.

“you said your paper’s next tuesday. if there’s four topics left and you stop rewriting things you already know, you’ll finish tonight and still have time to revise.”

your head hits the table before you even realize you’ve moved. forehead pressed into paper, warm skin sticking slightly against cheap ink and printer sheets, you let yourself rot there dramatically. with your phone right beside your face, his voice sounds clearer than before—too clear, actually—and it feels vaguely humiliating, how quickly your chest warms when he talks like this.

you let out a long breath instead of responding, eyes drifting downward toward the floor beneath your desk. there’s crumpled paper scattered near your chair. a few sticky notes had missed the bin entirely and ended up attached to the outside of it instead, clinging there stubbornly like even they didn’t want to commit to failure.

he’s talking like he knows you.

“how’d you know—”

heeseung cuts you off with little trouble. “you’ve told me. pretty sure you can cut some lectures out, since you’ve been learning them for the past few weeks.”

you don’t answer. you narrow your eyes at his response, because who the hell is that observant? he doesn’t even need to confirm your schedule anymore—he just talks and cuts you off, knowing he’s completely right, because he listens that intently—but god.

he has no idea how warm that makes you feel.

on the other end of the line, heeseung walks back upstairs with his phone trapped awkwardly between his cheek and shoulder, head tilted enough that his neck would probably hurt later. his laptop balances in one hand, tumbler in the other, and his steps slow unconsciously as your breathing filters through the speaker.

his room looks exactly the same as always.

his duffel is already packed for practice tonight despite being excused for finals week. the afternoon sun catches against the medals mounted along his wall and reflects across his desk in strips of gold, schedule taped beside his wardrobe. his calendar is updated three weeks in advance, with a single day blocked out for the day you end your exams.

his eyes drift over the reminders stuck to his wall, and he’s reminded of it—the reason why he decided he was still going to practice today.

studying isn’t enough, clearly, if he’s still on the phone with you.

he already decided that he’d wait. finals week meant distance. finals week meant no showing up unexpectedly and no making this worse than he already has. finals week meant letting you breathe and not letting himself confuse temporary loneliness for something else, and finals week also meant not sinking deeper into you.

it’s just two weeks.

two weeks, and then, he’ll tell you.

“do you think i’ll do okay?” you mumble, so soft that you almost don’t hear yourself. it’s so quiet that you can hear the exact moment his fingers stop clicking against his keyboard, and so intense that the second he answers, your heart begins to pound.

“yeah. i know you will.”

─────────────────────────

you don’t think much of it when you tell heeseung where you’ll be tomorrow, or rather, today. truthfully, you haven’t been thinking much at all lately—unless you count the thirty-second ponder about lunch options earlier this morning.

finals week does something deeply unfortunate to people. everybody becomes uglier in small, socially acceptable ways, because everyone around you just… gets it. hair goes unwashed for an extra day, clothes repeat twice, thrice in a row, and eyebags sink further in with no substantial effort to conceal them. entire friend groups, including yours, quickly dissolve into delayed replies and weak promises to hang out after exams, because who the hell wants a mass social gathering after four all-nighters?

your room starts becoming unbearable by day four. there’s something fundamentally wrong with spending twelve hours in one place—any longer and you might’ve begun associating your digital lock chime with impending doom.

the second you sit at your desk, your chest tightens automatically. it’sm like your brain immediately morphs the cute wallpaper around you into blank rows of seats, and your ears only hear mindless scribbling, despite the cheerful music blasting through your headphones.

by the time noon comes around, you’ve scarfed down every grain of rice from your takeout container—dragging your feet and will to live through your apartment, searching for your purse before leaving.

it’s wednesday. the sun is shining on you, warm and consequentially irritating as the sweat begins to pill on your temples. they roll down your cheek in fat beads, and it almost serves as motivation for you to get your ass into that library as soon as possible.

your macbook is pressed against your side, tote slipping down your shoulders every few minutes, only to be caught by the crevice of your elbow. there’s an iced coffee from last night, standing in for your mid-day snack; and, as if you hadn’t eaten just an hour ago, your stomach rumbles in defeat.

the library doors open as you stomp against the carpeted sensors. the cold air hits your face hard enough that you nearly stop walking, but you settle for a deep, relieving sigh before turning left and speed-walking down those winding corridors built out of metal shelving.

your body already knows where to go now—past the noisier floors, up the stairs, away from printers and bathrooms and groups of students pretending to study while giggling about their situationships at full volume. roughly fifty-six seconds later, your consciousness kicks back in full gear, and you’re dumping your things down onto a familiar table before immediately realizing that you forgot your fucking charger.

“are you fucking—”

oh, well. problem for future you. worse comes to worst, you’ll scare some freshman away with your horrendous, sleepless eyes and unusually wide smile and steal theirs.

libraries distort time as well as they force you to keep track of it. hours behave well in the quieter corners, but if you’re somehow in urgent need of completing an assignment, they start speeding themselves up. it’s exactly why you’re chanting mantras to yourself now: studying isn’t urgent at all. this exam will not kill me! yes! i already know everything there is to know!

afternoon becomes evening rather quickly. suddenly, your water bottle is empty, your iced coffee splits into two separate layers of cloudy water and room temperature caffeine, and the light crawls across the carpet so much that your chair is no longer in the same patch of sun you sat down in.

you stopped checking the time thirty minutes ago. notes multiply, hair becomes tangled at the back of your neck, and your spine hurts. you spent forty minutes writing notes on a lecture, not realizing it’s a replay.

sometime later, when your legs are beginning to feel like tv static, movement catches in your peripheral and your eyes lift automatically before your brain even has a chance to catch up.

“sunghoon?”

my god. just stand up and run into his arms, why don’t you?

his reaction comes a fraction of a second later. despite the prior brain lag, you’re suddenly thinking about his face—sunghoon looks different outside of wherever you usually see him. less assembled, with a ridiculously large hoodie hanging loose around his frame, which only makes him look even bigger from where you’re sitting; there’s shadows beneath his eyes that soften his face unexpectedly.

his hair looks horrible. his sweatpants are dragging against the floor, too. sunghoon looks exhausted, and his gaze hangs low, until you call out for him, that is.

the corners of your lips curl upward before you even realise it’s happening. his expression doesn’t change much, but the faint raise of his thick eyebrows tells you enough. his eyes flick toward the empty chairs around you, and you almost assume that you weirded him out—great, he’ll walk away now—but all sunghoon does is return a soft, supposedly meaningless smile in your direction.

there’s that brief moment, where people who know each other silently debate whether acknowledging the other’s presence is necessary in public—and then he gives you a small nod, right before he takes his laptop out and sits right in front of it.

two seats away from you. like last week. if you hadn’t met the man before, you would’ve thought he wanted to kill you with a face like that. eyebrows knit together in frustration, typing furiously at his keyboard like it owed him twenty bands, tapping his foot against the carpet like he was thinking about something deathly important.

cute—wait, what the fuck, said you, around fifteen times over in the past two hours.

you become aware of him in entirely useless ways. he drinks water without looking away from his screen, sometimes even types with one hand as the other holds that tumbler to his lips. he cracks his knuckles at every given opportunity, and his fingers hover over the keyboard occasionally when he thinks. you leave for more coffee, come back, go to the bathroom, and he’s literally still there.

at one point, you look up because your neck hurts, and caught yourself stretching. fucking stretching, left to right, just for an excuse to get a full view of his side profile. in that tiny, meaningless moment, you witnessed him rub his eyes and immediately return back to typing his unfinished methods section.

it’s strangely comforting that park sunghoon is there for you to look at. oddly. it helps with the whole ‘i’m the only one in this universe, it’s all a simulation’ delirium.

regardless, at around six, the words on your screen are beginning to morph into one big demonic face, and every letter on your keyboard just resembles an egyptian hieroglyphic. words are decorative, english is just a bunch of made up gibberish, and you need to get out of this plastic seat before you melt into it—so after rereading the same paragraph four times, absorbing nothing (shocker), your eyes begin to ache and decide: changing tasks will fix all these worldly pains you have.

the ‘changing tasks’ arrives in the form of a reference nook your professor mentioned. standing, stretching, you’re doing it all before disappearing into the shelves.

it’s warmer here than it is at the tables, somehow. perhaps it’s the way the sun is setting now, and it’s getting all in your eyes and in your hair, just like it did this morning. though, when you turn towards the closest, wide-set window, your breath almost gets taken away at the blend of pinks and oranges that colour the sky.

you see this sunset almost every day. still, it doesn’t take any of the beauty away.

dust catches in the overhead light, paling in comparison to the golden hue that the light is bathing the room in—the smell of old books penetrates your nose in a way that makes you think about middle school. you drag your fingers across rows of spines, reading titles under your breath, stepping slower in each aisle because your brain refuses to remember the author’s name. you bet sunghoon doesn’t struggle with things like that.

“behavioural psychology… where the fuck even is that?”

─────────────────────────

following a mini mental breakdown, park sunghoon’s brain decides not to accomodate a single molecule of information until he gets up and got his blood moving.

there was only so much economics and statistics a person could consume before words stopped behaving like language and started looking like numbers flipped around. his screen brightness had been lowered twice, and his coffee had gone cold sometime around four—the sleeves of his hoodie were pushed halfway up his forearms and there was a faint imprint from resting his cheek against his knuckles for too long, which he finds immensely humiliating.

he closes the document, opens it again, reads the same words over and over, and realises he won’t get anything done like this; so his eyes leave the screen for the first time in twenty minutes and settle automatically on the empty seat in his peripheral.

his head back turns so fast that he almost curses at himself.

and, to make things extra embarrassing, his mind starts to weigh the odds of whether you’re about to leave, or if you’re just gone for another break. scanning your side of the desk, taking in your untouched water bottle, open laptop and tangled wired headphones—you’re somewhere nearby, a conclusion he unwillingly comes to.

sunghoon’s fingers drum once against the tumbler before he remembers there was a book he wanted earlier. or needed. something vaguely related to an assignment he’d been putting off. either way, he stands, pushes in his chair halfway, and makes his way into the shelves.

it really does feel different in here. the high-pitched clacking of mechanical keyboards is muffled, almost muted behind these thick walls of books, where light filters in through strips and catches every speck of dust floating around. he turns once, twice, passing business ethics—until he finally reaches behavioural psychology, and stops dead in his tracks.

it’s not even about the book. if he remembered correctly, the one he was looking for’s two floors down, but this—here, in front of him, on this floor, was you.

sunghoon ducks into the next aisle like he’s guilty. he presses his back lightly against the endcap of the shelf, as though the solid structure might help him reset whatever just short-circuited in his brain.

