Love doesn’t feed you. It never will.

A true lady is judged based on the elegance of her wardrobe, her eloquence, her manners, and the lack of creases on her skin. That’s phase one. Then she needs to learn how to play fucking chess with her femininity, and mind games training starts as early as the age of sixteen.

Be subtle, never direct. Only insinuate. Be classy, never trashy. Learn the skills that will contribute to your added value.

The assigned roles have always been there. Esteemed women aren’t supposed to taint their perfectly manicured hands with manual labor like some commoner, but there is still a way for them to get a taste of prosperity. They aren’t much different than an overpriced gold watch if you think about it, solely existing to adorn some big spender’s arm.

‘Rich’ is doomed to run out, but ‘wealthy’ is forever.

Therefore, starting from the second you turn legal, it is of utmost importance to be desirable by many, preferably by people of affluent descent, so that you can have your pick. There is nothing wrong with giving them the illusion that they can be the one to have you. Men live to be a source of envy, after all.

Tease but never give in. Gently caress their egos until they’re about to burst. Make them dependent on you. Addicted even.

But you have to do it before you reach a certain age, of course. A double-edged sword, indeed.

Dignified women are never invited to be an active part of the cognac-induced laughter fits of men, but they are supposed to politely applaud their business triumphs while serving the cognac. If you have enough money to burn, you can afford to tell other women to serve the bitter drink to a room full of gentlemen in a lavishly decorated guest room.

Otherwise, this gathering would take place at some club established solely for their pleasure. They are called Gentlemen’s Clubs for a reason, yet it is such a poor choice of a name.

Since there is absolutely nothing gentlemanly going on inside.

But somebody has to do it. Somebody has to take on the monumental responsibility of entertaining the married men of this town. Their wives take care of them, but they don’t entertain them. That’s why courtesanship is among the most well-paying jobs of this day and era despite all the trash talk revolving around it. You know, not much different than the beginning of time.

Of course it isn’t considered cheating. Why would it? Burlesque entertainment is one of the finer pleasures in life that only a select few get to enjoy. It isn’t the patrons’ fault if the services include exchanging physical affection for money. Of course it isn’t their fault.

Because this is a man’s world we live in, and courtesans will never be considered worthy of respect.

Much like everybody your age, you were taught to be a suitor magnet as well. Manners fully intact, knows how to gracefully regale, makes herself scarce when the brandy bottle is out, knows how to light up a cigar, also smoke one if need be. If you were paid money on top of all that, you would make one fine courtesan.

Minus the sex. That corset your mother made you wear to protect your virginity was complicating things a little.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust you; she didn’t trust anyone else. At least that was what she claimed. God forbid you gave in to the cravings of the flesh before marriage, what a tragedy it would be. Who would want a plum no matter how juicy and sweet when someone already took a bite from it? How would your dear mother be able to walk with her head held high ever again? How could you ever hope to attract well-off heirs to close that monetary abyss you had recently inherited from your late father?

People would leave jewelry, antiques, or at the very least something of sentimental value to their children, and your share of family heirlooms was pain. A burden that wasn’t necessarily yours, but was passed on to you to take care of nevertheless. 

Love doesn’t feed you. It never will.

Your mother would know. She just didn’t think it would change anything if you knew the reason why. She was resenting your father enough for the both of you anyway.

All the more reason why it frustrated the heck out of you that you were met with a firm ‘No’ every time you expressed your interest in working.

“And do what? Stick out among men and become a target? I’m not going to have you called a whore.”

“Mother, please listen…”

“My word is final. Do not bring this to me again.”

How was she this blind to her own contradictions? You weren’t allowed to make an honest living, but technically, you were still expected to sell something.

You weren’t clueless. The day you had your first period, your loyal family aide Shima, who was more like a much older sister to you, told you all about a man’s serpent visiting a woman’s den and how much men liked it when the den was untouched.

“Are there untouched serpents, too?”

“Serpents move by crawling on the floor, young lady. They touch by design.”

“But wouldn’t women like untouched serpents more? There would be less dirt.”

“They would maybe, but they can’t.”

“But why?”

“Because it’s not possible.”

“But why?”

“Because it’s just the way it is.”

“But why?”

“Okay, young lady, no more questions.”

Your ‘problem child’ tendencies also included hoarding knowledge like a dragon hoards gold, but nobody needed to know about that. Intelligent women were nothing but anomalies that needed to be quarantined to prevent further spread, even amputated if need be. You needed to be dumb, dull, malleable, and live to please your husband. That was your job. Look pretty, act pretty, talk pretty, and charm people so that your husband could make money because this was a man’s world you were living in.

Then again, wouldn’t that make you the original business negotiator here? Wouldn’t that make you the breadwinner?

Goddamn men and their gatekeeping.

Among everything you were expected to master, you accidentally developed a severe passion for one of them. So much so that you fell head over heels in love with it.

Music.

You studied Chopin and Beethoven and Liszt and Mozart and many many others. All those pieces were like fine china that needed to be treated delicately not to break them. No mistakes allowed. Precise keystrokes. Gentlest bootcamp. Of course there were no ranks to be obtained at graduation because in what universe did women get to be sergeants? Nevertheless, you got this inexplicable kick out of being able to juggle those china cups with effortless finesse.

Other than playing your sorrows away, all you could do with your prowess was to entertain fancy crowds that may or may not have your future husband among them. That was it. It was a skill to be traded in exchange for staying afloat.

Society might have branded this as manners training all it wanted, but for you, this was nothing short of being whored around. 

And if your mother dared ask for dowry, it would officially make her your pimp.

I’ve always had a problem staying still. I won’t bore you with the details of every single incident, but I never shied away from breaking a few rules here and there for the sake of being on the move. No, I’m not sorry, and I would do it all over again.

People use many different words when they talk about me. “Free spirit” is one of them. “Rascal” is another. Bin says I’m also “easily moved” and teases me a lot for it, but that’s not true. I’ve never been easily moved; I’m just moved a lot when something manages to squeeze my soul, which doesn’t happen that often. There is a difference.

Our neighborhood was what the bourgeoisie called the “the ghetto”, harboring people from many ethnicities. The living conditions might have been less than ideal, but we weren’t necessarily unhappy. I spent my entire childhood thinking we were living inside an everlasting carnival with all those different languages loudly spoken from door to door. Everybody laughed the same, though.

I left home with Dad every morning. On his way to work, he would drop me off at our next-door neighbor Mr. De Luca’s barbershop. He had agreed to take me in as an apprentice after I begged him many many times. He was a magician with his scissors, and I really wanted to learn the tricks of the trade. He always said my hands were “way too dexterous” and that I would have no problem earning a living with them. I didn’t understand what that meant at the time.

When my friends were back from school in the afternoon, we played football with soda caps in front of our building until dinnertime, and then everyone would go back home for their share of home-cooked meals. For us, it was just my old man and me, but the De Lucas frequently called us over for dinner. 

I didn’t go to school. We weren’t able to afford it with the wage my father was making, but I’m not illiterate. Mrs. De Luca taught me how to read and do math. Mr. De Luca taught me to be a craftsman. My dad taught me to live passionately, and I’m sure my mom would teach me a few things, too, if she were alive. We were missing a piece in our hearts, but I’ve never felt the absence of love in my life.

One day, Mr. De Luca’s nephew came to the shop to visit him. A young man by the name of Tiziano who looked about twenty years of age. He called me fratello. I loved how the word rang in my ear. He was such a handsome guy with a tall posture and tanned skin, and when he smiled at the ladies in our neighborhood, they would nudge each other and giggle a lot. I wanted to be like him when I became a man. 

Tiziano was always carrying a leather-bound folder with him. There were a lot of papers and a black stick inside. I still clearly remember the tingling sensation that started from my nape and traveled down my spine when he showed me what was on the papers. I felt like some invisible witch was casting a spell on me.

That was the moment I saw a charcoal drawing for the first time.

I begged my father for charcoal sticks and paper so that I could learn how to draw like Tiziano. Not to brag or anything, but my progress was quite fast. I’m not a genius by any means; I just don’t know how to like things. When something piques my interest, I obsess over it day and night. I lost sleep many nights trying to perfect the shading of an apple even though no one was putting a gun to my head. Mr. De Luca would scold me a lot on the mornings I was late to the barbershop because I overslept, but it wasn’t that big a deal. He would tell me not to do it again, knowing full well I would do it again. He hated the fact that he couldn’t stay mad at me for too long, calling me a ‘fucking charming spawn of the devil’. 

I learned a lot of the curse words in my vocabulary from him.

When I saw Tiziano again a few years later, the ladies I smiled at were nudging each other and giggling at me, too. I showed him how much I improved with my very own leather-bound folder over dinner at Mr. De Luca’s, and he invited me to come back with him to Italy so that we could draw together. So that I could experience life. So that I could have a “broader horizon”, whatever the fuck that means. I agreed in a heartbeat.

The first time I saw a naked woman was at Tiziano’s studio in Rome. He was friends with a lot of streetwalkers, which gave me a chance to study the human body so that I could draw nudes. I still remember the exchange I had with a very beautiful lady called Giulia when I was alone in the studio with her.

“Do I turn you on, handsome?” she walked up to me while putting on her robe.

“You do.”

“If you want to fuck me, you can. I won’t ask for money.”

I shared my honest thoughts with her wrapped in a smile.

“But I’m not in love with you, Giulia.”

She laughed at my face for quite a while and pinched my cheek when her laughter died down. She said I was cute but an absolute fool. I couldn’t blame her. I knew people who would commit murders to be with a goddess like Giulia. Nevertheless, if not wanting to touch someone I don’t feel anything for other than lust makes me a fool, so be it. You can’t insult me with that. When I returned home, my virginity was still fully intact. 

I always thought I would go on to become a barber myself, but my little European adventure left me aching for something more. I knew I wasn’t going to make it as an artist, and I still didn’t know what I wanted to dedicate myself to other than charcoal, so I opted for taking odd jobs here and there to maintain a living until I did. Whenever I have the time, I hang out at the pier, the square, the parks, and street corners because I enjoy people-watching a lot. I enjoy depicting raw as fuck shit through charcoal shadows. People kissing. A woman breastfeeding. The longing gaze of a young lad watching a girl knitting in the distance. It makes me happy.

But what made me happier was seeing you for the first time on a bench by the pier one afternoon as I was looking for something to draw.

You were just sitting there, gazing into the distance. You were so perfectly still besides the occasional sighs you heaved that it felt like you were sitting for a private sketch. I pretended that you were indeed modeling for me and tried my best to capture you in grayscale as fast as I could. Your drooping shoulders. Your resigned eyes. The intricately ornate jade comb in your hair. 

I looked at that sketch a lot in the subsequent days.

I was so drawn to you for some reason. I wanted to sit next to you and ask why you were so sad. I wanted to ask if you liked candy apples. It would cheer anyone up, right?

But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to intrude on your alone time despite the raging urge inside me to do so.

Then I noticed you were there again. And again. And again. 

You’re at the pier every day.

You come at noon sharp. You just sit there on your bench, having a silent conversation with the sea. An hour later or so, a woman who looks like your aide comes to pick you up, and you leave with her. Every day, you look a bit sadder. It wrenches my heart to see the gloom in your beautiful eyes.

Every day, I impatiently check my watch, and when the time nears noon, I just bolt to the pier from wherever the fuck I am just to see you again.

I only draw with my charcoal, but you make me hear fucking colors. I don’t even know your name, but you’ve already become my muse. I go to bed every night praying for your happiness because I have never seen you smile. And I’m dying to witness it in its full glory.

If only I could steal one glimpse of your eyes looking at me. I know I’m probably going to lose my damn mind when and if that happens, but I’d love to hold some of your apparent heartache for you if it means you can rest a little easy.

One day… One of these days, I’ll muster up enough courage to come sit next to you.

Please fix your posture, young lady.

Please eat more slowly, young lady.

Please do not laugh loudly and cover your mouth, young lady.

“To hell with being a lady!” you threw your pencil towards the corner of Practice Room VIII where you were all alone.

Yes, you were supposed to be ladylike, and by god, you could get in character on cue, but you were on the brink of violently snapping and going on a rampage. You had less than zero interest in tea ceremonies or how many different styles you could braid your hair in. You wanted to learn marksmanship instead. You wanted to learn how to play pool. You wanted to do other things. As unladylike as they could be.

Like hell your mother would let you.

When you earned a full scholarship from The Institute of Fine Arts, shots were obviously fired in your household. It took a relentless battle of wits, but you refused to back down at any cost. Not when it came to music, not a chance. You eventually emerged victorious.

Because you happened to know about your mother’s biggest blind spot that was only supposed to be taken advantage of as a last resort.

Prestige.

Not only was The Institute notoriously selective, but only the ultra-elite could afford that monstrosity of tuition anyway. And you already making a name for yourself as ‘the piano genius’? Potentially befriending the crème de la crème of high society in the meantime?

That had got to extinguish the protest fire. 

And it indeed did. For quite a long while. Things were going a bit too well to not get suspicious. You were living in dread, anticipating the moment when it would all come crashing down.

The doomsday finally manifested itself in the form of your mother waltzing her way into the living room, interrupting your reading time with an unnecessarily high-pitched voice.

“Fan–tas–tic news!” she chirped and walked towards you with long and quick steps. “Look what just came in the mail.”

“My very own pumpkin carriage,” you quipped, expecting the joke to be stillborn, but she actually responded to you.

“Actually, yes!”

It was a burgundy velvet box she was ceremoniously holding in her hands as if it were a tray. When she opened it, you saw a fancy-looking envelope as well as a 24K golden shamrock pendant with drops of emeralds inside the leaves.

“A… necklace,” you observed, unimpressed.

“Guess who it is from. Guess!”

“I don’t know, Mother. Just tell me.”

You obviously lied. The O’Connor family was in the newspapers almost every day, and everybody in the town knew that shamrocks were basically their coat of arms. They were one of the highest-regarded people in the entire country, and it was mind-blowing to you how they obtained that status while clearly being involved in some shady business.

No one ever got that rich that fast by doing something honest, and it didn’t take a genius to conclude that. The things people got away with if—

“Bridget O’Connor!” your mother squealed in utter excitement. “In her letter, she says she has seen you perform at your year-end concert, and she’s officially asking your hand in marriage for her youngest son Ryan!!!”

Your heart didn’t only drop to your stomach; it hit every possible sharp edge along the way and almost bled to death. It was tragically ironic that such a beautiful and delicate piece of jewelry meant a life sentence for you.

“Don’t–Don’t I have any say in this?!”

“This is no time to be joking, dear. It’s the O’Connors we’re talking about! Wear this. Wear it!”

“Mother…”

As she hurriedly put the shamrock on you, Shima watched you getting cuffed with big, concerned eyes. Being put on a leash. Being forced to wear a straitjacket. Whatever the hell you want to call it.

“Out of all the people you could impress… I am so proud of you, dear!” your mother left a big kiss on the crown of your head. 

She had never once said she was proud of you for any of your achievements so far. Not even when you earned the top rank of your entire class. She had never kissed you with that much affection before. Not even during your father’s funeral.

You locked yourself in your room that night and cried yourself to sleep.

You were already living on a schedule. The time you got up, to have breakfast, for school, to come back home, for dinner, to go to bed… Everything was decided for you as if you were still a kid. You went to school at 9 a.m. You had your lunch break at noon. Shima and your chauffeur picked you up to drive you back to school at 1 p.m., and you had your afternoon classes until 4 p.m. Then you went back home.

You were enduring it, but you were just a ticking time bomb in the making.

The truth was when it was supposed to be your lunch break, you spent your time at the pier. You never had lunch during that time. Even if you did, the knot in your throat that was the size of a fist wouldn’t let you swallow anyway. You kept thinking about your impending doom instead.

What was it all for anyway? Once you got married, you were probably only going to be playing the piano for Ryan and whatever company he was going to have. Even the mere thought of it made you sick to your stomach. You wished there was a way for you to make good money with music so that you could tell people to leave you the fuck alone. 

You only… wished.

But one of those days, you noticed something during a visit to the pier.

To your left, something gleaming under the sunlight attracted your attention. A young man sitting three benches away from you, seemingly drawing on stationery, was wearing a silver necklace with a cross pendant. Then you made the mistake of actually looking at his face.

Your heart fell from your chest.

It could not be possible for a human being to be this beautiful. It was criminal, to say the least. Perfect features on a perfect face that belonged to a perfect body. He put every living thing to shame. Did he know how blinding he was? Was he aware of his own beauty, or completely oblivious to it? 

Judging by how nonchalantly he was crossing his legs on that bench, drawing away whatever was in front of him and not paying attention to anything else, it had to be the latter. But just… 

How?

You kept going back to the pier during your lunch hours, just hoping against hope that you would see him again. You never initiated a conversation with him; just knowing that he was there, keeping you silent company in the distance was enough for you. A part of you felt a little jolt every time you caught a glimpse of him, but even then, it was short-lived. The second something warm started spreading in your chest, the screams of your ugly reality began to echo in your head again, and that unknown warmth dissipated as quickly as it appeared.

Yet, every time you walked away from the pier, you thought about the man with the silver chain. He was your only distraction from reality. From having to get married. From the leash decorating your neck. From your mother’s incessant requests.

Eventually, the day you got vehemently sick of the military precision of your timetable arrived. One day, you decided to lie without even batting an eye at the dinner table, and if anybody asked, you could confidently say you had enough of having every single aspect of your life heavily scrutinized. You were your own person, too. You were entitled to your own life and decisions, too.

You were simply done playing this role you did not even audition for.

“I have been selected to perform at the Spring concert. It’s quite important as the Mayor’s family attends every year, so I have to practice.”

Technically, it wasn’t a lie. There was a Spring concert, but the auditions weren’t even until the end of the month. Then again, nobody in your household needed to know about that.

“The Mayor?” your mother put down her fork loudly. “Does he attend with his wife only, or—?”

“They attend as a family, Mother. To answer your actual question, yes, his sons are going to be there, too.” Then you turned to Shima calmly. “Starting Monday, please come pick me up at 10 p.m. instead. That’s when my practice sessions will end.”

“Isn’t that quite late, young lady?”

“Our building is very well secured, and I will not be alone. The entire concert ensemble will be there as well,” you wiped your mouth with a linen napkin and stood up on your feet. “As Mother will also agree, this is the Mayor’s family I need to impress, so I believe me staying late is not as scandalous as it sounds. Thank you for the meal.”

By whatever miracle you were owed, nobody questioned it. What you actually did during your freedom hours, on the other hand, was just walking. On the main boulevard. On the streets that you didn’t know. Sometimes on the walking path by the sea. You just walked and walked and walked. Sometimes you even openly wept, not caring about how people stared at you. Not giving a single damn about how ugly you looked. How unladylike your behavior was.

Then one evening…

You heard something for the first time accompanying the gentle melodies of a piano coming from a place with no sign outside. When you approached the door, you were met with a question that you most certainly did not expect.

“C Minor?”

Was this person asking for the notes comprising the chord? Or was it some completely irrelevant password he was looking for? Having no other alternative, you gave him the only answer you had in store.

“C, E-flat major, G.”

The door opened. You were met with a large neon sign inside that spelled Poseidon. You had heard about this club, but never in a favorable context. Your mother and her friends called that place and the women entertaining crowds in it deplorable. Casting those rumors aside, you followed the notes that were like a hand made of cartoonish smoke luring you in, only to find yourself in a large music hall.

The mysterious sound you heard was coming from a gold-colored saxophone. You couldn’t quite see who was playing it since the orchestra was hidden in the shadows, but it didn’t stop you from falling in love at first sight. You would petition for it to be called a sexophone for it was the most sensuous of instruments, but even that much would probably get caught by the censor radar anyway.

“And now, please welcome the First Lady of Song, Ella Simone.”

Then the richest voice you had ever heard filled the entire hall. You could literally smell it. It smelled like a burning cinnamon stick and caramel. This was the first time you heard someone singing from their soul instead of their diaphragm. People were losing their minds, calling out to the ‘First Lady’, men and women alike. It was nothing short of mass hysteria. You had never witnessed something like this before in your entire life.

Music did that. Nothing else.

After a couple of hours in that place, you resolved to sneak out to Poseidon to take in the talent of the greats. Cassidy, Simone, Parker, Cole… The names they never taught you at the great great Institute. During your free practice hours at school, you started learning jazz pieces, that ‘depravity music’ that was frowned upon by the pretentious high society. By ear. You didn’t need any sheet music to decipher those emotions. You didn’t want to fathom what would happen if your mother heard you were indulging in this instead of practicing soulless piano concertos.

But a part of you just did not care anymore.

The reasons for me to take a job at Poseidon were threefold.

First off, Poseidon is a speakeasy. It’s not someplace you can get in just by throwing cash at it. You need to know a password for fuck’s sake, and if you’re not a music aficionado, then buh-bye.

