seraphine

⏔⏔⏔ ꒰ ᧔ෆ᧓ ꒱ ⏔⏔⏔

Jake's fork scraped against the plate, a grating sound that made Jay wince. It had been sitting there for the better part of three minutes, trapped between Jake's fingers and the congealing remains of his pasta. His hand was still. His eyes were open, but barely.

"Dude." Nothing. Jay kicked him under the table.

Jake jerked upright, blinking hard. The fork clattered onto the plate. "What?"

"You were asleep." Jay leaned forward, arms crossing over his chest. 

"I wasn't!" Jake rubbed his face with both hands, pressing his palms into his eyes hard enough that Jay could see the pressure whiten his knuckles. When he dropped them, his eyes were red-rimmed and unfocused. "I'm awake."

"You were holding a fork and drooling," Jay said. There was something almost gentle underneath the bluntness, the kind of concern that came out sideways because saying it straight felt too vulnerable.

"I wasn't drooling."

"You were definitely drooling." Sunghoon hadn't looked up from his phone. He was scrolling through something, thumb moving in lazy circles, but Jake knew he was paying attention. Sunghoon always paid attention, even when he pretended not to.

Jake looked down at his plate like he was trying to remember how it had gotten there. His pasta was half-eaten, pushed around more than consumed. The garlic bread sat untouched, cooling into something dense and unappetizing. He'd ordered it specifically because Jay told him to eat something with actual calories in it, and now it was just taking up space, another small failure in a series of them. The café around them hummed with the low murmur of conversation, the hiss of the espresso machine, the scrape of chairs against tile. It smelled like burnt coffee and something sweet that had been sitting under the heat lamp too long. The afternoon light slanted through the windows in pale, exhausted streaks, and Jake felt every bit as wrung out as the day looked.

Jay was still staring at him. "When's the last time you slept?"

"Last night."

"For how long?"

Jake didn't answer right away. He picked up his water glass instead, drank from it slowly, buying time. The ice had melted into pale slivers, and the water tasted faintly metallic. He could feel both of them watching him, waiting, and the weight of their attention made his shoulders want to curl inward.

"Jake."

"I don't know. A few hours."

"A few hours." Jay repeated it like he was testing the words, seeing if they sounded any less absurd the second time. He looked at Sunghoon, who finally glanced up from his phone, expression unreadable but pointed. "That's what we're calling it now?"

"It's fine," Jake said, and even he didn't believe it.

"You're falling asleep into your lunch. That's not fine." Jay's voice had gone quieter, which was somehow worse than if he'd yelled. Yelling, Jake could brush off. This careful, deliberate concern was harder to ignore.

Jake set the glass down too carefully, concentrating on not spilling it. His hands weren't shaking, but they weren't steady either. "I'm just tired."

"Yeah, no shit."

Sunghoon pocketed his phone, which was when Jake knew this had escalated past casual worry into something heavier. Sunghoon only put his phone away entirely when things were serious, when he needed both hands free or both eyes focused. He didn't say anything yet, just watched Jake with that patient, unblinking attention that made people confess things they hadn't meant to. It was the same look he'd had two years ago when Jake had finally admitted the night terrors had started, the same look he'd had last semester when Jake showed up at his door at three in the morning because he couldn't be alone in his apartment anymore.

Jake looked away first.  "You're both looking at me like I'm about to keel over."

"You literally just fell asleep holding a fork," Jay said. "We're a little worried."

"I'm fine." The words came out automatic, reflexive, the same thing he'd been saying for weeks now. Months, maybe. He'd lost track.

"You're not fine. You look like shit." Jay said it bluntly. 

Jake's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "Thanks."

"I'm serious." Jay leaned forward, elbows on the table, and his sandwich sat forgotten beside him, half-wrapped and leaking sauce onto the paper. "When's the last time you actually slept through the night?"

Jake looked toward the window, where a couple of students were walking past with their backpacks slung over one shoulder, laughing about something he couldn't hear. The world outside looked normal. He wondered what that felt like.

"I don't know," he said finally, because the truth was he genuinely couldn't remember. The nights had started blurring together sometime around midterms, a smear of dark hours and fragmented sleep and waking up with his heart trying to punch through his ribs.

"Weeks?" Sunghoon asked.

"Maybe." Jake picked up his fork again, stabbed a piece of pasta, and put it in his mouth without tasting it. Chewed. Swallowed. The motion was mechanical, something to fill the silence with other than the answer they wanted.

Then Jay sighed, the kind of exhale that said he'd made a decision. "We can stay over tonight."

"No." The word came out faster than Jake meant it to, sharp enough that the girl at the table next to them glanced over.

"You're not fine, and you know it. We can just crash on your couch. You don't even have to talk to us. We'll bring food, we'll stay out of your way, we'll just be there."

"I said no." Jake's grip on his fork tightened, knuckles going white. He could feel the panic starting to creep up the back of his throat, that familiar tightness that came whenever someone got too close to the truth of how bad it had gotten. They'd stayed over before, back when the night terrors first started, back when he still thought they might go away on their own. They'd seen him wake up gasping, seen him cry without knowing why, seen him stumble out of his bedroom at four in the morning looking like he'd been through a war. But that was years ago, and he'd gotten better at hiding it since then, better at managing it alone. Or he thought he had. Recently, though—

The sharpness in his own voice surprised him, and the table went quiet. Jay sat back, jaw tight, that muscle jumping near his ear the way it did when he was biting back something he wanted to say.

"We've done this before," Jay said, softer now, and there was something almost pleading in it. "It's not a big deal."

"It is to me," Jake said. His voice came out quieter than he meant, almost lost under the ambient noise of the café. 

"Why?"

Jake didn't answer. He couldn't. His throat had gone tight, and swallowing felt like work. He could tell them that the night terrors had changed, that they weren't just bad anymore but unbearable, that he'd started dreading sleep the way some people dreaded plane crashes or terminal diagnoses. He could tell them that last week he'd woken up on his bedroom floor with no memory of how he got there, that two nights ago he'd woken up screaming so loud his neighbor had knocked on the door to make sure he was okay. He could tell them he was afraid that if they stayed over and saw how bad it really was, they'd look at him differently, like he was broken in a way that couldn't be fixed.

Sunghoon spoke before Jay could push further. "We've seen each other at our lowest. You know that, right? I mean it. Jay cried for two hours when his dog died sophomore year. I had food poisoning so bad I couldn't get off the bathroom floor. You held my hair back while I puked into your toilet. None of us are keeping score."

Jay nodded, picking up the thread. "We're not going to judge you for having a bad night. Or a bad week. Or however long this has been going on. We've been there before, remember? You've let us stay over when it got bad. This isn't new."

"It's different now," Jake said, the words coming out before he could stop them.

"Different how?"

Jake set the fork down. His hands disappeared under the table, into his lap, where they could curl into fists without anyone seeing. "I don't want you there when it happens."

Jay frowned, leaning forward slightly. "When what happens?"

"The—" Jake stopped. His jaw clenched hard enough that it ached. "You know."

"The night terrors," Sunghoon said, not a question, just a statement of fact.

Jake flinched. He nodded once, a sharp, reluctant jerk of his head, and hated how small it made him feel.

"We've dealt with those before too," Jay said. There was something almost desperate in the reassurance, like if he just said the right thing, Jake would let them help.

"Not like this." Jake's voice was flat, drained of inflection.

"What do you mean, not like this?" Jay asked, and he sounded genuinely confused, like he couldn't fathom what could be worse than what they'd already seen.

Jake shook his head slowly. "It's worse. It's been worse.” He stopped again, exhaled hard through his nose, the breath shaking slightly on the way out. "I don't want you to see it." 

Jay wanted to push. Jake could feel it, the way you could feel a storm building on the horizon. But instead, Jay just exhaled slowly and said, "Okay."

Jake's head snapped up. "What?"

"Okay. We'll drop it." Jay picked up his sandwich, unwrapped it the rest of the way with deliberate, careful movements.

Jake blinked, caught off guard. They never dropped it. Jay especially never dropped it. "Really?"

"Yeah." Jay took a bite, chewed, swallowed, all while maintaining eye contact. "But you're still texting us when you get home."

"Fine," Jake muttered, because arguing would take more energy than he had, and besides, he could always just... not text them. They'd be annoyed, maybe, but they wouldn't actually show up. Probably.

"Good," Jay said, and some of the tension bled out of his shoulders. He took another bite of his sandwich, and the conversation shifted, drifted toward safer territory. Sunghoon mentioned an assignment he was procrastinating on, something about a group project where half the group wasn't pulling their weight. Jay started complaining about a show he'd been watching, talking too fast the way he always did when he got excited about something, gesturing with his half-eaten sandwich in a way that made the guy at the next table lean slightly away.

Jake contributed when prompted, but his answers were short, distracted. His eyes kept losing focus, drifting toward the window or the middle distance, pulled somewhere else entirely. The exhaustion sat behind his eyes like a physical weight, dragging at him, making his thoughts feel slow and thick. He picked at his pasta without eating it, moved the garlic bread from one side of his plate to the other, drank his water in small, measured sips. The conversation washed over him like white noise, familiar and distant at the same time.

By the time Jay flagged down their server and paid the check, Jake looked worse than when they'd arrived. The brief nap, if you could even call it that, hadn't helped. If anything, it had made him look more wrung out, like his body had tasted rest and resented being denied it. His eyes were heavier now, lids drooping despite his best efforts to keep them open. His face had that grayish tint that came from too many sleepless nights strung together, the kind of exhaustion that went bone-deep.

Outside, the late afternoon air was cool, almost cold, carrying the first real bite of autumn. Jake shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and hunched his shoulders against the wind, which cut through the fabric like it wasn't there. The sun was already starting to sink, casting long shadows across the pavement, and Jake felt a familiar dread settle in his stomach. Another few hours until he'd have to decide whether to sleep or keep himself awake, whether to face what waited for him in his dreams or suffer through another night of forced consciousness.

He didn't say goodbye, just nodded once in their general direction and started walking in the direction of his apartment, his stride a little uneven, his gait slower than usual. He could feel their eyes on his back, the weight of their concern following him down the block, but he didn't turn around.

────୨ৎ────

The file lands in your assignment queue at 11:47 PM, which is typical. They always send the hard cases at night, like the timing will soften the blow.

You open it. Male, early twenties, severe night terrors since adolescence, chronic insomnia, three previous guardians rotated off due to lack of progress. Of course. You scroll down. History of sleep avoidance, documented panic attacks during REM cycles, persistent nightmares characterized by looping scenarios and high-intensity fear response. The notes from the previous guardians are clinical, but you can read between the lines.

You close the file and stare at the ceiling of the archive room.

Jungwon is sitting across from you, already reading through his own assignment with that focused, unbothered expression he always has. He's been a guardian longer than you have, but somehow he still manages to look peaceful about it, like this work hasn't worn him down to raw nerves and resentment yet. You don't know how he does it. 

"What did you get?" you ask, even though you already know the answer won't make you feel better.

He glances up, blinking like he's surfacing from deep water. "Eight-year-old. Scared his teeth are falling out. The adult ones are coming in, and he keeps dreaming they all come loose at once."

You stare at him. "That's it?"

"Well, there's some anxiety around the dentist, and his parents recently divorced, so there's probably some underlying fear of instability manifesting as—"

"And mine," you interrupt, because if you let him finish that sentence you're going to scream, "is a twenty-something with severe night terrors, chronic insomnia, and a history of three failed guardian rotations."