this is ridiculous. he’s in a library. on a weekday. trying to study. and yet, somehow, his entire nervous system has decided that walking in a straight line is suddenly the most difficult thing in the world.

he exhales, before trying to occupy himself by looking for something similar to what he’s studying for another module. he stands still for a second longer than necessary, fingertips running against this one book which he can’t bother to know the name of, and all it does is feel like a weak alibi.

business psychology is a popular section. lots of students with sunghoon’s major share modules, hence, explaining why the other book he’s pretending to need isn’t even here. it also explains why the fuck his eyes keep gravitating towards you, through tall-enough gaps, locked on your concentrated face and frustrated pout.

every interruption in his life, somehow, becomes framed with you. a horizontal slit between two rows of books, a deliberate architectural hesitation, tall enough to fit even the thickest and tallest of publications out there—and you, existing between it.

it’s closer than before, not in distance but in clarity. the kind of proximity that does not require physical reduction to feel intimate. the light falls differently here, angled through a window he cannot fully see, softening the edge of everything it touches—your tip of your nose, the ends of your hair, and the faint movement of your hand as you adjust your page.

you look so beautiful. nothing has changed. he knew it when he saw you sitting in front of him today, he knew it when you walked into this place last week, and he knew it when he saw you at that party, wearing a dress that seemed so inclined to his attention and a smile that made all the flashing colours pale in comparison.

and, most of all, he knows it now. a fool he is, for thinking that these feelings would fade.

sunghoon tries to locate himself properly in the task he came for—something about organisational theory, a phenomenon he can usually reduce into clean frameworks and exam-ready structure. his hand has been resting against the spine of the book for the past twenty seconds, fingers curled just enough to suggest intent, but nothing in him is actually compelling the pull.

the thought arrives with a sharpness that feels almost physical, like pressure behind the ribs.

park sunghoon wishes he could redo college from the start. not in the abstract, as nostalgia or regret type thing, instead with specificity—clean edits to timing, tone, and presence. a revision pass on himself. one that would let him stand a few steps closer to you now, without feeling like the distance between yourselves is self-inflicted.

his thumb shifts minutely along the book’s spine. the motion is absent-minded, almost mechanical.

once you know who he really is—strip away whatever version of him you’ve only seen in passing corridors and half-glances at the long oak table—will you stop looking for him?

fuck. he doesn’t even care enough to stop looking at you. hair falling over your face, your lips blowing air to get the tiny, annoying strands to stop itching your nose.

selfish. selfish, selfish, selfish. that’s all he is.

─────────────────────────

─────────────────────────

august meant summer.

the sun is unforgiving, blazing hot rays beating down on your back as sweat trickles down your shoulder blades—everything about today seemed relentless, exam included. around you, people are already decomposing the paper in clusters: comparing answers, laughing too loudly, swearing they’re finished in voices that sound almost celebratory. someone says question 47 was impossible. someone else says it was free marks. you keep walking.

there’s that feeling when you finally press submit on a paper. not relief exactly—more like your body forgetting what to do after operating at full capacity for too long. to be truthful, there were multiple times where you thought you were fucked throughout the exam, and then you’d look at the bottom of your screen and see: 21 out of 80 questions saved.

you really, sincerely thought handing in that empty thing was better than typing whatever you studied. no matter how hard you worked these past few weeks, there was always that irritating, sly little voice whispering into your ear that it was for nothing. that all those late nights, colour-coded notes, skipped breaks and panic-induced productivity spurts would collapse into one single, defining moment that you were never going to catch up.

somewhere around the second hour—after your eyes started blurring and the timer at the corner of the screen felt less like a clock and more like a countdown to execution—you broke. quietly, of course. you had enough tact not to lose your shit in front of a hundred other students in the same venue.

you understood less than you thought. you should’ve started earlier. you’re embarrassing yourself.

you just stared at question 22 for three minutes straight and felt your throat tighten because suddenly, everything became impossible at once. reading felt impossible. thinking felt impossible. even moving your cursor felt weirdly impossible. you literally just bought it yesterday, because you were convinced the one you always use would die.

fuck everything, you thought, until some other voice started talking to you—in that calm, gentle demeanour that you’ve gotten used to over months. low and amused in tone when he said, “why’re you so hard on yourself, y/n?”

last night, he was on the phone with you. you remember lying flat on your bed with your notes open but untouched, your lamp the only thing still awake in your room. coffee wasn’t doing it, or maybe it was just the fact that it was your sixth cup today; he’d called later than usual, and somehow the conversation drifted away from exams, and shifted more toward your incessant need to be perfect, despite and in spite of the circumstances.

“what do you mean?”

moonlight spilling in through thin curtains, the thrum of public transport and dogs taking late-night walks with owners who talk too loud on the phone. no one knew where you were, no one cared what you were doing, but it didn’t matter. he knew. he cared.

you don’t even remember how the conversation got there, either. was it some joke about failing? one too many of those were made, now that you think about it. it wasn’t even self-pitying, either—all casual in the way that people talk, repeating the same thing enough times that it sounds like truth—but then he went quiet and said, “you talk like you’ve already decided on fucking it up.”

you remember laughing. whatever, because what do you do when someone says something so accurate? what the hell do you say when someone sees right **through you?

“i just have bad luck in these things.”

he laughed. fucking laughed. it was this short, incredulous breath through his nose like he couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or amused. “you study all day, every day, and act surprised when you know the material.”

you frowned automatically. “well—”

“no,” he interrupted. “you’re smart. hard working. you’re trying, and i don’t think you should dismiss those efforts.”

“but—”

“i have to get back to work,” he breathed into the phone. his voice dropped slightly at the end, words softened by distance and whatever position he’d shifted into. you could hear movement through the phone—the subtle crackle of fabric, the hollow acoustics of a room that sounded emptier than yours. “get some sleep before your exam. goodnight.”

no good-lucks, no you’ll-do-wells, no last minute reassurance that would only soothe your nerves for ten minutes before you’d spiral again. last night, it had seemed cruel. not in the obvious sense—he wasn’t mean nor dismissive—but there was something irritatingly unsympathetic about the way he refused to give in to you. you’d left that call mildly offended, convinced he was sick of hearing you talk like that. sick of your catastrophizing, sick of your weird habit of turning every achievement into an exception and every mistake into evidence. sick of you.

yet, now, walking towards your car with the heat sitting heavy against your skin and your student id still peeking out the pocket of your jeans, it seemed more like belief.

in you, that is. almost as if that you doing terribly had never come across his mind, occurring as a possibility.

you recall staring at your ceiling, phone falling face flat to your mattress, face flushed with embarassment and annoyance that only seemed to erupt when it came to late replies and slightly off-sounding tones. it’s almost exclusive to him—you were never that great at reading rooms, after all.

your car keys twirl around your index finger, a different spring in your step now that the bitter taste of last night has dissolved completely. you’ll call him tonight, later, maybe once your foot crosses the threshold known as your front door, or once you step into the car. you’ll tell him about the exam, about how there was a moment where you genuinely considered submitting half a paper because, somehow, failing after trying felt more humiliating than failing without trying.

you’ll tell him that his stupidly calm voice somehow survived twelve hours and a three-hour exam. that while you were sitting there spiralling and preparing to abandon the entire thing, you remembered the way he said it—like he knew, understood, and reached for you when you abandoned yourself.

you’re already halfway through mentally composing the conversation when movement ahead catches your attention. someone’s walking towards you from the opposite direction, feet dragging against concrete in a way that would usually annoy, but instead of diverting your attention to the phone in your pocket—you look up.

you recognize him immediately. lee heeseung.

weirdly enough, you haven’t seen him up close around campus for the past three months. you assumed it was probably because he was just that busy—you’d seen his figure in the distance, but by the time you caught up, he’d be gone. there were tons of excuses that he made up on the phone, too, earlier into your relationship: personal projects, mostly, though the details were always lacking.

perfect hair. perfect face. perfect stride. even now, people notice him as he walks past. conversations soften for half a second, eyes lifting instinctively and following his pace before returning to wherever they were before. heeseung moves through it without acknowledging anything, shoulders relaxed, expression neutral, looking exactly like someone who’s long stopped recognizing attention as something unusual.

you straighten automatically, lifting your hand, almost waving, but not quite yet. heeseung doesn’t even need to see it in motion for him to look right into your eyes.

his expression shifts—something adjacent to confusion, an eyebrow raised as if to say, where do i know you from?

what. the. fuck.

© kissued 2026 — do not repost, edit, redistribute or translate my work without prior permission and credit. all my work is strictly fictional and not an accurate representation of these people in real life.

He doesn't look at you.

Why wouldn't he look at you?

He sat in the row by your left side, up higher somewhere in the middle. He had his hood up, messy dirty blonde hair he showed up with a couple of days ago trimmed and fresh. It made his complexion warmer, more appealing.

You would know that.

How?

You were glancing at him the whole lecture. You eyes now and then going over your shoulder — subtly. At least you hoped. And not even once did he glance your way.

Riki sat there, lazyly scribbling something down on his notes. The professor's voice echoing the dull hall and simply serving as the background noise to most, but not to him.

He was still following everything, writing down important stuff, brain memorizing some of it like on autopilot.

Who could tell that?

That he was an excellent student, excelling so easily since the primary school. No one actually. At least at a first glance. His stylish persona and cold demeanor was quite contradictory to the actual way he nevertheless had always been.

It's been weeks since the last time.

He never called you up again for the actual tutoring.

And you?

You were walking on eggshells since then. Not because you were avoiding him, scared to face or encounter him in a mere radius of hundred meters — but because you were nervous. Your heart rate would pick up at the mere flash of his image through your mind. Thighs would flex at the memory of his struck face — eyes closed, eyebrows tight together and pants leaving his plump lips as he was at the verge of orgasm.

Never would you think it would be this easy for some boy to enter your head.

But here he was. Sitting just a couple of rows back, feline focused eyes stuck to the paper as he wrote down notes. Organized and responsible. That was him. His leg was bouncing under the high desk, freckles on his slightly tanned skin so attention pulling and mesmerizing.

One thing kept jabbing at you — why was he acting like nothing ever happened?

It made you glance back to the front, head dropping to your lap as you thought. Absentmindedly furrowing your brows, pointer finger digging into your thumbs cuticle. You adjusted your glasses, head turning back over your shoulder and right towards the now blonde boy.

He was too deep into his notes, hair brushing his forehead, lips slightly parted as he wrote something down.

And you hated how you noticed every single thing about it.

———

The psychology department was organizing a student conference next Friday. You signed up immediately. Not because Riki's name appeared on the presenters list.

Obviously.

That would be ridiculous.

You signed up because it would look good on your CV. Because networking was important. Because professors liked seeing students participate. At least that's what you told yourself. Three separate times.