Secondly, it didn’t feel like work. My shifts were at night, and it was just me and my boys playing pool most of the time instead of at the neighborhood pub. Mr. De Luca hated the fact that I was wasting away my youth, but I was having a great time being a backstage support staff.

And finally, the saxophone.

Good god, the fucking saxophone.

The first time I heard it was when Mr. Coltrane Parker played it on stage. People were losing their minds over it, as they should have, I mean. I clearly remember how I was nailed to my place because of how mesmerized I was by him. This could be it. This could be what I could dedicate myself to because I could swear I was seeing notes float in the air. They felt like colored charcoal lines to me.

Since I was supposed to be backstage, I could get my hands on that blonde beauty anytime I wanted. I came to work several hours early in the afternoon just so I could practice.

“You know you’re not supposed to touch those, right?”

I nearly died that day.

Ms. Pearson, former courtesan turned manager, had busted me practicing without permission. Even though I kept telling myself I was going to get fired, she didn’t say anything to anyone and basically adopted me instead. I think she developed a soft spot for me after I told her my father had passed and that I had no family.

She’s the one who bought me my very own saxophone. A King Super 20. Just like the legend himself uses. The fucking Cadillac of saxes. I almost came in my pants when she showed that to me.

Poseidon is a jazz speakeasy, but most men come here because of the courtesans accompanying them. They are very hardworking ladies; I wish they earned more. All the staff working in this club are very friendly with one another. We see each other every damn day, more than our families. 

Well, the last part doesn’t really pertain to me, but you get what I mean. 

There’s this one girl who seems particularly interested in me. Raquelle. Bin keeps telling me to hit that, but with all due respect, that’s just outrageous. Just because she’s a courtesan doesn’t mean I have to make advances on her.

That being said, I’m not dumb. I notice how she flirts with me all the time, slipping in innuendos in her sentences even when we talk about the most mundane things. All my boys have already turned into a Giulia, telling me what a massive fool I am for not bedding her. I’ve told you this before; I can’t just casually touch people. Not just romantically, I’m not a touchy-feely person in general, but Raquelle seems to ignore that. Eventually, I had to just give it to her straight when she attempted to throw her arm around my shoulder backstage.

“Could you… not do that?”

“Why?” she shot me a sultry look. “Do I get you excited?”

“I don’t like it when people touch me.”

“Oh. Sorry.” 

I didn’t mean to offend her, but she had to know her boundaries. Nevertheless, not only did she misread the situation, but she also completely misunderstood me.

“It’s because I’m a courtesan, isn’t it?” she spoke to me with a broken smile that did not suit her at all. “Because I’m tainted.”

No, it was because she wasn’t you, but I couldn’t tell her that. It would hurt her feelings. You, on the other hand, could be the most sought-after courtesan here, and I still would dedicate an entire shrine after you.

“You’re not tainted, Raquelle.”

“Then one kiss,” she insisted when no one was looking. “That’s all I’m asking.”

“You’re the prettiest woman in this room. In most rooms, for that matter. You know that,” I brushed her silky hair behind her ear as kindly as I could. “But don’t ask me to do impossible things.”

I could tell she was upset from the way her face drastically changed. Her eyes were looking at me with utter disdain.

“People actually pay me to kiss them, you know?”

“I know,” I confirmed. “And I’d say you should charge more.”

Even Ms. Pearson took notice of the hostile tension between us one day. She cornered me by the bar to get the tea from me directly, as she would call it.

“She’s very pretty and clearly wants you. Why the cold shoulder?”

How do I explain this? I’m just not attracted to a woman just because she’s a woman. Or because she’s pretty. Or because she has nice tits, like why is this so hard to understand? Why the fuck does this keep coming up as a point of conversation, painting me as the oddest one out in the room?

“It doesn’t have anything to do with her personally, Ms. Pearson,” I opted for a shortcut. “I’m just not interested.”

I will never forget what happened the very next night.

It was a Thursday, and Ms. Ella Simone was the headliner that day. The boys and I were done with the backstage prep, so we were just shooting the shit and playing pool at the very back of the audience area. Every once in a while, I was checking in with the stage to confirm everything was going smoothly. But then…

I thought my eyes were deceiving me for a second, but I saw you. I swear I saw you. You were there, a little behind the group of people crowding the edge of the stage. By yourself. Standing.

This was the first time I saw you somewhere other than the pier. The first time I saw you wrapped in darkness rather than the sunlight.

But more importantly, this was the first time I saw you smiling.

You were completely entranced while watching the greats create magic and entrance the masses. I, on the other hand, was hypnotized by the way the corners of your lips curled.

God, you’re beautiful when you smile, and I don’t use that word liberally. One glance at you, and I was riddled with this intense urge to kiss you in the most innocent sense of the word possible.

“YES!” I was pulled back to earth when Bin yelled right next to me. “You’re buying the next round.”

He had obviously obliterated me because of how distracted I was. I didn’t pay any mind; he could ask for a hundred rounds for all I cared.

“Yeah, sure, whatever, man,” I answered him with my eyes still on you.

I really wanted to know if this was just a coincidence or if you were coming here regularly. I wanted to know what days you would be here so that I could put on my fanciest shirt for you. I will learn how to tie a tie for you. I’ve never used one before.

Maybe you would like me then.

The very next morning, when I said I was heading to the pier to draw, my boys decided to accompany me just because they were bored at the house. I didn’t talk the whole way there. I was thinking about you. I was thinking about whether you were going to show up with your floral-pattern dress that day. I’m very fond of it because it makes you look like a cherry blossom garden.

“Hey, ain’t that your girl over there?” Bin nudged me on the shoulder.

When I looked up, I indeed saw you sitting down on your bench. You were way too early. It wasn’t even noon. I didn’t know what to do with my hands or myself in general.

“Shit, it’s her.”

“The fuck are you waiting for, man? She’s alone.”

What was I waiting for? I was waiting to be worthy of you maybe. We were clearly universes apart; I knew that from the second I noticed your jade comb. I know how expensive those are, and I can’t even buy you something half as valuable even if I worked my ass off.

“I don’t–I don’t wanna disturb her. Maybe she’s waiting for someb—”

“GO!”

And just like that, I was pushed to face my fate head-on by my brothers. They had a point because if it were up to me, I would just watch you from afar for as long as I lived. As I got up, my eyes darted to the old man selling candy apples at the corner, and without even thinking about it, I bought one. I knew it wasn’t a jade comb, but… 

Maybe…

My throat had never been this dry as I was walking towards you. I felt like I was approaching my demise, but at the back of my head, I caught myself repeating the same thing.

I’m ready. I’m ready to die.

I don’t really know how to be gentlemanly. I didn’t receive some manners training like the bourgeois guys famously do. Heck, I don’t even have proper schooling.

But I noticed your shoelaces were untied.

When I finally reached you, I kneeled to tie them without giving it much thought as if I were a marionette. I didn’t deserve to be in your presence when you were a queen and I was just a simple man. I didn’t deserve to breathe in the same air as you when you were a goddess and I was just a mere mortal.

But our worlds had collided somehow and there we were, sitting right next to each other on a bench under the morning sun. I forgot all the words in my vocabulary as I handed you the candy apple. You took a glance at it and then looked at me. Then you looked at the candy again and finally took it from my hands. You weren’t wearing your floral-pattern dress, but you were wearing a white one that had little hearts on it. It suited you so much, and you looked so beautiful that I wanted to fucking punch myself in the face.

“You have it so easy, Romeo,” you spoke while looking at the sea solemnly. “I’m madly envious of you.”

I was a complete stranger to you. I know you didn’t mean it like the astronomically lovesick fictional man; you were just being mordant, but the sorrow in your voice was more palpable than anything else. 

Nevertheless, you did call me Romeo.

“There’s nothing expected of you,” you continued your monologue. “You can be whoever you want to be, and people would still give you a standing ovation. You can be with whoever you want to, bed whoever you want to, and no one would shame you for it. I would die laughing if you told me you had a curfew. Mere mortals like me can only dream of what you readily have at your disposal. We come and go as your kind pleases, and I have to get married to someone I barely know as a form of financial security. Did you know?”

I couldn’t say anything. I just listened and listened and listened, hoping against hope that the block of lead on your heart would at least move an inch. Dump it on me, I don’t care. You don’t deserve to be riddled with worry. Your soul is too beautiful for that. You deserve to be the happiest person in the room instead.

In all rooms, for that matter.

“I apologize for unloading on you like that. I don’t have any friends,” you wistfully smiled at the candy apple. “And forgive my lack of response to your kindness. I have never received a present before.”

My eyes followed you when you stood up. My heart stopped when you held my gaze. I died a thousand deaths when you put your hand on my face.

“I hope the world gives birth to more people like you, Romeo.”

You left. All I could do was watch you walk away until you shrank into a dot in the distance. My soul was being ripped apart with every step you took. Please don’t walk away from me, I beg. 

I think I’m falling in love with you, Juliet.

The day you and your mother were supposed to meet Bridget O’Connor’s camp for lunch and shopping, the sky was so bleak that it could not be a coincidence. Apparently, even the weather gods felt the need to cast an appropriately dismal background to project the fog that had colonized your soul. 

Or they were maybe just mocking you, who knows?

“Ah, what a pleasing sight! Such pure beauty,” Mrs. O’Connor squeezed your face when she saw you, lightly sinking her demonically long nails into your cheeks in the meantime. “Nowadays, even common streetwalkers call themselves a lady just because they put on makeup. Despicable.”

You didn’t talk much throughout the entire lunch. Nobody directly asked you anything anyway. You felt more like an auction item on display, listening to people discussing your price as you ate your soup. You silently followed behind as your mother and Mrs. O’Connor bonded over whatever it was they were gossiping about. You didn’t pay any attention. You just walked watching the patterns on the pavement instead. After entering the department store, you didn’t feel like joining them in their wardrobe conquests.

“I have utmost faith in your taste. I will be fine with whatever you pick for me. Thank you very much.”

You politely excused yourself towards the bookstore corner of the huge hall and left the ladies to lose their minds over accessories and dresses and shoes and whatnot. You walked between the aisles and browsed and browsed with blank eyes. You weren’t even processing what you were looking at, for your mind was crawling with grim thoughts.

“Wedding preparations?”

Your heart almost gave out when you heard a voice inside your left ear. You sharply inhaled to suppress your shriek and pressed your hand on your chest, trying to stabilize your frantic breathing. When you finally calmed down, you turned to your left, just to have your heartbeat go crazy again.

It was him. The man with the silver chain from the pier, looking at you with an apologetic smile and chuckling to himself.

Romeo.

This was the very first time you heard his voice, and it was just so… So… 

Soothing.

“Actually, yes,” you quickly turned to face the books again.

“Why aren’t you with your folks then?”

Good question. These pre-wedding shopping sprees were supposed to be one of the most fun things about getting married, but in all honesty, it felt more like your mother was packing underwear for you to use in jail.

“I don’t feel like shopping for my own imprisonment,” you put the poetry book in your hand back on the shelf and uttered solemnly. “So it would be preferable if you indeed gave me a heart attack right about now.”

His face dropped along with yours as you picked up another book to flip through. The silver necklace man, on the other hand, asked you a bizarre question quite seriously while examining a copy of some short story collection right next to you.

“Did you hear about the circus fire?”

“Circus fire?”

“Yeah, it was in tents.”

You looked at his face with creased brows, trying to figure out what the heck he was talking about. Then it… clicked. And you let out a very disgraceful snort. Seeing your features relax, he tried his hand at the lame joke parade once again.

“Isn’t it great that spring is here?” he picked up another book. “I got so excited I wet my plants.”

The things he was saying were so unfunny that you found them hilarious for some reason.

“Stop being so inappropriate, please,” you kept giggling with your eyes intently on the shelf still. “Someone might see us. ”

“I also have a joke about pizza, but it’s a little cheesy.”

Your giggles had evolved into full-on laughter at that point, and you were trying hard not to make a loud sound that would attract attention. He started laughing with you, not that there was anything funny going on, simply because joy was such a contagious thing.

“I just wanted to tell you that you look heavenly this fine afternoon,” he leaned against the bookshelf with his residual grin.

“Fine?” you wiped the tears from your eyes as your laughter died down. “It’s pouring outside.”

“Then tell me why your smile is brighter than the sun, Juliet.”

You snorted again. Apparently, he had enough in his arsenal to do this all day, saying and doing a bunch of corny stuff just to have you make stupid sounds.

“Is that the pizza joke by any chance, because that was so cheesy.”

“But you’re smiling.”

This was brand new to you, to say the least. Nobody had ever tried to woo you, court you by any means, much less through intentionally poor humor than a bunch of sweet nothings. Yet it worked on you. You had found this man ethereally good-looking starting from the very first glance you stole from him at the pier, but turns out he was also as charming as they came. You might have been deluding yourself, but it kind of looked like… 

He liked you.

“Say, do you come to Poseidon a lot?”

Panic immediately washed over all your giddiness upon hearing the name of your secret hideout. You shoved him into that little space behind the shelf and pressed your hand on his mouth.

“Please keep your voice down,” you hissed in a whisper.

It was a knee-jerk reaction to shut him the hell up before anybody heard anything, so it took a while for you to process how close we actually were to each other. Neither of you was saying anything, nor were you able to look away for that matter. You were just intensely staring into one another’s widened eyes with deep breaths through your noses. 

Then you started... perceiving him for the first time.

Flawless skin, adorned with a beauty mark right under his eye. He was so smooth to the touch, and he smelled incredible, like the lovechild of amber and vanilla, permeating your existence through every single orifice of your body. You could feel how hard his heart was thumping from the way he was breathing into your palm.

You were suddenly overcome with an intense yearning to kiss him. There was no way in hell you could act on it, but it was okay. You could make do with this substitute, too. His lips were on your skin anyway. 

“I’m–I’m sorry,” his voice came out all muffled under your palm. 

You removed your hand and walked away, all flustered. He kept following you like a magnet with a giddy smile on his face.

“Are you uh… Are you going to come on Friday, too? 

“What did I just say about keeping your voice down?” you harshly turned around.

“I think you should. We’re having a little private gathering backstage,” he continued with his attempts to persuade you with his big brown eyes beaming. “Ms. Simone is going to be with us.”

“WHAT?!”

You slapped your hand on your own mouth this time to hush yourself. 

You were on the brink of losing your whole entire mind. Ella Simone. The First Lady of Song. Your idol was going to be there, and he was inviting you to meet her? 

In person? 

“Dear? Where are you?”

You turned around, all alarmed upon hearing your mother’s voice in the distance. Remembering you weren’t here all by yourself, the man hurriedly grabbed your hands.

“Please come. Ask for me at the door. My name is Hyunjin,” he placed a kiss on your hands and flashed a devastatingly bright smile. “I’ll wait for you, Juliet.”

As you watched him walk away with hasty steps, his name kept echoing in your head. Hyunjin.

Hyunjin, Hyunjin, Hyunjin, Hyunjin…

The spots he kissed kept burning for the rest of the day as if he had branded your skin with the outline of his lips.

I don’t care about the technicalities. Looking back, this was our first date.

The amount of embarrassment I felt after asking you to come to Poseidon that Friday, but not giving you the time… Let’s just say I’m not in my right mind when I’m around you. I didn’t even know if you were going to show up for that matter, but I started waiting for you around 4 p.m. As the club started getting more crowded, I couldn’t peel my eyes from the entrance. I wanted to be the one greeting you the second you stepped foot in here. I don’t know how much time passed by when I finally heard Minho’s voice yelling at me.

“Hyun!!! You have a visitor!” 

I bolted towards the door so fast that I was surprised how I didn’t knock over several tables along the way. I was breathless by the time I reached you.

“You… You came!”

God, what a beauty. You were absolutely stunning. You might have looked like an ordinary person to anybody else when in fact you were a princess masquerading among her subjects. As if to confirm my suspicions, you reverenced. I knew it was a joke, but I bowed back, doing my best prince impression, and I audaciously extended my hand to you.

Some nerve I have, huh?

But you graciously allowed me to hold your hand as I escorted you inside. I never knew hand-holding was one of the most intimate things a person could experience. I could feel your entire body temperature through your palm. I could count your heartbeats through that simple motion alone. If you simply looked at my throat, you could count mine, too, for my pulse was through the roof.

I told you I’m not in my right mind when I’m around you. It never occurred to me to ask your name until I was introducing you to everyone backstage. You seamlessly intervened before I drew a total blank and embarrassed myself, but I want to say one more time how sorry I am. Somehow, my brain was convinced your name was Juliet. 

And don’t get me wrong, your actual name is one of the prettiest things I’ve ever heard, but I’d much rather call you my girl instead. My soul. My other half. I know you’d think I was insane if I said any of this out loud, but when you find the one, you just know. 

And I just knew, so sue me.

I realized you were a little tense being around all those people you didn’t know. I learned from Ms. Pearson long ago that a little drink always helped to calm the nerves. Heck, even Ms. Simone rolls one before going on stage. When I asked you whether you would like one and if you had a favorite, by god, I never expected whiskey sour as an answer. Just…

Just how fucking incredible can you get?

I admit, I made it look like I was doing this for you, but in fact, I was about to die of nervousness myself.

It worked. As we reached the bottom of our glasses, you were much more relaxed, smiling more brightly at people, but not just out of politeness. I could tell it was for real because your eyes shine when your smile is genuine. You were answering their questions while looking at them in the face. By then, there was nothing left from your initial reservations, and I loved seeing you so at ease with us as if we had known each other for years.

And I just couldn’t take my eyes off of you.

“A pool table!” you exclaimed and pointed at it. “I’ve always wanted to learn this.”

“I can teach you if you want.”

“Really?!”

You didn’t even wait for me to answer and grabbed my hand to drag me to the table. It always irked me out when people touched me for some unknown reason, but… 

But you…

I wish I could spend the rest of my life with you touching me at all times. And this is fucking dangerous because I’m so scared of getting addicted to the feeling. Not the feeling of touching—you touching me.

Teaching you to play pool was the hardest thing I had to endure. Make no mistake, you’re quite a fast learner, but every time I get close to you… I uh… How do I put this delicately? 

Your presence alone was already… doing things to me. Now add the fact that I could smell your perfume from that up close. I made goddamn sure there was enough space between us so as not to make you uncomfortable, but every time I was adjusting the way you were holding the cue, I had to… stand behind you, and… 

Call me delusional, but I think you knew what you were doing to me, too. I saw the way you were biting into your smile every time I got flustered.

“I’ll be damned, you’re a great teacher, Romeo. Ever thought about doing this for a living?”

Please. Please stop calling me that before I fall irrevocably in love with you. It’s so hard to resist already. I’m one minor incident away from asking you to marry me as it is, for the love of god, please STOP!

I was saved by the bell when Ms. Simone finally graced us with her presence. I swear, the look on your face was priceless when you finally met her.

“Ms. Simone, I’m such a huge fan. I’ve studied all your songs on the piano!”

Really? Fucking really? You know how to play the piano, too?

Just how much more fucking incredible can you get?!

“Then let me see you play, girl,” Ms. Simone pointed at the console piano we had backstage. You, on the other hand, were clearly flabbergasted.

“H–Here?”

“Of course!”

I nodded at you with as much encouragement as I could convey as you shyly made your way towards the bench. When you started playing, my jaw fucking dropped all the way to the floor. I’m not quite proud of what I’m about to divulge, but…

The sudden rush of arousal I felt was at humiliating levels. That was quite literally the most passionate thing I had ever seen. Erotic even.

“Go,” Ms. Pearson suddenly nudged me on the shoulder. “You know the song. Accompany her.”

I had to think fast about all the unsexy things I possibly could to manage my… situation because there was no way I was about to walk to you like that. Chairs. Sloths. Bin’s snoring…

When I finally calmed myself, I picked up Elaine from her case and started playing along with you. Not too long after, Ms. Simone joined us and sang her heart out as flawlessly as she always did.

A roar of applause broke out in the room with the last note, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the way Raquelle was looking at me with spite by the door. She left the area, most likely to tend to some of her patrons. Did I feel bad? Not really, but I did feel angry. I don’t like it when people bring that kind of energy around me and my loved ones.

When Ms. Simone approached you, I left you alone so that you could have your moment with her to your heart’s content. I leaned against a table, just watching you from afar, probably with a dumb smile on my face.

“So that’s the reason for the cold shoulder,” Ms. Pearson whispered in my ear, and there was a huge knowing smile plastered on her lips. “You need to kiss her, my boy.” 

“Believe me, I’m willing to sacrifice a lot of things just for one kiss from her,” I told her with my eyes following your every move, “but she’s getting married, Ms. Pearson.”

“So?”

“What do you mean so? She’s… taken.”

She did this every time she wasn’t satisfied with an answer of mine. I felt her notorious tornado smack at the back of my head.