"That does sound difficult," he says, and he means it, which somehow makes it worse.

"Difficult." You laugh, sharp and humorless. "That's one word for it."

"What would you prefer?"

"Impossible. A waste of my time." You open the file again, skim the details you've already read twice. The previous guardians left notes. Dreamer exhibits extreme resistance to standard interventions. Nightmares intensify with direct contact. Recommend specialized assignment, which is code for we couldn't handle this, so we're passing it to someone who can.

That someone is always you.

"Have you asked for reassignment?" Jungwon asks, and his voice is careful, gentle, like he's trying not to spook you.

"To what?" You don't look at him. You're still reading, even though you've memorized every word by now. "Another hard case? They'll just give me something equally bad. Or worse."

"You could request a break."

"When's the last time you saw anyone get a break?" You close the file again, rubbing your eyes with the heels of your hands hard enough that spots bloom behind your eyelids. "I'll manage."

"I know you will," Jungwon says, and he sounds so certain, so completely convinced of your competence, that you want to tell him to stop. 

You just nod, pick up the file, and stand. The archive room shifts around you, responding to your intention to leave, the walls thinning and curving until there's a doorway where there wasn't one before.

"Good luck," Jungwon says behind you.

You don't respond. Luck has nothing to do with it.

The dreamer's name is Jake. You learn this from the file, along with a dozen other details that paint a picture of someone who has been suffering for years and will likely continue suffering for years more. The night terrors started when he was sixteen, seventeen, somewhere in that range. 

You've handled cases like this before. The protocol is straightforward: observe, stabilize, regulate the dream cycles, minimize harm. Do not intervene beyond what is necessary. Do not get involved. Do not stay longer than three months unless there are extenuating circumstances.

The first night, you don't do anything. You just observe.

Jake falls asleep at 2:17 AM, which tells you everything you need to know about his sleep schedule. He's been awake for hours, fighting it, and his body finally gave out. The dreams start almost immediately, bypassing the usual descent into deeper sleep. His subconscious is a mess, fragmented and volatile. 

You stand at the edge of it and catalog what you see. The dream has no coherent setting, just a series of overlapping spaces that bleed into each other without logic or transition. A hallway that becomes a staircase that becomes a room with no doors. The lighting is wrong, too harsh and too dim at the same time, casting shadows that don't match the objects creating them. Everything feels precarious, like it's barely holding together.

And then the nightmare starts.

You've seen worse, but not by much. It's a classic looping scenario, the kind that traps a dreamer in repetition until they wake from sheer exhaustion or panic. He's looking for something, searching through the nonsensical architecture of his own mind, and every time he gets close, the dream resets. The walls shift. The doors disappear.

The nightmare cycles three more times before his body forces him awake. He sits up in bed gasping, and you can feel the echo of his panic even though you're not fully inside the dream anymore. His heart rate is erratic. His hands are shaking. He reaches for the lamp on his bedside table and turns it on, flooding the room with light. He just sits there, breathing hard, waiting for his body to believe that he's safe.

He's not going to fall asleep again. You can tell from the way he's already reaching for his phone, the way he's pushing the blankets off like the bed is contaminated. He'll stay awake until morning, running on fumes and adrenaline, and tomorrow night will be the same.

You pull back, disconnecting from his dream space, and return to the archive room, where Jungwon is probably already asleep and dreaming pleasant, uncomplicated dreams about children who are afraid of dentists.

────୨ৎ────

You try again the next night.

Jake's dreamscape is there, technically, but it's barely holding form. You've seen this before in dreamers with severe insomnia, the way their subconscious becomes hostile territory when they've been awake too long. The space rejects you before you can even fully enter, pushing back like a hand against your chest. The edges are serrated, sharp with exhaustion and anxiety, and the few images that do surface are fragmented beyond recognition. A door handle. The corner of a ceiling. Someone's voice, distorted and layered over itself until it's just noise.

He's not asleep. Not really. His body might be horizontal, his eyes might be closed, but his mind is still running, still fighting, caught in that terrible in-between state where rest is impossible and waking is unbearable.

You pull back. There's nothing you can do here. The protocol is clear: you can't stabilize a dreamer who isn't dreaming.

The second night is worse.

You enter the edges of his dreamscape and immediately feel the wrongness of it. The space is collapsing in on itself, folding and refolding like paper in a fist. His subconscious is eating itself, turning inward with nowhere else to go.

You try to anchor yourself somewhere stable enough to work, but the dreamscape lurches and spits you out. The rejection is almost physical, a shove that sends you back to the archive room with your equilibrium spinning.

Jungwon glances up from his own work. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," you say, even though you're not. Your hands are trembling slightly, residual feedback from the ejection. It doesn't usually hit you this hard, but Jake's dreamscape is particularly volatile. Two nights of forced wakefulness have turned his subconscious into a minefield.

The third night, you don't even bother trying to enter. You can feel the dreamscape from a distance, and you know it's pointless. He's still awake, still fighting, still running himself into the ground. The file didn't mention this level of avoidance, but maybe the previous guardians never pushed hard enough to see it. Maybe they rotated off before it got to this point.

You're in the archive room, not really reading through Jake's file so much as staring at it, when the dreamscape snaps into sudden, sharp existence.

It's not gradual, the way sleep usually is. One moment there's nothing, and the next moment the dreamscape is there, fully formed and pulling at you with desperate urgency.

He's crashed.

You enter without thinking, without the usual careful approach, because the dreamscape is already destabilizing and if you don't act now it's going to collapse into a full night terror before he's even fully unconscious.

The space is dark. You can feel Jake's presence somewhere in it, his consciousness flickering like a candle in a wind tunnel. He's not aware, not really. His mind is too exhausted to form coherent thoughts, too wrung out to do anything but freefall into the void his body has forced him into.

The darkness ripples. You can feel the nightmare building underneath it, gathering mass and momentum, fed by days of accumulated fear and exhaustion. It's going to be bad. This is the kind of night terror that leaves psychological scars, the kind that traumatizes a dreamer badly enough that they'll avoid sleep for weeks afterward, which will only make the next crash worse, which will make the next nightmare worse, spiraling down and down until something breaks permanently.

You step forward into the darkness and begin to work.

The nightmare doesn't want to be dismantled. It fights you, surging up like a wave, trying to solidify before you can break it apart. You can feel its shape, all teeth and drowning and the terrible certainty that something is coming and there's nowhere to run. It's pulling from Jake's worst fears, from years of accumulated dread, and it has momentum on its side.

But you're faster. You've done this before, too many times to count, and your hands know the movements before your mind has fully processed them. You reach into the fabric of the dream and pull, unraveling the nightmare thread by thread. You soften the darkness, diluting it with gray, with the suggestion of light. You take the weight out of the air, the pressure that makes it feel like drowning. You find the thing that's chasing him, the shapeless terror that his mind has conjured, and you erase it.

It's not easy. The nightmare keeps trying to rebuild itself, keeps reaching for the worst possibilities, but you're patient and precise. Eventually it gives up. The dreamscape settles into something calm. 

Jake's consciousness is still flickering, barely aware, but you can feel the moment his body registers the shift. His mind, finally, mercifully, stops fighting.

You stand in the dreamscape and watch as it begins to shape itself into something gentler. A room, plain and unremarkable. Four walls, a window, soft light that doesn't come from any particular source. He'll sleep through the night, maybe longer, considering how badly he needed this.

Jake enters the dreamscape slowly, like someone wading into water they don't trust.

He looks around, his movements careful and deliberate despite the dream logic that should make everything feel fluid and easy. His shoulders are tense. His hands are loose at his sides, but there's a readiness to them, like he's prepared to fight or run at the first sign of wrongness. He's looking for the trap. 

Of course he is. His subconscious doesn't believe in peace anymore. It's just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He takes a step forward, and the dream holds. The floor doesn't dissolve. The walls don't shift. 

"This isn't real," he says, and his voice is rough, scraped raw from exhaustion. He's not talking to anyone, just stating a fact, trying to orient himself in a space that feels wrong because it feels too right.

You stay silent. You're not supposed to interact with dreamers directly unless absolutely necessary, and you've already broken enough protocol tonight just by intervening this much. Talking to him would cross another line, one you're not ready to cross yet.

He walks to the window and looks out at the nothing beyond it. His reflection is faint in the glass, and you can see the toll the last few days have taken. Even in a dream, he looks exhausted. 

"What are you?" he asks the reflection, or the room, or maybe himself. His hand comes up to touch the glass, fingers spreading against the surface. "You're different."

He turns away from the window and walks to the center of the room. He sits down on the floor, cross-legged, like he's claiming the space. His eyes are moving constantly, tracking things you haven't placed, looking for patterns that aren't there.

"I know you're not going to last," he says, and there's something almost conversational about it, like he's talking to the dream itself. "Nothing does. So you might as well just get it over with."

He's waiting for the nightmare to start. He doesn't believe this is real, doesn't believe it will hold, and some part of you feels something uncomfortably close to pity.

Not sympathy. You're not supposed to feel sympathy for dreamers. That's how guardians get compromised, how they start making decisions based on emotion instead of protocol. But pity is different. Pity is just the clinical recognition that someone is suffering and that the suffering is, objectively, unfortunate.

You can feel pity without it meaning anything.

He sits there for a long time, waiting for something terrible to happen. The dreamscape holds because you're holding it, maintaining the stability with the same steady pressure you'd use to keep a wound from bleeding. It's work, more work than it should be, because his subconscious keeps trying to assert itself, keeps reaching for the familiar patterns of fear and panic.

Eventually, slowly, his shoulders start to lower. The tension doesn't leave entirely, but it eases, just enough that you can tell his body is overriding his mind's insistence that this is dangerous. He's so tired.

His eyes start to close. He fights it for a moment, head jerking back up, but his body has made the decision for him. He tips sideways, slow and ungraceful, until he's lying on the floor of the dream with one arm pillowed under his head.

"Fuck," he mumbles, and his eyes close fully. "Fine."

The dreamscape shifts around him, responding to his surrender. The room softens further, the floor beneath him becoming something closer to a bed, though you're careful to keep it subtle enough that he won't notice the change and wake himself up with suspicion. The light dims, just enough to signal that it's safe to sleep.

You stay at the edge of the dreamscape and watch his breathing even out, watch the frantic energy finally drain out of him. His face smooths, losing some of that hunted look. 

────୨ৎ────

The next night, there's nothing.

You reach for Jake's dreamscape at the usual time and find the same hostile, fragmented static from before. He's awake again, or something close to it, his mind grinding itself down to nothing while his body screams for rest he refuses to give it.

You pull back and wait. When you check again an hour later, there’s still nothing. Two hours after that, the dreamscape is even worse, jagged and bleeding at the edges like a wound that won't close.

He's doing this on purpose.

The realization settles over you with a particular kind of frustration you've felt before, with other difficult cases, other dreamers who self-sabotage in ways that make your job impossible. He finally got a night of real sleep, the first in days, and instead of taking it as relief, he's treating it like a threat.

Of course he'd interpret one peaceful night as an anomaly instead of a turning point. Of course he'd go right back to running himself into the ground rather than risk hoping for something better.

You close your connection to his dreamscape and return to the archive room, where Jungwon is humming quietly to himself while he works. He's probably weaving together a dream about playground equipment or favorite stuffed animals, something gentle and easy that will make his eight-year-old dreamer smile in his sleep.