And yet your eyes still found his name first. You arrived ten minutes early, not because you were hoping to see him.

You arrived early because punctuality was important. Because first impressions mattered. Because being late to a volunteer meeting would be unprofessional. At least that's what you told yourself while choosing a seat with a perfect view of the door.

The classroom slowly filled. Around 20 students, nothing mir enorhibg less. Just a meeting about the upcoming conference and the arrangements that needed to be made.

Small groups formed immediately, students chatting amongst themselves as they waited for the professor organizing the conference to arrive. Somebody was talking about presentation topics. Someone else complained about having to come in during their free period.

You barely heard any of it.

Every time the door opened, your eyes flicked up.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

And then—

There he was.

Your stomach dropped so fast it was almost embarrassing. Riki walked inside like he owned the place. One hand shoved into the pocket of his hoodie, backpack hanging from a single shoulder, messy blond hair falling into his eyes.

You hated how immediately you noticed him. Hated how your brain picked up details before you could stop it — the new silver ring on his finger, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the fact he looked like he slept maybe four hours and still somehow managed to look annoyingly good.

Your gaze followed him, then stopped. Because he wasn't alone —a girl walked in right behind him, laughing. Riki glanced at her, his lips moving as he answered. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You stared.

The feeling that hit wasn't even jealousy.

Just confusion.

He talked to people?

Voluntarily?

The realization was stupid. Obviously he did, you just had never really seen it. The girl said something else and Riki rolled his eyes. And she laughed again.

Your fingers tightened around your pen, eyes dropping to the notebook in front of you, glasses slightly sliding down your nose. Something unpleasant settled low in your stomach. Not because they were flirting, they weren't.

But she looked comfortable around him. Comfortable enough to tease him, to sit beside him. And when the only empty seats left happened to be the ones next to him she took one without hesitation.

Riki didn't seem to mind. That bothered you more than it should have, a lot more. He adjusted himself on the chair, a small creeping smile on his face as she spoke to him. He let his arm rest on the empty chair on the other side of him, on the backrest as he slightly shook his head with a smile.

Then, as if sensing it, his eyes lifted.

For one brief second they landed directly on yours. Your breath caught. You felt your pulse jump instantly.

Then...

Nothing.

No reaction. No acknowledgment. No expression whatsoever. His gaze slid right past you. Like you were another student in the room.

Like nothing had ever happened.

Like you weren't even worth a second look.

The girl beside him leaned over and asked him something. And Riki turned back to her. The professor walked in moments later.

You didn't hear a single word of the meeting.

The meeting ended a little after six. Students slowly filtered out of the classroom, chairs scraping against the floor as conversations overlapped into one dull buzz. You gathered your notebook, stuffed it into your bag and left without looking back. At least, that had been the plan. Your eyes still found him once.

He stood near the professor's desk, one hand shoved into the pocket of his hoodie while discussing something with another volunteer. The same girl from earlier stood nearby, listening to whatever was being said.

You looked away immediately, annoyed with yourself, then finally headed home after a long day of exhausting lectures and this pretty boring meeting.

By the time you reached your house, the sky had already begun turning orange.

Your tired footsteps echoed the hall as you made your way towards your room, huffing out a breath of exhaustion. The door of your dad's office stood open, stacks of papers covering almost every available surface. Printed surveys, research notes, student evaluations. The usual chaos that pulled your attention as you passed by.

"Perfect timing." He said the moment he noticed you passing by. "Come help me sort these." You groaned, head thrown back in protest as you took a couple of steps back.

He ignored it, eyes dancing over the laptop screen. Twenty minutes later you found yourself sitting across from him, organizing documents into neat piles while he rambled about department funding and conference schedules, making calls left and right.

Normally you enjoyed moments like these. You and your father had always gotten along easily. Today, however, your attention kept drifting. A name on one of the volunteer lists made your eyes linger for a second too long.

Nishimura Riki

You immediately moved the paper away. The rest of the evening passed quietly. Dinner was simple and usual, your mother talked about work, your father complained about administrative responsibilities.

You nodded when appropriate, answered questions when asked, and pushed food around your plate while trying your best to remain present.

Trying. Being the important word. Because every now and then your mind wandered. Not intentionally — never intentionally. A phrase would remind you of something. A tone of voice. A random thought.

And suddenly you were back in that classroom again. Back to seeing him after weeks of pretending he didn't exist, to that brief moment when your eyes met. Back to the irritating indifference on his face. You hated how easily it happened. By the time dinner ended, you felt exhausted for reasons that had nothing to do with the day itself.

You retreated to your room shortly afterward. The familiar comfort of your own space should have helped. Instead, it somehow made things worse. You changed into pajamas, washed your face, tied your hair back and settled at your desk with every intention of studying.

The textbook sat open in front of you, highlighter in hand as your eyes skimmed over the chapter. Notes were scattered neatly around the desk. For several minutes everything went according to plan.

Then your eyes stopped moving across the page. The words blurred. And before you realized it, your thoughts had wandered somewhere else entirely.

You stomach twisted at the intrusive image.

Riki. On his knees. Plump lips around your throbbing clit.

You slammed the highlighter down on the desk, eyes closing at the mere feel of your heart jolting at the thought. A deep inhale filled your tight lungs with stale air before it exited. You opened your eyes again, adjusting your glasses before taking the highlighter again, trying to focus on the theory imprinted on paper before you.

But again, just as you read the first sentence, your mind betrayed you.

The feeling of his big hands brushing your thighs. The lip bite as his eyes were stuck to the way he was pumping into you.

Your thighs clenched. The hot pressure between them all of a sudden present.

You still pushed your mind to focus, gaze following the underlined sentences and moving down the page. But it all was just simply vaguely traced.

Him pushing you into the table — against the hard wood so selfishly as he fucked into you. Fast.

Your hips subtly moved on their own, a deep inhale following through your nose. You shook your head in an attempt to get it all out of your head.

It was too late.

You were throbbing.

You crossed your ankles, thighs pushing harder together. The bottom lip stuck between your teeth, gaze still stuck to the book at a poor attempt to full yourself. To tell yourself this wasn't happening. Not to the thought of him.

But your hips grinded again helplessly against nothing. "No..."

Your hand flew between your crossed legs and over your mound. You pressed. Hard. A breathy shaky sound left you, eyes closing in delight at the feeling.

Riki spreading your thighs, ringed fingers pressing into your warm flesh. His mouth fast between your soaked folds. The way he held you down as he ate you out last time.

You grinded into your hand, ankles uncrossing hastily. "Fuck..." You cursed under your breath, softly and as quiet as possible. Your lips parted soundlessly as the pressure hit your clit so heavenly. The sound of your parents downstairs, talking and getting ready for bed the only thing keeping you tethered.

Your core felt like it was on fire, your folds pressed on repeatedly and the wetness that coated them slowly was getting sucked in by your panties under the pajamas. Your hips moved in a rhythm, making sure the pressure hits your sensitive clit just right everytime.

Images kept popping up. One by one.

His tongue poking at your entrance. Long fingers stuck in your mouth as he fucked your cunt.

And then...

The image of what if.

What if he bent you over his coffe table like he did the first time in the office? What if he ate you from the back before he slammed into you. Uninvited and sudden.

A low and desperate moan left your lips. Your shoulders slouching forward as you kept on grinding and grinding.

He would stretch you so good, your walls would burn at each drag of his, taking him eagerly. You would moan his name, arching against him as his big palms groped every part of you he could.

You couldnt take it. Your thighs parted hastily, hand was fast inside of your panties. Your middle finger glided over your soaked slit before it dipped between your folds.

You were soaked.

You hissed the moment your fingertip came in contact with your throbbing clit. Nerves on fire and toes curling as you delivered fast tight circles to it. You bit your lip at the whines that threatened to echo the bedroom.

He would lean over you, heat radiating off his toned body as he whispers filthy things into your ear. Things like "You are taking me so good baby." or "Yeah? You like the way I'm fucking you? Stretching this pussy so right."

Yes, you would like that so much. So so much.

Your finger sped up, no teasing or gradual built up. You need this. You needed to come. The slickness of your pussy made the circles so messy, finger sliding over, next and around the clit so greedily at the brink of a frenzy. Your wrist started to hurt, the sounds your cunt produced made everything even filthier. You panted, at an attempt to be quiet. And you were. The only sounds that filled the room were the low fast breaths and the sound of your finger working over your swollen clit.

The bubble formed faster and faster at the pit of your stomach. Burning and wanting to explode. One last image of him was enough.

Of him at the brink of his orgasm, deep and raspy pants leaving his lips, brows furrowed as he slammed into you repeatedly.

Your body shuddered. Uncontrollable soft moans left you, the other palm fast enough over your mouth as you kept grinding against your hand. You spasmed whole. Your pussy, your thighs, your every muscle felt the rush. Aftershocks ripped through you so carelessly and hard that it had you lightheaded.

You slowed your finger down, the sudden wetness on your palm all too filthy and gross. You sniffed, blinking in an attempt to collect yourself.

The fragments of high still in your blood, rushing through and slowly subduing.

You shook your head, eyes moving down all over the table, hand slowly retracting from your underwear.

Yeah...

You should go clean up.

———

The week leading up to the conference was pretty usual. Wake up, classes, breaks, study at the library, go home and pray your dad won't stop you for some assistance like he usually did.

The morning of the conference you showed up earlier. The university groupchat reminding everyone signed up to be at least two hours earlier, to helt set everything and review the presentations one last time.

The faculty building looked completely different this early in the morning. Students moved through the hallways carrying cardboard boxes and stacks of papers. The smell of coffee hung in the air, professors already rushing from room to room while discussing schedules and presentations.

The conference hadn't even started and somehow everybody already looked stressed.

You adjusted the volunteer badge hanging around your neck and headed toward the registration desk. The duty that was assigned to you by the department dean. Sad to say it was the boring part.

A professor spotted you before you could properly settle in and immediately handed you a stack of folders.

"Can you take these to room 204, please."

You nodded, hands already grabbing the papers. The folders felt heavier than they actually were as you carried them down the hallway. You huffed out in exhaustion, your being clinging to those four hours of sleep since the exams are coming up in a week.

People in a hurry passed by you now and then, eager to get everything done as soon as possible.

Your steps felt heavy. Like you were a walking corpse. That's how you felt.

The room numbers switched fast as ypt studded down the corridor.

200,

201,

202...

Then you saw him.

Your steps almost faltered.

Riki stood near the main lecture hall, carrying two folded poster boards under one arm. His blond hair looked brighter under the morning light pouring through the large windows. A presenter badge hung around his neck too, lazily turned sideways as if he couldn't be bothered to fix it.

One hand shoved lazily into the pocket of his blue straight fit jeans, the polo shirt he wore giving a completely different vibe he usually carried with himself and his stylish persona.