“She’s not some property to be owned, you absolute buffoon!” she spat through her teeth. “She decided to be here with you tonight, didn’t she?”

I mean… She had a point. You didn’t necessarily have to be here. It was a choice. But you probably came to see Ms. Simone; I did tell you she was going to be here. It wasn’t… because of me, per se. 

It couldn’t be.

“Listen to me, son. Don’t let people tell you it’ll pass,” she grabbed my shoulders and turned me towards her. “I’ve watched people die of heartache before.”

The way you were beaming with happiness while talking to Ms. Simone… My heart swelled several times its size in my chest because nothing was more beautiful than a happy you. You told me yourself that you had to get married to someone you barely knew as a form of financial security. You told me yourself you didn’t feel like shopping for your own imprisonment. So you didn’t love whoever this goddamn lucky bastard was, that was for sure.

Maybe… Was there maybe a snowball’s chance in hell that you would… choose me?

As you made your way to Poseidon that Friday, you didn’t really know what to expect. The only thing you were acutely aware of was the butterflies invading all the possible space in the pit of your stomach.

You didn’t know what to expect, but you knew what you didn’t expect—having this much fun engaging in things that your mother would call peasant ways. Eating with your hands. Playing pool. Basically everything an alleged lady was not supposed to do. You met some amazing people that day, and everybody was so warm and welcoming towards you that you felt like you had known them for years.

Peasant ways combined with Hyunjin’s presence made you so insanely happy that you could die.

“I did warn you about keeping the last piece of chicken to yourself, didn’t I?” the muscular, dark-haired man everyone called Bin slammed his hand on the table.

“Then you should have prioritized that over your girl’s lips, brother.”

“Oh, fuck you, Hyun!”

A roar of laughter spread around the table. Hyun. People close to him were calling him Hyun. You found the name so endearing that it made your heart swell.

“Hyun,” you whispered to yourself with a smile. 

You asked for a bottle of beer to have with your food, but the opener was nowhere to be found. Hyunjin quickly opened it with a knife he took out, earning a very concerned look from you.

“Why do you carry a knife with you?” you pointed at the sharp object.

“Oh, it’s… It’s not what you think!” he quickly put it back in his pocket. “I sharpen my charcoal with this.”

“Your charcoal?”

“Yeah, when I draw. Wanna see?”

He wiped his hands and showed you the leather-bound folder you were already familiar with. It contained pages and pages of his work inside. As the dates at the bottom started going back in time, his depictions became… freer. Streetwalkers on a bridge. People having intercourse. A naked woman blowing out smoke with an absolutely satiated expression on her face. Things that people knew were happening but avoided talking about at all costs.

You were flushed from head to toe seeing those as if you were watching pornography in public. 

“Do you… not like it?” Hyunjin hesitantly asked when you didn’t say anything.

How could you not like it? You were on the brink of crying for how much it moved you. You were just thinking about how a person could capture human emotion within a limited space in the shades of a single color.

“These are beautiful, Hyunjin,” you managed to utter with a look of total admiration on your face, your eyes getting a little misty. While his relief was apparent, his smile was trapped between proud and embarrassed.

When you closed the folder and handed it back to Hyunjin, you were met with Bin openly kissing his girl without an ounce of shame across the table. You didn’t mean to stare, but the more you watched it, the more it tickled something in you. Although it was a mortifying thing to admit, you realized that… that you wished…

You wished Hyunjin would do that to you. 

“I uh… ER ERHM, I need to use the restroom. Excuse me,” you jumped to your feet to splash some cold water on your face. Otherwise, you were going to spectacularly catch on fire.

You managed to somewhat calm yourself in the restroom, but it was useless as hell because when you walked out, you were met with Hyunjin by the door.

“Are you okay?” he asked with genuine worry. “You left so suddenly. I wanted to check on you.”

“Oh, YEAH, I’m–I’m fine!” you loudly stuttered, but when you caught a glimpse of the happy table in the distance, you involuntarily smiled again. “I’m more than fine, actually.”

“Are you glad you came?”

“Absolutely! This is the most fun I’ve had in… well, ever.”

There was a huge neon sign on the fire brick wall to your right in the shape of a trumpet, and the yellow light emitting from it was cast on you like a spotlight. You were frozen in your place as Hyunjin slowly approached you. The more he closed the distance between you, the more rabid your heart was going. You really wanted to kiss him, but you became so self-conscious of the people in the vicinity that you moved away at the last second.

“Will you… Will you really leave me so unsatisfied?”

“You were expecting some action from tonight?” you immediately responded.

“Fuck, I’m sorry! I didn’t… I didn’t mean to…” he raised his hands in panic to frantically apologize. “It’s–It’s from Romeo and Juliet, and—”

If humans could die out of endearment, this would be it for you. You had picked up on the reference, of course, since you were quite familiar with the scene from the play. Just because you uttered the line using modern grammar with such a straight face, he must have thought you were actually offended.

It took iron-clad willpower not to burst out laughing.

“Let me rephrase,” you held his hands. “What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?”

When Hyunjin saw you smiling at him again, he mustered whatever amount of courage he could and responded to you with so much adoration dripping from his eyes that your heart melted.

“The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.”

Your smile grew wide, and you placed a chaste kiss on his cheek. Hyunjin turned beet red as if you just shamelessly drowned him in open-mouth kisses for everyone to see. You extended your hand for him to hold this time, and you both returned to the table all giggling.

“You’re an O’Connor, too?” Bin asked you out of nowhere as you were sitting down. Even hearing the name made you shudder with dismay.

“What makes you say that?”

“The shamrock,” he pointed at your glinting necklace, then nodded towards the public area. “Your folks are here.”

You dashed to the door in utter panic, and when you peeked out, you saw all three O’Connor brothers about to sit down at a booth.

“Oh, FUCK me!”

This was the first time you cursed out loud in your life. Hyunjin looked at you with gigantic eyes in shock, then cracked up with everyone else in the room.

“They can’t see me here. I–I need to leave!”

Hyunjin instinctively grabbed your hand along with his folder, and you snuck out through the back door with everyone’s help to remain unseen. You ran hand in hand down the street towards the pier, laughing your asses off as if you were playing a game of tag. It was still the young hours of the night, so it was quite a feat not to knock people over when the streets were that crowded.

When you finally reached the lighthouse, you thought it would be empty inside, but it looked like someone was living there. There were signs of a very modest life. A mattress and a pillow, some books, a teapot…

“Uh… I don’t think we should be here,” you turned to Hyunjin with worry.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. This is my stuff.”

“You live here?” you asked him in sheer surprise.

“Not live per se, but I come here some nights. To unload my mind.”

As he walked to the little portable cooker on the floor to make some tea, you sat down on the mattress and started going through his folder again.

“You really love what you do,” you uttered with a fond smile. “It really shows, you know?”

He didn’t say anything and just sheepishly smiled in response while making tea. You kept turning the pages and eventually saw the obscene compositions again, not being able to help the way you gulped thickly. The curiosity was killing you, and you just had to ask at this point.

“Did you… actually see these people… while… you know.”

“Some of them, yes,” he casually replied. “Europeans are different, I guess. My friend had no problem fucking those women in front of me.”

“And you watched them?!” you shrieked, scandalized out of your mind.

“Not–Not like that. I was in the room sometimes to understand what they were feeling,” he explained. “It’s fascinating to witness how lust manifests on one’s body. It’s unique to the person, you know? Much like a fingerprint.”

Lust as a fingerprint. The thought revolved inside your head as you examined the drawings more closely.

“You said fucking.”

“Hm?”

“You said he had no problem fucking those women in front of you.”

“Oh,” he sat down next to you while handing you a cup. “I didn’t mean to be crass.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s the verb you used,” you smiled at him. “Sounds very… raw.”

“The physical act is exactly the same, don’t you think?” he took a sip from his raspberry tea and looked at the papers. “I mean, I’d love to fuck someone I’m in love with, but making love sounds very ceremonial to me. I’d much rather we were our rawest selves while feeling each other than put on some performance. It’s an animalistic instinct after all.”

The way he described it so honestly made you tingle in places you didn’t know were possible, and you happened to notice the subject he used. So did he.

And he seemed absolutely mortified by it.

“I mean… When I say we, I didn’t… I don’t… I mean in general…”

“It’s okay,” you burst into laughter at the way he was stuttering. “I’ll take your word for it. I don’t have any experience in the subject.”

“Well, me neither,” he shrugged.

To say that you were stunned would be an understatement, but you were. You were stunned that a stunningly gorgeous man like him did not put his hands on someone.

“You… You really never…?”

He shyly shook his head no, but then it devolved into a broken smile.

“But you’ll find out soon enough, no?” he forced a chuckle. “Since you’re… getting married.”

“I expect there will be penetration, but it won’t be an act of love.”

He looked like he was about to say something, but no words came out of his mouth. His shoulders drooped in resignation, not knowing what to do. You, on the other hand, kept going through his drawings and stopped on the one that depicted a man under the sheets from the waist down, his back arched and eyes shut tight, clearly on the brink of a release.

“Do you do this, too?”

“Do what?”

You made it a point to hold his gaze intently when you replied.

“Touch yourself.”

It took a couple of seconds for him to react, but he couldn’t say anything out loud. He nodded somewhat abashed instead.

You wondered what he was touching himself to.

“How does it feel, Romeo?”

“How does what feel, beautiful?”

The name caressed something inside you, tainting your lips with a smile. You didn’t know where this brazenness came from, but you didn’t feel a shred of shame holding this conversation with him.

“An orgasm.”

You weren’t really curious about what an orgasm felt like, per se. You wanted to know what it would feel like if Hyunjin gave you one. You wanted to know in how many ways you could die in his arms. You wanted to know what he looked like watching your release.

He, on the other hand, was appalled at what he just heard.

“You surely have… I mean… Yoursel… Like…”

It entertained you way too much that he couldn’t say it out loud even though he had no problem depicting what fucking was mere seconds ago.

“I’m not following,” you feigned ignorance and looked at him with big confused eyes to elicit the word ‘masturbate’ from him, but he kept beating around the bush.

“You know,” he drew lines on the floor with the tip of his shoe. “Make love to yourself.”

“I thought you said making love was ceremonial.”

“If you’re gonna do it to yourself, it better be ceremonial.”

You burst into a loud cackle that was so disgraceful, but honestly, you didn’t give a rat’s ass anymore. Hyunjin was right about wanting to be his rawest self, and it wasn’t just about lying with someone. You wished you could act exactly like this all the time, doing and saying whatever felt natural to you.

But you only… wished.

“I’ve never made love to myself before,” you spoke in a mischievous whisper.

“Oh,” he responded, still unable to look you in the eye. “How–How come, though?”

“See this?” you pulled down your bust the tiniest measure to show a glimpse of the corset you were wearing under your dress. “I’m not allowed to take this off.”

“But when–when you’re bathing—?”

“I’m not allowed to bathe myself, either.”

Hyunjin didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say about it anyway. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop him from looking confounded to learn that you were denied very basic things in life. Meanwhile, your eyes darted to his folder again.

“I’d love for you to draw me like that, too.”

You didn’t know where that came from. You weren’t completely inebriated to say things you didn’t mean, either. Something about Hyunjin just pulled the words out of you. He was completely bewildered at what he was hearing, almost breaking the cup in his hand from gripping it too tightly.

“You… You want me to watch you while someone else is—?”

“NO! God no, I didn’t mean it like that.”

You put down your cup on the floor and scooted closer to him. There was an amalgam of hesitance and expectation on his criminally beautiful features. His lips slightly parted when you leaned in, and you could see how his eyes darted to your mouth, intently watching the shape of it when you uttered the words in a whisper as if to let him in on a little secret.

“When I touch myself.”

There was nobody around for you to feel self-conscious anymore, and Hyunjin was right there, breathing heavily and utterly unsure of what to do next. It was like he was waiting for an indubitably clear sign from you just so you wouldn’t take him for what he absolutely was not. You hyperfixated on his sinful lips and when you leaned in mere millimeters closer to him, he couldn’t hold himself back any longer.

Your very first taste of pleasure. Your first kiss. Your first kiss with him.

It was a very simple motion of him pressing his mouth against yours, but it set an uncontainable wildfire on your entire body. When you moved your lips, he started kissing you deeper, tasting as much of you as he could. Your hands traveled on each other’s faces, wanting dangerously more with each passing second. You were going crazy with the intensifying scent of his cologne mixing with his own natural musk, and he tugged you even closer when he noticed how sharply you were inhaling him. You were both breathless when you stopped to catch your breath, foreheads pressed against each other. You dared to look him in the eye in a momentary lapse of sanity, and there was only one desperate plea written all over that gaze.

Can we please do it again? 

You gave in. Of course. Of course you could do it again. You could do it all the time.

“You taste like heaven,” Hyunjin spoke against your lips. “God, you taste like a fucking aphrodisiac.”

When he cursed… It stirred something unknown in you. Raw. Just like he said.

Was this… what falling in love felt like?

“Can I touch you?” you asked him, your breathing barely stable.

Touch me. Feel me. Murder me with your fingertips. Perish me under your skin. I’m yours to consume until there’s nothing left of me.

But what spilled from his lips was the complete opposite of what he was craving.

“Not now,” he brushed your hair behind your ears. “It’s not the right time.”

You were quite obviously disappointed, but you also knew he was right. You lowered your head, somewhat ashamed of what you just asked of him.

“But you can touch me here,” he guided your hand to his chest. His heart was beating like it was about to give out. You couldn’t help the urge to kiss him again.

Your kisses were shapeshifting, getting more and more passionate, and it was about to cross a very dangerous threshold for him. It was becoming harder and harder to hold his desire for you on a leash. He needed to step away right fucking now for you were colonizing his entire existence, but he would rather kill himself than do something inappropriate to you.

“I don’t… I don’t wish to disrespect you,” he suddenly stopped, panting heavily. “I wouldn’t even dare, but–but I…”

You actually wished he would disrespect you. You wished he would defile you right then and there and claim you for himself so that you would be with a man you were feeling intense things for. You’d love to be tainted, a hand-me-down, a second-hand, as your mother described women who had premarital intercourse, but at least you would be Hyunjin’s.

At least you would be choosing the man responsible for your goddamn happiness.

You touched his concerningly reddened face as if he was coming down with something, but he still couldn’t open his eyes to look at you. He was trying so hard to keep his breathing stable.

“I–I still want to make love to you. With my words only,” he shakily uttered. “It’s more than fine if you say no but… but would you love me back?”

It wasn’t what he said; it was the way he said it. Scared and desperate and almost lovesick. You smiled at him and cupped his face to appease his apparent fears.

“So you want it to be ceremonial.”

“Yes,” he finally snapped his eyes open and replied without an ounce of hesitation. “For you, yes. Whatever you want from me, yes to everything.”

You pulled him closer for another kiss, and he took it as an invitation from you. Your lips were swollen from being loved so intensely, but you didn’t care. You didn’t care one bit.

“You still didn’t tell me what an orgasm feels like,” you whispered against his mouth. Hyunjin briefly locked his gaze on you, and then...

“An orgasm feels…”

As he spoke, he ghosted his lips on the naked skin of your collarbones, alarmingly close for you to anticipate a kiss, but still keeping the bare minimum of a distance.

“...really…”

Your shoulder.

“…really…”

Your neck.

“…really good.” 

Your lips.

“Like a crescendo.”

“Tell me how you touch yourself, Romeo.”

Your face was burning as much as Hyunjin’s, but you couldn’t tell if it was because of embarrassment or extreme arousal.

“Do you think I’m attractive?”

What kind of a redundant question was that?! Was air necessary? Was the sky blue? Everybody who had eyes would acknowledge this indisputable fact.

“Oh, please…”

“But do you? Look at me,” he lifted your chin to make you face him. “Do you find me attractive?”

“It’s ridiculous how beautiful you are, actually.”

“It’s ridiculous how beautiful you are,” he spoke, voice still barely audible. “Does it… Does it feel wet between your legs?”

“Yes.”

“When the time is right,” he caressed your hair. “I will ask your permission to let me lick it clean. Nothing else. Just taste you. I want to kiss you there just like I’m kissing your lips. Only wetter.”

You squeezed your legs together out of instinct. That tiny bit of friction indeed felt good, and he noticed the way you were almost squirming.

“It gets to you when I talk like that, doesn’t it?” he smirked all content.

“I don’t know wh— I don’t kn— I…”

He softly chuckled into your ear, all endeared, and still refusing to directly touch your body in the slightest.

“That’s because I arouse you, beautiful,” he whispered. “But believe me, it’s nowhere near how much you arouse me.”

Your eyes instinctively closed. So this was what making love with words felt like.

“Come closer,” you lightly pulled on his wrists. “Walk me through it. Everything you will do to me.” 

Hyunjin crawled right behind you and started speaking directly into your ear with the softest voice.

“You will be bare for me from the waist down. I’ll have the privilege of touching this supple skin,” he put his hand on yours. “It might feel ticklish when I start kissing you… right there.”

He pressed your hand on your crotch, avoiding direct contact. The only thing he was touching was your hand, but it felt like he was rather teaching you how to please yourself. He was keeping the tiniest measure of distance between you out of whatever amount of respect he could show you in this context. You did not have any experience but you were not naïve, either. You knew he was doing it so that he wouldn’t be… touching you.

“Closer,” you breathily exhaled. “I want to feel you against me.”

He was clearly hesitating, but you erased all his doubts on his behalf when you yanked on his arms and pulled him flush against your back. You were able to feel his heartbeat down your spine and how hard he was on your hips. The scent of his cologne got denser on your nostrils, completely getting you drunk on him.

“Keep going,” your pulse started to escalate to match his rhythm. “Tell me. Tell me how you’ll love me.”

You intertwined your fingers with his. The way he was breathing down your neck made you feel tingles all over your body. 

You had never felt this naked in your whole life.

“I’ll explore every inch of your body to learn what you like. I’ll devote hours to it if that’s what it takes. Days even. Weeks. I’ll learn how to touch you just right. I’ll drown you in kisses. You’ll want more and more, and I’ll give it to you.”

You squeezed his hands with all your might as your breathing started getting labored. Hyunjin continued much more shamelessly in your ear.

“I’ll taste you everywhere. I’ll tease you until your pretty cunt aches for more. You’ll sound so fucking delicious whimpering under me, moaning my name over and over again. You’ll just tell me where you want me on your body, and I’ll oblige, but I will not lick you until you force my head between your legs. I want you to become as hungry for me as I am for you.”

Hungry for you. He was hungry for you. The more obscene his language got, the more unhinged you were becoming. You could completely picture everything he said. It felt like he was already on your body, about to break you in, and you were loving that it was him. 

You were loving the way he loved you no matter how hypothetically.

“Touch yourself with me, Hyunjin,” you exhaled in one breath. “Right now.”

That was a pleasant surprise for him to notice that you weren’t this timid little thing, but unfortunately for him, you were very much aware that his arousal levels hit the roof when you uttered his name in such a desperate and commanding tone at the same time.

“Don’t–Don’t say things like that or I’ll—”

“I won’t watch if you’re embarrassed,” you reassured him. “I just want to know what it feels like.”

“What what feels like, my soul?”

Why would you say that?!, you wanted to yell at his face. As if the way he was making you feel was not intense enough. As if he wasn’t imprinting himself all over your existence already.

As if you needed further encouragement to fall madly in love with him.

“When you… When you climax because of me.”

“The lowlife term is cumming, you know,” his voice was riddled with mischief. “Say it. Say you want to watch me cum.”

“I want to watch you cum.”

You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t stutter. You flat-out told him what you wanted, knowing full well it snapped something in him. He couldn’t take it any longer, and you felt a very wet kiss on the left side of your neck. The buzzing sensation between your legs intensified threefold.

You were oozing.

“Say you want to watch me cum to you. Say you want me to be a slave for you,” you heard his belt unbuckling behind you. “Say you love me. Say you love me back. Please.”

You pecked his right hand with your eyes still closed, then turned it around to sloppily make out with his palm. His breathy moans started becoming louder in your ear. When you finally let go of his hand, he started stroking himself in a languid rhythm. You couldn’t see it, but you were able to clearly hear it.

“It sounds so wet,” you squeezed your eyes harder. Hyunjin, on the other hand, managed to shove the softest of chuckles in between his panting.

“This is what it will sound like when I’m inside you.” 

God, his words… His words alone were making you throb between your legs. Your wetness was so out of control by then that you felt like you had soiled yourself. It felt like a part of you was itching, and you badly needed to scratch it. You were seeking that friction that was going to relieve you. The fabric of your corset was thick, but you pressed your fingers on it as hard as you could and started rubbing yourself.

“You mean when we… when we’re fucking.”

“Yes, when we’re fucking. When we’re making each other go insane,” his voice started becoming high-pitched. “You’ll feel so warm, so tight around me. You will drag me through hell when you start moaning in ecstasy. You will kill me when you cum all over me. My face. My cock. Everywhere.”