You don't say anything. There's nothing to say. Jake isn't sleeping, which means you can't work, which means you're just sitting here waiting for him to crash again.

The day passes. You check on Jake periodically, more out of routine than hope. His dreamscape remains inaccessible, a churning mess of exhaustion and anxiety that won't coalesce into anything workable. You can feel him deteriorating from a distance, the way his consciousness is starting to fray at the edges from lack of proper rest.

Jungwon finishes his shift and leaves with a quiet goodnight. You stay. There's no point in leaving when you're just going to have to come back and check again in a few hours.

By the second day, Jake's dreamscape has degraded to something almost unrecognizable. You've never seen a dreamer push themselves this hard for this long. A month of near-constant wakefulness, broken only by that one night you forced stability on him, and now he's right back to it. His subconscious is fragmenting in real time, splintering into pieces that don't fit together anymore.

If he keeps this up, he's going to cause permanent damage. 

It's mid-afternoon, earlier than you'd normally check, but something pulls your attention toward his dreamscape. It's still there, still barely functional, but there's a change in the quality of it. You reach for it carefully, ready to be rejected again, but this time the dreamscape doesn't push back. 

Jake's consciousness is flickering in and out, caught in that terrible half-asleep state where the body has started shutting down but the mind is still trying to fight it. You can feel him slipping, his awareness dimming and flaring and dimming again as he loses the battle against his own exhaustion.

He's not in bed. The dreamscape tells you that much. He's somewhere else, somewhere his body decided it couldn't stay upright anymore. A couch, maybe. Somewhere he sat down for just a moment and couldn't get back up.

The dreamscape is starting to form, pulling itself together out of the wreckage of his consciousness, but it's unstable. He's too wound up to dream peacefully. This is going to go bad fast if you don't intervene.

You don't hesitate this time. Protocol be damned. You find the center of it, the place where the nightmare is trying to anchor itself, and you sever the connection. The darkness writhes, tries to rebuild around a different fear, but you're already there, already cutting it off. You work quickly, methodically, the way you've learned to after years of doing this, finding each thread of terror before it can weave itself into something solid. The nightmare collapses under your hands, dissolving back into the shapeless anxiety it came from, and you smooth even that away until there's nothing left but empty space.

The dreamscape shudders and settles into something neutral. Jake's consciousness is barely present, a flicker of awareness that doesn't even register where he is or what's happening. He's too far gone for that, too exhausted to be anything other than a passenger in his own mind.

Good. That makes this easier.

You shape the dreamscape carefully, gently, building something that won't trigger his suspicion when he surfaces enough to notice. A bed this time, simple and unremarkable. Soft light. No windows, no doors, nothing that suggests an exit or a trap. 

His consciousness settles into it like a stone dropping into water, sinking down and down until there's nothing left but the slow, even rhythm of actual sleep. 

Hours pass. The dreamscape holds. Jake sleeps.

The dreamscape remains stable without much effort on your part now. You've done the hard work already, dismantled the nightmare before it could take root, shaped the space into something that won't trigger his hypervigilance. Now it's just maintenance, small adjustments when the edges start to fray, gentle corrections when his anxiety tries to bubble up. Easy work. The kind you could do in your sleep, if guardians slept.

You should leave. He's stable enough that another guardian could monitor him, or you could just let the dreamscape run its course and check back in a few hours. You've already spent more time on this than you should have, more energy than a single intervention warrants.

But there's something almost peaceful about watching him rest. Not peaceful for you, exactly. You're not sentimental enough to pretend this is enjoyable. There's a satisfaction in it, the same satisfaction you'd get from solving a difficult problem or finishing a task that everyone else said was impossible. He's sleeping. After days of watching him tear himself apart and feeling his dreamscape reject you over and over, he's finally resting.

It won't last. You know that. One good sleep doesn't undo weeks of damage, doesn't fix whatever is broken in him that makes the nightmares so severe in the first place. Tomorrow night he'll probably go right back to avoiding sleep, and you'll be back to square one.

But for now, for these few hours, you've done your job. You've given him what he needed, even if he doesn't know you exist.

That should be enough.

You're starting to pull back, preparing to disconnect and return to the archive room, when something shifts.

Someone is waking him up.

You feel it before it happens, the way the dreamscape starts to destabilize in response to stimuli from the waking world. Sound, first. A voice, muffled and distant but insistent. Then touch. A hand on his shoulder, shaking gently.

The dreamscape flickers. Jake's consciousness rises toward wakefulness like a bubble rising through water, slow and inevitable.

No. Not yet. He's barely been asleep for three hours, maybe four. His body needs more than that. He needs more than that.

You try to hold the dreamscape together, to keep him under for just a little longer, but you can't fight the physical world. Someone is actively trying to wake him, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. The dreamscape is already dissolving around the edges, losing coherence as his awareness surfaces.

The voice comes again, clearer now. "Jake. Hey. Wake up."

Sunghoon. You don't know how you know that, but you do. Maybe it's something in the tone, something Jake's subconscious recognizes even as it's being dragged back to consciousness. 

"Come on, man. Library's closing. We have to go."

The dreamscape fractures. Jake's consciousness pulls away from sleep like a riptide in reverse, and you're left standing in the ruins of the peaceful space you built for him, watching it collapse into nothing as he wakes.

You disconnect fully and return to the archive room. All that careful intervention, all those hours of monitoring and maintaining and making sure he got the rest he so desperately needed. And for what? Three hours, maybe four. Barely enough to take the edge off his exhaustion, nowhere near enough to actually help.

You pull up his file and add another note. Dreamer achieved stable sleep for approximately 3-4 hours before external interruption. Will continue monitoring. The words are clipped, professional, but you can feel the irritation bleeding through them anyway.

────୨ৎ────

You shouldn't do this.

The thought occurs to you as you're already reaching back into Jake's consciousness, toward the memories that sit just below the surface. 

You're looking for Sunghoon and Jay specifically,  the two names that keep appearing in Jake's dreams, always associated with a complicated tangle of trust and shame and guilt.

It takes almost no effort to find what you're looking for. The memories are right there, worn smooth from repeated examination, the way Jake turns them over in his mind when he can't sleep. You pull one forward and let it unspool.

Jake's apartment. Nighttime. The layout is slightly wrong, the way memories always are, details filled in incorrectly or left vague because they weren't important at the time. The emotional content is clear. Jake is sitting on his bed, exhausted and afraid. Sunghoon on the floor with his back against the wall, controller in hand, playing something on muted volume. Jay sprawled in the desk chair, scrolling through his phone but glancing up every few minutes to check on Jake.

"You should try to sleep," Jay says, and there's worry underneath the casualness.

"I'm fine," Jake says, automatic.

"You're not fine. You look like death."

"Thanks."

They go back and forth like this for a while, the same circular argument you've heard variations of in Jake's other memories. Jay pushing, Jake deflecting, Sunghoon watching quietly and occasionally interjecting with something that cuts through the tension. Eventually Jake lies down, and Jay and Sunghoon stay, and the memory ends with Jake staring at the ceiling while his friends pretend to be absorbed in their respective distractions.

You pull another memory. Similar scene, different night. This time it's worse. Jake wakes up mid-nightmare, and Sunghoon is there immediately, hand on his shoulder, voice low and steady. "You're awake. You're okay. It was just a dream." Jay appears in the doorway, hesitant, unsure what to do. Jake is shaking, can't seem to catch his breath, and Sunghoon just stays there, grounding presence, until the panic passes.

Another memory. Jay bringing him food because Jake keeps forgetting to eat. "You need to take care of yourself, man." Said with frustration, with helplessness, because Jay is the kind of person who needs to fix things and this is something he can't fix.

Another. Sunghoon staying up with him through an entire night, not saying much, just being there. 

You watch memory after memory unspool, and a picture forms. Two people who care deeply, who have tried everything they can think of, who have watched their friend suffer for years and never figured out how to make it stop. They've done research, suggested doctors, offered medication, stayed over countless times. They've seen him at his worst and never left.

And none of it has worked.

They can't touch the dreams themselves. They can't reach into his subconscious and dismantle the nightmares before they form. They can't do what you do.

You're pulling back from the memories, vaguely annoyed at yourself for the detour, when you feel Jake's consciousness starting to sink again, pulled down by exhaustion that three hours of sleep did nothing to satisfy.

He's falling asleep.

You shouldn't enter yet. He's still too close to wakefulness, still aware enough that the dreamscape will be unstable and potentially dangerous. Standard protocol is to wait until he's fully under, until his consciousness has settled into proper REM sleep.

But you're already moving, already reaching for the dreamscape as it starts to form, because if you wait he might fight it, might pull himself back to wakefulness out of habit or fear, and you're not letting that happen.

The dreamscape materializes around you, half-formed and flickering. You can feel the waking world bleeding through, sounds and sensations that shouldn't be present in a dream. Voices. Movement.

You push deeper into the forming dreamscape and the shapes resolve into something more concrete. Jake's bedroom. The details are sharper than they should be, more accurate, because he's still aware enough to be pulling from recent memory rather than letting his subconscious improvise.

He's in bed. Or his dream-self is in bed, which amounts to the same thing. There are two other figures in the room.

Sunghoon and Jay.

They're trying to help him sleep. You can see it in the way the dream has shaped them, turned them into gentle, supportive presences. Sunghoon is adjusting the blanket, making sure it's covering him properly. Jay is messing with something on the desk, probably the white noise machine that you can hear humming in the background.

"Better?" Sunghoon asks, and his voice is soft, careful.

Jake makes a noncommittal sound. He's tense, you can see it in the line of his shoulders, the way his hands are fisted in the blanket. His eyes are closed but he's not relaxed. 

"Try to sleep," Jay says from across the room. "We'll be right here."

"I know," Jake says, and there's guilt in his voice, thick and obvious. Guilt that they have to do this, that they're spending their night watching over him instead of doing literally anything else.

They mean well. You can see that clearly. The dream has rendered them with affection, with trust. These are people Jake loves, people he feels safe with.

But they're not helping.

Sunghoon sits down on the floor next to the bed, settling in like he's planning to stay there all night. Jay turns off the overhead light, leaves the desk lamp on. They're making him physically comfortable. All the external factors are right. 

None of it matters, because the problem isn't external.

You can feel Jake's anxiety from here, radiating through the dreamscape like heat. He's afraid to fall asleep. Having Sunghoon and Jay there helps in the waking world, gives him people to ground him when he wakes up screaming, but it does nothing to prevent the nightmares from happening in the first place.

The dreamscape flickers, unstable because Jake is still too aware, still caught between sleeping and waking. You've already broken protocol twice with him. What's one more time?

You reach into the dreamscape and start making adjustments. Small ones, subtle enough that he won't consciously register them. You dim the anxiety first, not erasing it but muting it, turning down the volume on the fear response that's keeping him wired. The tension in his shoulders eases slightly. 

Then you adjust the dream-versions of Sunghoon and Jay. They're already helpful, already supportive, but you sharpen that, make their presence feel more solid, more grounding. The white noise machine is too loud. You soften it. The lamp is too bright. You dim it further. The blanket is the wrong weight. You adjust the dream-logic until it feels exactly right, heavy enough to be comforting without being restrictive.

Jake's breathing starts to even out.