It makes look him more... Nerd-like.

And it fits him so good.

And the glasses?

You didn't know he wore glasses. It made your breath caught in a way that didn't feel like it should. Then you noticed he wasn't alone. A girl stood beside him. The same one from the meeting.

They are presenting together. At the meeting they led you all through their concept and basics of the way they are going to present.

She was holding a clipboard while explaining something, her hands moving animatedly as she spoke. And he listened, nodding his head attentively as he looked down at her smaller frame.

He answered.

The girl laughed. And he laughed too.

You observed everything, eyes one last time skimming over him attire before you continued walking.

Room 204.

There it is.

You spent the first twenty minutes sorting name tags behind the registration desk — names, departments, universities. Simple tasks.

Every few minutes another volunteer passed by. Every few minutes somebody asked you a question. Then a shadow appeared beside the table. Your fingers paused immediately.

"Those are supposed to be alphabetized."

Your heart nearly launched itself into your throat. You knew that voice. That deep voice.

You looked up and there he was.

Riki stood on the other side of the table. Close enough now that you could see the faint shadows beneath his eyes, the glasses reflecting the light. Close enough to notice the presenter badge hanging crookedly around his neck. Close enough to remember exactly how much you hated being near him.

Or at least how much you were supposed to hate being near him.

His expression remained completely neutral. No recognition beyond the basic acknowledgment one student would give another. You could smell his perfume. His strong, masculine perfume. The one that had every female spiral at the simple whiff of it.

"Oh."

The response left your mouth before you could stop it. Brilliant, very brilliant. You cleared your throat right after. "Okay." Riki nodded once, eyes roaming the table.

"The presenters need their badges separated too." His voice remained flat. Professional, almost bored. "Professor Henry asked me to tell you."

You stared at him for a second. Then immediately looked back down at the table.

"Okay."

Another nod. A second passed. Then he was gone.

The crowd swallowed him almost immediately. You watched his back disappear between volunteers carrying folders and professors rushing toward presentation rooms before forcing yourself to look down at the stack of name tags again.

The silence around you suddenly felt louder.

Because what exactly had you expected?

For him to stop? For him to look at you differently? For something to happen?

Your fingers played with the pen in your hands. Nothing happened. He told you what needed to be done. You answered. The conversation ended.

And somehow that bothered you more than it should have.

———

The conference passed preety smoothly. It was done approximately by two pm. Students after that went to get lunch, some went to their dorms to take a rest before the big clean in the evening.

The organization was simple and tactical. Come early, get everything done, and then clean up the mess by tommorow. It was pretty exhaustiong to your already overstimulated self for the day being.

Well thank god the students actually, including you, decided it would be better to actually do it later and not right away since everyone seemed to be so out of themselves after the very busy day at the campus. The few hours of break passed quicker than you expected.

One moment you were eating with a couple of volunteers at a nearby café, absentmindedly stirring your drink while pretending to listen to the conversation around you. The next, you were already walking back through the faculty doors with the evening sun casting long shadows across the hallways.

The atmosphere had changed completely.

The conference was over.

No professors rushing from room to room anymore. No presentations. No nervous students checking their notes one last time before standing in front of an audience.

Just tired people cleaning.

Music quietly played from somebody's speaker somewhere down the hallway. Laughter echoed now and then through the building as students carried boxes, folded banners and pushed chairs across the floor.

For the first time all day, everything felt relaxed, almost casual.

You found yourself helping clear one of the lecture halls, stacking abandoned programs into cardboard boxes and collecting forgotten water bottles from beneath chairs.

Your legs hurt, your shoulders hurt. And somehow your social battery had completely died somewhere around noon. You barely spoke. Just nodded whenever somebody gave you instructions and continued working.

The less interaction, the better.

Unfortunately, fate seemed to disagree.

The storage room was cooler than the rest of the building. Dimmer too.

Stacks of folded tables lined one wall while chairs were piled nearly to the ceiling on the other. You were busy organizing a box of leftover conference materials when the door opened behind you.

The sound barely registered at first until a familiar voice thanked somebody outside. Then the door shut loudly. Your stomach immediately tightened.

Of course.

Of course it was him.

Riki carried another stack of chairs inside, setting them against the wall with a dull metallic clatter. Silence followed as you kept sorting papers, back turned to him.

He kept stacking chairs, the clatter of metal loud enough in the tight room. Neither of you said anything. A thick glob of saliva dropped down your throat as you focused on the task on hand. Focused on literally anything else. The silence stretched painfully.

One chair. Then another. Then another.

Until somehow the words slipped out before you could stop them.

"You presented well."

The room went quiet. Even the sound of chairs stopped. Your eyes widened slightly, regret rising in your chest fast. Riki paused midway through setting another chair down. "...Hm?"

You stared stubbornly at the cardboard box filled with God knows what in front of you. Too late to take it back now. "Your presentation." Your voice sounded smaller than you intended. "It was good." Silence followed. Long enough to make heat crawl up your neck. Long enough to make you wish the floor would simply open and swallow you whole.

You simply rummage now through the box, things clattering around.

"Thanks."

Simple. Short.

He didn't even bother to stop, to add something more. He kept arranging the chairs, focus back on the wooden furniture. Your hands stopped, resting on top of the sides, gripping the cardboard as you absentmindedly stared at the content of the box. Your jaw tightened. Flexed as you tried to stop the next words coming out of you. You really did.

But—

"You and the girl... did a good job." You swallowed. "The—" You inhaled, eyes slwllyl closing as your voice was down to almost a whisper—tender. "The chemistry was...there."

You paused again.

The words sounded strange the moment they left your mouth.

Not wrong, just a little too specific. The room fell quieter then before. A chair scraped against the floor, making you silently wince.

You heard the movement stop altogether. Slowly, you looked down at the random papers inside the cardboard box, pretending to be fascinated by whatever was printed on them. Behind you, Riki let out a quiet breath.

"Chemistry."

He repeated the word carefully, as if tasting it. Your stomach immediately tightened.

You wished he would just let it go, forger everything, ignore you just like the past few weeks and move on. Get put of this room and leave you to wind down. Alone.

Instead, the silence stretched. Your heartbeat ringed inside of your ears. The silence was so loud, so uncomfortable since he was probably looking at you. Your mind spiraled. And somehow the thought of his eyes on you made it impossible to turn around. "You got all that from a twenty minute presentation?" There was something in his voice now.

Something subtle, not quite amusement nor quite mockery, but something in between. Your grip tightened around the edge of the box. "I was just saying." You replied quietly.

"Hm." The sound was low. Thoughtful.

You finally risked a glance over your shoulder.

Big mistake.

Riki was leaning against the stack of chairs now, arms crossed loosely over his chest. His head tilted slightly to one side as he watched you.

He... had a different outfit on. He was in a simple black hoodie, forearms exposed by the rolled sleeves. Black sweats clinged to his lean figure, just adding to the simple but still edgy look on him. Hair slightly tousled and more relaxed then before during the conference itself, glasses gone. He must have went home right after, definitely showered since the smell that you tried so hard to ignore as he entered the room was intoxicating. Clean and masculine.

Not that you realized he wasn't anywhere right after as everyone had the lunch together.

This was more him.

The attention and the weight of his gaze immediately made heat crawl up your neck.

"You seemed pretty sure."

You looked away immediately. Heart rate seemed to rise indescribably fast. Then you spoke, almost a whisper — tender and shy, meeting his eyes over your shoulder again. "I don't know."

A quiet chuckle escaped him. The sound bounced around the small storage room. Your face burned. Because somehow you knew. You knew he wasn't talking about the presentation anymore.

Not really.

And judging by the look in his eyes, he knew it too. "You don't?" The question came easy. His gaze stayed fixed on you, brow raised as a slight smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. He waited.

You swallowed. Suddenly finding the cardboard box in front of you incredibly interesting. Riki's tongue pressed briefly against the inside of his cheek, gaze slowly dropping down your figure. Your small fragile shoulders, the was the top hugged you. And then lower. To the skirt you wore since the morning, not too short but not too long. Just perfect for the professional setting that took place this morning. He can't forget that the glasses were an unavoidable detail to it. You style was completely different today.

Oh he knew what this was about.

He could feel it.

It bothered you so much. So much that he didn't talk to you for the past few weeks, call you up about the tutoring, not even glance at you. A small shake of his head followed as he delivered a bite to his cheek. Almost like he couldn't believe you — or maybe couldn't believe how obvious you were being.

"Right."

The single word was enough. Enough to tell you he wasn't buying it for a second. The silence that followed felt unbearable. You swallowed hard, fingers fumbling with a stack of papers before immediately setting them back down. Suddenly you couldn't remember why you were standing there in the first place.

The storage room felt smaller than before, warmer even. Your gaze stayed fixed on the cardboard box, anywhere but him.

A quiet scoff reached your ears.

When you finally looked back, Riki was still leaning against the stack of chairs, still watching you. His arms crossed loosely over his chest, eyes scanning you head to toe. It made your skin crawl.

"What?"

The word left your mouth before you could stop it. His lips twitched, eyes meeting yours. "Nothing."

An obvious lie. You immediately looked away again. Your pulse had started doing stupid things. The kind of things you hated. The kind of things that only seemed to happen around him lately. "You know..." He started casually. "Most people would've commented on the actual presentation."

Heat crawled up your neck harder then before. You busied yourself gathering random papers from the box. "I did."

"Hm."

You hated that sound.

Especially when it came from him. And what you hated more is how much liked it, enjoyed it. "You talked about me and my partner." Your hands froze, papers tight in your grip just for a second. A second too long before Riki noticed.

"You seemed pretty interested in that part."

You opened your mouth. Closed it, opened it again and thanked God you were turned with your back toward him. You moved over to your side, to the drawers that had all the documents stacked in them, before you somehow managed to open it calmly. The sound of the metal draws loud and screeching though the room.

"There was nothing wrong with what I said." Riki scanned your side profile.

"I didn't say there was."

His voice remained annoyingly calm, pretty steady. Meanwhile you felt like your entire brain had stopped functioning. You gathered the last few folders and held them against your chest, the ones you hoped were the same that the other students told you to bring over.

"I should go."

The words came out too quickly, too eager. Immediately giving away your nervousness. Riki's head tilted slightly. Almost curious as kept on jabbing at you.

"Should you?"

Your stomach dropped. You hated how easily he could do that to you. How your body reacted to him so fast. How easily he could make a simple question sound loaded and play with you.

You moved toward the door anyway. Pretty slowly. Because staying felt impossible — but leaving somehow felt worse. Your hand almost found the handle. For a brief second you thought you will escape.

Then his voice came again.

"Was she the problem?"