You leaned against his chest and spread your legs wider to rub yourself properly. Hyunjin held your other hand and locked his fingers with yours.

“No one has ever made me feel this way,” he barely managed to utter while heavily breathing. “I know I shouldn’t, but I’m so gone for you. I want to be at your beck and call. I want to be your man. I can’t see anything else but you.”

“I want to see,” you sat up straight in one go. “Please let me see how you’re touching yourself to me.”

You didn’t know why you always pictured male genitalia as something unpleasant because when you turned around, you saw exactly how pretty Hyunjin was, flushed pink with clear liquid pooling around the very tip. The moment you caught a glimpse of him, it felt like a dynamite exploded inside you, and you felt yourself getting infested with the most obscene thoughts you had ever had. You wanted to do so many things to him. On him. With him.

There wasn’t an ounce of rational thought left in you, and you were finally able to internalize the meaning of raw. The only thing you were able to process was your most primitive urges taking over, which you didn’t even realize you harbored within you.

“Touch me while I touch you, Hyunjin.”

“D–Don’t… If you do…”

“Touch me.”

You grabbed his hand and pressed it between your legs over your clothed core. Feeling him even through all those layers of fabric jump-started something in you, and you watched yourself wrap your fingers around his cock, careful not to hurt him. He was so warm to the touch, burning to the point of spiking a fever, and you replicated the exact same vigorous rhythm he was stroking himself with. You unleashed yourself on his lips completely instinctively, and once he slipped his tongue inside your mouth and started swirling it around yours, something violently erupted deep inside you, causing you to convulse hard as you held onto him for dear life. Not too long after, you felt something warm and wet gushing all over the hand you were pleasuring him with, his muffled moans echoing inside your mouth and reverberating throughout your entire body.

You felt pleasantly tired, but you also felt like you were glowing. You felt this odd sense of total satiation that you had never once felt in your life, and it made you giggle like an idiot.

“How do you feel, Juliet?” he asked you while cleaning your hand. The contentment on your face was the complete opposite of the words you uttered.

“I think I’m dying.”

“You look stunning when you’re satisfied, you know.”

Hyunjin crawled right next to you and pulled you into his embrace. You could feel the way he smiled when he kissed your hair. You lay there in silence for some time, just basking in each other’s warmth, allowing yourselves to live in this little bubble of coziness that defied all reality.

Nevertheless, all good things had to come to an end. You fixed your appearance and let Hyunjin hold your hand as you walked back to the Institute building where you were supposed to be picked up in another half an hour or so.

“A thousand times good night,” you told him before entering the building. He kissed your hands and reciprocated your line.

“A thousand times the worse to want your light.”

When Hyunjin went home that night, he spent hours drawing the exact expression on your face while you were cumming. He didn’t know what you looked like under your garments, but he’d at least seen you from collarbones up. 

That was enough for him to draw a bust clearly indicative of you being naked just for his eyes to see.

“What is it, dear?”

“I’m aware at this point I’m probably considered engaged to Ryan although I don’t have a ring or anything,” you added a finishing touch in your hair with a black silk ribbon. “Hypothetically speaking, if the Mayor’s son approaches me tonight, should I avoid conversing with him?”

“That would be very rude. There is no harm in entertaining a conversation,” she winked at you.

That was enough to make you properly nauseated.

“I hate to be asking you this, and I wouldn’t if I absolutely didn’t have to,” you tugged on the hem of your shield. “My corset makes it very hard for me to breathe in this dress.”

“Oh, come on, dear, I’m sure you can endure it.”

“The concert is over two hours, Mother,” you appealed to her superficial logic. “I really don’t wish to pass out on stage and disgrace myself. Please.”

She eyed you from head to toe and made a quick calculation in her head, eventually punctuating it with a sigh.

“Fine, but only this once. Do not make a habit of this,” she started untying the laces on your back. “I still don’t understand why I cannot come to this event.”

“I’ve explained this already, Mother. It’s by invitation only, and they all go to very high-level people. There won’t be any parents there tonight.”

And that was the second lie you told her in a span of thirty seconds.

When you asked me to come with you to the reception thrown in honor of your ensemble, I panicked. Hard. 

Needless to say, I don’t have experience with high-class events, and I only have one suit. Thank goodness Ms. Pearson was there when I showed up at Poseidon because I don’t want to imagine what would happen otherwise.

“Good god, my boy, surely you’re not going to escort her like this? You look hideous!”

She dragged me to the artist lounge and put me in one of those expensive tuxedos reserved for orchestra members, made some quick calls, and before I knew it, I was at the mercy of some glam people. I have to give it to them, though—they did such a fantastic job in such a short amount of time that if I appeared on some red carpet looking like this, no one would be able to guess they were looking at Hwang Hyunjin from Magnolia Street. 

Ms. Pearson had arranged a fancy town car for us to make an appearance as she called it. She was over the moon when you also invited her so that she could network. Between you and me, once you’re okay in her book, you’re there for life. As we were waiting for you to arrive, she orchestrated quite the bluff to make me look good, though.

“Mr. Hwang here is an up-and-coming musician as well. Quite the saxophonist training under Mr. Parker.”

“Really? Are you headlining anywhere, my good man?”

“He will be headlining at The Titan this summer.”

The moment the man we were talking to left us, I felt the need to urge her to pump the brakes because what the hell indeed.

“Damn, Ms. Pearson, you wanna cool it a little?”

“Shush. Just follow my lead.”

Well, she was the boss lady around here, so she probably knew better, right?

When you finally walked through that door, dazzling the heck out of me, she took it as her cue to leave the premises. You know she’s like my mom, so I hope you didn’t mind that she hugged you that openly in public considering who she is. It’s just not that common of an occurrence for her to see me happy. She’s really fond of you, you know?

I watched your magic for however long that was, but honestly, it felt like only five minutes to me. I wish I could watch you longer. The way you play… Your attachment to music… It’s just mind-blowing, Juliet. Tonight reaffirmed to me just how much you and I are meant to be. 

You’re literally my other half.

After the concert, you were surrounded by people congratulating you just like you deserved, and I couldn’t feel any prouder watching you from afar although I had nothing to do with this. It’s like… This is the woman I love, you know. Witness her magic. Be as hypnotized by her as I am. She deserves the world. She deserves all the good things life has to offer.

Looking at everyone else crowding that hall, I didn’t feel like one of those good things. 

These people were… different from me. They had the means. Call it money, power, influence, talent, or whatever you want. They had all the things I didn’t have, and they could offer you many more things that I could only dream of offering you in my wildest dreams.

But tonight wasn’t about me. It was about you. It was your moment to shine, and I just felt lucky enough that I was able to witness it. 

“Wonderful tonight,” I lightly touched your arm and turned around to see myself out.

“Going somewhere?” you looked at me with huge, sad eyes.

I can admit this now. If you didn’t ask me that question, I was really going to leave. I wasn’t sad or anything; on the contrary, this was one of the happiest nights of my life. I just didn’t think… you needed my shadow around you.

But it was at that moment that I decided to give you the piece of paper I was keeping in my pocket.

“I uh… I’ll just get some fresh air,” I discreetly handed you the note I had hastily scribbled.

Not even two minutes later, you actually came. You had an apologetic look on your face when you absolutely shouldn’t have.

“I’m really sorry for not being able to get out sooner,” you approached me with quick steps. “These people can talk.”

Just… Why are you this beautiful, Juliet? You make me wanna cry sometimes.

I heard an Ella Simone song playing in the distance. I was convinced just mere minutes ago that I had no place in your life but…

I love you. I can’t help it. It’s wrong maybe, but I love you with sincere greed.

“Can I have this dance?” I extended my hand to you. 

You took it. We danced under the moonlight in that garden where no one was around. We kissed each other slowly as if we had all the time to kill in the world. I fell deeper in love with you, and I could swear you loved me, too.

Then you said something that shortened my lifespan by ten years.

“Take me back to your lighthouse, Romeo.”

This was how you knew it was real. All your waking thoughts were riddled with Hyunjin. The way he smiled at you. The way he looked at you. The way he tightly held your hand. His eyes. His lips. That little mole on his face you were dying to kiss. Just… Everything about him was invading you. Your mind. Your heart.

And your body.

You couldn’t even keep track of how many times he appeared in your dreams, doing the exact same things he whispered in your ear. Just loving you, fully unhinged. You were both falling under a euphoric spell as you ravished one another until the sky started gaining consciousness again. Dying in each other’s arms just to be resurrected into the same life. In the same breath.

You knew in your heart of hearts that you belonged with him. And you wanted to belong to him. In every sense of the word possible. That was why you asked him to take you to the lighthouse again without any hesitation. 

You wanted this more than anything else.

“Are you nervous?”

“No,” you replied with a total lack of pause. “Put your hands on me.”

He did. He put his hands on your face while kissing you, but you felt something you had never felt before, which was cause for concern.

“You’re trembling, Romeo,” you kissed his hands. “Are you nervous?”

“I’m just overwhelmed,” he shook his head. “I can’t stand the idea of you being with someone else, but if it’s what it takes to be with you… I’ll–I’ll settle for being the other man.”

“Do not say such things ever again!” you held his face in your hands. “There’s no other man. There’s only you.”

You kissed him like you never did before to get your point across. You kissed him so that he knew once and for all the sovereignty he had declared in your heart was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. That you couldn’t even see anyone else. That he had sole possession of your soul. 

“Do whatever feels natural to you,” he whispered with a quivering voice as if he was left out in a blizzard for hours. “Teach me how to touch you right.”

“Undress me.”

It was the most unrushed thing ever. He was so careful with the way he was stripping you as if you would disappear into thin air if he got one move wrong. Excruciatingly patient. You did the same for him as you got rid of his bowtie, his blazer, and his shirt, just leaving him bare for you to appreciate.

When you were finally naked, Hyunjin admired you with his jaw dropped like you were the world’s eighth wonder. It made you chuckle. He hugged you tight and put his hands on your back, pressing you close to him and just kissing you. Your shoulders, your cheeks, your lips… When he reached your neck, you ripped the necklace off of you and tossed it to the side for nothing was allowed to come between you. 

Absolutely nothing.

“Only you,” you pulled him into a kiss again. As deep as it could be.

His mattress felt cool against your back as he lay you down. The only thing accompanying you was the sound of the waves crashing in the distance.

“You’re too beautiful,” he placed a kiss on your forehead. “Did you know you taste like my other half, Juliet?”

Your hands were all over each other, albeit very clumsily. Your somewhat abashed giggles tickled each other’s eardrums every once in a while, but they were subdued when one of you touched somewhere just right. Even the way you looked at each other would change when that happened. You took quick mental notes and iterated the motion that caused the other to let out that delectable sound of pleasure. Much better than any piece of music that could ever be written, past, present, or future.

“Turn around.”

Hyunjin was devastatingly enticing to witness in his full glory. You kissed all over his bare back like you would kiss his plush lips. Delicately, with intention, with meaning. Tattooing little I love yous on his skin every time you pressed your lips on him. 

“Oh… God…”

You found it. That spot right under his right shoulder blade. That one spot that sent an absolute shockwave down his spine. His drive crazy button.

“I could… I could cum to this.”

“Then cum,” you silently whispered into his ear.

You held both his hands and alternated between his shoulder blades, listening to the escalating frequencies of his moans under you. His skin was on fire under your touch, but you didn’t care. He could burn you alive like this, and you would die the happiest death.

One.

Two.

One.

Two.

One…

“FUCK!!!”

He really came. 

When you turned him around again to face you, there were beads of sweat on his forehead. You wiped it clean and kissed him there. Then his nose. Then his cheeks. Then his lips. As his breathing was returning to normal, he was somewhat embarrassed about the mess he made and tried to cover it up with the sheets. 

“No,” you stopped him. “I’d much rather we were our rawest selves.” 

You made your way down between his legs, and all he could do was watch you with crushing anticipation.

“It’s an animalistic instinct after all,” you flashed a smile, simultaneously comforting and mischievous.

Hyunjin flinched with sharp exhales when you kissed him on his crotch. Your lips were getting stained with his cum. His face contorted in pleasure as he watched you taste him, and if he was properly recuperated at the moment, you could swear you’d be able to make him cum again right then and there. He was so sensitive to the touch, but he didn’t care, either.

He just let you do whatever felt natural to you.

And to you, what felt natural was kissing all over his most vulnerable corners and dragging your tongue over the bitter essence of him. You would absolutely detest this if it was any other person, but just because it was Hyunjin, the taste shapeshifted in your mouth. You sipped on him as if he were a refreshing glass of whiskey sour rejuvenating and intoxicating you at the same time.

“Lie down. Let me,” he eventually stopped you and traded places with you. “Let everything out. Don’t stop yourself.”

Him. Right there. On that mattress. Over you. Getting ready to pleasure you. 

Was he even aware of how hard it was for you to not go insane?

If you were overwhelmed before, you were on the brink of having a damn seizure now that he was this close to your soaked cunt, glistening perfectly under the dim lights of his oil lamps. Hyunjin couldn’t decide what he wanted to do to you first. Touch you, or kiss you, or lick you… Which one would you like the most? Which one would make you cum so violently that you would ask him to please please remember it and do it again? Because he would. He would do it until he conditioned you to cum with a single drag of his tongue on your skin.

You were keenly watching everything, anticipating his every move. You suddenly remembered what he said to you all those times ago in this very place.

I will not lick you until you force my head between your legs. I want you to become as hungry for me as I am for you.

You weren’t sure if that was a hypothetical question or not as you simply couldn’t be any hungrier for him. You knew that for a fact because all that ruled your entire mind and body was your most carnal desires, and all of them were about Hyunjin declaring all your uncharted territories as his.

“Touch me,” you somehow managed to utter.

When he pressed his thumb on your clit, you flinched hard in your place. The more he provided friction, the more aroused you were, but it wasn’t enough. Hyunjin simply touching you could never be enough. You couldn’t take it anymore and tangled your fingers in his hair to press his beautiful face between your legs.

“Oh, FUCK!!!”

His mouth on your pussy was everything you could dream of. So warm and wet, slowly licking your clit, gently sucking on it, kissing you deeply just like he kissed your lips but only wetter. You were involuntarily grinding against him to get as much friction as possible, and with each lick, you felt closer to dying.

“Hyunjin, please,” you started whimpering under him. “Hyunjin. Hyunjin. HYUNJIN!!!”

This feeling was impossible to describe. This beautiful man you were crazily in love with, the man who deeply loved you back, gratifying you in the most obscene way possible and taking obvious pride in it, looking dead into your eyes as you came hard into his mouth, hungrily savoring every single drop you had to offer until you begged him to stop… This couldn’t be real. The amount of passion and affection was so otherworldly that it just could not be real.

“You’re my dream come true, Juliet. I love you,” Hyunjin kissed your soul out of you with those lips that tasted exactly like you. “Love me back. Love me harder.”

“To hell with making love,” you held onto his shoulders. “Fuck me.”

“You’re hellbent on killing me tonight, aren’t you?” he beamed at you with delight.

He aligned himself with your entrance and started moving inside you with very shallow thrusts, watching your every mimic to understand how you were feeling.

“More,” you urged him. “Push more. I can take it.”

He held your gaze at all costs as he gently moved further and further and further and finally…

“I love you, my soul,” he quickly pecked both your hands. “I’ll love you with everything I got now.”

He started thrusting into you with sharper movements. The way he was gliding inside you so easily, the sheer amount of pleasure he was drowning you in when he grazed against your swollen walls like that… You wanted to die. You wanted to die right then and there so that this was the last thing you remembered from this life.

Nothing could feel this good. Nothing could make you feel more satisfied than the man you were deliriously in love with paving his way into you. His face all convoluted, panting heavily, confessing his love over and over again through desperate moans.

“Hold on to me,” he put your hands on his shoulders. “Look at me when you say you love me. Just look at me.”

You couldn’t even say it properly for you were in absolute ruins under him. All you could do was clench and throb and hope that he was able to translate that somehow. Seeing how much he liked it when you squeezed him inside you, you clenched harder and harder and harder until you felt him spill inside you with a deliciously loud groan.

You wished you could do this every night in a bed that belonged to the two of you. You wished you didn’t have to come back to your senses and hug him to sleep instead. Even after giving yourselves to each other, you had to face the ugly truth of putting that goddamn necklace around your throat again like a noose awaiting your death.

Every time you left the lighthouse, the cool night breeze would greet you, giving you a breath of fresh air until you had to go back to your reality. 

When you opened the door this time, you were faced with all three of the O’Connor brothers instead.

“The FUCK do you think you’re doing here with my girl, you fucking lowlife?!”

It happened so fast that you couldn’t even process it. The three men ganged up on Hyunjin and started beating the crap out of him while all you could do was scream for help, beg for Ryan to stop while trying to pull him away, and violently cry.

“OH, YOU GOT SOME GODDAMN NERVE!!!”

By whatever stars aligned, Ms. Pearson burst through that door and broke the fight off in an instant. She was surprisingly strong for a woman. You noticed there was someone else who came with her. The beautiful girl from Poseidon.

“Learn to put a leash on your man, whore,” Ryan spat at Raquelle’s feet while wiping the blood from the corner of his lips.

“Learn not to get castrated, O’Connor,” Raquelle dexterously drew a knife and pointed at his throat. “Stay put. We’re leaving.”

You wanted to say something, do something, but you were frozen in your place. All the strength left your body, and you sat on the floor when your knees gave out, just watching Raquelle take Hyunjin away. In the meantime, you were somehow able to register Ms. Pearson’s voice echoing in the room.

“You three are familiar with Mr. Ricardi, right? Your father’s boss?” she spoke directly to Ryan.

“And?”

“I happen to have a very close relationship with him, young man. If you don’t believe me, next time you see him, tell him Ms. Pearson said hi and watch the blood drain from his face,” she fearlessly walked towards the three men at the same height as her and pointed her finger at them. “You will not speak of this to anyone. If you do, I’ll dig a miniature O’Connor family grave myself. Now get the fuck out of here.”

The second they left, she rushed to you to hug you, rocking you back and forth like a little baby as you cried your eyes out in her chest. You didn’t know for how long you stayed there in her arms. When you finally calmed down, she put you in a car and instructed the driver about where exactly he needed to drive you off.

“Ms. Pearson, Hyunjin—”

“Shh, he’s okay, precious. I’ll be with him,” she patted your head through the window. “Go home and get some rest, okay? He’s in good hands. I’ll let you know how he’s doing as soon as I can.”

Meanwhile, at a very empty Poseidon, Raquelle was in the middle of cleaning Hyunjin’s wounds, surrounded by a temple-like silence.

“How do you know him?” Hyunjin broke the silence at last.

“Who?”

“O’Connor. You called him by his name.”

“Oh,” she replied, unfazed. “Yeah, he’s one of my regulars.”

“How did you even know how to find me there?”

“They were here at the club and left extremely angry for some reason. I heard your name being mentioned, so I thought I’d follow them.”

She poured some more antiseptic on a piece of cotton and gently dragged it on Hyunjin’s lips. 

“You really should have thought it over before calling yourselves Romeo and Juliet. They both die at the end, you know,” she spoke with pseudo-indifference obviously laced with envy. “Was it worth getting beaten to a pulp?”

“Yes, it was. I’m not about to compare getting some scratches to being away from her,” Hyunjin immediately answered, visibly annoyed.

Raquelle Shecter. Beauty queen. Famous burlesque dancer. Desired by the entire town and earning way more money than she could count. One thing she was not, however, was being Hwang Hyunjin’s object of affection no matter how hard she tried.

She had tried being subtle, being not-so-subtle, even being embarrassingly obvious, getting her pride severely damaged in the meantime. One thing she had not tried, however, was flat-out telling Hwang Hyunjin how ridiculously in love she was with him.

“I can quit this life just to be your girl right fucking now,” she finally blurted out. “Just say the word. You’d always be my main man, Hyunjin. I can make you so damn happy!”

Hyunjin closed his eyes and took the deepest breath of his life, trying his utmost best to keep his composure.

“I’m not going to repeat this again, Raquelle. Don’t ask me to do impossible things,” he stood up in one swift movement. “And next time you attempt to pull some shit like this, at least have the guts to properly finish the job.”

Raquelle Shecter. Beauty queen. Seen as the ugliest creature by the man she hopelessly loved for how transparent she was.

“Hyunjin, please, it’s not what y—”

“Don’t!” he shushed her. “I know you think I’m not as smart as you, but just don’t insult me anymore.”

As Hyunjin left the premises with a busted lip and bruises all over him, Ms. Pearson watched her adopted son seethe in fury and sorrow from a dark corner. The moment the front door closed, her heels started clicking on the hardwood floor as she approached Raquelle sitting on a bar stool all by herself.

“You were the one that led them there, weren’t you? The O’Connors,” she rhetorically asked as she sat down on the stool right next to her. “Love is many things, silly girl, but if you’re willing to watch the person you love get hurt and not even blink, that’s called something else.”