You work carefully, precisely, making change after change so small that Jake's conscious mind doesn't flag any of them as wrong. This is the kind of intervention that takes skill, that requires you to understand not just what the dreamer needs but how to give it to them without triggering their defenses.

This is what you're good at. This is what the elders keep you around for.

The dreamscape stabilizes. Jake's consciousness finally, finally lets go, sinking down into proper sleep. The dream-versions of Sunghoon and Jay fade into the background, becoming less distinct as Jake's awareness of the waking world dims. They'll disappear entirely in a few minutes, replaced by whatever his subconscious decides to populate the dream with.

You'll make sure it's nothing that hurts him.

────୨ৎ────

Three weeks in, and Jake is sleeping almost normally.

You’re not a miracle worker, and his subconscious is still a minefield of anxiety and trauma that will take months to fully stabilize, if it ever does. But he’s sleeping through most nights now, going to bed at reasonable hours instead of fighting consciousness until his body gives out. The night terrors still happen, but you’ve learned to catch them early, to dismantle them before they can take root and traumatize him badly enough to send him back into avoidance.

You’ve also started giving him actual dreams instead of just neutral space, just small scenes that feel normal enough to be forgettable. The kind of dreams regular people have, the kind that don’t mean anything and don’t leave any residue when you wake up.

Tonight he’s eating ice cream.

It’s a simple dream, almost aggressively mundane. He’s sitting on a bench in a park you’ve constructed from generic elements, with trees, grass, and a path winding into the distance. The ice cream is vanilla, melting slightly in the sun that you’ve calibrated to be warm but not uncomfortable.

His dream-self seems content with this. He takes another bite, watches a bird hop across the path in front of him, tilts his face toward the sun. There’s no tension in his shoulders, no hypervigilance in the way he scans his surroundings. 

You’ve been maintaining dreams with small, peaceful moments like this for over a week now. Jake having coffee with Jay and Sunghoon at their usual café. Jake walking through campus between classes. Jake reading in his apartment with rain pattering against the window. Nothing exciting, nothing memorable, just the texture of a normal life rendered in dream-logic.

Last night you gave him something a little more dynamic. He was at the café with his friends, and Sunghoon knocked over his coffee. Jay laughed so hard he choked on his sandwich, and Jake just sat there grinning while Sunghoon tried to mop up the mess with a handful of napkins that kept disintegrating. It was light, silly, the kind of thing that happens in regular dreams. The kind of thing that would make someone wake up and think huh, weird, before forgetting about it entirely.

You’ve been careful to include small anxieties too, the normal kind that don’t spiral into terror. Dreams where he’s late to class, or can’t find his keys, or accidentally wore mismatched shoes. Yesterday he dreamed he overslept and missed an exam, woke up in a panic, checked his phone, and realized it was Saturday. The fear was real but proportional, manageable, the kind of stress that didn’t require your intervention.

It’s important that the dreams don’t seem too good. Dreamers notice when everything is too pleasant, when nothing ever goes wrong. Their subconscious rebels against it and tries to assert the anxiety that’s being suppressed. You learned that early in your training. The best dreams are the ones that feel real, complete with minor frustrations and small embarrassments and moments of awkwardness.

Tonight’s ice cream dream is going well. You’re monitoring it with half your attention, which is all it requires at this point, when something shifts.

Jake stops eating.

You focus fully on the dreamscape, scanning for problems. Did something slip through? A nightmare trying to assert itself, a spike of anxiety you missed?

Jake is looking directly at you. His dream-self has turned on the bench, ice cream forgotten in his hand, and he’s staring at the exact spot where you’re standing at the edge of the dreamscape.

Your presence isn’t visible. It shouldn’t be visible. You’re not part of the dream, you’re separate from it, existing in a space adjacent to his consciousness but not inside it. Dreamers can’t perceive you unless you choose to manifest, and you have never, not once, chosen to do that with him.

But he’s looking right at you.

You don’t move. You’re not even sure you could. The dreamscape continues around him, the sun still shining, the bird still hopping along the path, but Jake is completely still, ice cream starting to drip down his hand, eyes fixed on a point in space that should be empty.

Maybe it’s coincidence. Maybe he’s just looking in that general direction, staring at nothing the way people sometimes do in dreams.

“Hello?” he says.

The word drops into the dreamscape like a stone into still water. You feel the ripples of it, the way his consciousness sharpens slightly, awareness increasing in a way that’s dangerous for someone who’s supposed to be dreaming.

Jake’s eyes narrow slightly. He’s still looking at the same spot, and his expression has shifted from curious to something more intent.

“I know you’re there,” he says, and his voice is quieter now, more certain. “I can feel it.”

No. No, he can’t. That’s not how this works. Dreamers don’t feel guardians. They don’t perceive the maintenance happening around them. You’re as invisible to them as the mechanics of their own heartbeat.

Except he’s still staring at you, and the dreamscape is starting to shift in response to his focus, the edges sharpening as his awareness increases. He’s getting too lucid. If he keeps this up, he’s going to wake himself up, or worse, he’s going to destabilize the dream enough that the nightmares can slip back in.

You need to do something to redirect his attention.

You reach into the dreamscape and manifest a dog. It’s medium-sized, friendly-looking, the kind that people smile at automatically. It trots up to Jake’s bench, tail wagging, and pushes its nose against his free hand.

Jake doesn’t react.

“You’ve been here before,” he continues. “Every time I sleep now, you’re here. Aren’t you?”

The ice cream slips from his hand and falls to the ground. He doesn’t notice. The dog sniffs at it and then looks up at you, like it’s waiting for instructions, because of course it is. You created it, it’s just an extension of your will.

You pull the dog back, dissolve it before Jake can notice that it’s not behaving like a real dog would. The dreamscape flickers. His awareness is spiking, consciousness rising toward wakefulness, and you’re losing your grip on the stability you’ve worked so hard to maintain.

You need to leave. Now.

You disconnect, pulling back so fast it’s almost violent, severing the connection and returning to the archive room with your equilibrium spinning. Your hands are shaking slightly, residual feedback from the abrupt exit, and there’s a cold feeling in your chest that you don’t want to name.

He saw you.

No. He didn’t. He couldn’t have. Dreamers can’t perceive guardians. It’s impossible.

You pull up his file with hands that are still unsteady, scrolling through the notes from previous guardians, looking for any mention of awareness.

There’s nothing about lucid dreaming.

You wait longer than usual before entering Jake’s dreamscape the next night. You enter more cautiously than you have in weeks. The dreamscape is already formed when you arrive, which is normal. Jake’s subconscious has gotten better at constructing stable environments on its own, now that it’s not constantly bracing for nightmares.

He’s in the café this time, the one he frequents with Jay and Sunghoon. You settle at the edge of the dreamscape and watch. Everything seems normal. His awareness is at the usual level for this stage of sleep, present enough to engage with the dream, but not so present that he’s analyzing it. He takes a sip of coffee. 

You start to relax. Last night was nothing. He happened to look in your direction at the same time he was surfacing toward lucidity, and his mind tried to make sense of the vague awareness by addressing it directly. It doesn’t mean he actually saw you.

Then Jake’s gaze slides toward your position, and your chest goes cold.

He’s looking at you again.

His eyes are clearer than they should be. This is lucidity, or something close to it, and it’s spreading through the dreamscape like ice across water. You can feel it in the way the details sharpen, the way the café becomes more solid. The dream is stabilizing around his awareness instead of existing independently of it.

This is bad. This is very bad.

Lucid dreamers are difficult to work with under the best circumstances. They fight intervention, try to control the dream themselves, destabilize carefully constructed environments. If Jake takes control of the dream right now, if he pushes too hard, the whole thing could collapse into the kind of nightmare you’ve spent weeks protecting him from.

“You’re here again,” Jake says, and his voice is quiet but certain. He sets his coffee down, leans forward slightly. “I thought maybe I imagined it last night."

You pull back immediately, preparing to sever the connection, but the dreamscape resists. It’s too stable now, too anchored by his lucidity. Disconnecting abruptly could shock him awake, could trigger exactly the kind of panic response you’ve been trying to avoid.

His awareness is sharpening further. The café around him is gaining details you didn’t place. His subconscious is filling in the gaps, making this more real, and the more real it becomes, the harder it is for you to manipulate.

“I know you can hear me,” he says, still looking at you, and there’s something in his voice that makes your throat tight. “I don’t know what you are, but you’ve been helping me, haven’t you? The dreams are different now because of you.

You reach into the dreamscape and manifest a figure behind Jake. Sunghoon. You pull the image from Jake’s memories, render him as accurately as possible, and place him in the chair across from Jake like he’s been there the whole time.

“Jake?” Sunghoon says, because you need him to say something to redirect Jake’s attention before this gets any worse.

Jake doesn’t turn around.

“I’m not crazy,” he says, still looking at your position. “I know something is—”

“Jake,” Sunghoon says again, louder this time, and you push urgency into his voice, making it impossible to ignore.

Jake’s head turns, finally, breaking eye contact with the space where you’re standing. He blinks at Sunghoon like he’s surprised to see him there. He looks around the café, then back at Sunghoon. “Have you been here the whole time?”

“Yeah?” Sunghoon says, and you’re controlling him directly now, puppeting him through the conversation because you need this to work. “You good? You zoned out for a second there.”

Jake stares at him. You can see the confusion working across his face, the dream-logic trying to assert itself against his lucidity. He was talking to someone. Something. But Sunghoon is here now, has apparently been here, and dreams don’t always make sense. Maybe he was talking to Sunghoon the whole time. Maybe his mind invented the presence he thought he felt.

“I’m fine,” Jake says slowly. “Just tired, I guess.”

“You want to get out of here?” Sunghoon asks, because you need to move the dream somewhere else, somewhere that doesn’t have Jake staring at the spot where you’re standing.

“Yeah. Sure.”

They stand up, and you guide the dream into transition, shifting the café into a sidewalk, the sidewalk into campus, giving Jake’s mind something to follow so he stops trying to analyze what just happened. Sunghoon walks beside him, asking about classes, about an assignment due next week, normal conversation that sounds like something they’d actually talk about because you’re pulling it directly from Jake’s memories of similar conversations.

Jake responds, but he’s distracted. His eyes keep moving, scanning the dream like he’s looking for something.

You stay as far back as you can, maintaining the dream from a distance, keeping Sunghoon’s presence solid and distracting. The lucidity is fading slowly, his awareness dimming back to normal dream-consciousness. He’s accepting the dream again instead of questioning it.

But every few minutes, his gaze drifts toward empty spaces. 

────୨ৎ────

You enter Jake's dreamscape at the usual time, prepared to avoid anything that might trigger his awareness again.

The nightmare is already waiting. It’s fully constructed, massive and hungry. This isn't the usual gradual onset of a night terror that you can catch and dismantle before it takes hold. This is something that materialized the moment he fell asleep, something his subconscious has been building in the background while you've been giving him peaceful dreams.

The dreamscape is dark and cavernous, all wrong angles and oppressive weight. Jake is somewhere in the center of it. You can feel his terror from here, sharp and overwhelming. The nightmare has him caught in something, you can't see what yet, but it's bad. 

You don't hesitate. You throw yourself into the dreamscape and start trying to dismantle it, reaching for the threads of fear and yanking them apart. The nightmare fights back harder than anything you've encountered with him before. It's dense, layered, pulling from years of accumulated terror. Every time you break one piece apart, two more surge up to take its place.