You froze, your heart and breathing seemed to stop altogether. The question hit harder than it should have. Your fingers tightened around the folders. He uncrossed his arms, body leaning back against the stacked up chairs, high enough for his hips to lean back against the edge.

"No—"

"No?" He repeated, head tilting mockingly. Your grip tightened around the folders.

"No."

The corner of his mouth twitched.

Not a smile but worse. Something amused. His tongue ran over the inside of his cheek, fingers tapping repeatedly playfully against the chairs between his slightly spread thighs.

"You sure?"

Heat overflowed you and you hated that question. Hated the confidence behind it. Hated that he sounded like he already knew the answer. Your eyes dropped to the handle right within your reach, anywhere but him. Your hand was mid air before;

"You think about it, don't you?"

Riki's head tilted in a mocking manner, eyes narrowing at your stiff figure. Your hand paused, it felt like you were stuck in time, in this position, unable to move. You tried to ignore it. Tried to find something else he could be aiming at. But deep down you knew.

"About us fucking..." He said it so casually, so shamelessly. "About me."

Riki kept on dissecting you with his feline eyes. He just knew. He knew you couldn't stop thinking about it. He could bet his life on it. It was all there. Your nervousness, your constant glancing during lectures, during the conference. The comment earlier, the initiation of conversation itself and the hesitation when wanting the exit the storage just now.

It was all too blatantly obvious.

And you were bad at hiding it.

Your inhaled sharply, mind too busy going into a chaos that you didn't care it was so loud and transparent. "I-I'm leaving—"

Your fingers slowly wrapped around the handle, cheeks and neck on fire. You need to get out. Fast. But just as you pulled the door slightly open, a hand came over yours. The sudden warmth engulfing you from the back.

"Don't you wanna use me like I used you?"

You froze. His other arm circled your waist, pulling you flush against his front as he pushed the door closed, big hand taking your wrist and pinning it to the door. His scent was too strong, your senses sensitive to his everything. His touch, his smell. And when he nuzzled his nose against your ear, breath tickling your nape, you swore your heart dropped in your heels.

"Have your sweet little revenge on me, hm?"

Your fingers tightened the folders to your chest, alarms going off in your head. No words were able to escape your paralized self. You whole nervous system screamed, muscles tensing the more you felt him against you.

"Please..."

He nudged his hips against your lower back, grinding once over your flimsy skirt, voice whiny and desperate. He delivered a kiss to the side of your neck, sound echoing the space. You were stunned.

Your mouth almost fell open, from the shock. And from the way you felt your core pool with warmth, the sudden rush of blood to your clit making it burn.

He left pecks all over the side of your neck, goosebumps arising at the feel of his plump lips against you. His teeth grazed your ear, nibbling lightly at it as he let out a needy, shaky breath. Riki's fingers dug into the side of your torso before he uncircled the arm from your waist, hand sensually carresing your hip. The skirts doing a poor job at staying down as he purposely made sure it was rising with each stroke.

It all played out too slow. Painfully slow.

His big palm set your skin on fire. You tensed up, a sharp inhale followed as he held your wrist against the door, his front flush against your frame nor giving you any space to move even if you wanted to.

But did you actually want to?

He whined against your ear, hips bucking into you again. And that was enough for the folders to drop to the floor. Your grip loosened so suddenly it even made you jolt, a squeak escaping you as the papers hit the hard concrete ground.

Riki kept on feeling you up, his hot breath teasing your sensitive skin. His hand traveled right over your hip and dipped between your thighs, your skirt bunching up on his bracelet-adorned wrist. "I will be so good to you..." He rasped out, whispering before he bit your ear. You shuddered the moment his hand went under your skirt, middle finger fast enough caressing your slit right over your thin underwear. "Please..."

He felt your thighs shake, your body betraying you completely. His finger dipped into your covered slit, sliding down till your entrance. "Ruin me. Make me regret it."

His fingertip dipped into the slight dent. Wet. Already so wet. You gasped, hand he held against the door clutched into a fist, other one grabbed his forearm. He thrusted the tip of his finger up, just enough to poke you but not quite fill you. The thin ruined underwear gave him a nice resistance, rebounding his shallow thrusts so teasingly good.

You clenched around nothing, the friction teasing your entrance was enough to set you on fire. His body all of a sudden felt closer then ever, the scent luring out a low moan from you. His strong chest felt so solid, an anchor that held your weak body upright.

Riki felt you shudder in his hold, suppressing a mocking grin that threatened to appear on his smug face. He kept breathing hard against your ear, purposely fanning your skin with his warm breath, lips now and then brushing against it. Riki tightened his grip on your wrist against the wooden door, fingertip teasing your gaping entrance — moving shallowly in, rolling around the tense hole.

"You feel so good, baby."

And that comment alone had you biting your bottom lip, suppressing the reaction after that nickname left his mouth. He felt you tense up even more, hips shifting just a bit for him, thrusting against his finger. The hand that held onto his forearm flexed, eyes closing in delight.

Riki smiled mischievously against your neck, teeth grazing the burning flesh. The wetness against his hand felt heavy and thick the more he played with you, teasing it till he could feel it ooze and drench the flimsy material.

You let your forehead meet the door a little too harshly. A breathy low moan echoed the small room, your grip on his forearm tightened as you let yourself feel everything. His finger poking at your covered cunt, the wetness coating his palm and the inner thighs. His smell, his strong forearm as you kept gripping it, his muscles flexing with each shallow thrust he delivered to your core. And even if you wanted you couldn't get away, his hand was over your hip before it was between your shaky legs, holding you up and against him as the other pinned your weak wrist to the door.

But then the overwhelming pressure between your thighs vanished, his arm was fast to grip your forearm and spin you around. Your back hit the door with a rattle as you let out a gasp of surprise. Before you could register how close to him you were, how your face almost touched his chest, it all happened in a blur — and he kissed you.

You felt his lips against yours, not for the first time. But now it different. It was soft and hungry. Not the usual angry undertone he carried the last two times something happened between you two. It was a new sensation.

You froze instantly. Arms went stiff by your sides and eyes wide. His hands cupped your cheeks, palms brought against your warm skin. He molded your lips sensually but still with a hurry so indescribably and needy. Riki's body pressed up against yours, pushing you harder against the door.

And somehow, against all that doubt and the shock — you melted into the kiss. Hands shot up to his elbows, carresing against the thick hoodie, lips moving in a reckless rhythm he set. He pulled away slightly, just enough to utter as his hips rolled against your pelvis.

"Feel that?"

You did.

He was hard.

Riki smirked at your glossy eyes behind the thin glasses, lips parted in the anticipation of his next move. He pecked them, the smacking sound eliciting a reaction so unexpected — you shivered. Your whole body almost giving out.

"It's all for you..."

His kisses moved down your jaw, the sticky saliva leaving a trail. He kept on kissing each and every part of your neck. "Please..." He begged against your skin, feeling you heat up even more. You couldn't control your hard breathing, a subtle moan tore from your lips as his teeth grazed the column of your throat. Your head feel back against the door, eyes closed tightly.

You pressed your thighs together at a poor attempt to dull the creeping and already pulsing arousal. It was dripping. Your pussy was dripping. Rikis head came up, face to face with your dazed expression before he left one more peck on your slick lips, tongue coming right after to leave a teasing lick on your bottom lip.

You shuddered.

He smirked.

A desperate deep moan left him. Grinning teasingly right in your face, his thumbs brushing your cheeks. He held your gaze, hips grinding against you. His cock was raging with blood. It throbbed subtle under the pressure of his clothes.

How could he let go of this chance though? To fuck you here in the storage room, where anyone could walk in searching for him. When you had this skirt and revealing top on, your breasts hugged perfectly. The way they sat begging for his eyes to devour the decolette.

The intensity of his eyes made you gulp, holding the contact in awe as you started lowering yourself against him. Your knees bucking on the way down, Riki's eyes following your descending figure before his palms were fast to squeeze the sides of your neck, pulling you up. "No no no—" He spoke as he shook his head slowly. You gulped again, legs bringing you back up. Just as you stood up, he was the one that descended, eyes holding your own as his knees hit the ground. Riki's hands carresed your waist, your hips over the clothes. His gaze penetrating the skirt he was face to face with.

He glanced up through his lashes, the dim light in the tight room illuminating him so beautifully. The shadows casting on his features, the golden hue of his hair. It was all too ethereal. Riki's palms went down to your thighs, simply carresing — up, down, and around; feeling your skin prickle with goosebumps wherever his touch reached.

One thing got his attention. The small lanyard poking from the small pocket of your skirt. The one that held the volunteer badge. He simply smiled to himself, hand getting the small thing from your skirt. He stretched the strap, eyes glancing at your quiet self as your kept observing every move of his.

"Wha—"

You stopped the moment he got it around his wrists. He layed it out over the one before he went around the other, his mouth assisting. Riki's teeth grabbed onto the one end as he made sure it went around a couple of time. He expertly got it tight, his teeth pulling at the long strap. Your heart picked up again, throat felt dry and dehydrated and no matter how many times saliva went down your esophagus, it was not helping.

A small smirk tugged at his lips as he finished off the bondage — on himself. He licked his lips once, satisfied with the tightness and the knot. He glanced up at you again, a yearning shine behind his pupils as he moved.

Riki turned his back to the door, sitting down against the same wood you are against. He kicked the forgotten folders to the side with leg, his bonded hands came next to his head, hooking them onto the door handle.

He looked up at you by his side, at your struck face as you tried to realize what was going on.

"Y/N—"

You felt a sudden rush of adrenaline.

"Please."

Riki moaned, eyes furrowing and head meeting the hard door. Your eyes moved over his figure on their own. His hoodie that clung to him, the black sweats and the so obvious tent under them. He bucked his hips into the air, a whine escaping his parted lips.

You finally moved.

You shaky legs led you a step of two away from the door finally turned to face his layed out body at the floor. You scanned him again, shamelessly.

He looked so...

So submissive.

Definitely not the usual him. The usual energy he carried with himself whenever he entered a room.

You would lie if you said it didnt make your pussy throb. A mess in your panties getting even messier. Stickier.

Your eyes moved down to his white tidy sneakers right in front of your feet — you moved again. You kneeled down, drinking in this rare sight of him. Tied up, hands bonded on the handle right by his head.

He was now the one at your mercy. Your will.

And it made your body feel like it might overheat any second.

He observed you and the way you hesitantly moved. You so didn't know what you were doing. It made him scof under his breath, hiding his smirking mouth into one of his biceps' hanging in the air right by his face.

"Come here..."

He gestured with his chin towards him, finally pulling you out of your trance and the ogling at his layed out body. You were moving forward, on your knees and palms right over him. Your breath hitching the moment you crawled over, his scent close again.