Jeanette Pearson. Fierce lady, but a complete softie towards the people she loved. Mother to all kids who lost their way. She had seen so much in her life that it gave her the superpower of recognizing shame from five miles away.

“I’ve always liked you. I know deep down you’re a nice girl. You just made very bad choices somewhere along the way,” she swiveled on the stool to face Raquelle and spoke very softly as if she was reciting a fairytale. “But Hyunjin is my son, and that crosses a line. I don’t give a fuck who you think you are and who you know. I’ve lived twice as long as you, and trust and believe, you don’t want to know who I know and what I’m capable of doing. ”

“What are you saying?” Raquelle failed to veil her nervousness.

“I’m saying you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. I need you to stop acting crazy and leave him alone.”

Jeanette Pearson. Known for her graceful badassery. True to her reputation, she pulled out a knife from her purse twice the size of Raquelle’s and silently placed it on the bar counter.

“Otherwise I won’t be responsible for what might happen to you.”

This is worse than prison.

Ms. Pearson told me to lay low for some time, but I’m about to go crazy missing you, Juliet. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t think straight. I keep thinking about you, and I’m worried sick not knowing if you’re alright or not.

I know I need to keep it together for both of us, I know. I know you have it worse than me, but I’m gonna die if I can’t see you soon, my soul. Even just a glimpse of you from miles away would suffice. I just want to know if you’re okay. 

I keep thinking about the night we vowed ourselves to each other. I miss you. I miss your scent invading mine. I miss your taste on my tongue. I miss being wrapped around you like your safety blanket shielding you from all harm. I caress my pillows every night imagining it’s you. I caress myself thinking you’re still with me in my bed. That this is not happening and we’re not apart and I’ll wake up to your beautiful face next to me in the morning. I don’t touch myself to satisfy some need; I do it so that I can at least see you in my dreams. I’m running out of tears to cry over you. I miss you. I miss you so much.

Hang in there a little while longer, my soul. I won’t let anything happen to a strand of your hair.

Completely contrary to your expectations, none of the O’Connor brothers seemed to have said anything to anyone, but that didn’t stop them from stinging you with thinly veiled sardonic comments whenever you faced each other. If anyone accused them of being rude, all of them would break into a uniform smile and say something along the lines of, “We kid, of course. We are close enough now to have our inside jokes,” when it was so obvious what a blatant lie that was. What was worse, your mother didn’t seem to have a problem with it as long as an O’Connor was willing to take you.

You couldn’t sneak out anymore since you were escorted everywhere by the personal bodyguards of the O’Connors now. Your mother was next-level insane for thinking this was a gesture of Ryan being doting and protective. You weren’t able to see Hyunjin at all, and it finally prompted your descent into rock bottom. 

You stopped getting out of your room even to go to school. You refused to see a piano for how much it reminded you of Hyunjin. Heck, everything reminded you of Hyunjin, and Ms. Pearson didn’t keep her promise to let you know how he was doing. It had been days, when was soon exactly? You were cursing at yourself for not memorizing the phone number for Poseidon. You just needed a piece of news to not go fully crazy. Something. Anything.

Even getting out of bed seemed like an extremely difficult task, and you started contemplating how much you were worth. A necklace? Some clothes at a department store? One flimsy lunch?

“Dear? Could you come outside, please? Ryan wants to see you,” your mother’s singsongy voice pierced through your locked door. 

“I don’t feel well, Mother. Please send him away.”

“But he came all the way here to see you, dear. Fix yourself quickly and come out.”

All the way here. From Desmond Hills to Beauvoir Drive, it took less than ten minutes by car. This prick was so used to getting everything he wanted that he had pulled up to your house just because he felt like it. Not even asking if you were decent first. Not even asking whether you had the will to face daylight. Ryan wants to see you. Not Ryan is asking if he can see you. Not even Ryan is here to see you. His Highness wanted it, so there was no other option but to oblige.

“No.”

“Young lady, don’t make me come in there.”

What could she possibly do if she came in here anyway? Drag you from your hair and throw you at Ryan’s feet? Didn’t she have enough trying to live a reality she wanted for herself through you? Wasn’t everything she forced on you fucking enough? Wasn’t being treated like a little china doll enough? Wasn’t this godforsaken straitjacket of a corset ENOUGH?!

That was the absolute last straw. 

You started screaming your lungs out, ripping your linen gown into pieces with inhumane strength as well as that fucking corset. You could hear her mortified voice descending into worry echo outside your room, but you didn’t give a damn about what she had to say anymore. 

“Young lady, it’s me,” you heard Shima crying with you. “Please. I’m begging you, please let me in. I’m by myself. I won’t let anyone inside. Please let me see you!”

This was the first time you heard such desperation in Shima’s voice. Your hiccups abruptly stopped like a baby finally hugging his mother. You carefully approached the door, very slowly turned the key in the lock so as not to make a noise, and opened it a microscopically small measure to see who was outside. It was indeed Shima by herself, still crying. You pulled her in, locked your door, and hugged her tightly to douse her chest with your tears. You didn’t know how much time had passed when you finally calmed down. She was trying to soothe you by caressing your hair in her lap. 

It reminded you of Ms. Pearson a lot.

“Why are you this enamored with the artist boy, young lady?”

The unexpected question made you finally face her. A half-shocked, half-mortified look clouded your eyes.

“You… You knew?”

“How long have I been taking care of you? You are not as sly as you think,” she warmly smiled, her voice so small like a whisper to keep this conversation strictly between you. “Why do you love him so?”

“Because he saved me, Shima,” you confessed. “He unlocked the door of my cage and set my soul free.”

She didn’t ask you any further questions and kept stroking your hair lovingly just like she did on the Sunday mornings she braided your hair. If she told you she was your biological mother, you would believe her without any room for doubt. 

Why was every other woman more motherly than your actual mother for goodness’ sake?

After sending Shima away, you lay on your bed until the darkness of the night arrived to hug you. You watched the clear sky until it was the deepest hours of the night. Your tears fell in sync with some shooting stars. You kept wishing on them to see Hyunjin one more time, to hug him tightly to remember what he smelled like, to run your fingers through his silky hair once again, and to peck the mole right under his eye. You cursed at the fact that you had to be born into two diametrically opposite universes.

“Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” you uttered between your sobs as if he could actually hear you. 

The gentle tapping of the branches on your window lulled you to sleep like thick raindrops hitting the glass. It continued. It continued for a long time. When you opened your eyes, you were greeted with a dark figure waving at you from your window, but instead of terror, your heart was filled with unadulterated bliss.

You would recognize that silhouette among a thousand shadows.

Your wish had indeed come true a little past midnight. He was crazy. He was full-on insane for even attempting this, not that you were of very sound mind. You carefully opened your window to let Hyunjin in, and the second he stepped foot in your room, he hugged you as if he wanted to squeeze the life out of you. You buried your head into the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent until you were on the brink of passing out. His tears blended with yours as you kissed each other’s souls away for you just couldn’t stop crying.

Out of happiness for once.

“I’m going insane without you, my soul. I had to see you,” he whispered in between his kisses.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” you held his face between your hands. “I’m yours. Only yours.”

“Then deny thy betrothed and refuse thy name,” he smiled at you blindingly bright. “Come away with me. Marry me. We won’t have much, but I promise I will devote myself to making you the happiest woman on earth.”

Then he took a modest silver ring out of his pocket, and you almost surrendered your soul right then and there.

Love doesn’t feed you. It never will.

FUCK all of that.

“Yes,” you offered your hand to him. “ In all the lives I can spend with you, always yes.”

You crowned your impromptu engagement, the real one this time, by kissing the man you loved for a long, long, long time, avenging all that time you had to spend apart. Nothing was as easy as getting lost in Hyunjin. The man was quite literally made to be loved.

“We… need to… stop…” he attempted to stitch his words together. “Before we have an accident.”

“Or,” you pulled him close to your bed. “You can stay the night with me.”

“But… But there are peopl—”

“Didn’t you miss me?”

“What the hell kind of a question is that?!” he quietly hissed, then drowned your face in kisses. “I’ve missed you like crazy. I fucking miss you even when I’m in your arms.”

When your other half is with you, everything comes so naturally. You had taken a bite of pleasure less than a handful of times, but every time Hyunjin touched you, you just knew this was how it was supposed to be. You pretended you were making love in your actual marital bed that night. Then you talked in whispers until the first lights of daybreak, telling one another everything that happened in each other’s absence in excruciating detail. You felt better for the first time in forever. He was smiling. You were smiling. He said he loved you. You said you loved him more. You both said But I love you most in unison. Then Hyunjin told you all about the plot he was concocting as of late.

“Just act like you will really go through with this wedding, Juliet,” he kissed your forehead. “Lucky for us, your letter from Verona did not get lost in the mail, and I’ll know you’re faking your death.”

People use many different words when they talk about me. “Free spirit” is one of them. “Rascal” is another. Now I have something else.

Romeo. 

It’s been such a long time, but it still rings in my ear as beautifully as it did the very first time you called me that. 

I know I said we wouldn’t have much if you married me, but apparently, that was a lie. Even before our big night, you give me so much every single day, Juliet.

You wake me up with kisses, sometimes not even on my lips. You smile so big when you see me cook breakfast for you. You don’t even get mad at me when I burn things sometimes. You listen to the poems I write for you. You let me brush your hair when you get out of the shower. You let me love you endlessly, and I’m so proud to call you my girl. My soul. My other half.

The day we finished composing our song for Ms. Simone, you wanted to name it Charcoal Blues in C Minor. I acted like I was caving and letting you have the last word when in fact I spectacularly lost my goddamn mind over it. 

She promised to sing it at our wedding, by the way. Act surprised.

It wasn’t that you wouldn’t accept it if I flat-out asked you, but luring you into a deal is always much more fun. You know how much I love teasing you. So we shook on it. You agreed to let me draw you. 

When you touch yourself.

You know exactly how to torture me, you absolute seductress. You know I can’t think straight every time you talk to me like that. You know how my mind goes completely blank when I see you bare.

“You’re still going to pay me for this, right?” I asked you while sharpening my charcoal. “I don’t draw for free.”

“Oh, is that so?” you stood in front of me with your arms crossed over your chest. “How much, pretty boy?”

“Five thousand.”

“Excuse you?!”

“Or, you know, you could let me eat your pussy.”

God, I love it when you smile at me with fire shooting out of your eyes. That’s the sexiest fucking thing. I don’t care how many layers of clothes you have on you; it instantly turns me on.

“Do you take the payment in advance?” you straddled me on my chair and threw your arms around my neck. I lose it every time you do that for how your scent envelops me through and through. 

You’re much better than whiskey sours at getting me drunk.

“Always, my soul.”

Stripping you fully naked is something, but having you half-dressed for me, only bare at your most sensitive spots is something else entirely. This feels more erotic to me. Only a couple of your shirt buttons loose, just enough to let me suck on your nipples. Your underwear is still on, and I only slide it to the side to kiss your clit. 

I guess it all started when we fucked on the pool table at Poseidon that night. I still remember how hard you came, fucking—

There aren’t many surfaces in this house where I haven’t eaten your pussy, but my desk is surprisingly one of them. I’ve been saving it for this moment specifically. But I’m not going to do the half-opened present thing today. I want to see you fully spread for me, and I want to see everything up close. The exact moment that you start dripping. That you start throbbing. When you can’t take the teasing anymore and prop up on your elbows to watch me make out with clit.

It doesn’t change. Every time my face is between your legs, it feels like home to me. Every time I get a taste of you, I’m so grateful I’m alive.

“Lick first.”

Now, always from your entrance. Always from the source of the spring. I love spreading your slick all around you with my tongue. I know how much it annoys you when I lick everywhere and avoid your clit at all costs, but you do trust me, don’t you? I do it for a reason. 

“Kiss me.”

Of course, I will. Just knowing my lips are fully covered with you gets to you, doesn’t it? You like it. You love it. You love it when I kiss your other pair of lips like that. But I might be enjoying it a little too much for my own good. I always make sure to whisper my confessions to you every time I kiss you down here. It’s a little game I invented for myself. I get a kick out of it when you decipher the shameless secrets I hide in sighs and start moaning louder.

“Suck me now.”

This is where I cease the torture. It tickles me to see your clit get that swollen when I barely do anything to it. It feels like you’re silently begging for me. You always say you like my lips so much, but I think I finally figured out why. When I trap your clit between them and start sucking on it, doesn’t it feel like a perfect match? It’s the perfect sleeve for you. Meant for you to sit on whenever you feel like it.

“Oh god, don’t… don’t stop!”

Oh, there it is. You’re calling out to me with that desperate tone. You’re about to get impatient and start riding my face. You want it all, don’t you? You don’t want the feeling to stop because the prelude feels so good, but you do want to cum hard at the same time. You can only have one or the other, beautiful. Do you want the endless buildup?

“Hyunjin!”

Or do you want me to endlessly tease that clit until you lose it? 

I’m in love with satisfying you, but all I can think about is how I’m gonna slide right in if I make you cum.

“FUCK!!!”

I don’t know what it is about you cursing a mouthful that turns me into an absolute wild animal, but it does. You know it does. When you cum in my mouth, tugging at my hair as hard as you can, that’s your way of giving me permission for what I’m about to do to you. Your walls are still throbbing, and you take me in so easily. Feeling your aftershocks on my cock is my favorite part.

Who needs lubricant when I have you?

It’s the same thing as you pushing my head down when I lick you. Even though you just came, you love it when I hit your deepest corners when you’re so damn sensitive. Me? 

I’m so fucking obsessed with it that it’s actually a problem now.

“Don’t–Don’t clench like that. Please!”

Every time I say please, you do the complete opposite. Please touch me. You won’t. You relentlessly tease me instead. Please kiss me. You won’t. You ghost your lips on me until I fucking snap. Please make me cum. You fucking won’t because why would you when you can edge me forever?

But when I say Please don’t make me cum…

You rip my soul out of me and chuck it down the depths of an ocean made of molten lava. And I fucking love it when you do that and soothe me with your kisses right after.

“I love you, Romeo.”

Ms. Simone might be the First Lady of Song, and rightfully so. No one can dare oppose that. But you’re my first and last of everything, Juliet.

Romeo and his fair lady might have been star-crossed lovers who fell victim to a tragedy, but you and I…

I know in my heart of hearts that we are beyond forever.

✉ Enjoyed this? Your feedback & reblogs free my stories from the draft prison.

COOKIE

See? It was meant to be 💛 Hyunardo DiHwangrio belovedest.

「© 2023-26, cb97percent · No translations, rewrites, or reposts permitted」

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He can remember the very first time like it was yesterday. Clear as day. On the rooftop of your aunt’s house when the entire family was having a sleepover on a warm summer night. You were 15 when you told him it wasn’t a few stars in the vast sky but just a tiny island of sky among an ocean of stars. You were 18 when you made a wish upon a shooting star for the first time, holding his hand so tightly like you were terrified to fall.

To this day, he thinks of you every time a star falls. He thinks of you a lot.

He’s been thinking of you longer than he’s known himself.

He can’t stand people. Never has. Not even his own mother sometimes. It comes easy to him to curse a mouthful, slam doors, then walk out without a denouement, but he’s never managed to do it once to you. Not even when he was furious with you. Not even when he really really wanted to. Not even when you were in the arms of another man.

He knows you don’t love him like that.

That’s the sole reason he doesn’t believe in love. Never has. Because he knows it’s futile. He knows it’s in vain. It’s just an endless spring of suffering because there is no such thing as a happy ending. He’s so despicable that he knows no one will stand by his side. He’s so unlovable that he knows no one would attend his funeral if he died. He just can’t admit it out loud because he still has some pride.

But when you look at him like that…

In his wildest dreams, he imagines one day you might just love him like that.

You think he’s all intimidating because his voice is deeper now, don’t you? He might have a harder shell now, but how come you can’t see that deep inside he’s still the same boy you knew? The one you walked to school with hand in hand. The one you watched stars with on rooftops.

He needs a lifetime’s worth of courage just to stand next to you sometimes. How come you can’t see that?

He absolutely loathes dancing, but he still took you to your senior prom. He still took you to a club on your birthday when he would have preferred some calm. He still let you wrap your arms around him when it was raining hell outside because he will dance with you whenever you want. Even though he doesn’t know how to move much. He will do anything to feel your touch.

Anything.

You were a lot older when you were babbling to him about some guy. He had no idea what the hell you saw in this motherfucker so much. Someone that cold, that stoic, that indifferent didn’t fucking deserve to know what it was like to feel your touch. You told him you didn’t want to risk getting rejected because it would be awkward afterwards. He told you if worst came to worst, he would be there to hold your hands. 

Because he always has.

He was bleeding through every orifice of his body on the day of your alleged confession, but he promised you he would wait for you at the park. He had resolved to be there for you whether you were beaming or completely in the dark. Hours passed, but you were a no-show. He thought he could survive it, but maybe he wasn’t ready for this blow after all. He was already halfway home when you called him to ask him if he was still there. He told you he was, booking it back but still clinging to a prayer. He wanted you to be happy, but not if you were going to slip through his hands.

He couldn’t have been any more relieved when you didn’t follow through with your plans. 

He tried his utmost best to look like he was listening, but he wasn’t able to focus at all. Most of your words went in one ear and out the other. It was the hardest fucking thing not to look into your eyes with the stupidest, fondest smile, and he was the lightest breeze away from screaming his undying love for you at your face.

How come you couldn’t see that?

He told you his hopes. He told you his fears. There is only one thing he never told you, and he is going to take it to the grave. He just doesn’t want to risk getting rejected because it will be awkward afterwards. He hasn’t known a life without you, and he doesn’t want to find out if his hypotheses are true. He already knows it isn’t worth much. 

Would it kill you to at least try to see him like that?

He knows you have him wrapped around your finger. He knows he can never escape it. If he moves ten thousand miles away from you, your ghost will come with him, too, he knows. But he doesn’t care because he needs you.

He needs you because you’re everything he’s not. 

He needs you because you’re all that he’s got.

He has never once said he loves you because he always thought that you knew.

He has never said it once because that would be a lot more than he could chew.

He only finds the courage when he drinks, but time after time he has to strike that.

He just can’t tell you because you don’t seem to love him like that.

Not when you’re in love with another man.

A simple question you ask him. Out of everywhere in the world right now, where would you want to be?

He asks you where you are so he knows where to flee. 

He loves it when you laugh. It always works like a charm. Even if he’s in the foulest mood, life suddenly becomes worth living again. The sun shines, the birds chirp, the colors become warmer, and he feels faint because of how overwhelmed he is with his undying love for you.

Do you sometimes miss seeing the stars? Because he does.

He yearns for the times he could have you all to himself sometimes, but he is aware neither of you is 18 anymore. You have a life of your own. A lot has happened since that night on the rooftop, and now you’re all grown. He will settle for being alone, but not without you etched somewhere in the fabric of his life.

He would much rather have you be his wife, but he knows you don’t love him like that.

Everything you want to do, he hopes that you do. Every dream you have, he hopes it comes true. He has indulged you when you wanted to make a New Year’s resolution, too. It was supposed to be a challenge where you stood by each other’s side to keep the other accountable. For one year. To do that one thing neither of you has ever managed to do. You begged him to tell you what his resolution was, but he just wouldn’t. Something about how the brain thinks the goal is achieved if you say it out loud. Whereas he just didn’t want to risk getting rejected because he knew what he wanted was not allowed.

Days have passed. Weeks. Months.

Before he knows it, it’s December again. 

He will never forget how happy you are when you show him the four digits in your savings account. You are so so proud, talking about how you made the impossible possible, and now you are demanding proof of his promise from him. In all honesty, he is ashamed of his end result.

Because continuously failing for 365 days, 5 hours, and 59 seconds feels like a horrendous insult.

No matter how hard he tries, he just can’t stop loving you. No matter how much he resolves to.

He will die knowing you will never love him like that.

He’s been trying. God knows he’s been trying so damn hard to get over you, but he just can’t replace you with someone new. It will take a lot more years than just a few. As long as the sky you are both under is blue, he knows he’s never going to be able to.

When he tells you he couldn’t live up to his promise, he wishes you didn’t look at him like that.

He wants to curse a mouthful, slam doors, then walk out, but he’s never managed to do it once to you. Not even when he was furious with you. And he isn’t about to.

He loathes himself so much for disappointing you, but there is no way he can offer a believable excuse. He would much rather pretend to be obtuse because he told you all his hopes, all his fears, but there is no way he can let his biggest secret loose. He swore to take it to the grave. 

For years, you watched him. You watched his insufferably obstinate ways. You watched him turn into the biggest recluse. You watched him make all the wrong moves, terrified he was slowly drifting away from you. You haven’t known a life without him, and you don’t want to find out if it would really be that grim. You already know it’s not worth much. How come he can’t see that? 