The darkness ripples and reforms into a hallway that stretches endlessly in both directions. Jake is running. 

You reach for the thing that's chasing him, try to erase it, but your hands pass through it like smoke. It's too deeply rooted in his fear, too fundamental to the nightmare's structure. You try a different approach and lighten the darkness, shortening the hallway to give him an exit. The dreamscape resists. It's pulling from Jake's consciousness, feeding on his terror, and he's giving it so much fuel that you can barely make a dent.

The hallway splinters into multiple paths, each one worse than the last. The nightmare is fracturing, multiplying, becoming too many things for you to fight at once.

You're losing.

The realization hits you with a force that makes you stumble. You've never lost to a nightmare before. You've always been able to dismantle them, always been fast enough and skilled enough to break them apart before they could do real damage. But this one is too big, too entrenched, and Jake's fear is making it stronger with every passing second.

You try again, pulling at the fabric of the dream with everything you have. The hallway shortens slightly. The thing chasing him slows. You can feel his consciousness fragmenting, trying to escape by waking but unable to because the terror has him locked in place.

You need to do something drastic.

You reach for the core of the nightmare, the central fear that's powering everything else, and you wrench it sideways. The dreamscape shudders violently. Jake's terror spikes, but you don't stop. You tear at the nightmare's foundation until it starts to collapse.

The hallway dissolves. The thing chasing him dissipates into smoke. The darkness fragments into gray, into light, into nothing.

The dreamscape goes completely still.

You're shaking. You can feel it in your chest, residual feedback from how hard you just had to fight. That shouldn't have been that difficult. You're good at this. You've handled worse cases, more severe night terrors. Something about Jake's nightmare was different, like it had been gathering mass for weeks while you kept him safe.

Jake's consciousness is still there, flickering in the wreckage of the dream. You can feel his terror still overwhelming even though the nightmare is gone. He's not calming down the way he should, not settling back into peaceful sleep now that the threat is gone.

You should leave now, while the dreamscape is still unstable and formless, before he can latch onto anything. You're too shaken, too wrung out from the fight, and you hesitate for just a moment too long.

"Please," Jake says, and his voice cracks through the empty dreamscape like thunder. "Please don't leave."

He can't see you. You haven't manifested. You're just a presence, just the vague sense of something other that his consciousness has learned to associate with safety.

You can feel it, the way his consciousness is groping through the formless dreamscape, searching desperately for the thing that's been protecting him. 

"I know you're there," he says, and he sounds so young, so afraid. "I can feel you. Please, I just—I need—"

His consciousness finds you.

It's desperate, clinging, the way a drowning person grabs onto anything that might keep them afloat. His awareness wraps around your presence with crushing intensity, pulling you closer, refusing to let go. You can feel the shape of his terror, the depths of how afraid he just was, how afraid he still is. And underneath that, the bone-deep relief at finding you, at knowing he's not alone.

He's associated you with safety, as if the only thing that's protected him from the worst parts of his own mind. Now he's holding on like you're the only thing keeping him from drowning.

You try to pull back, to extract yourself from his grip, but his consciousness tightens further. He doesn't know what he's doing, doesn't understand the mechanics of the dreamscape or how guardians exist within it. He just knows that you're here and you're safe and he can't let you go.

The pressure increases. You can feel it compressing around you, forcing you into a shape you don't want to take. If he keeps this up, if he doesn't let go, he's going to pull you fully into the dreamscape. He's going to force you to manifest.

You need to break free. You wrench against his grip, trying to sever the connection, but his fear is too strong. His need is too strong. He's holding on with everything he has. You're not strong enough to fight both him and the residual nightmare and your own exhaustion all at once.

The dreamscape solidifies around you.

It's excruciating, like being turned inside out, pulled from the abstract into the concrete. The dreamscape renders you in three dimensions, gives you weight and substance and presence.

You manifest.

The gray nothingness of the post-nightmare dreamscape sharpens into something more defined. A room, plain and empty, with soft light coming from nowhere. In the center of it, Jake is on his knees, looking directly at you.

His eyes are wide, red-rimmed and wet. He's breathing hard, body shaking. He looks destroyed.

"You're real," he says, and his voice breaks on the last word.

Before you can move, before you can even think about disconnecting, Jake lunges forward and grabs you.

His arms wrap around you with desperate strength, his face pressing into your shoulder, and he's holding on like you're the only solid thing in the universe. You can feel him shaking against you, the raggedness of his breathing, and the way his hands are fisted in the fabric of whatever your manifestation is wearing.

"Please don't leave," he says into your shoulder, the words muffled and broken. "Please, I can't—I can't do that again, I can't—"

"Jake,” Your voice sounds strange to your own ears, foreign. You haven't spoken aloud in years. Guardians don't talk. There's never been a reason to.

"I know you're the one who's been helping me," he says, and he's talking fast now, words tumbling over each other. "I know it's you. The dreams, they're different now, they're better, and tonight when that thing was chasing me I could feel you fighting it." His grip tightens. "Please don't go. Whatever you are, wherever you came from, please just stay."

This is wrong. This is so fundamentally wrong that you don't even know where to begin cataloging the violations. Dreamers aren't supposed to see you. They're not supposed to know you exist. And they are absolutely, under no circumstances, supposed to be able to touch you.

The nightmare is gone but the fear hasn't faded. He's terrified that you're going to disappear, that he's going to be alone again with nothing between him and the worst parts of his own mind.

"You need to let go," you say, and you try to make your voice firm, authoritative, but it comes out too gentle.

"No." His arms tighten. "No, please, I'll do whatever you want, I'll stop trying to find you, just don't leave yet. Not yet.” His breath hitches. "I'm still so scared."

He's clinging to the only thing that makes him feel safe.

You.

He's clinging to you.

Some terrible, treacherous part of you doesn't want to let go.

"Please," he whispers. "Just a little longer. Just until I'm not so afraid."

Your arms come up slowly, carefully, and you hold him back.

"Okay," you hear yourself say. "Okay. Just for a little while."

Jake's breath shudders out of him, relief and residual fear tangled together. His grip on you doesn't loosen, but the desperation in it eases slightly.

You stand there and let him hold on, and you tell yourself this is just damage control. It doesn't mean anything.

You're already very good at lying to yourself.

────୨ৎ────

Jake's hands are shaking.

It's subtle, barely noticeable, but the coffee in his cup is rippling slightly, tiny waves lapping at the sides. He's staring at it, watching the surface tremble, and he doesn't realize Jay is saying something until a hand reaches across the table and plucks the cup from his grip.

"Hey!"

"You were about to spill it all over yourself," Jay says, setting the coffee down on the far side of the table, well out of Jake's reach. "When's the last time you slept?"

Jake blinks. "Last night."

"For how long?"

"I don't know. A few hours."

Jay and Sunghoon exchange a look. Jake catches it, that wordless communication they've perfected over years of friendship, and he knows what they're thinking. He was doing better. He was sleeping normally, going to bed at reasonable hours, waking up looking less like a reanimated corpse. And now he's back to this, jittery and distracted in a way that makes him miss entire chunks of conversation.

"What happened?" Sunghoon asks. His voice is even, careful, the way it always is when he's worried but trying not to show it.

Jake doesn't know how to answer that. What is he supposed to say? That he had the worst nightmare in weeks, maybe months? That would explain the exhaustion, the relapse into caffeine dependency, but it wouldn't explain the other thing he can't stop thinking about.

"I had a bad night," he says, which is true but insufficient.

"Night terror?" Jay asks.

"Yeah."

Jay hesitates. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." Jake reaches for his coffee automatically, forgetting Jay moved it. His hand closes on empty air. He pulls it back, shoves both hands under the table so they can't see the tremor. "It's fine. I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Jay says flatly. "You look like you're about to vibrate out of your skin."

"I just need more sleep."

"So sleep."

"I will."

"Tonight?"

Jake doesn't answer. He's looking out the window now, at the quad where students are sprawled on the grass between classes, talking and laughing and living normal lives where sleep is just something you do, not something you have to brace yourself for. The sunlight is too bright. Everything is too bright. He didn't sleep enough to process light properly, and his eyes keep losing focus.

"Jake." Sunghoon's voice cuts through the fog. "What's going on?"

Maybe it's the exhaustion, or maybe it's the fact that he's been carrying this alone for too long, but Jake hears himself say, "I met someone."

Both of them go still. Jay's eyebrows climb toward his hairline. "You... met someone?"

"Yeah."

"Like, a person? A real person?"

"Yes, Jay, a real person." Jake's mouth twitches, almost a smile. "What other kind is there?"

"I don't know, you've been acting so weird I wasn't sure." Jay leans forward, and there's something eager in his expression now, excited. "Okay. Tell us about her."

"How do you know it's a her?"

"Is it?"

"Yeah."

"Called it," Jay says to Sunghoon, who rolls his eyes. "Okay, so. Who is she? How'd you meet?"

Jake opens his mouth. The explanation that made sense in his head at three in the morning sounds insane now, in the middle of the day, sitting in the café with his friends looking at him expectantly. "She... helped me. With the nightmares."

"What, like a therapist?" Sunghoon asks.

"No. Not a therapist."

"Then what?"

Jake's fingers are tapping against his thigh under the table, restless, anxious. "I don't know exactly. She’s just been there when I sleep. She makes it better."

Jay and Sunghoon exchange another look, this one more concerned than before.

"Makes it better how?" Jay asks slowly.

"The dreams. They're different when she's there. Peaceful. The nightmares can't touch me when she's around." Jake knows he's not explaining this right, knows it sounds wrong, but he doesn't know how else to say it. "Last night, when I had that terror, she fought it off. I could feel her doing it. And then after, when I was still scared, she stayed."

"Okay," Jay says, drawing the word out. "So... she's in your class or something? And you've been hanging out?"

Jake runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. "It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?"

"She's..." How does he explain this? How does he put into words something that doesn't make sense even to him? "She's the reason I've been sleeping better. These past few weeks, when everything was good, that was her. She's been helping me."

"That's great," Jay says, and he sounds genuinely pleased, like this is normal, like Jake is describing a regular person who exists in the regular world. "You should ask her out."

"What?"

"Ask her out. If she's been helping you this much, if you're this into her, just go for it."

"I can't—it's not—" Jake's hands are back on the table now, fingers drumming arhythmically against the wood. "You don't understand."

"So help us understand," Sunghoon says. "What are we missing?"

Everything. They're missing everything. Jake looks at both of them, at their patient, concerned faces, and tries to find words that won't make them think he's lost his mind. "She's my savior."

The word lands heavy and strange. Jay blinks. "Your what?"

"She saved me from the nightmares." Jake's voice is getting more intense, more urgent, and he can hear it but he can't stop it. "You don't understand what it was like, every night, just waiting for it to get bad, knowing it was going to get bad, and then she fixed it. She made it stop. I can sleep now because of her."

"Okay," Jay says carefully. "That's... that's good, Jake. I'm glad you found someone who helps."

"She's not just someone." The words are coming faster now, tripping over each other. "She's the girl of my dreams. Literally.”

"Wait." Sunghoon holds up a hand. "Literally?"

Jake realizes his mistake too late. "I just mean—"

"You said literally." Sunghoon's eyes have sharpened, focused. "The girl of your dreams. You mean she's in your dreams."

"That's not—I didn't mean—"

"Jake." Jay's voice has lost its encouraging tone. Now he just sounds worried. "Is this girl real?"