You stopped when you reached his lap, eyes hesitantly glancing at the bulge before you sat down on his thighs. "Fuck baby, sit over it." Riki's knees raised from the ground, his hips bucking at the same time and you slid over to his hips. He hissed the moment you grazed his boner, cock pulsing and leaking already.

You on the other hand gasped, the sudden strong move from him made you almost crash onto his chest as you grabbed the sides of Riki's waist. You readjusted your glasses that threatened to fall of as your back straightened.

And that's when you realized how close you actually were. How his throbbing, rock hard bulge poked your covered pussy. Riki's breath ghosted your face before he uttered, low and seductive;

"Kiss me."

He smashed your lips together. His mouth devouring yours before you could even react. Your hands shot to his chest, resting there as hia tongue carresed your bottom lip asking your entrance — and you let him. His tongue mingled with your, stroking and circling the warm muscles around your cavity.

The wet sounds filled the space between you both. His expert tongue playing with yours so softly but demandingly. A soft moan vibrated between your clasped lips, getting swallowed by his hungry ones.

Your fingers tightened around the fabric of his clothes, fisting it as you got bolder with your moves — tilting the head and switching your sides, pressing your own tongue hard against his, gliding it with controlled force. He moaned into your mouth, letting you take over.

It was getting messy.

Saliva dripped down your chin as you kept savouring his taste. He was so sweet. Intoxicating and addictive. He kept on kissing you with all his might, trying to not loose himself in the moment too much. But you were making it hard.

Bubble of arousal grew in the pit of your stomach, goosebumps raised all over your warm skin. A tiny twitch against your core, pressed so firmly but still not quite, made your own hips wake up. They pressed hard against Riki's cock, a drag so sudden but still expected made him groan into your mouth.

You pulled back just slightly, breaths mingling and teasing the swollen lips. An unexplainable fire rose in you, fueling your whole being and running it on a high so new but tempting.

You glanced over his head, where his restrained wrists stood hanging. Riki grinned teasingly against your lips, eyes switching from your eyes down to your swollen lips. "I can't touch you." He spoke throght the grin, shaking his head cockily.

You didn't need a reminder because you fast enough moved yourseld from his lap, sitting lower on his thighs again. The tent was embarrassingly large, the dark material damp from both — him and you.

Riki licked his lips, gaze stuck to you and the way your lips parted as you stared at his lap. A small smirk made its way on his face, hips rolling experimently under your attention. It was enough for your hands to fist the baggy fabric right under the same painful bulge, slowly pulling it down.

Riki raised his hips, assisting your unsure self as the waistband of the sweats slowly went down and over his hard cock. He hissed, the tight band going over his sensitive tent, pressing on every crevice as you just simply pulled it down. It made him whine, eyes rolling to the back of his head at the unexpected friction.

You pulled it all the way over his throbbing cock, the waistband stopping right under it. You looked up at him again.

He looked ethereal.

Your eyes were back to the waiting bulge under the tight boxers. A damp patch larger and darker. You knew what was next. You wanted to do it. But you still hesitated.

You glanced at him for the nth time, waiting for him to say something, to guide you.

Riki said nothing. His lidded eyes stared back at you, hair messy, lips slick. But then he nodded. And it was all you needed. You shaky hands reached for the waistband under his hoodie, fingers grazing the hot skin of his pelvis before you pulled it down. Riki raised his hips again, making sure the band went lower as you pulled only the front down.

You gulped the moment his cock stood between you two. Hard, pulsing and red. It was leaking, slick coating it down to the base.

He was quiet. You stared.

The only thing filling the painful silence was your breathing. Small whiffs of air tgta escaped your nostrils trying to cool you off from the overwhelming heat that flooded your system.

You could feel yourself leak.

Oh God.

But then like a bullet hit you, fear enveloped you. You were both in the middle of a clean up. Tons of other student littered the campus wing you were at, moving around and making sure to finish it as fast as possible. It was already late.

What if someone walked in?

For real this time.

It could happen.

"What if someone walks in? Looking for us?"

Your soft voice broke the tense atmosphere. Adrenaline rushed through you, eyes stuck to Riki's. Still in his lap. Still with his cock right in front of you. And you didn't move.

He chuckled, eyes glimming with something so powerful and controlling. "Then let them see."

It made your breath hitch. The sudden warmth simmering at the pit of your abdomen. Harder. Faster. Riki catched the sudden stiffness of your thighs on his own, his cock twitching at the mere thought and anticipation of what you are going to do next — looking all innocent, clumsy, unsure on his lap. His rock hard length leaking more and more against his hoodie staining the black fabric.

You didn't need anything else said. You were too into your head. Too lost in the boiling, dangerous feeling that led you.

You raised your palm to Riki's lips, offered, open. Slowly. He stared at it, a smirk threatening to appear on his perfect lewd face. But he didnt let that happen. His gaze switched between your palm, right at his chin and your hungry but still unsure eyes.

He held the eye contact, lips coming over to your palm. He collected the warm saliva in his mouth — and let the glob of spit fall from his pursed lips right into your palm.

The sight was filthy.

And it got you going so bad.

Your hand moved down. Nervousness ate from the inside. But still you wrapped your hand around him, for the first time feeling the heaviness of his warm cock in your palm. He pulsed. A low whimper escaped Riki as you started stroking him —up, down, up down. Wetness mixed all over, his spit with his precum. It was sticky and messy.

You fingers gripped him with a delightful pleasure, mocking all the way up to his red tip and down till his base. "Shit—" Riki cursed under his breath, eyes closed and head met the wood behind him. His arms in the air felt limp, all the blood rushing down to his pelvis as you pumped him, slowly.

"Faster, please—"

He whined. And you gradually sped up. The sound filled the room. Rikis chest moved rapidly, a thin layer of cold sweat emerged on his skin. Your hand was working him over so well. The pressure was perfect, the way your hand wrapped around him. It was all perfect.

You twisted your wrist when you got to the tip, collecting more of the sticky precum and he groaned. You met yourself free, delivering experimental squeezes as you kept gliding over him. You own arousal sticking to everything under your skirt — you underwear, your inner thighs. Hell, you even swear some of it dripped down to Riki's sweats.

Your hips grinded on their own in a search of friction but none of that came. You just humped the air, the way you were positioned on his lap made it hard to reach any kind of leverage, only if you moved over to straddle one of his thighs — but you didn't.

You kept on sensually rocking your hips, hand stroking him repeatedly. Riki felt himself almost lose his mind. The restraint on his wrists only fueling the pressure that formed gradually in his pelvis. His breathing sped up and with it your hand too. Your eyes were stuck to your moving palm and his throbbing cock.

Fuck.

You couldn't take it anymore. You want it inside of you.

Riki was on the verge of loosing his mind, he gritted his teeth at the mere feel of his release approaching. Hard breaths left his nose, eyes tight shut as he hid his face in his hanging upperarm.

"Don't let me come. Don't." He spoke through the harsh breaths, a peaking eye of his making sure you heard him. And you did. You glanced up to his flushed face. His lips were parted, gasping for air as he kept on holding your gaze, face in an attempt hidden in a sleeve of his hoodie.

You stopped.

He closed his eyes in recollection, head leaning back against the wood. His arms felt pliant, all the blood escaped the hanging limbs. They felt heavy. Heavier than they actually are. But you two just started.

Before Riki could even process anything else, your lips were on his. You devoured him right away. Your tongue fighting with his, the desperation radiating off you both. Your hands found their place on his shoulders, body moving closer to his torso, raising yourself so you tower over him. Smacking sounds filled the room, salivas mixing in a messy rhythm.

You moaned against Riki's mouth, your tongue felt too heavy with all the work. And he groaned back in response, cock twitching at the filthy kisses you two exchanged. He tugged at the strap that held him restrained before he pulled away from your lips, letting your tongue rest as he trailed his kisses down your jaw.

Your hands flew around his head, fingers playing with his hair at the back as you pressed yourself harder against him, exposing your neck to him. And he dived into it. Sticky openmouthed kisses were left down your skin. A moan escaped you, one strap of your tight top slid from your shoulder as Riki left a slight bite into it. He pulled back, just enough to get a look of your cleavage.

He licked his lips, muttering a low curse under his breath before he delivered a series of fast pecks all around your collarbones. "Yes—" You moaned out, eyes shutting as you held him close to you. Fuck, you need his hands on you.

You want them on you.

But a glance at his tied up hands was enough for another forceful rush of arousal to sprint through your veins. Your cheeks were overheating, the room felt suffocatingly hot.

Another whine escaped you as his plump lips closed around the skin right on top of your right breast, sucking it hard and letting his tongue poke it repeatedly. "Shit Riki—"

He released it, a red mark blooming on the tender skin before he trailed his kisses up your neck, your jaw, before;

"I need you to ride me."

You nodded eagerly, still on the high of the make out. You released his hair, hand fast under your skirt. God...

You are dripping.

Everything is wet, damp.

You wasted no time in moving your panties to the side, a hurry never seen before that there was no time for the clothes off.

You raised yourself on your knees, hand hastily grabbing his wet cock. Riki hissed at the sensitivity of his lenght. Your greedy hand was fast to position him at your entrance, hips angling so he would slide in perfectly.

He stretched you so deliciously. A burn followed right away as you let yourself sink down on his cock, thighs trembling and breathing stopping all together. You inhaled sharply, pausing midway before you sinked down all the way till his balls. Riki groaned, lip between his teeth as he relished in the feeling of you wrapping around him, muscles tensing and adjusting.

"Fuck yeah—"

Riki moaned, head slamming back against the door harshly. He bucked his hips, a sudden move making you tense.

Your fingers tightened onto the fabric of his hoodie, glasses sliding down as you took a deep breath.

You have never done this.

You never took control.

You never were the one to command.

So when Riki whined once again, lips parting as he uttered a desperate 'please' — it was all it took for you to start moving. You raised yourself, knees hurting against the ground as you slid up his dick, the wetness making the glide so smooth but still messy.

A breath of preparation entered your lungs before you lowered yourself down, a silent cry leaving you. Your pussy burned, the way he split you sent shivers down your spine. Your clit pulsed harshly with a need so insatiable it became unbearable.

You raised again, and then dropped.

Riki's breath hitched, fingers digging into his palms to try and control himself. To make sure he doesn't just turn you two over and fuck you senseless into the hard concrete floor right here until you cried. Until you begged him to give you more. Fill you with his warm cum till it sipped out of you.

But he kept his composure.

Letting you be the star today.

You picked up the rhythm gradually, moving on his lap with a amateur edge, sliding up, down, up, down. Your knees already hurting, thighs already burning. But the burning desire kept you going.