How come he can’t see you love him like that?

You have been yearning to feel him on your skin longer than you’ve known yourself. You knew he absolutely loathed dancing, but you still asked him to take you to your senior prom. You still asked him to take you to a club on your birthday when you fucking knew he would have preferred some calm. You dragged him out into the pouring rain because you would do anything to feel his touch. But the more time passed by, the more your excuses didn’t amount to much.

You were wishing he could see through them so that he’d fucking realize you loved him like that.

You already failed to open your heart to him at the park, making up yet another story about some guy that didn’t even exist. Your latest and lamest excuse was making New Year’s resolutions together because you really believed one year was enough time to put these devastating feelings you’ve been carrying around for years into words. This time, you would do it. You just had to tell him the 143; there was nothing to it.

But you spectacularly blew it. 

December 31. 23:41. His apartment. His living room. His couch. Too much wine as courage juice. When it’s time to show your work, you choke and watch yourself show him your bank account instead. You make up yet another story about making the impossible possible whereas you’ve already been saving that money for over two years on the off chance that he would say yes to going to Japan with you. No matter how hard you try, you just can’t stop loving him. 

And it seems like nothing is going to happen unless you go out on a limb because he doesn’t seem to love you like that.

You wonder if he ever misses seeing the stars because at this point, they are nothing more than a reminder of your scars. All the sendoffs you could kiss him but didn’t. All the sleepovers you could love him but couldn’t. Something at the back of your head kept telling you you shouldn’t, but you are going to die the most torturous death if you can’t hold him in your arms, chest to chest, palm to palm, cry-whispering into his ear that you have always loved him like that. That ever since that one night on a rooftop somewhere, all your wishes on shooting stars have been a plea to kiss him just once. 

In a momentary lapse of sanity, you renounce everything that’s not him and empty an entire clip on the unbearable agony of his absence.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself when you suddenly kiss him like that. 

He is in disbelief that you are touching him like that. That you are loving him like that. He has dreamed of this for so long that if he dies right now, he will be the happiest man. He wouldn’t even care about the zero attendance at his funeral. He certainly doesn’t give a fuck about the wine glasses that crash on his hardwood floors, staining them in the exact shade of his soul-crushing longing for you.

It’s not as slow and romantic as he always pictured it to be—he is all but ripping your clothes off of you, his lips never leaving yours, your hands latched to his face, breathlessly devouring each other as if you would die otherwise, but he wouldn’t trade this moment for the world. How imperfect it is is perfection itself.

He forces himself to slow down. Really slow down and just take you in for a while. How you look at him with the biggest anticipation in your eyes. How your body is already covered in goosebumps. How he can physically see your pulse just from the vein on your neck, getting faster if he so much as leans in to kiss you.

He won’t survive the night, that much is true.

Your scent on his nose is narcotic. He feels high just from mere kisses down your chest, and he loves how it makes you flinch as he makes his way even lower. He has to pull through. He has to be strong enough not to pass out when he finally meets the subject of his wildest wet dreams in the flesh. 

He groans like he is in pain when he witnesses the glory of your nakedness for the first time. He feels like he’s about to cry.

He has never seen anything as beautiful as your pussy.

Self-restraint is the worst form of torture, but he has to endure it. He has to take it slow. He has to savor you to avenge the years you spent away from each other, fully clothed, in different rooms, different apartments, even different cities at one point, but you’re just so beautiful, and he is one pathetic man. It’s just one taste of your slick, just one drag of his tongue on your clit…

…and he doesn’t know what takes over him.

He buries his head between your legs, licking you like you have the antidote to his years’ worth of self-deprecation there. If this is a dream, he doesn’t want to wake up. If he’s hallucinating, he never wants to return to the ugly reality of not knowing what your skin feels like. He licks, he licks, and he licks, melting into a puddle with each moan you let out, growing louder in his ears. He wants to hear it. He wants to hear you moan his name. He wants to hear you moan you love him, and promise to never let him go, and convince him that this is indeed real. He wants to make you happy. He wants to make you cum. He wants to build a life together with you even if it means he has to give up everything.

Fingertips sinking deeper into your thighs, head buried deeper into your cunt, he falls deeper in love with you when you fall apart on his tongue. 

He will burn this world down for you if you ask him. 

You don’t want to come down. You never want to come down when you’re with him. You don’t allow yourself a moment’s respite and pull him up, tasting yourself on his lips like you indulge in the most decadent delicacy. He trembles under your touch even though his fireplace provides more than enough warmth, even though your body is in flames, even though he has hell itself in his beautiful soft browns. You don’t peel your eyes off of them as you strip him bare, your heart breaking into a million pieces at how scared he looked. You want to embrace him. You want to shelter him. You want to shield him from everything ugly in this world so that he only knows happiness. So that he only knows love. 

He has hated himself enough to last five nations for three lifetimes.

The firmness of his skin is such a delightful contrast to the softness of his gaze. The hardness of his cock is maddening on your soaked folds. You nod at him, encouraging him to let loose, set himself free, unleash his insanity on you so he can finally finally get a moment’s peace. You are more than willing to carry half his burden for him. All of it, if he ever lets you. You want to make him happy. You want to make him cum. You want to leave it all behind and run away with him even if it means you have to forsake everything you’ve ever known to be true.

You will move heaven and earth for him even if he doesn’t ask you. 

He pants as he sinks into you, and you gently hold his face, gazing deep into his eyes. To ground him. To remind him that you’re here and always will be. To convince him that it’s just you two against the world now. You pull him closer and melt into his kiss, and that’s the moment he decides to let it…

…go.

His tensed body relaxes, and he starts to pave his way into you. Languid thrusts first. Very close to that ‘slow and romantic’ he always pictured it to be. But the deeper he sinks into you, the more your sounds of pleasure turn from bashful moans to deep growls, the more he loses it. He picks up his pace, caving to his pleasure with zero willpower at play, eventually turning erratic. How is he supposed to control himself when you look at him like that? How is he supposed to be all ‘slow and romantic’ when you’re scratching all over his shoulders like that, urging him to drill you into that couch with all kinds of obscenities spilling from your lips?

How is he supposed to love you when all you’re ordering him to do is to fuck you like his life depends on it? Don’t you know your wish is his fucking command?

He throws your legs over his shoulders and takes off, dying a little inside with every push. Oh, he can definitely get used to this. He can do this first thing in the morning and last thing at night, even if you ask for it or not, because he has a lifetime’s worth of cravings to satisfy, and it was a horrendous move on your part to repeatedly tell him to, quote, “have his way with you”.

Of course he will. He will fuck you like a whore, then love you like the goddess he will dedicate his entire life to. Every day.

You hold onto his shoulders for dear life, eyes so wide with how deep he reaches inside you, relishing each drop of sweat that drips on your chest. He pants quicker and quicker, bolting towards the finish line at full speed, and even then, all he thinks about is just how much you own his heart. He has never known love like this. He has never known pleasure like this, experiencing the highest of highs just by looking into the eyes of the woman he has spent his entire life loving. Then he hears it.

Oh, he hears it loud and clear.

He hears you moan his name, over and over and over again, eyes squeezed shut, hands groping him hard, legs locked around him just to make sure he doesn’t even attempt to pull out. On the ledge of his free fall, staring at the first day of the rest of his life, he moans the loudest 143 he has ever spoken, the very first one he ever truly means, and empties himself inside you, thoroughly, fully, until there isn’t a single drop left in him. Until he becomes one with you. 

Just to make sure you don’t even attempt to be apart from him anymore.

“Chris, do you sometimes miss seeing the stars?” 

You know what? He no longer does. Not when he can witness entire galaxies in your eyes.

Not when he knows that you love him like that.

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「© 2025, cb97percent · No translations, rewrites, or reposts permitted」

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The café in the Arts & Sciences building is buzzing with giddiness because of course it would. The Demon Twins have graced it in broad daylight. Their purpose of visit has nothing to do with caffeine; they just came for a bit of window shopping. The merchandise they’re currently eyeing is trying to choose a scone, and like a target they are supposed to assassinate, they zero in on the unfamiliar face.

Well, not her face exactly…

“Goddamn, would you look at that ass?” Felix expresses his astonishment in what he thinks is a low volume. 

“Fifty bucks says no underwear,” Hyunjin leans back in his chair, spreading his legs even wider like he’s setting up a throne for the queen of the hour.

“I’ll take that action,” Felix extends his hand for a horny gentleman’s agreement. “I say G-string.”

Seconds pass, but nothing happens. The jeans are not tight enough for them to tell, either. The prospect of an unresolved bet is starting to cause anxiety because their bet scoreboard currently shows “Hwang 28 : 29 Lee”, and neither of them wants to lose their car at the end of the month.

“Come on, baby, bend over,” Hyunjin clasps his hands and leans in, eyes glued to the target like he’s about to perform telekinesis. “Lives are at stake here.” 

“Nuh-uh. You’re needed for a side quest,” Felix drags the chair Minho was about to sit on and reroutes his attention towards the cash register. “Go make her drop her stuff.”

Minho takes one look at the described target and his cock suddenly throbs, reliving the memory of a certain leather-clad succubus from a club restroom. He leaves with quick, determined steps, and the Demon Twins lock in, seething in suspense as Minho walks right into her. He offers a half-assed apology for the scattered books, and when she crouches to grab them, a silent mushroom cloud rises from the craps table a few feet back.

“Holy FUCK!”

“Told ya,” Hyunjin opens his palm. “Fork it over.”

“In a minute. I’m right click-saving this,” Felix stares with the intensity of a virgin who’s never seen a bare ass in his life. “Which departments have classes here?”

“A fair few. She’s definitely in Humanities, though,” Hyunjin confidently responds.

“How would you know?”

“I know a freak when I see one,” he grins to himself as he looks the girl up and down, judging the smut levels of the book by its cover. “Have you ever fucked a Theology major before? They’re wild.”

“Come on, man, everybody knows tramp stamps are the national flag of the design school,” Felix deadpans, almost offended by the hole in Hyunjin’s CTU Debauchery 101 knowledge. “Get with the program.”

“Dibs.”

“In WHAT universe what I meant was ‘Treat yourself’?!” 

“I heard ‘get with’. If you can swoop in before me, go ahead,” Hyunjin nonchalantly challenges, already picking out his victory lap fit in his head, “but a hundred bucks says you can’t.”

“Two hundred says I can.”

“Five hundred says there is no point,” Minho finally returns and sits back down, “since I already hit that.”

“WHEN EVEN?!” a unison protest roars.

“That’s the glory hole girl,” he watches you leave in the distance, the lower back tattoo giving him the singular pleasant war flashbacks in history. “Man, did I see stars for two days straight after that…”

“Well, it’s settled then. I’m gonna die if I don’t fuck her,” Felix rises to his feet for his self-assigned stealth mission. “Later, creampies.”

Hyunjin chews on the straw in his strawberry smoothie, silently devising a business strategy, as he calls it. When his pride pinches him on the ass, however, he decides to join the hunt instead, refusing to let the yin to his yang get a head start.

“Well, I do need to do location scouting,” he suddenly leaps from his seat, leaving Minho alone to have wet dreams wide awake.

And the hot pursuit officially begins.

They trail the suspect for a while to locate her class, but she walks straight past all the classrooms. Strike one is when she stops by an office at the end of the hall. Strike two is when she unlocks the door with what appears to be a personal key. And strike three is the name label on the door that says ‘Ph.D.’ The way the two men stare at each other wide-eyed is screaming the same thing. 

Minho is the first one among them to fuck a faculty member, and considering how he still hasn’t thrown a parade at the quad, the dumbass doesn’t even know it yet!

“She’s a professor?” Felix asks, more like a complaint than a question.

“She’s a visiting scholar. Can I help you, gentlemen?”

You scare the shit out of the two guys outside when you suddenly open the door again, but the faltering is only momentary. The duo shrugs off the daze of intense office hour fantasies and switches to rizz mode scarily quickly.

“We need an elective to complete our credits,” Felix bullshits with conviction, “so we were just browsing around.”

“You know the academic catalog is online, right?” you arch a brow.

“We believe in an offline approach,” Hyunjin adds.

“What major are you guys in?”

“I’m in creative writing,” Felix points at himself, then at the man next to him. “Cuda’s in vis comm.”

“Cuda?” you contort your face. “Isn’t your name Hyunjin?”

Hyunjin’s self-satisfaction is almost at an off-putting level. He’s so pleased that he looks at Felix like he’s already won their stupid little bet, pressing his tongue inside his cheek. 

“Didn’t expect you to look me up so soon, beautiful,” he flashes a shit-eating grin. “Not even foreplay first?”

“What are you talking about? You’re a literal poster child,” you nod at the flyer behind him, promoting a dance competition with the picture of ‘Hwang Hyunjin’ as the reigning champion.

Hyunjin doesn’t even hear you. His attention is clinging to your breasts, and you don’t need any more input to guess what his affiliation is. You inadvertently scoff. 

Were you really expecting basic manners from a Hwang?

“Ah, you must be part of that douche trio,” you cross your arms over your chest. “Poison… or whatever.” 

“It’s Venom, and yes, we are,” Felix corrects the abysmal mistake with a content smirk. “Thank you for noticing.”

“It wasn’t a compliment. I just observed.” 

You might as well have said he has the biggest cock you’ve ever seen because the men you’re looking at have a problem getting hornier when their intended conquests don’t bend over for them at the snap of a finger.

“Syllabus in the envelope on the door, though you should just drop out,” you address Felix. “You can be a VA tomorrow with that voice.” 

“I kinda am. Look up Luciferal on Audiogasm if you want me to moan into your ears,” he informs, pride dripping from every word he utters. “Or I can do it directly into your pussy. Your call.”

You look at him fully expressionless, and an unsettling feeling sets in Felix’s chest. There has never been an incident where instant giggling didn’t follow his shameless flirting. After what feels like a few forevers, your lips start curling into a smile, and his body relaxes in the same rhythm.

“Make your case,” you instruct him. “I’ll consider it.”

“You in the Thornwall Building?” he asks.

“Yes?”

“I crash there on Fridays. Drop by sometime, we’ll hang out,” he extends an invitation to your very own residence. “Room 324.” 

“What’s up with you rich people occupying dorm rooms like summer houses?” you heave an exasperated sigh at the spoiled brat levels.

“It’s for the experience,” he responds quite seriously. “Did you really go to college if you didn’t fuck in your dorm room?” 

“Thornwall is faculty housing,” you deadpan.

“For muggles, yes,” he grins, flexing his unearned privileges way too much. “Next time you catch me live, send a peach emoji in the chat, so I know it’s you.”

“And I’ll recognize you from your boutonnière, I presume,” you chuckle and leave the two men behind.

The Demon Twins watch you with their lips parted as you head towards the faculty lounge. It was a rather civilized conversation by their standards, yet here they stand, extremely turned on like you’ve been edging them both for an hour.

“Yeah, I kinda have a thing for getting stepped on all of a sudden,” Hyunjin mumbles to himself. 

“No fucking idea what a boutonnière is, but I hope she slaps me with a thesaurus,” Felix wholeheartedly agrees. “Call Lassman. We’re taking an extra class this semester.”

This is insane, you keep thinking to yourself while scrolling down the Audiogasm profile. 

Going through his content alone, Felix feels like the landlord of the body where night and day reside as roommates. His hangout livestreams are borderline ‘wholesome’; it’s just him goofing around and bantering with the chat, albeit in VERY dangerous gray sweatpants. All his steamy content, however, is audio only. It’s mostly prerecorded roleplays he pens himself, but the live ones are uh… well, pretty unique. 

The dude literally picks someone in the chat to have cyber sex with, by extension fucking the entire chat, and that kinda imagination definitely belongs to a creative writing major!

The quiet evening hours are perfect to curl up with a book, though what you’re reading tonight isn’t one. You just wanted to know what was under the ‘One-Shots’ tab on Luciferal’s profile, and hours later, you’re neck deep in the erotic shorts written by this horny demon. It’s unfair and pure talent envy that he is able to depict such vivid oral scenes, so freaking immersive that you’re heavily breathing while sitting perfectly still.

Midway through your eleventh story, the loud clank next door makes you jump in your place. The sound informs you that the resident of Room 324 is in the building, and only then do you realize it’s almost midnight. 

At exactly 12 a.m., the gray dot in the corner of Felix’s profile picture turns red and starts pulsating. You congratulate yourself for purchasing bass-boosting earphones that very same day because there cannot be a more apt opportunity for quality control. You put them on, tap the button that says ‘Join chat’, and what would normally disappoint an average livestream viewer excites the shit out of you. 

The broadcast has audio feed only, and the full, deep sound tickles your ears so much that you wince a little.

“Hello, my fallen angels. How are we tonight?” he greets his unhinged fanbase. “And the answer better be horny.”

The chat instantly catches on fire. Barely ten seconds in, people are already professing their undying, unquenchable thirst for ‘Luc’. Quite content that his expectation meets reality, he continues. 

“Have you ever met someone that makes you feel like you’ll cum if you look at them too long?” he asks, curious as though he’s talking to someone in particular and not the 15K live audience. “I met that someone this week. In a hallway of all places.” 

Is he… talking about…?

The ticklish feeling suddenly moves to the small of your back with how much your ego is being stroked. Screw ‘stroked’, it’s straight up being made out with. Eaten out. Fucked raw with several thousand people listening to a ridiculously stunning man openly thirsting over you.

“You know I’m an ass man, so no surprises there,” he quietly chuckles, then sighs longingly. “You just know she likes it dirty. I can’t prove it, but I swear it’s god’s honest truth.” 

It’s a freak phenomenon, really. Every word he utters enters through your ear canals, then does a full lap around your body within your veins. You feel each of them vibrate in strange places—the tip of your fingers, the soles of your feet…

Between your legs… 

One of the comments flying by asks him to ‘paint them a word picture’ of what he means by ‘dirty’. Luc is more than happy to oblige.

You hear a hushed clink and rustling like a belt is being unbuckled. What follows is definitely heavy fabric hitting the ground. He relaxes his body with a deep breath and sits down to do linework before he can start painting.

“It’s a vibe thing, you know. Even her scent is diabolical. That alone qualifies her as the leader of the anti-vanilla league, I’m telling you,” he begins his defense in an illegally sultry voice. “Like, she’d ask for an audience, then tie their hands as soon as they walk into the room. Just so they can’t touch themselves while watching us fuck. Makes my cock twitch just to think about it.”

You close your eyes, lazily running your fingers on your folds to tease yourself. Suddenly, the scene he’s setting manifests behind your eyelids in crisp detail.

Your imagination casts Hyunjin as the spectator for some reason. Naked, cuffed to a chair, rock hard, and dying to have you choke on him, yet he can’t even touch you. You hold onto the armrests and arch your ass, getting the sickest kick out of staring into his eyes while his other half fucks you like his life depends on it. He wants to kiss you. He wants to fondle you. If you lean in just an inch closer, he’s going to feel you, and it’s driving him insane that you won’t move. You watch him leak. You watch him pant. You watch him cum with zero friction, just because you moan his name when your orgasm knocks you out flat. 

“The kinda girl that wants to get fingered in public. Wants her pussy licked at the riskiest places, and you just… can’t say no to her,” Felix slowly exhales like he’s doing a breathing exercise. “Gives the best head. Super wet. So deep. Can kill you in her mouth from overdose pleasure. Would edge you for like half an hour, then sit on you to make herself cum first, and you’d still say, ‘Thank you, baby, now spit in my mouth.’”

You almost lunge at the nightstand to grab your massager to fuck yourself with. You want to edge yourself, but you’ve been so damn wet from reading pages of him licking cream off your pussy that you want to cum right fucking now. But you also want to barge into his room and sit on his face. But you also want him to bend you over and have his way with you. But you also—

He moans deep in your ears, and his breathing turns heavier.

“But the best part? Fuck…” he hisses, wet sounds of his strokes now much, much louder. “How she glows after sharing her with my boys. So satisfied. Cunt still throbbing. All of us leaking out of her. I’ll eat that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, seven days a week.”

WHAT IN THE EVERLOVING FUCK?!

You can’t control the inhuman noise you make, and your earphones may be a little too effective in noise-cancelling because you can’t tell how loud you’re being. You don’t give a fuck. You hope he hears you and walks in here for the first round of creaming. You’ll make the call to summon the rest of his annoying clique yourself.

Your logic completely crashes, and you lose control of your limbs. It feels like you’ve left your own body and are watching yourself from afar when you reach for the phone and type into the chat. 

The door is unlocked. If you don’t come over, I’ll finish without you 🍑

You set your phone aside and fully submerge yourself in your own deranged fantasies. 

A Venom field day. A tournament, if you will. Whoever is the most memorable by the end of it gets you for 48 hours straight, no holds barred. And if the scores are tied, you’ll lock yourself in a room with them where no one’s allowed to leave until an unbreakable addiction forms. Until they are conditioned to get rock hard just with your perfume in the wind. Until your pussy is soaked at the mere thought of kissing them.