"Yes." The answer is immediate, defensive. "She's real. I've seen her. I've talked to her. I've held her." The memory of it crashes over him again, the weight of her, the solid reality of her presence. The way she'd put her arms around him and told him it was okay, he was safe and she wasn't going anywhere.

"In your dreams," Sunghoon says. 

"No, listen." Jake leans forward, desperate to make them understand. "She's real. She exists. She's been protecting me this whole time. Every night when I sleep, she's there, and she keeps the bad things away." He's gesturing now, hands moving frantically. "She's the only reason I've been okay. Without her, I'd be back where I was before, terrified of my own mind.”

"What's her name?" Jay interrupts.

Jake stops. "What?"

"Her name. What's her name?"

The question sits between them like a trap. 

"You don't know her name," Jay says flatly.

"I haven't—we haven't—" Jake's hands are shaking again, worse now. "It's not about that. Names don't matter. "

"Jake." Sunghoon's voice is gentle, which somehow makes it worse. "I think you need to hear how this sounds."

"How what sounds?"

"You're talking about a girl you've never met outside of your dreams. A girl whose name you don't know, but you're calling your savior."

"Because she is." Jake can hear the desperation in his own voice. "You're not listening. She's real. What she does for me is real.”

"Do you hear yourself right now?" Jay asks, and there's something almost pleading in his voice.

"I sound crazy. I know." Jake slumps back in his chair, suddenly exhausted. The adrenaline that's been keeping him upright drains away all at once, leaving nothing but bone-deep weariness. "But I'm not. I'm not crazy. She's real."

"Maybe you should talk to someone," Sunghoon says. "A professional, just about the nightmares.”

"I don't need a therapist."

"Jake.”

"I need her." The words come out more raw than he intended. "I need her, and I know that sounds insane, but it's true. Without her, I'm—" He can't finish the sentence. Without her, he's drowning. Without her, he's back in the dark with nothing but his own fear for company. "I can't lose her."

"You can't lose someone you don't actually have," Jay says, and his voice is so gentle it feels like a knife.

They think he's breaking. They think the sleep deprivation has finally pushed him over some edge, made him lose his grip on reality.

"Forget it," he says quietly. He reaches for his coffee, remembers again that Jay moved it, and stands up instead. "I should go."

"Jake."

"I'm fine." He's backing away from the table, hands shoved in his pockets to hide the shaking. "I'll see you guys later."

Outside, the sunlight is still too bright. Jake squints against it and starts walking. His mind is racing, thoughts tumbling over each other in an exhausted tangle.

She's real. He knows she's real.

But he's never seen her outside of his dreams. When he tries to describe her, to explain what she looks like or anything concrete about her, the details slip away like smoke.

────୨ৎ────

You've been maintaining distance for three days now.

The elders didn't yell. They simply summoned you to their chamber and stated, with calm, inflectionless voices, that your recent reports showed concerning patterns of extended intervention and that you needed to recalibrate your approach to align with established protocol. 

You enter Jake's dreamscape only when absolutely necessary, dismantle nightmares from a distance, and leave before his consciousness can latch onto your presence.

It's destroying him.

You can see it in the way his dreamscape has started to fray again, anxiety creeping back into the edges like mold. His sleep is deteriorating, not as badly as before, but trending in that direction. He's fighting rest again. When he does sleep, his consciousness is agitated.

Tonight his dreamscape forms into something unstable, flickering between locations like he can't decide where he wants to be. The café. His apartment. Campus. Back to the café. Nothing settles.  His subconscious is too restless, too focused on something other than the dream itself.

You stay at the very edge of the dreamscape, monitoring from a distance. A nightmare starts to form, and you reach in just far enough to dismantle it. The nightmare dissolves before it can take hold.

Jake's consciousness sharpens immediately.

You pull back, making yourself as small and unnoticeable as possible. You can feel his awareness sweeping through the dreamscape, searching for the thing that just intervened. 

"I know you're here," he says to the empty café around him. His dream-self is standing in the middle of the room, turning slowly, scanning every corner. "I can feel it when you stop the bad things."

You don't respond. 

"Please," he says, and there's something desperate in his voice that makes your chest tight. "I just want to talk to you. That's all."

The dreamscape wavers. His emotions are destabilizing it, making it harder to maintain from a distance. You consider leaving entirely, letting it collapse naturally, but that would probably wake him, and he needs the sleep. So you stay, silent and still, and wait for him to give up.

The café dissolves, and the dreamscape reforms into the bookstore you've seen in his dreams before, the peaceful place he kept returning to in those early weeks. He's recreating it himself now, pulling it from memory, and the details are almost perfect. 

He's trying to lure you out with something familiar. 

It's clever. It almost works. Some part of you wants to step into that space, to see what he's built and acknowledge the effort.

 You stay where you are.

Jake sits down in the window seat and waits, like he thinks if he's quiet enough, you'll appear on your own.

Minutes pass. The dreamscape holds steady. He doesn't move.

"I'm not going to stop," he says finally. "I know you can hear me. I know you're there. And I'm not going to stop looking until you talk to me."

You watch him wait, and you tell yourself this will pass. He'll get tired of waiting. He'll move on.

The next night, he tries something different.

The dreamscape forms into a nightmare immediately, but it's wrong. You can tell within seconds that he's doing this on purpose, forcing his own subconscious into a fear response to make you intervene. 

You almost admire the strategy.

The nightmare isn't severe enough to warrant intervention. It's uncomfortable, probably unpleasant for him, but not dangerous. You leave it alone, let him suffer through it as a lesson about manipulation.

Then it starts intensifying. He's pushing it further, feeding it more fear, and it's starting to spiral beyond his control. What started as a calculated risk is turning into something real.

You reach in and dismantle it before it can fully form.

"There you are," Jake says immediately, and his dream-self is smiling, triumphant. "I knew that would work."

You pull back to your observation point and wait for him to realize you're not going to engage.

His smile fades. "Come on. I know you're there. Just show yourself. Please."

The dreamscape shifts, and you can feel his frustration building. He's trying to force another nightmare, trying to recreate the conditions that made you manifest last time, but he doesn't understand the mechanics well enough to do it right. He's just destabilizing his own sleep, making the dreamscape chaotic and hard to manage.

You spend the next twenty minutes cleaning up the mess he's making, smoothing out the disruptions, keeping everything stable while he essentially throws a tantrum trying to get your attention.

It would be annoying if it wasn't so concerning.

By the third night, you're expecting more of the same manufactured nightmares and attempts to force your hand.

What you're not expecting is for him to hurt himself.

The dreamscape forms normally at first. Jake is in his apartment, sitting on his bed, and everything seems calm. You're monitoring from a distance, alert for whatever strategy he's going to try tonight.

He stands up and walks toward the window.

It's a dream-window, looking out onto a dream-version of the street below. Jake opens it and looks down at the ground several stories below.

"I wonder what happens if I jump," he says conversationally, like he's musing about the weather.

Your attention sharpens into something close to panic. He wouldn't. He doesn't understand how dream-death works, how trauma in the dreamscape can bleed into waking consciousness, how dying in a nightmare can leave psychological scars that don't heal.

"I bet you'd stop me," he continues, still looking down. "If I actually did it. I bet you'd have to show yourself then. I'm going to count to ten, and if you don't show yourself by the time I reach one, I'm going to find out what happens."

He's bluffing. He has to be bluffing.

"Ten."

You don't move.

"Nine."

This is a test. He's trying to see if you'll break, if you care enough to intervene.

"Eight."

You should call his bluff. Manipulation won't work, you're not going to compromise your position just because he's threatening self-harm in a dream.

"Seven."

But if he's not bluffing—

"Six."

—if he actually jumps—

"Five."

—the psychological damage could be severe enough to set him back months, could trigger a cascade of actual night terrors worse than anything you've seen from him.

"Four."

You can't let that happen.

"Three."

But if you manifest now, you're rewarding this behavior, teaching him that threatening himself is an effective way to get what he wants.

"Two."

He puts one foot on the windowsill.

"One."

You manifest in front of the window, blocking his path, your form solidifying so fast it's almost violent. "Stop."

Jake's face breaks into a smile, relief and triumph mixed together. "I knew you'd—"

"Are you out of your mind?" The words come out sharper than you intended, anger bleeding through the careful neutrality you're supposed to maintain. "Do you have any idea what you almost did?"

"I wasn't actually going to jump," he says, but there's something uncertain in his voice now, like he's realizing he might have miscalculated.

"You don't know that." You step closer, and you're furious in a way you haven't been in years, maybe ever. "You don't understand how any of this works. Dream-death isn't real death, but the trauma is real. The fear is real. You could have damaged yourself in ways I can't fix."

"But I didn't," he says. "Because you stopped me."

"I shouldn't have had to stop you. You shouldn't have—" You cut yourself off, trying to regain control. This is exactly what he wanted. He wanted you to engage, and you fell for it. "This was manipulation."

"This was the only way you'd talk to me." His voice is rising now, frustration spilling over. "You've been avoiding me for days. I can feel it. You're still here, you're still protecting me, but you won't let me see you or talk to you. What was I supposed to do?"

"Let it go," you say. "Forget this happened."

"I can't forget you." He says it like it's obvious. "You're the only thing that's kept me sane for weeks. The only thing standing between me and everything terrible. How am I supposed to just forget that?"

"That's not how this works."

"Then explain to me how it works." He moves closer, and you don't step back even though you should. "Tell me the rules. Tell me what I'm not supposed to do. Tell me anything, just stop disappearing every time I get close."

You can see exactly what will happen if you leave. He'll spiral and get worse. The nightmares will come back with a vengeance, and the next guardian won't know how to handle him.

You're trapped, and you put yourself here.

"You can't do this again," you say finally. " No more threats.” 

His voice has gone soft, almost pleading. "You've been in my head for weeks. You know everything about me. Every fear, every weakness, every terrible thing I've ever dreamed. I don't even know your name."

The word sits between you like a trap. Your name. Such a small thing, such a basic piece of information.

"No," you say.

"Why not?"

"Because this is already too far. You're not supposed to know I exist, and I'm certainly not supposed to—" You cut yourself off before you can finish that sentence.

"Supposed to what?" he asks, and there's something searching in his expression. "Care? Is that what you were going to say?"

"You do care," he says, and he sounds almost amazed by it. "That's why you keep protecting me. You care what happens to me."

"I care about all my assignments," you say, but it sounds hollow even to you.

"I don't believe you."

"That's not my problem."

"Isn't it?" He's still looking at you with that unbearable intensity. "If I'm this attached to you, if I'm willing to stand in a window and threaten to jump just to see you again, doesn't that mean you've already broken whatever rules you're trying to protect?"

He's right, and you hate that he's right.

"This can't continue," you say. “I've seen inside your mind, Jake. I know how this works. You're not attached to me. You're attached to not being afraid."

"You're wrong," he says flatly.

"I'm not."

"Then prove it." He crosses his arms. "Stop protecting me. Let me have the nightmares, let me deal with it on my own, and we'll see if I forget about you."

It's a challenge, and you both know it. He knows you won't do it. 

"That's what I thought," he says when you don't respond. "You're just as trapped as I am."

The words hit harder than they should. You want to argue that you're just doing your job, his attachment is one-sided and problematic and not at all reciprocated.

You're not sure any of that is true anymore.

"I need to go," you say quietly.