Breathless moans filled the room, Riki's curses joining in as you kept bouncing on him. "Fuck— So good baby...Mmm..." He spoke through the haze that made his head lighter. He glanced down to where you two are connected but his view was ruined by your skirt.

The skirt that had hidden everything that is going on — the way your juices mixed creating this filthy sound that echoed the room, the way he split your tight pussy open as you kept on dropping down on his thick cock. It made him whine in frustration, eyes tightly shut as he threw his head back again.

Everything had you drunk on the moment.

Your light headedness, his scent. Him.

Bur most importantly, his big cock that was filling you up as you pleased. The sound of skin on skin reached your ears repeatedly, your fingers twitching against the fabric of his clothes. "Oh God—" You moaned out, hands moving to anchor you somewhere else. Until one of them somehow ended up on his neck.

His adams apple right under your palm as you delivered a subtle squeeze. It made him groan. He opened his eyes, lidded gaze meeting yours as you kept on moving over him. You squeezed your eyes in endurance. It was too much. You legs felt weird, too twitchy and weak. You slowed down, letting yourself take a breather through your parted lips, gasping for air as your walls tensed around Riki's shaft.

Riki watched all of it happen.

The sudden tiredness in your moves hitting you like a truck. The twitchiness of your pussy around him as you sunked down. He felt your fingers dip into the sides of his neck, nails making him quietly wince as you tried to keep it together. Really tried.

Your head lowered, shoulders slouching as the other hand was squeezed into a tight fist by his waist.

"Grind on me."

His deep voice snapped you out of your focus, making you blink away the tears that pricked at your eyes and look at him. "Huh?" You were caught confused, movement finally coming to a complete stop. "I said, grind. It will feel better." Riki spoke again, sternly. His chest moved rapidly, trying to catch his breath.

You blinked. Mind hazy and core on fire.

You moved your eyes down, releasing the fabric you clutched so hard by his side to adjust your glasses back in place. And you moved. Hand flew to grab the hem of his hoodie, raising it and exposing his lower pelvis. His v-line, his belly button and the faint lean abs that hid underneath.

It had you going insane, you hips found the new motion — better. You kept grinding against him, his cock hitting new placed inside of you, the feel of his sweaty skin against your clit as you grinded only added to the pleasure. It was better. Definitely better.

"Does it feel better?" Riki's asked teasingly.

"Mhm..."

Your answer was short, a eager nod paired with the sped up of your hips, eyes stuck to his flexing abdomen. Riki let his back slide a little down the door, giving you more room to move and himself a more comfortable position as you kept on rubbing yourself against him.

"Yeah— That's right." He smirked, his bottom lip between his teeth as he stared at your moving hips. The damn skirt still in the way but not stopping him from imagining the way your wetness spread all over his pelvis ad your little clit dragged across it. The way your juices mixed, coating his heavy balls till oblivion as you kept on griding.

Your hand flexed around his neck, your body growing in temperature faster than you could imagine. A string of moans escaped you. The way his cock hit deeper than ever, the motion stimulating all the right places — your clit, your lips, your walls. You kept on moving back and forth, the hunger in your hips not persisting. "Fuck...Riki.." A whine erupted from you, chest felt tight and flaming with heat, your upper body pressed to his in the midst of it, gazes colliding in a dangerous flame. And he kept your eyes locked.

He nodded at you, reassuring the feeling that kept on growing in the put of your stomach. You let go of his neck hand coming down to anchor you at his waist as you kept on slamming his cock into you. Heavy breathing kept on ringing off the walls, heat overflowed the small space.

Your body felt like it will burst any second. Everything was overstimulating in the best sense possible. The feeling grew and grew, your pussy felt like it was on fire with each grind, your clit throbbed against his slick abdomen. The orgasm is close. So close.

You tensed your pelvic muscles, wanting it to last longer. Wanting to make him cum first. Since that's how it's supposed to go now — right? When he was the one on the receiving end, when he is the one that should be begging you to stop, that it's too much and he can't take it. Then why were you the one to almost scream out a plea as your body betrayed you.

Your pussy convulsed, quiet moans tore from your lips as your orgasm shook you to your core. Goosebumps pricked your sweaty skin, aggressive grinds against him followed. It onyl stimulated you more, prolonging the pleasure as you in the midst of it chanted out, your faces inches apart, breaths mixing;

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry — Im so sorry..."

The orgasm was at its highest, pussy convulsed around him as you grinded and grinded through it. Riki nodded reassuringly, eyes dancing between your lips and the lidded eyes that now and then closed tightly in embarrassment.

"It's okay. Ride it out. Ride it..." His voice trailed off, harsh breaths raising his chest as his fingers digged into his cold palms again. His own high approaching as you let yourself come undone on top of him, head almost nuzzling into his neck. You gradually slowed down, the remnants of the adrenaline still shaking your muscles. Your pussy was still recovering, convulsing around his shaft as you finally came to a stop.

You almost fell on his chest, harsh breaths trying to stabilize you. His length pulsed inside of you, your hips raised to get him out, the overstimulation was at its highest.

Riki's cock slipped out of you, it was followed a wince from you as your walls finally clamped together, your forehead almost hitting his shoulder before;

"Fuck..." He cursed under his breath, unhooked his arms from the handle. Blood finally rushed to the abandoned limbs as he started undoing the knot he himself so securely tied. His teeth pulled at the strap, somehow getting it loose before he pulled it off.

You slightly leaned away, still on his thighs, still wet and ruined as you observed his actions. Your blank face taking everything in. Riki rubbed one of his wrists, the strap left a deep, red, engraved indents in his skin. Riki's eyes met yours again, corner of his lips tugged upwards.

"You said you're sorry... Get on the chairs." He gestured with his chin behind you, right at the corner he was just earlier stacking the furniture. You looked over your shoulder. A couple of stacked chairs were right there by the high stacks. They were facing you, high enough for you to climb them but low enough for him.

You somehow pushed yourself up, legs felt like jelly as you moved across the storage room and right onto the chairs. You faced him, still breathing hard. Before you raised yourself up on the chairs Riki was already on his feet, steps fast enough bringing him over to you and he smashed your lips together. Roughly.

Your ass hit the edge of the top chair, hips moving back to sit on the stack as you both devoured each other. Riki's big palms held your face, his tongue poking at your mouth teasingly before he moved downy kissing your chin, than the jaw.

"Fuck, get on it and turn around." He spoke breathlessly between the kisses, pulling away to get a look at you. At your ruined face. The glossy eyes, glasses low on your nose, parted lips trying to catch your breath. His eyes glanced lower. Your chest. Your top straps falling off the shaky, burning shoulders.

A fucking fantasy.

You hummed in response, turning your back to him as your knee prompted you up onto the higher stack, effortlessly getting you up. Knees dug into the plastic, your hands shaky as they held onto the backrest of the same ones.

You are burning up.

It was all too much. Your head felt light, your body surrendering to the tremors that traveled through you with every breath your took.

But still you bent over.

The sharp plastic digging right under your chest, pressing against your ribs so uncomfortably. Moves of your lungs made it even harder to stay down — until you heard him, a smile audible in his tone.

"Good girl. Already knowing what to do."

Riki observed your back, the way it rose and suddenly faltered at his teasing words. You glanced back at him subtle over your shoulder and was met with him sizing you up, lip between his teeth as he drank you in.

Your heart skipped a beat, sudden nervousness arising in the deep of your pressed chest as you looked back to the floor and the furniture stacked up in front of you.

Riki's hands raised, palms pressing onto your hot skin right over the skirt. He carresed your hips, touch moving upwards. "What's up with you, huh?"

You gulped.

"Your style is...different today."

He reached your waist, the fight top letting you feel the roughness of his palms even over the fabric. "It suits you..." His voice trailed off as his hands rwched your bare shoulders, massaging them as his hips pressed against your ass. You felt it. His hard cock pressed against your skirt, heavy and needy.

He carresed your shoulders, feeling your skin prickled with goosebumps, his fingers hooked onto the bra straps tagt still clung to your skin, pushed them off as he continued to caress you, big palms sliding over to your collarbones. "But I like the baggy one better tho..." Your breathing hitched the moment he pressed harder against you, his strong form looming over you as his palms traveled lower and over your upperarms, tip of the fingers dipping into your bra cup. "It leaves more to the imagination honestly."

A exhale of pleasure left you when he cupped your breasts, pointer fingers moving over your nipples in a side to side motion as he kept on teasing the already hard peaks. Bra dug into your back harder with each move of his hands inside of it, switching from massaging to teasing your nipples. Another wave of heat overflowed you, arousal burning hotter then before between your drenches thighs. Your hips instinctively pushed back against him, his hard lenght resting right between your ass cheeks as he kept on playing with your tits.

"Please..."

You uttered out, eyes closed in pure ecstasy at the feel of his hands against you. It was even better then you imagined. His slender fingers worked you over into another dimension, his closeness adding to the high. "Impatient, are we?" Riki cocked his head to the side, gaze wandering down your back and the arch as you kept backing up on him. He pinched your nipples one last time before his hands pulled out from your bracup, earning a whine of protest at the loss of touch.

His hands were fast onto the hem of your skirt, raising it around your waist and finally revealing you. It was honestly embarrassing what a mess you were down there it made his brows shot up in amusement. "Damn..." His eyes drank in everything. The wetness coating your skin, your ass, the back of your thighs. Poor excuse of a underwear drenched like it was under a fucking faucet, stuck to every inch of crevices.

"Got this wet from bouncing on me just earlier?"

His finger traveled lower, hooking into the underwear right over your swollen pussy. The mild contact of his finger as it hooked onto it made you gasp in surprise. "Need these off." He peeled it off of you, getting it down your hips and your thighs. You raised your knees one by one, assisting him at getting them off fast. He didn't bother to throw it on the ground, instead leaving the tiny fabric clinging to one of your ankles.

You were now completely bare under his gaze. Riki watched the way you clenched around nothing, pulsing under he simplicity of his gaze. It made him chuckle. You were too far gone, everything felt like it could get you over the edge, a desperate whine reached his ears, urging him to do something. And he finally did.

The fat head of his cock pressed against your entrance, teasing the slick hole with the slight shift of his hips. You moaned out,fingers gripping the back of the chair. "This skirt irritated me so much earlier. Couldn't see shit when you rode me."

He pressed harder, the tip for swallowed by your walls. You hummed in response, fingers twitching against the plastic, body leaning down harder against the backrest. He moved forward harsher, letting his whole length enter you. You moaned when he filled you, the familiar stretch sending you completely drooling. He started moving, tip kissing your walls repeatedly as he fucked you with certainty and sterness. "You are taking me so good..."