You’ll go through them one by one throughout the day—one in the morning, one at noon, and one in the evening. All at convenient locations for passersby to ‘secretly’ film the exchange, preferably while masturbating. You’ll study everything that makes them tick. How they touch. How they kiss. How they cum.

Come midnight, you’ll take on all of them at once and martialize everything you’ve collected against them. 

You’ll use them all in your favorite ways, on the favorite spots of your body. You’ll order them around to bend them to your will. If they can perform to your liking, then you’ll let them tell you what to do. And whoever is brave enough to cash out his pride and become a teacher’s pet, you’ll reward him with the highest prize.

Disciplining you any way he wants.

Your erotic psychosis is suddenly interrupted by the kiss on your clit. You were so damn gone that you didn’t even notice the audio stopped a while ago, and Felix is actually in your bed with you.

“What the fuck have you been doing to yourself? Your sheets are ruined,” he bites into his smile at the sight of your soaked pussy, hard enough to draw blood. “Turn around, baby. I wanna see.”

Your mind is on autopilot, and you can’t seem to switch back to manual mode. You do as you’re told and even arch your ass for him. He can perfectly see how swollen you are with arousal, so sensitive that each wet kiss he places on your pussy makes you softly gasp. You hear a pleased exhale behind you. The mattress dips a little when he gets on his knees. Your anticipation climbs when you feel his tip on your dripping entrance, and it fully peaks when his fingers reach for your clit.

“I don’t think you were aware how loud you were moaning my name. I could hear you pretty clearly,” he kisses your neck, breaking goosebumps all over your body. “I left the stream on. Do it louder now.”

He rams himself into you with a thrust so sharp that you wouldn’t be able to keep that moan in even if you wanted to. His cock deep inside you, his slick fingers rubbing your clit, your arousal devolves into full delirium, and you lose all control. You can’t remember what words are—your mind produces nothing other than playing his singular instruction to moan his name on repeat. That’s all you do. That’s all you can do. 

“You were imagining us passing you around, weren’t you?” he pants. “Then imagine this, and give me what I fucking deserve.”

He pulls out and turns you around with one swift move, throwing your legs over his shoulders. He settles into a much deeper spot inside you, his rhythm still merciless. 

“You have three holes, and there are three of us. Why wait for turns when all of us can have you at the same time?” he devilishly laughs. “Oh, and one more thing.”

He lowers his body and speaks against your lips, his whispering entirely pointless considering what he’s about to confess.

“I left your door ajar, so the entire floor is jerking off to us right now.”

The sound that escapes your throat would come out as a concerning scream if he didn’t suppress it with a kiss at the last second. You’re completely dismantled under him, clenching so hard that he’s trapped inside you. He tries his hardest to wait until you ride your climax back to the shore, and only then allows himself to finish, filling you to the brim with a hefty load. The kisses don’t stop until he comes down and manages to detach himself from you, but he makes no attempt to clean you up. You’re about to judge the shit out of his bedside manners when he slithers down and settles between your legs, wrapping his arms around your thighs.

“Come do a proper duet with me next time,” he kisses your clit, then slowly moves down to your entrance dripping with him. “Chat’s gonna fucking looove you.”

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The ‘troll’ of the century is in progress, and yes, you’re very much kicking your feet, giggling.

The gentlemen of Scoville are for sure ethics-agnostic when the sun goes down, but during the daytime, they are surprisingly productive. Within one week, Chris has already structured a research proposal based on your class material, Jisung has drafted a comprehensive questionnaire, and Changbin is halfway done with the literature review.

Mayhaps, these men have actually invented the concept ‘Work hard, fuck harder’.

You’ve never asked about the aftermath of the ‘Happy Hour @ Dean Bang’s Office’ incident. For some reason, it feels like you are immune to consequences now, ‘for some reason’ being ‘protection by way of dick’. Your little fling ended up being the best possible icebreaker you could ask for—the trio has embraced you like you’ve been part of their clique all along, comfortable enough to talk about everything NSFW like it’s the safest thing to do at work.

“You’re shitting me!” you crack up, loud enough to make your own ears ring. “There’s no way that’s true.”

“I’m telling you,” Changbin affirms, “do NOT materialize before this man like that. None of us will be able to detach him from you.”

“He’s such a sweetheart! It’s insane to think he’s even capable of going that rabid,” you call Changbin’s allegation and raise it to bullshit.

“Social experiment,” he proposes, one finger in the air. “We’ll have a little outing at Lobos tonight. If Jisung doesn’t get rock hard on sight, I’ll give you five grand.”

“Last I checked, experiments did not have huge monetary stakes attached to them,” you scoff.

“Tell that to the grant committee,” he extends his hand. “Call?”

“Not so fast. What do you get if you win?” you narrow your eyes to magnify his ulterior motives. “That might be like five bucks in your world, but I can’t casually place several months’ worth of rent on horny bets.”

“Come on, now, what do you take me for?” he feigns offense. “I’d never take your money, you know that.”

“Yes, I do,” you deadpan, “which is why I’m asking what you really want.”

“Just a reeeally sloppy blowjob,” he casually admits.

“That’s it?”

“For like, the entire Super Bowl, though.”

“There’s the other shoe,” you grin triumphantly.

“But if we sixty-nine,” he quickly adds, “would you really be losing here?”

You can’t help but wonder what kind of breakthroughs would be bestowed upon the scientific world if this man cared about human advancement as much as his orgasms. But he has a point. A really wet one, at that.

“Screw it, you’re on,” you reach for his hand and firmly shake it. 

Thus the kicking your feet and giggling on your way to Lobos.

The half-prank half-bet has one instruction only: fishnets—stockings, gloves, over a tank top, even a veil if you want. The execution is up to you. You’ve heard of people having niche fetishes before, and more power to them for knowing exactly what they like, but springing a boner on cue sounds cartoonish. On the other hand, you highly doubt Changbin has randomly decided to set 5k on fire just because he was bored, so you’re understandably torn. And he’s irrefutably right. If this actually works, you’re going to unleash a triple-horny Jisung on yourself and probably cum really hard. If it doesn’t work, you’ll take a seat on Changbin’s face and probably cum really hard still.

Overall, an ironclad win-win situation.

You finally show up at the club like you’re about to attend an emo rock concert in the 2000s. You spot the trio in the distance, having a fervent discussion with ample amounts of hand gestures. One look at you, and Changbin is already grinning from ear to ear. Meanwhile, Jisung is so deep in his conversation with Chris that he doesn’t even notice the movement at the table.

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” Changbin welcomes you with a kiss on the cheek, then taps Jisung on the shoulder. “Earth to Jay one, two, three. Someone has a surprise for you.”

At long last, Jisung looks up, and for the first time in your life, you witness a man short-circuit in real time, with the whole blue screen and everything.

“Uh… Oh, okay, uh… Yeah, fuck me,” he stammers, massively zoning out at your sight.

“Hey, you there?” Chris snaps his fingers before Jisung’s blank eyes.

“Mentally applying to Guinness for the fastest boner, BRB,” Jisung responds, inches away from drooling. “Brain no blood right now.”

“You cannot be serious with this!” you shriek, jaw dropped in bewilderment although you have been told in advance this would happen. “You’re faking it.”

“By all means, grope me,” he spreads his legs, “but if you touch my dick, you consent to getting railed hella disrespectfully.”

You take one look at Changbin, adamantly in denial that this is real. Jisung is on the brink of hyperventilating when you sit down next to him, and you can already see the bulge in his crotch. Still convinced that’s just a rolled-up pair of socks, you discreetly unzip his pants under the table, and when you slip your hand inside…

“That’s just… NO WAY!”

“Male anatomy never lies,” Changbin flings his arm over your shoulder. “So what do you say? Saturday at my place?”

“What’s happening Saturday?” Jisung asks, sounding out of it while eyefucking you really hard.

“Slumber party,” Changbin smirks, “featuring bodily fluids.”

“Excuse YOU, why are we not invited?” Jisung finally manages to peel his eyes off of you, suddenly ticked off.

“Well, technically, she owes me money, so we’re gonna settle one-on-one this time,” Changbin explains. “You’re more than welcome to join the next one, though.”

“Oh, next one. Why didn’t you SAY SO?” Jisung hysterically laughs, but it suddenly disappears when he turns to you again. 

Maybe it’s the lack of weed for once, or maybe because he feels left out, but this is the first time you see Jisung mad. He leans into your face, almost threateningly.

“You’re mine tonight,” he grabs you by the wrist and suddenly leaves the booth.

“Uh, hello?!” Chris protests.

“Hello yourself, motherfucker! Didn’t you have your little stall action already?”

You should be at least a little concerned, but you can’t help wheezing your lungs out at the hilarious tantrum because a pout is the only thing missing from this hissy fit.

“You know about that?” you ask through your cackles.

“Everyone knows about that since he can’t fucking shut up about it for two seconds. We get it, you found religion!” Jisung glares at Chris, then drags you away. “With me. Now.”

He doesn’t even attempt to seek the privacy of four walls. Shortly after, you find yourself shoved behind a column by the restrooms, a somewhat secluded corner, but by no means away from prying eyes. Any passerby can perfectly see what’s happening unless they are completely wasted, and maybe he wants it that way. 

Or maybe it’s you who wants to show off.

The second your back touches the cold concrete, he starts devouring you, a kiss so deep, it feels no less than getting your brains fucked out of you. His hands are all over your body, wanting to grope you everywhere all at once, and frustrated as hell that he can’t. It’s like he wants to seep through your skin, hunger unmatched like he’s been touch-starved for months. You know for a fact that he isn’t.

Fuck weed, you can get high on this for the rest of your life.  

“God, I fucking love how you kiss,” you bite into his lips.

“Yeah?” he pants into your mouth. “Then you should see the way I lick.”

“I already have, remember?” you giggle.

“I keep forgetting I didn’t dream that,” he latches onto your neck again.

He is as rabid as you’ve been told to expect, but you still feel a bit of restraint. Like he’s holding back because he’s scared of something. As if you’re not publicly dryhumping right now. It’s weirdly endearing when you think about it because anything gentlemanly has already gone out the window approximately ten seconds ago. If there is a time to show fangs, it’s literally right now.

You hold his face and make him look at you to erase whatever voice he has in his head. You did consent to getting railed hella disrespectfully after all.

“Just go for it,” you urge him with a smile.

Jisung takes that to mean, ‘Eat me alive and leave no crumbs.’

Eyes fixated on yours, his hand sneaks between your legs, and you hear it. The sound of fabric tearing has never felt this thrilling. Your stockings, ripped. Your underwear, ripped. The only skin-to-skin contact is a soft brush of his fingers against your folds, but he shuts his eyes tight, pressing his forehead against yours.

“Fuck, it’s so wet,” he groans like he’s in pain. “Touch me. It fucking hurts, just touch me.”

You pull him even closer from his gorgeous waist and go for his zipper. He feels so smooth to the touch, but he’s also a million degrees, already leaking from his slit. He makes you palm his girth and tightens your grip to what you consider an ‘Am I hurting you?’ threshold, but he doesn’t seem to give a shit.

“Make me cum on your pussy,” he demands.

“Only if you make me cream on your fingers,” you ask for cashback.

The clash of lips that follow feels like a tug of war, only much wetter. You can taste the peach flavor of the cocktail he’s been sipping earlier. You’re already panting hard, breathless with your lust for him, and his frantic rhythm on your clit does not help regulate your breathing. A loud moan rips from his throat when you match his pace, stroking his cock like your life depends on it, and right in that moment, he sinks three fingers into your dripping pussy.

You momentarily see white.

Wet. All you can feel is wet. Between your legs. In your mouth. Inside your palm. People are coming and going, murmuring things to each other with soft gasps, but neither of you gives a fuck. Nothing else besides each other exists in this moment. He is delirious with how much he wants you. You are crazed with your need for him. Pressure keeps building fast, and this entire building getting razed to the ground the moment you climax is still a possibility.

“You’re fucking killing me,” he heavily exhales. “Faster, baby, I’m almost there.”

He tells you to do it faster, but takes off without you, stimulating a spot inside you so dangerous that your eyes widen. He holds you in place by your waist as you claw his shoulder, and he starts to maniacally laugh when he senses something looming.

“Don’t you dare try to hold that in,” he threatens.

You have no choice but to oblige.

Your whole body peaks, and you ride the waves of the excessive wetness gushing out of you. You don’t know how much time has passed until you get a shred of your wits back. When you look down, you see Jisung’s entire hand glistening with you, and the victorious smile on his face annoys the shit out of you. 

All you do is pull him closer and press his tip on your clit, and that smug look disappears so fast that you’re mentally applying to Guinness for the most sudden orgasm. The warm strings on your folds dripping down your thighs, his moans on your skin reverberating throughout your body, all of it feels strangely comforting. You let him recollect himself in the crook of your neck, chuckling as you run your fingers through his damp locks.

“Sleep with me tonight,” he eventually utters. “I got a spare dorm room on campus.”

“Only your entitled ass would say something like that,” you deride, squishing his cheeks.

“It’s the closest bed I have available,” he flashes a fucked out smile. “I don’t exactly wanna sleep, though.”

“I figured as much,” you concur, “but don’t be upset if I pass out. I had to read like twelve papers today.”

“Can I still eat your pussy if you do?”

“Yes, you can.”

“Can I still fuck you in your sleep?”

“Yes, you can.”

“But you can’t get mad at me if I fuck you too hard,” his face contorts again like he’s seeing you for the very first time that night. “God, you really shouldn’t have worn all this.”

You burst out laughing. Your heart swells a bit at how violently he reacts to a piece of fabric. Fabric.

For some reason, it doesn’t seem odd when it’s Jisung in question.

“As long as you cover me in kisses afterwards,” you peck his lips, “you can even fuck me awake if you want.”

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You have seen some eccentric “research groups” before, but this one takes the cake. As much as the member bios reek of privilege, the fine print is deliciously outrageous, and it may or may not be tickling you a little bit.

First up is the golden boy of Psychology. Chris is publicly quite composed, but the rumors in the hallways are all about how he fucks shit up in private, especially if he’s particularly… heated. Even though he’s been caught red-handed in a few ‘compromising situations’, no one has issued a formal complaint because a) he is the reason the department is swimming in grant money, and b) he is the dean’s son. You can confirm the rumors are true—his citations aren’t the only sizable thing under his belt.

In your defense, you did NOT know he was going to be your TA when you met him at Lobos a few nights ago.

Up next is Changbin. The entire Seo lineage is made up of revered pro athletes, including two Olympians, which is why that last name is slapped on every sports-related facility on campus. Changbin may not have directly followed in the legacy footsteps, but he’s still orbiting the universe, working towards a Kinesiology expertise. 

Sure, human movement and whatever… It’s not like he is giving manhandling a great name with those magic hands. 

Oh, wait…

And the quirky cherry on top is Jisung. His weirdly sensical arguments about mind expansion via hallucinogens are the peak entertainment of the Philosophy crowd. You’d think he would be the first to get summoned by the ethics board since his father is the founder, but somehow, no one bats an eye that he gives these ‘informal seminars’ while smoking huge blunts in broad daylight. 

Of course it has nothing to do with the Hans frequently donating six figures to the university, why’d you ask? 

In addition to being a ganja guru, this man is allegedly so perpetually horny that he can make everything about sex. Everything. Sources state his most unhinged subject was tree bark during a particularly mellowed-out conversation.

Put all three together, and you have Soul, Body, and Mind. Or as they call themselves, Scoville. Their research interests do involve degrees of hotness, but it has nothing to do with capsaicin.  

Your officially scheduled first meeting is on Wednesday, blocked on your calendar with a pepper and fire emoji thanks to Jisung’s invite. You’re supposed to share your research interests and find topics to collaborate on during your stay at CarlTech, an agenda item you normally take very seriously.

But ever since you heard Scoville is ‘allegedly’ conducting illicit experiments on the side, all you wanna talk about is the field notes from the campuswide orgies they throw. 

It’s insane how a scandal of this magnitude can go away this quietly. A mere mortal would be shaking like a leaf, dreading the looming expulsion and a very public fall from grace, but this debauched trio continues to walk around super carefree like they own the goddamn place. Because, well, they do.

The itch in your brain demanding to be scratched is maddening.

You wonder how adamant their lawyers were advising them to ‘lay low’, or if they are back at the crime scene already. You’ve sampled only one of them, but if that performance is any indication, imagining all three going on a lust-filled rampage in a room full of people is… intriguing, to say the least. Maybe you can bait them for an answer. Maybe you can coax them into a pilot study.

Congratulations on wasting your one wish from the universe on this.

You remember the time being around 5 p.m. when you started revising the material for the fall course you’re going to teach, but then you blink, and all of a sudden the clock shows 8:30. The sting in your eyes and the pain in your lower back are begging you to please go home and submerge your body in a warm bath already. You wholeheartedly agree. 

It’s dead quiet when you walk out of your office, and the tranquility is kinda therapeutic. You briefly contemplate whether lying down on the cold marble floor for a bit would help soothe the back pain or make it worse. The new episode of your most recent hyperfixation will be out today, but you’re out of chips. Should you stop by the grocery store on your way home? Should you just call your dealer and ask her to bring chips with your usual order? Is the Thai place still open?

You wonder if you somehow worked yourself high already because you’re hearing giggling in an empty building. The sound belongs to a woman, and it’s coming from the office you’ve just passed by. You take a few steps back to verify your sobriety, and you have NO idea which fact should take priority to be shocked over: That she has more than one person with her, or that the name on the door has the words ‘dean’ and ‘Bang’ in it.

Fuck Netflix. A show more bingeworthy than a live sex scandal hasn’t been produced yet.

You pull the door knob towards yourself and hold it in a very tight grip to avoid making any noise as you slowly turn it. You push the door open with bated breath, just enough to see what’s going on inside.

You might as well have just barged in here. 

There is thick smoke in the air, and the familiar grassy scent has permeated the entire room. When you look up, you see that the fire alarms are conveniently disabled. A girl is lying on the couch, naked from the waist down and legs spread wide. A man is between her legs, languidly eating her pussy but with so much gusto, savoring every drop. Another man is pressing her finger on the flashlight of his phone for some reason. Then you have a third man sprawled across them, one leg flung over the armrest, lazily laughing as he watches… whatever this is. And none of these people are Dean Bang.

It’s just his spine breaker son kicking it with his entourage at Daddy’s office, as if all the rooms in existence are currently occupied, and they’re all so damn high that nobody notices you’re standing there.

“Her pulse is still the same,” Changbin says, looking at the heart rate app on his screen. “Are you sure you’re licking the right spot?”

“According to previous cases, yes,” Jisung confirms.

You slowly close the door, leisurely walking behind the golden boy’s couch, and join the spectator side with your elbows on the backrest. It feels like you’re an NPC in some gooner game secretly being developed. No one reacts to your presence in the room because no one perceives you. 

“Are you sure it’s the right spot?” Changbin asks again.

“Yes, it is,” the girl breaks into the hallway giggles once more.

“Then what the fuck is taking so long?”

“Because your methodology has a design flaw,” you answer on Jisung’s behalf.

You finally receive some acknowledgement of your existence when all the heads turn in your direction, albeit their surprise loading at the speed of a sloth. It’s not even surprise actually. Rather, they look like they’re glad their best friend finally showed up to the party.

“It’s his technique, isn’t it?” Changbin finally speaks, not even addressing the awkwardness of the situation.

“It’s the fact that you’re high as shit, actually,” you respond. “Your sense of time is distorted. You keep checking for changes every five seconds.”

“Shit, really?” he widens his eyes. 

“Never question my head game again,” Jisung points at him threateningly.

“If you want to catalyze things, why don’t you just tag team her? Two tongues are better than one,” you casually suggest. “One of you takes the clit, the other licks roughly 1.5 centimeters below it. Don’t touch her entrance at all costs, and enjoy the begging.”

“I’m in love with you, hot stranger,” Jisung lets slip.

Throughout this exchange, Chris keeps looking up at you, trying to understand if the world is upside down or if he’s falling up.

“Man, I’m so trashed I think I’m hallucinating you again,” he mumbles, dazed out of his mind. “If you’re real, kiss me.”

You laugh, making a mental note to ask him who his plug is when sober. You lean down to give him a quick peck, but he holds your face in place and latches onto your lips. It’s just a kiss, but it’s so deep that you feel tingles between your legs like you’re the couch girl.

“Mm, I still can’t tell,” he pulls you into his lap and reaches for the joint in the ashtray. “Maybe we should fuck to confirm.”

“Maybe we should be on the same altitude first,” you put your arms around his neck.