"Don’t," He reaches for you, and you step back before he can make contact. The rejection flashes across his face. "Five more minutes. Please."

"No."

"Then tomorrow night. Just talk to me tomorrow night. You don't have to manifest if you don't want to. Just let me hear your voice."

"Maybe," you hear yourself say.

His face brightens immediately. "Really?"

"Maybe," you repeat, firmer this time. "And only if you sleep normally tonight.”

"I can do that."

You disconnect before he can ask anything else, returning to the archive room with your manifestation dissolving like mist. You sit down heavily, exhaustion washing over you in a wave.

────୨ৎ────

Jake only feels in extremities.

You've noticed this over the past week, watching him in his dreams and cataloging the way his consciousness operates. There's no middle ground for him. The night terrors were extreme, debilitating and relentless in a way most people never experience in their entire lives. And now his attachment to you is equally extreme, all-consuming in a way that should disturb you more than it does.

Tonight he's dreaming about a garden. You didn't construct this, he did, pulling it together from fragments of memories and imagination. It's peaceful, almost aggressively so, all soft sunlight and flowering plants and the distant sound of water. He's sitting on a bench, and the moment you manifest, his entire face lights up.

"You came," he says, and he sounds so genuinely delighted that something in your chest does an uncomfortable twist.

"I said maybe."

He pats the bench beside him. "Sit with me?"

You sit down.

"I've been sleeping better," he says, and he's angled toward you, knee almost touching yours. "Every night this week. Did you notice?"

"Yes." Of course you noticed. You've been monitoring his sleep cycles obsessively, tracking every change, every improvement. He's going to bed at reasonable hours now, sleeping through most of the night and waking up rested. It's the kind of progress that should let you rotate off his case.

"I think it's because I know you'll be here," he continues. "It makes it easier to sleep." There's something almost shy in his expression now. "Knowing you'll be waiting."

He shifts closer. Not much, just a few inches, but enough that his shoulder brushes yours. The contact is light, barely there, but he's testing to see if you'll pull away.

You don't.

"Can I ask you something?" he says.

"You're going to regardless of what I say."

He grins at that, quick and bright. "Probably. But I'm trying to be polite."

"Since when?"

"Since you threatened to leave permanently if I wasn't." His hand moves, fingers brushing against yours where they're resting on the bench between you. "I'm trying very hard to behave."

"I've noticed. What were you going to ask?" you say when he doesn't continue.

"Oh. Right." His fingers are still against yours, warm and solid in a way that shouldn't be possible in a dream. "Do you have a name?"

You've been expecting this question. "You know I can't tell you that."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Both."

"I could just make one up," he continues, thoughtful. "Give you a name myself. Would that bother you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I already have a name. You just don't get to know it."

His fingers curl slightly against yours. "That seems unfair. You know everything about me."

"It's my job to know things about you. It's not your job to know things about me."

"You've said that before. I still don't believe you." He's smiling now, soft and knowing. "I think I'm special."

The arrogance of it should annoy you. Instead it's almost charming in its directness, the way he's stating what he wants without pretense or game-playing.

"You're a difficult case," you say. "That's not the same as special."

"I'll take it." He shifts even closer, and now his shoulder is pressed fully against yours, his hand warm around yours, his presence taking up space in a way that should feel invasive but doesn't. "I've been thinking about you all day. Every day, actually. I go through my classes and eat lunch with Jay and Sunghoon and do my homework, and the whole time I'm just waiting for nighttime.”

"I know I'm not supposed to feel this way. I know this whole thing is probably breaking a dozen rules. But I can't help it." His fingers tighten around yours. "You're the best part of my day. The only part I actually look forward to. And I know that probably sounds pathetic, being this attached to someone I only see in my dreams. "

"It's not pathetic," you interrupt, and you mean it. 

He leans his head against your shoulder, a gesture so casual and affectionate it makes your breath catch. "Pathetic would be harder."

He shifts slightly, getting more comfortable against your shoulder. "What if I just talk then? You don't have to tell me anything. Just let me talk to you."

This is safer territory. Letting him talk means you can maintain some semblance of professional distance while still keeping him engaged.

"Fine," you say.

He talks about his classes, about a paper he's working on, about how Jay is dating someone new and won't shut up about it. About how Sunghoon keeps asking if he's okay because apparently he's been acting weird lately, distracted during the day and eager to go home at night.

"I told him I met someone," Jake says, and you feel yourself tense. "He asked if it was the same person from before. The one I tried to tell them about."

"What did you say?"

"I said yes." His hand tightens around yours. "I didn't tell him the details. Just that I'm still... that we're still..." He trails off. "I don't know what we are, actually. What should I tell him?"

"Nothing. Tell him nothing."

"That's not helpful."

"It's the truth. We're not anything. This is temporary."

"You keep saying that." He tilts his head to look up at you, and he's close enough that you can see the details of his face. The exhaustion’s finally fading from around his eyes. "But you keep coming back."

Your silence is apparently answer enough. He settles back against your shoulder, satisfied.

"Jay thinks I'm in love," he says conversationally.

Your heart does something complicated. "You're not."

"How do you know?"

"Because love requires knowing someone. You don't know me."

"I know some things." His fingers lace through yours properly now, holding instead of just touching. "I know you're patient. I know you're careful. I know you care more than you want to admit. I know you're scared of this, whatever this is, but you keep showing up anyway."

"Those are observations, not knowledge. You can't love someone you don’t know anything about.”

"I'm not saying I'm in love with you. Not yet, anyway." He says it so casually, like it's not a devastating thing to admit. "But I could be, if you let me.” 

The words hang between you, heavy and unavoidable. He's not wrong. You do feel something, something you don't have a name for and don't want to examine. Something that's going to end badly for both of you.

"We should talk about something else," you say finally. “This conversation is going nowhere productive."

"I disagree. I think it's very productive." But he doesn't push, just settles more comfortably against you. "Fine. Different subject. Did you make this garden?"

"No. You did. You've been getting better at constructing stable dreamscapes.” 

"Is that because of you?"

"Partially. Your subconscious is learning what stable feels like. It's starting to default to peace instead of panic."

He's quiet for a moment, and you can feel him thinking. Then: "Does that mean you'll leave soon? If I'm getting better?"

There it is. The question you've been avoiding.

"Eventually," you say carefully. "When you're stable enough to maintain on your own."

"And when will that be?"

"I don't know."

"Just tell me." His hand tightens around yours, and there's something almost pleading in his voice now. "How much time do we have?"

"A few more weeks, maybe. If your progress continues. You need to prepare yourself for me to leave."

He stops, laughs slightly. "I don't even know what I want. Just more time with you. More of this. Whatever this is."

"This is me helping you sleep."

"This is more than that and you know it." But he's smiling now, soft and knowing. "But fine. We'll call it helping me sleep. If that makes you feel better."

It doesn't make you feel better. It makes you feel like a coward.

But you nod anyway, and he settles back against your shoulder, hand still in yours, and you sit together in the garden he created while the dream continues around you, peaceful and stable and completely unsustainable.

He falls into deeper sleep eventually, his consciousness dimming as his body gets what it actually needs. You stay until the dream naturally dissolves, until his sleep cycle shifts and your presence is no longer necessary.

────୨ৎ────

Jake is sleeping fourteen hours a day.

You noticed the shift a week ago, right after you told him your time together was limited. At first it seemed like a normal adjustment, his body finally able to catch up on months of sleep debt without fear. Then he kept sleeping and sleeping. 

He's missing classes. You know this because his dreams have started incorporating anxiety about assignments he's forgetting, emails he's not answering, texts from Jay and Sunghoon that he's ignoring. Somehow, the anxiety isn't enough to wake him up. Nothing is enough to wake him up, because waking up means leaving you.

Tonight he fell asleep at six in the evening.

The dreamscape forms into something familiar now, a room that's become your default space, comfortable and neutral with soft lighting and a bed that he insists on even though dream-logic doesn't require furniture. He's there the moment you manifest, already reaching for you with that desperate eagerness that's become standard.

"You're here," he says, like there was any doubt.

"I'm always here." You let him pull you down onto the bed, let him arrange you the way he wants: on your back with him curled against your side, head on your chest, arm around your waist. He's gotten bolder about touching you over the past two weeks, and you've let it happen because it keeps him sleeping peacefully.

Except he's sleeping too much now, and you're running out of ways to justify it.

"Jake," you say carefully. "What time did you go to sleep?"

"I don't know. Six? Seven?"

"It's six-thirty."

"Then six." He presses closer, fingers curling in the fabric of whatever your manifestation is wearing tonight. "Why?"

"You slept twelve hours last night, and ten the night before that."

"So?"

"So that's too much. You're oversleeping."

"There's no such thing as too much sleep." His voice is muffled against your chest. "I'm just making up for lost time."

"You've made up for lost time. Now you're actively avoiding being awake."

"Can you blame me?" He tilts his head to look up at you. "Being awake means being away from you. Why would I choose that?"

This is exactly what you were afraid of. The attachment going too far, tipping from therapeutic to pathological. He's preferring sleep to waking life, choosing dreams over reality because you're in the dreams.

"You have a life outside of sleep," you say, and you start running your hand down his back in slow, soothing strokes. It's something you've learned calms him, grounds him when he's getting agitated. 

"I have you here." He catches your other hand, brings it to his chest and holds it there. "That's better than anything out there. I'm not wasting a single hour of being awake when I could be here with you."

"You're going to make yourself sick," you try. "Sleeping this much isn't good for you."

"I feel fine."

"It’s not sustainable.”

"My body needs rest. That's what you kept telling me for weeks, remember? How I needed to sleep more, how I was destroying myself by staying awake?" There's something almost sharp in his voice now. "Well, I'm sleeping. Isn't this what you wanted?"

"Not like this."

"Then how?" He shifts, propping himself up on one elbow so he can look at you properly. "How am I supposed to sleep a normal amount when I know every hour I'm awake is an hour I'm not with you?"

Your hand is still on his back, still moving in those slow, calming strokes. You can feel the tension in his muscles, the way he's holding himself too tight. "You need to find balance. Sleep at night, be awake during the day. Live your life."

"I don't want to live my life. I want to be here."

"That's not an option."

"Why not?" And now there's real frustration in his voice, breaking through the usual gentleness. 

"Because I'm not going to be here forever." You make your voice firm, trying to cut through the attachment that's wrapped around him like a strangling vine. "Jake, listen to me. You need to start pulling back. Start spending more time awake.” 

"No. I'm not preparing for you to leave." He's sitting up fully now, and your hand falls away from his back. "I don't care what the rules are. I'm not just going to wean myself off of you like you're some kind of addiction I need to quit."

"That's exactly what this is becoming."

"Good." His jaw sets in that stubborn way you've seen before, the one that means he's not going to be reasoned with. "Let it be an addiction. I don't care."

This is getting out of hand. You need to regain control of the situation, need to make him understand the severity of what's happening. "Jake, I'm serious. If you keep this up, if you keep sleeping this much, the elders are going to notice. They're going to see the pattern and they're going to pull me off your case immediately."

"Then let them pull you off. I'll just keep sleeping until they assign you back."

"That's not how it works. They'll assign you to someone else."

"I don't want someone else."

"You won't have a choice." Your hands move to his shoulders now, trying to ground him, trying to make him focus. "Listen to me. If I get pulled off your case early, you won't see me again. They'll reassign me and you'll have a new guardian and that will be it."