Riki praised but with an invisible teasing edge. His hands found your hips, not pushing or pulling, just resting there. Your hips backed up against him and the overwhelming thrusts he delivered. He groaned the moment you squeezed him, but then —

A sound of steps and laughter right in the hallway. You froze. Riki didnt stop. The way he split you made it hard to completely surrender to the fear that bashed over you. He leaned over, fucking into you harder, faster — like he enjoyed this.

One of his arms found it's place beside your trembling hands that gripped the chair, breath fanning your ear. "You better stay quiet. Don't want them to see this—" He moved the hair from your ear, eyes scanning the furrowed brows and closed eyes as you tried to control the sounds that threatened to escape you.

He bit down on your earlobe, hot breath luring out a low, almost inaudible moan. "See me destroying this pussy so good, yeah?" Your breath hitched, blood rushing to your already swollen and throbbing clit as you bit your lip. "Or you do want that?" He left a slow, torturous lick on your ear, hips not faltering. You shook your head, eyes squeezing harder at the sudden knot forming in the pit of your stomach. Riki's cock pulsed, the sudden tenseness in your muscles luring out a deep chuckle from him.

"Yes you do."

The steps faded in the hall, laughter already inaudible in the midst of the shallow breaths of yours. "You would love that. Letting everyone know we fuck on the low. No one having a fucking clue about what we do when alone."

He panted against your ear, his hand tangled into your hair , fingers tugging at the roots. Your neck strained, head pulled back against his shoulder. He delivered a kiss to the side of your neck, lips brushing the place he just smooched. "You love this so much, baby. You just fucking love it."

You pressed your lips together, nostrils flaring at the big inhale you took. Your system felt like it was overheating, the constant pulsing of your clit made it overstimulating, the sweat that clung to your skin made it all too disgusting.

But you did love it.

His hips smacked and smacked against you, his cock reaching places and abusing spots that you never before knew existed. A moan slipped when he kept his rhythm constant. "Have nothing to say?" He smirked, hand coming over to smack you asscheek. A red hand print blooming as he squeezed the place, feeling your flesh in his palm. You moaned again,hips moving to meet his.

A burning sensation spilled down your core, everything felt sensitive as the knot grew. His thrusts sent you jolting against the chair, plastic digging into your ribs so painfully but that didn't matter. Not now. "Ahh— I'm...." You couldn't even bring yourself over to finish the sentence, to at least utter it out before your toes curled, back arched more against him a she keot on pounding you from the back. It all spilled over.

Your walls fluttered around him, a high moan escaped you as every seemed to shut down for a moment. Your ears ringed, a string of pleas and his name echoed the room, bouncing off the concrete walls as you same undone. "Shit—" He muttered, hips not faltering as he slammed into you mercilessly, making you take it as your moans lowered. "Yesyesyes—! Riki!"

You shamelessly moaned, your body spasming whole as the pressure easied. Everything felt lighter, your own body twitching as your hips moved back against him. A hand came to bring your glasses in place, fingers clenching them hard.

"Fuck..."

You cursed low under your breath, eyelids softly opening as you somehow mustered the strength. His thrust continued. A hand holding onto your waist as he chased his own release. His cock throbbed, pants left his slick lips. Riki's eyes closed, his exhale almost a warning as he cursed under his breath. You wanted to endure it. You did. But your limbs felt heavy, your pussy burning uncomfortably with each slide of his cock into you. You glanced over your shoulder, a tender touch over his hand;

"Riki... I can't take it..." You muttered out in a whine, his fingers dug into your waist before—

"Fuck, turn around and get on your knees."

He spat out, quickly pulling out as you hurriedly turned, sliding down from the chairs. Your legs felt like jelly, walls fluttering as they met again. The stickiness between your thighs almost making you grimace. Your knees met the floor with a thumb so loud but still quiet. Your eyes looked up and there he was right over you, tall frame swallowing you as his hand was fast around his hard and leaking cock. He stroked it. Fast. The other hand coming to the side of your face, getting the messy hair away, thumb pushing at your glasses in place.

Fuck, your glasses.

It had him weak.

His fingers tangled into your hair, chest moving with rapid short breaths as he felt the pressure rise in his abdomen. He moved over closer, one foot coming in between your knees as he kept on stroking himself right over your face. The slick sounds so loud for no reason.

Your hands found his thighs, holding yourself up so you wouldn't fall over since the tremors still shook you. "Fuck— Open that pretty mouth for me."

And you did.

You opened wide, tongue sticking out and ready to be painted with his cum. It made him groan, the pressure at the brink of releasing. And a glance at your eyes behind the glasses, looking so lost and dazed but still slutty enough as you looked him straight in the eyes was enough.

He pulled your mouth against him with a deep groan, thrusting into the welcoming warmth as the pressure snapped. Your slick cavity taking the jets of white as he kept fucking it into your throat.

You almost gagged, the thick fluid sticky and salty making you close your eyes in endurance. Tears pricked at your eyes, shoulders shook as he kept on pulling you against him. He moaned once he pulled out, forcing your head back to look at your face as you sniffed.

"Open."

He spoke sharply, feline eyes scanning your ruined face. Cheeks wet and warm, lashes damp and glasses still there but a quite erotic detail to everything.

You gulped down the thick semen, a grimace almost making its way to your face before you parted your lips, tongue went out.

You swallowed everything. All of it.

Riki let out a satisfied but still amused. "Good fucking girl." He patted your cheek, a inhale of recollection left him as he threw his head back and released his grip on you. You gulped, legs trembling as you got yourself up, the chairs your were just earlier on providing a leverage. You pulled the straps of your bra and top back up, the skirt feel into the place alone.

You wiped your nose, a weird heavy feeling still present on your tongue.

Riki got his hands through his blonde hair, pushing it back off his sweaty forehead. His hands were fast to tuck himself back into the underwear, pulling the sweats back into place. The subtle stains of fluid clinging to his hoodie and the sweatpants, more visible against the black fabrics.

"Shit." He cursed, his hands passing over then in a poor attempt of getting it off. But it was till there. Yeah, he has to sprint to the bathroom before anyone sees him.

You adjusted your self in silence, moving like you were afraid to make any noise. Afraid of actually becoming visible to him.

Like he didn't just rearrange your insides.

You reached down for your underwear tagt was ruined anyway, pulling it up your legs slowly and silently.

Riki finally looked at you, scanning the way you made small moves. Small and unsure. He turned away, steps carrying him towards the door. His hand was on the handle, ready to finally step out of the suffocating room that carried fragments of what just happened.

He paused.

Your eyes were stuck to his back, waiting for him to exit. To not even spare you glance.

Riki glanced over his shoulder, your eyes meeting as he turned toward you, hand still on the handle. Your breath hitched, eyes avoiding his intimidating gaze. He scanned you head to toe, faltering for a moment on your tremoring thighs.

"About the tutoring...I will text you so we can continue."

And he moved out of the room, leaving you confused and shaky. But even after everything, what scared you the most was the sincere and soft tone he said that with. A small smile at the end too.

Riki made his way straight to the bathroom, his steps hurried and eyes making sure there is no one else around. As he made his way down the hallway one thing kept bugging at him.

He wondered and didn't know,

What kind of relationship you two got into without each one of you even consenting to or acknowledging?

But he knew for sure,

He's going to have his fun.

———

! this is all work of fiction. in no way this is a representation of enhypen members nor do I believe this is how they behave in real life or condone these actions!

THE SEONGHYEON JAEGA ━━━━━ MASTERLIST

PROLOGUE ONE ━━━━━ pink tiles

꒰ 5.8k ꒱you didn’t expect the winter garden, or the hydrangeas blooming out of season. and you definitely didn’t expect sunghoon — quiet, unreadable, and watching you like he already knew how this would end.

PROLOGUE TWO ━━━━━ the seonghyeon jaega

꒰ 10.9k ꒱between printer boys, rooftop gardens, and the neighbor who looks at you like he’s trying not to set the world on fire, this is what happens when loneliness meets curiosity and accidentally kicks off something bigger than you’re ready for.

CHAPTER ONE ━━━━━ hydrangeas & homicide

꒰ 11.2k ꒱ park sunghoon has survived centuries by staying detached — until a new neighbor moves in and quietly unravels everything. caught between instinct and control, he senses a bond he thought was myth, as something human begins to feel dangerously inevitable.

CHAPTER TWO ━━━━━ six-hundred-and-thirty-three

꒰ 16k ꒱ your body thrums with a strange, residual ache — not pain, but presence. like something has settled beneath your skin, quiet and irreversible. you don't have the words for it yet, but whatever passed between you and sunghoon in that moment wasn’t just physical. it’s something older, deeper, and it’s already taken root.

CHAPTER THREE ━━━━━ eletromagnetic emo ghost

꒰ 21.6k ꒱ all day, he feels you — in the air, under his skin, in every pulse that isn't his own. he watches you stumble through the day, dazed and aching, and hates that he caused it. but more than that, he hates how badly he wants more.

CHAPTER FOUR ━━━━━ resist the urge to bite (or kiss)

꒰ 35.2k ꒱ you want answers, but you also don’t want to ask. when you finally see him again, your body reacts before your mind can. and when he speaks — low, careful, restrained — it only confirms what you’ve been afraid to admit.

CHAPTER FIVE ━━━━━ hanil women university

꒰ 18.2k ꒱ the tension between you builds — sharp, close, and unbearably restrained. and when you finally ask if he regrets it, sunghoon doesn’t answer with words. he just looks at you — and it’s enough to know the truth.

CHAPTER SIX ━━━━━ necklines & near-death experiences

꒰ 24.3k ꒱sunghoon is shaken. and now that the bond is forming between you two, it’s not just instinct — it’s blood memory. he’s caught in something ancient and irreversible. and for the first time, you’re not the one in danger — he is.

CHAPTER SEVEN ━━━━━ orange blood

you never knew. and now everything — your instincts, your reactions, the way your body answers sunghoon before you can think — starts to make sense. it’s not legacy. it’s inheritance by accident. buried. hidden. and now, waking up.

EPILOGUE ━━━━━ bad desire (unleash)

it’s not soft. it’s inevitable. after nights of denial and tension so thick it ached, this moment snaps like a pulled thread. it’s teeth, breath, hands, and truth.

TSJ TAGLIST ━━━━━ CLOSED

TAGS: @ikeugirly @vixialuvs @hoonprksung @kyunlov @verialuv @sagegreenhairclip @gal821 @hoonstrology @httpenhoon @questionsdearreader @mynameis-rosie1 @staygenesblog @stercul1a @nshmrarki @imeowni @harusoraa @niki788 @sosaphiee @seokjinthescientist @gloomyasphodel @ferjinyoungiee @temuao @p1ecetinyzen @theothernads @jellymiki @yepins @rift-in-worlds