Half the cigarette wilts into ashes with his long hit, but he doesn’t inhale it. His thumb drags your bottom lip down instead, and he feeds you your high, smoke so damn thick that it’s fully opaque in your lungs. Your body goes limp and alert at the same time, but when his tongue demands yours again, it starts to melt completely.

“Maybe I should set aside office hours just for you,” you sigh contently.

“Maybe you should scrap your office hours altogether because those are my happy hours now,” he declares. “Fridays at 3:30, right?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be my assistant?” you chuckle. “I don’t think any work will get done like that.”

“I didn’t get an h-index of 12 by being an amateur. I multitask like crazy,” he grazes his teeth on your jawline. “I can finger you and grade your student’s papers at the same time.”

“Is it weird that I’m turned on by your efficiency a little bit?”

“I’d be offended if you weren’t.”

Your fingers in his hair, his hands on your ass, feeling him get a bit harder under you with each grind… The arousal hits harder than the weed. You could swear you’ve only been making out for maybe a few minutes, but the time warp seems to work in reverse for you. Two pairs of lips gliding on your neck remind you there are other people in the room, and when you can manage to detach yourself from Chris, you look around. The couch girl is long gone, and two-thirds of Scoville are shirtless, trying to get you and Chris to show the same amount of exposed skin. 

You gladly let them.

Chris trades places with you and stands tall on his feet, unbuckling his belt as he watches Jisung and Changbin strip you. You look perfect like this, a delicious bite up for grabs, but the only problem is there are three drooling hyenas eyeing the same dinner. 

They have clearly done this too many times before because everyone is already at their assigned posts without anyone uttering a single word.

“You’re lucky I’m here,” Chris speaks, aligning himself with your dripping hole while the two men spread your legs as wide as they can. “It was a dumb move to tell them not to touch the entrance.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t still beg, though,” Jisung places a chaste kiss on your clit.

“1.5 centimeters was it?” Changbin asks. “We’ll see if the coordinates are the same in every pussy.”

They start moving.

You are so overwhelmed that all you can do is shakily exhale. Chris slides inside you beguilingly slowly, Jisung traps your clit between his lips, and Changbin explores the danger zone with the tip of his tongue. No one makes a sudden move—it’s as if they are waiting for something. Like they are settling in. 

You really shouldn’t have flinched when that one lick felt a little too good.

“Found it,” Changbin diabolically smirks. “See you on the other side, beautiful.”

And everything suddenly turns nuclear.

You’re ruthlessly penetrated with sharp thrusts all the way to the dead end inside you. You’re relentlessly licked by two tongues like you’re oozing the purest cocaine, and they are on the brink of death by withdrawal. It’s rough. It’s wet. It’s as carnal as it can be.

It makes you feel so fucking alive.

The only man that can make eye contact with you looks like what the devil wears on special days. He is hell’s Sunday best. Veins popping, soaked in sweat, his face twisted, brows creased, hissing, panting, dying with each moan that rips from your throat. Every time he thinks he’s now hit the deepest corner of you, he feels more slick coating him, and he sinks in a little more. The two tongues have already wiped your essence clean, and it’s now a battle over who gets to mark the territory with more slobber. You can’t fucking think. Everything that’s not them doesn’t deserve to be perceived. You let yourself be devoured until the very last drop of you is consumed, savored, relished like a piece of rare depraved delicacy. 

The climax is not your orgasm—it’s the moment Chris unloads inside you.

It’s the dirtiest kind of bliss, and listening to three men’s satisfied chuckles makes you fly even higher. The kisses all over your body feels like a parachute helping you land smoothly. The post-nut clarity is starting to hit, but you don’t feel like leaving at all even when your wits fully resurface.

“I’m so trashed I think I’m hallucinating all of you,” you break into a fucked out giggle, now sounding a lot more like the couch girl. “If you’re real, one of you kiss me.”

Jisung volunteers himself, and lets you bask in your own taste for who knows how long. His lips feel like the perfect cloud to sleep on. In his absence, Changbin stands to his feet, and the torch relay officially begins.

“I wouldn’t suggest falling asleep since we don’t consider it a good reason to stop. We still have a few turns to take here,” Chris speaks semi-seriously, taking over clit-kissing duties from Jisung, then flashes you the most devilish smile you’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing in your life. “Welcome to Carlton Tech, baby.”

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COLLABORATORS

SCOVILLE · Chris Bang, PhD(c): Psychology · Seo Changbin, M.S.: Kinesiology · Han Jisung, M.A.: Philosophy

⇢ Research activity present, legitimacy dubious. Unwilling to publish the results of specific research projects that are allegedly "debauched" in nature. Disciplinary investigation mysteriously went away.

UMBRA · Asst. Prof. Kim Seungmin: Media Studies · Yang Jeongin: Media Studies (Advisor: Kim Seungmin, PhD)

⇢ Research activity present, temporary group due to Dr. Kim's guest researcher status. The duo is alleged to engage in "collaborations" that are beyond academic. Disciplinary investigation mysteriously went away.

VENOM · Lee Minho: Business · Hwang Hyunjin: Vis Comm · Lee Felix: Creative Writing

⇢ Cites huge amounts of "research expenses" although there is no research activity present. Alleged to be a money laundering front for certain families. Disciplinary investigation mysteriously went away.

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[...]

You scan the letter penned by a pretentious calligrapher cordially inviting you to for ‘a night like no other.’ Alexandra Vanderberg’s vices notoriously lie a little—well, a lot—left of the center when it comes to her fun, and if the subtle hints are any indication, the entertainment in question will be provided by this Harvard-ass club.

A little preview sounds apt. You have a right to know if the product lives up to the hype before you squander your nine-figure hedge fund on mediocre pleasure.

“RSVP ‘Maybe’,” you respond as you tuck the flashy cardboard back into its old money blanket. “I can’t have my high demand-low supply brand tarnished.”

“Right away, mademoiselle,” Alina gracefully bows and exits your study.

The Vanderberg Estate looks like where Cinderella lost her slipper after getting respectfully railed. Everybody’s in one-of-a-kind brand-name suits and evening gowns, which makes you wonder if this is a rehearsal dinner for the upcoming Met Gala. The crowd is lethally attractive, and it feels like you can cum if you stare at them long enough.

“Bitch, you made it!” Alexandra greets you enthusiastically. “I’m so glad you came.”

“I can’t say I came yet,” you correct her. “We’ll see after this entertainment I heard so much about.”

“Oh, just you wait,” she breaks into a smirk. “I especially wanted you to see this.”

“Why me?”

“Because you will inevitably spend a small fortune, and I will finally get priority booking privileges,” she shamelessly admits to collecting punches on her slut card. “Yes, it’s that good.”

“Priority booking?” you cock a brow. “You’re telling me you can’t get into the club you’re a regular of whenever you want?”

“The waitlist looks like an attendance sheet of the nation’s trophy wives,” she rolls her eyes. “I’m kinda sick of having to wait for months to get properly fucked.”

Her eyes suddenly light up, and she beams with delight, eagerly waving at someone in the distance. When you turn your attention to her line of sight, your poise almost cracks with how fucking stunning the approaching man is, looking like he has just stepped off a Tom Ford runway and pranced directly into this party. He walks with casual grace, yet you can see the scorched footprints he leaves behind as he struts. Every face he passes by turns to him, and people start whispering things to each other while collecting their jaws from the floor. 

“Hyunjin, I want you to meet my good friend,” Alexandra makes the introduction to the homme fatal, although served with a garnish of lies, then squeals in excitement. “I just know you’re a perfect match!”

Yeah. Made in hell, maybe.

Hyunjin doesn’t execute any of the hyperbolic gestures you are used to receiving every time you are at one of these events. He looks like he’s received manners training from descendants of French governesses, but he doesn’t fold himself in half with a bow. He looks like the prince who fucked the glass slipper off Cinderella’s feet, but he doesn’t reach for your hand for a gallant kiss.

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he lightly nods as one does to a peer rather than a superior.

Oh, shots fucking fired…

All of a sudden, your creeping arousal retreats like it’s being sucked into a vortex, and your vision framing him turns from a sensuous carmine into a cinnabar red.

Why the absolute fuck did Alexandra even consider this fucking peacock could be your alleged perfect match?!

“You have some goddamn nerve to vet the crème de la crème of high society,” you deride with a smile so balletic that your words almost come out as a compliment. “They are your sponsors, I mean.”

“We prefer the term needs analysis. We’re not interested in a prospective patron’s criminal history,” he corrects. “Though it’s just supplementary material. A true professional knows what their patron craves within ten seconds of eye contact.”

“If you really have X-Ray vision for sluts, then why in the world do you require an application package?” you ask, the reins of your anger slipping from your palms drenched with annoyance.

“It’s called fact-checking,” he shrugs, then examines his perfectly manicured nails like the topic of conversation is barely holding his interest. “We get a lot of counterfeit applications from bored hedge fund executives who want to test how legit we are.”

He looks up at you again, content with how taken aback you look. You struggle to get back on your high horse when his gaze holds your hands behind your back in a tight grip, breathing down your neck as it asks you to admit defeat.

Like hell, you will.

“Perfect match,” Alexandra grins, pointing at you, then Hyunjin. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to tend to my other guests.”

She walks away, leaving you alone with the reason for your first potential assault charge. Hyunjin doesn’t leave. He just stares at you, his alluring smile endlessly infuriating yet somehow sending little currents of electricity between your legs.

But for some inexplicable reason, you don’t leave either.

“Are you the entertainment tonight?” you eventually ask.

“If you’re referring to what Ms. Vanderberg has planned for the guests, no, I’m not,” he answers with oddly charged serenity.

Didn’t Alexandra just say she especially wanted you to see it in person? Then proceeded to declare your 12/10 compatibility with this Basilisk incarnate on top of that? If Hyunjin isn’t the entertainment…?

“Are you here as a guest then?” you ask again.

“Not exactly,” he gives a non-swer.

“Do your patrons seriously pay you to be this fucking annoying?” you unwittingly raise your voice.

“Some do, yeah,” he responds, so unbothered you’re about to slap his stupid gorgeous face out of sheer frustration.

“Well, what a fucking waste of money then,” you mutter under your breath.

“Well, artisan debauchery should come at a price, don’t you think?” he mockingly imitates your tone.

“Artisa— WHAT?!” you wheeze your lungs out, incredulous that this pretty slut just indirectly called himself an artist of sorts. “If I want to be irritated out of my mind, I can just summon my board of directors FOR FREE!”

“Sure, but can they get your pussy wet while pressing just the right buttons?”

“I think you’re confusing murderous intent with arousal here.”

“Yet your underwear is ruined, and I haven’t even touched you yet.”

You’re about to spit a half-assed ‘Ha-ha, am so not,’ when you slightly move in your place and notice that you are, in fact, ‘Did I just have my period?’ levels wet.

What the hell?!

Either this man is the devil, or the slut X-Ray is real, but whichever the case may be, your heart is racing. You’re at a complete loss for comebacks as he breaches your personal space with a long step and leans into your ear.

“You want me,” he whispers, but you can still hear the smile on his breath, “and it fucking kills you that cutting a fat check is not enough to have me.”

“Way to be delusional, pretty boy,” you scoff, exerting maximum effort to hide the goosebumps on your skin.

“Suit yourself,” he takes a step back, leaving you cold and shivering for some reason. “Though, one of these days the craving will hit really hard, but you won’t be able to find me then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He reaches into his blazer pocket, then hands you the piece of paper he pulled out like an unimpressive magic trick. The soft-touch business card is embossed with the figure of a serpent that looks hand-drawn. It only has the word Taipan on it with a phone number attached at the bottom, which you highly suspect will be unreachable after one-time use.

“I suggest you book me right now since we have a six-month waiting list,” he casually recommends.

“Six months?!” you borderline yell in his face, turning a few heads towards your direction.

“Why, of course,” he dips his hand into his pockets, nonchalance finally evolving into the satisfaction of holding a coup de grâce on his tongue. “I can’t have my high demand-low supply brand tarnished, you know.”

You choke.

All you can do is watch him walk away, and you are utterly unsure whether to be scared or impressed. Is this something you unknowingly say often? Is your office fucking bugged? Did Alina somehow talk to the serpent man prior to this event?

What the damn hell?!

You frantically reach for your phone and call Alina, urgency so palpable that passersby are probably thinking you can’t wait until the morning to file a lawsuit.

“Yes, mademoiselle?”

“I’m going to give you a number,” you inform your right hand. “Set up the stupid interview. I got a man to ruin.”

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He shifts over you, laying you back down and hovering on top of you, using his legs to push your thighs apart so he can settle between them.

“You’ve been thinking about me. I know you have. Dreaming about this. Wetting your little panties every night hoping I'd come back.”

He drags the tip of his finger up your inner thigh, slow enough to make you shiver. You try to close your legs—some last, pathetic attempt at modesty—but he clicks his tongue and pushes them open again with his knee.

“No,” he murmurs, almost pitying. “You don’t get to hide from me. Not after you’ve been begging for this—even in your sleep.”

You shake your head, but it’s pointless—he’s already hooking a gloved finger around the waistband of your panties, tugging them down inch by inch.

“Look at you,” he breathes when they’re halfway down your thighs, his gaze flicking between your face and the slick he can see glistening in the moonlight. “You’re wet already. Fuck—knew you’d be perfect.”

He moves his hand towards your heat, using his finger to toy with your clit momentarily before bringing his finger up to his mouth, eyes on yours as his lips wrap around his finger—covered in your slick.

He hums, pleased, before bringing his hand back down, “You taste as sweet as you look, love.”

His hand slides back between your thighs, gloved fingers stroking you with an obscene familiarity, like he’s done this a thousand times already in his mind.

You try to twist away, but he shifts his weight, pinning you beneath him with effortless strength. His free hand grabs your jaw, forcing you to look up at him.

“Eyes on me,” he orders softly. “Wanna watch you fall apart.”

He starts to circle your clit again—slow at first, then a little faster. Every nerve lights up, your body arching into his touch in spite of yourself. You hate the way your hips begin to rock against his hand, desperate for more.

He notices, of course. He notices everything.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, voice dropping to a ragged whisper. “Knew you’d be so fucking pretty like this—so fucking needy.”

You feel the heat building—fast, unbearable—and he can feel it too, the way you tense and tremble beneath him. His pace doesn’t slow. If anything, he rubs harder, determined to drag it out of you.

“Gonna come for me?” he taunts, lips brushing your ear. “Gonna make a mess all over my hand, sweetheart?”

You nod. You’re so close it hurts, your breath breaking into ragged little gasps. One more second—one more stroke—

And then he stops.

You can’t help the raged whine that breaks through your lips, head snapping up to glare at him.

He’s smiling, of course. You think you even hear a chuckle slip past his lips as he wipes your own slick off of his hand and onto the covers next to you.

“Not tonight.” He finally speaks, eyes amused as his hand strokes your face. “You don’t get to come until you admit you’re mine.”

You huff, embarrassed and way hornier than you’d like to admit, refusing to meet his eye as he continues stroking your face.

“Awe, don’t be mad at me, lovey. I’ll make it real good when it happens.”

He leans forward, presses his mouth to your ear, and speaks so low you almost miss it.

“Sweet dreams, love. Think of me when you touch yourself tonight.”

Then he’s standing—just as quiet as he came—leaving you trembling and ruined in the dark.

Part Three.

“deathly silent”: that’s what the box said. that’s what the ad, the website, the product name, all said. 

and it was, in and of itself, silent. 

but you and your noises weren’t. 

at least not to your roommate, government trained, experience-laden, finger on the trigger, simon “ghost” riley. 

you’d been amicable, cordial roommates for two years. it’d gone without a hitch: he responded to your post online, went through your vetting process. agreed to get a background check. 

once he’d moved in, (if that’s what you’d even call it) it was like you still lived alone. even when he was deployed, rent was deposited right on time, every month. 

but somehow a man that size had learned to move silently. you’d never quite been able to figure it out. sometimes he’d scare you, sure, but he always apologized and moved on. made sure to make his footfalls heavier for the rest of the day. 

over the course of two years, you’d managed to learn a couple of things about him. 

he likes his coffee black—he buys the same brand they keep on base. 

but when it comes to tea, simon buys artisanal earl grey. 

he’s got a couple masks, so he’s always wearing a clean one. 

he puts his boots next to yours at the door. jackets are the same story. 

he has to make huge portions for himself when he does cook, so you’re always offered some. you stopped declining a month in: the man knows his way around a kitchen. 

he likes chocolate chip cookies, but not as much as he likes brownies. 

it’s almost weird to know so much about someone you’re not quite friends with. not quite family with. 

you’ve never lived in such close quarters with a man you’re not related to or in love with. so this purchase was extremely necessary. 

if you never had to hear him.. 

then he should never have to hear you. 

“mm, fuck!” you whispered around clenched teeth. at the sound of simon’s feet walking down the hallway, into his room, you slap a hand over your mouth. 

his presence next door just puts words to your unconscious thoughts. every sliver of fantasy pulling you closer to the crest is roommate related. 

you’re reminded of his eyes above the skull mask, the bulk of his shoulders in a black shirt. how he spreads his legs when he sits on your couch watching the game. it’s inescapable to you, inexplorable. it’s a safe place in your mind. 

your roommate, whose cologne lingers in the hallway. whose empty cups of tea sit in your sink. 

inescapable. inexplorable. 

a high pitched whine escapes from between your fingers, your back arching from the mattress. 

this thing was a lot stronger than you realized. 

your legs shake as you reach orgasm number three, your toes clenching. you can barely keep a grip on the toy itself, you’re so wracked with sensation. 

pleasure coats your bones, a slickness that oozes out of every pore, out between your legs. 

simon heard the buzzing from the kitchen. he’d seen the ‘discreet packaging’ in the trash. this wasn’t his first day on earth. his roommate's got a new toy. 

he can’t get the sound out of his head. he can hear it over the sound of water boiling in the kettle, over the football talk show on low in the living room. it’s utterly inescapable. 

an attack animal trained to hear frequencies he shouldn’t—simon was cursed with the knowledge that you were fucking yourself stupid behind closed doors. 

the thought alone had him throbbing under his joggers, blood swelling the piece of meat between his legs. 

it was already torture, living with someone like you. 

someone with such a light inside. someone who smiled at him like he wasn’t a monster with a kill count in the tens of hundreds. someone with great legs, that peeked out from tiny sleep shorts. if you asked he’d toss you a pair of his boxers to wear instead. 

he was waiting for you to ask, like you ever would. 

it was torture, knowing he had a bird waiting at home for him that wasn’t exactly his. 

torture that he had to hear your whines as he walked down the hallway, and couldn’t do anything about it. 

shouldn’t do anything about it. 

he shut his door with a loud click, giving you the chance to stop if you wanted. 

you didn’t. 

it was torture, but he couldn’t resist any longer. 

leaning against the wall, his head tipped back to hear better, he gives in.

simon slips his hand under the waistband of his sweats, fist immediately around his cock. 

his thumb brushes over the tip, and he’s making his own noises. 

they blend in with yours to soundtrack his thoughts, a scenario where he’d be the one under those sheets with you. instead of some stupid piece of machinery. 

you grow louder, your poorly muffled whimpering seeping through the thin walls. 

it’s obvious: you’re not trying to hide it anymore. 

you can’t. 

pleasure has taken over. sensation has gained command of your good sense. 

the finish line nears, and you can barely keep the buzzing piece of rubber on your clit as your whole body shakes, shudders. a full-bodied moan rips from your mouth as you soak the sheets, liquid squirting from underneath your fingers. 

the next room over, cum coats simon’s knuckles as he shudders into his own fist, the room spinning. 

he can’t remember the last time he came so hard. 

simon coughs, thankful for his mask. his cheeks are burning hot. 

“nice shirt, eh?” he remarks, his eyes trained on the ‘RILEY’ painted over your shoulders. 

you turn your head, smiling. it almost hurts to see you like this. like you’d just been rolled around in bed. 

“thanks?” you reply, a little confused. it was just the first clean shirt in your drawer. 

your roommate’s acting kind of odd.

he shakes his head. you have no clue what you’re wearing. what you’re doing to him. 

“s’mine,” he growls out. tone a little harsher than he means for it to be. 

you finish stuffing your dirty sheets into the washing machine, dropping a soap pod in after them before slamming the lid closed. 

looking down at the shirt you’re wearing, the fact that it’s simon’s is becoming increasingly obvious. it smells like him, it’s about three sizes too big, and it’s sporting a logo reading TF141 over the left breast. pulling at the shirt until you can read the back, your eyes widen at the huge letters of his last name. 

“i’m sorry! d’you want it back?” you squeak out, mortified. 

“nah, keep it.” simon says, tone flippant. devil-may-care. 

if that’s the way it’s gonna be, maybe he’ll slip a pair of boxers into your laundry later.

༄ first time writing cod! writing simon! i thought of this prompt and just knew i needed to put fingers to keyboard about it. lmk if i need to explore this more! ❤︎