"Then don't let them pull you off."

"I can't control that if you keep sleeping fourteen hours a day. They monitor these things. They'll see that something is wrong and they'll intervene."

"So what am I supposed to do?" His voice cracks slightly. "Just go back to my regular life and pretend you don't exist?"

"Yes. That's exactly what you're supposed to do."

"I can't." His hands come up to cover yours where they rest on his shoulders. "I can't do that."

"You have to." You gesture between the two of you, frustration bleeding into your voice. "This isn't real, Jake. None of this is real. I'm not real. I'm just something your mind has personified because that's easier than accepting that you've just been healing on your own."

"That's bullshit and you know it." His grip tightens. "You're real. What I feel is real."

"Jake, please." Your hands slide from his shoulders to his face, cupping it gently, trying to make him hear you. "Please, you need to listen to me. I need you to start sleeping at normal hours. Eight, maybe nine at most. I need you to go to your classes and see your friends. Because if you don't, I'm going to get pulled from your case, and then you really will lose me. Do you understand?"

He's quiet for a long moment. His hands come up to cover yours where they're holding his face. "And if I do this, if I sleep normal hours and go to class and act like everything is fine, will you stay for the full few weeks you promised?"

"I'll stay as long as I'm allowed to."

"That's not a yes."

"It's the best I can offer."

He closes his eyes, and you can feel the war happening inside him. You keep your hands on his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones in a soothing gesture, and wait for him to make the choice.

"Fine," he says finally. "I'll sleep less. I'll go to class. But you have to promise me something too."

"What?"

He struggles for the words. "You'll be present with me, like this."

It's a terrible idea. It's the opposite of pulling back. Feeding the attachment makes everything worse. "Okay, but you have to keep your end of the bargain.” 

"Do you just move on to the next person after all this is over?” 

"Yes. That's how this works."

He hesitates. "Will you think about me? After?"

"Yes," you say quietly. "I'll think about you."

"Good." His grip tightens on your hands. "Because I'm going to think about you. I'm going to dream about you and know it's just my mind recreating what we had. I'm going to miss you," he says, and his voice cracks on the last word. "Is that allowed? Am I allowed to miss you when you're gone?"

Your throat feels tight. "You can do whatever you want."

When he speaks again his voice is rough. "I'm going to miss feeling safe."

The words hit harder than they should. Because that's what this has always been about, isn't it? Not you specifically, but what you represent. He's not in love with you, he's in love with not being afraid.

"You'll learn to feel safe on your own. That's the whole point of what we've been doing."

"What if I don't want to feel safe on my own?” His hands are trembling slightly where they hold yours, and you can feel his emotions destabilizing the dreamscape, making the walls waver. "Admit that you want this.” 

"I've already told you I feel something," you say quietly.

"Then why are you fighting this so hard?"

"This isn't real, Jake.” 

"Stop saying that." There's real frustration in his voice now. "Stop trying to protect me from this." His hand slides to the back of your neck, fingers tangling in your hair. "I don't want protection. I just want you. Is that really so impossible?"

His mouth presses against yours with enough force that you gasp. His hand tightens in your hair, holding you in place, and his other hand comes up to cup your face like he's afraid you'll disappear if he doesn't hold on.

You kiss him back.

It's instinct more than decision, your body responding before your mind can catch up. Your hands come up to his chest, to push him away, you tell yourself, but they just flatten against him instead, feeling the dream-echo of his heartbeat. His mouth softens against yours slightly, the desperation giving way to something that feels almost like relief.

He pulls back after a moment, breathing hard, forehead resting against yours. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—I just needed you to stop talking. Are you going to leave?” 

"No." The word comes out rougher than you intended. "I'm not leaving."

"You're not?"

"No."

He lets out a shaky breath. "Okay. Okay, good. I’m still sorry. I shouldn't have done that without asking."

"It's fine."

"It's fine?" He sounds almost dazed. He pulls you closer again, and you let him, because apparently you've lost all ability to maintain boundaries. "Can we just have tonight? Without talking about endings or protocols or what we're supposed to do?"

His hands are warm on your wrists, and the dreamscape is stable around you, and you're so tired of fighting this.

"Okay," you say quietly. "Just tonight."

────୨ৎ────

Jake can't stop smiling.

He knows it's a problem because Jay keeps looking at him like he's grown a second head, and Sunghoon has asked him twice if he's okay. 

He can't help it. She kissed him back. She didn't pull away, didn't disappear, didn't tell him he'd crossed a line he couldn't uncross. He felt alive in a way he hasn't felt in years.

"Dude, you're doing it again," Jay says, waving a hand in front of his face.

Jake blinks, realizes he's been staring into the middle distance with what is probably a ridiculous expression on his face. "Doing what?"

"That." Jay gestures at him vaguely. "The whole... whatever that is. You look like someone just told you you won the lottery."

"Maybe I did," Jake says, and he can hear how stupid he sounds but he doesn't care.

Sunghoon sets down his coffee and studies Jake with that quiet, assessing look. "You seem different."

"Different how?"

"Awake," Sunghoon says simply. "We've only ever seen you exhausted. This is new."

"Oh." Jake hadn't thought about that. They've known him through years of sleep deprivation and night terrors, through the worst of it. They've never seen him well-rested and happy. "Is it weird?"

"It's not weird," Jay says quickly. "It's good. Really good. You look like a person again."

"I feel like myself." It's true. For the first time in years, he feels like he's operating at full capacity instead of running on fumes and desperation. His mind is clear. His body doesn't ache. 

"So what changed?" Jay asks, leaning forward with interest. "Did you finally start taking those sleep meds?” 

"I kissed her," Jake says, and the words are out before he can think better of them.

Both of them go still. 

"You kissed her," Jay repeats slowly.

"Yeah."

"The girl from your dreams."

"She's not—" Jake stops, tries again. "Yes. Her."

"In your dream," Sunghoon says. 

"Yes."

The silence that follows is heavy, loaded with concern that neither of them is trying very hard to hide anymore.

"Okay," Jay says carefully. "That's... that's good, man. I'm glad you're happy."

There's something in his tone that makes Jake's smile falter. "You don't believe me."

"I didn't say that.” 

"You don't have to say it. I can hear it." Jake looks between them, at the worry written across both their faces. "You think I'm losing it."

"We think you're going through something," Sunghoon says quietly. "And we're trying to understand."

"I told you. I met someone. She's been helping me sleep. Last night I kissed her and she kissed me back,” He can hear how it sounds, but he keeps going anyway because they need to understand. "She's real. What I feel is real. Why is that so hard to believe?"

"You're sleeping fourteen hours a day—"

"Eight. I'm sleeping eight hours a day now.”

"—and talking about kissing someone who only exists in your dreams—"

"She exists," Jake says, and his voice is rising now. "Just because you can't see her doesn't mean she's not real."

"Jake—" Sunghoon starts, but Jake cuts him off.

"No. You don't get it. You've never had to deal with what I deal with. You don't know what it's like to be afraid of your own mind every single night.” His hands are clenched into fists under the table. "She saved me from that. She's the only thing that's ever made it stop. And if that means she only exists when I'm asleep, then fine. I'll take it. At least I have something."

"You have us," Jay says quietly.

"It's not the same."

"Why not?"

"Because you can't do what she does!" The words come out louder than he intended, and the people at the next table glance over. Jake lowers his voice, but the intensity doesn't fade. "You can't go into my dreams and make the nightmares stop. You can't make me feel safe the way she does. You try, and I love you for trying, but you can't fix this. She can."

"Jake, listen to yourself," Jay says. "You're talking about her like she's the only thing keeping you alive."

"Maybe she is."

The admission hangs in the air between them. Jay looks stricken. Sunghoon's expression has gone very careful.

"That's not healthy," Sunghoon says finally.

Jake stands abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. "You know what? Forget it. I shouldn't have told you."

Jay reaches for him, but Jake steps back.

"I'm fine. I'm better than fine. For the first time in years, I'm actually sleeping, actually living, and you can't just be happy for me. You have to make it into something wrong."

"We're worried about you," Sunghoon told placates. "That's all this is."

"Well, don't be. I'm handling it." Jake grabs his backpack from the floor. "I have to go."

"Where?"

"I have errands to run."

He leaves before they can stop him, pushing through the café door and out into the afternoon sun. 

They don't understand. She's not just some fantasy he's projecting onto his dreams. She's real, and she cares about him. 

He's walking without a destination, just moving, trying to burn off the anxious energy thrumming under his skin. His feet carry him down familiar streets, past familiar buildings, until he finds himself standing in front of a pharmacy.

He stares at the storefront for a long moment, something clicking into place in his mind.

The inside of the pharmacy is bright and clinical, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Jake wanders down the aisles, past pain relievers and cold medicine, until he finds what he's looking for.

The sleep aids section is bigger than he expected. Melatonin in various doses. Diphenhydramine. Herbal supplements promising restful sleep. Prescription-strength options behind the counter.

Jake picks up a bottle of melatonin. 10mg. The label says to take one tablet thirty minutes before bed and to not to exceed recommended dose.

He picks up a second bottle. Diphenhydramine, 25mg. Sleep aid and antihistamine. The labels say not to combine them, but people do it all the time, don't they? 

────୨ৎ────

Something is wrong.

You can tell the moment Jake enters the dreamscape. Usually his consciousness arrives with a certain clarity, a presence that's become familiar over these weeks. Tonight he's sluggish, his form manifesting slowly like he's moving through something thick and resistant.

The dreamscape forms around him, but it's hazy at the edges, unfocused in a way that suggests his subconscious isn't operating at full capacity.

"Hey," he says when he sees you, and even his voice sounds off. 

You manifest fully and cross to him immediately. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." He sways slightly when he moves toward you, and you have to catch his arm to steady him.

"Jake." You guide him to sit on the bed, studying his face. He looks tired, which shouldn't be possible. Exhaustion doesn't exist in the dreamscape the way it does in waking life. Dreams are supposed to be restorative. "What happened?"

"I'm fine. Just tired." He reaches for you, pulling you down beside him, but the movement is clumsy and uncoordinated.

"You're in a dream. You shouldn't be tired here."

"Well, I am." He leans his head on your shoulder, the weight of it heavier than usual. "Can we not talk about it?"

Alarm bells are going off in your mind. This isn't normal. This isn't how dreamscapes work. If he's this compromised here, something is very wrong in his waking life.

"Jake, I need you to tell me what's going on."

"Nothing's going on. I'm sleeping like you wanted." There's something defensive in his tone, even through the sluggishness.

"This isn't normal sleep. You can barely hold yourself upright." You pull back to look at him properly, and the unfocused quality of his eyes makes your chest tight with worry. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. I'm just really tired from today. I had a long day." But his words are coming out too slow, too deliberate, like he's concentrating hard on making them sound natural.

You take his face in your hands, making him look at you. "Tell me the truth. What did you do before you went to sleep?"

"Nothing." The word comes out too fast this time, overcompensating. 

"I can tell when you're lying. The dreamscape responds to dishonesty." You can feel the panic starting to rise in your chest, cold and sharp. "What did you take?"

"Can we please just drop this?" He tries to pull away from you, but the movement is sluggish and you hold on easily. 

"That's not how this works!" Your hands are shaking where they hold his face. "Dreamers don't experience physical exhaustion in the dreamscape, not unless something is interfering with their natural sleep chemistry."

Recognition flashes across his face, he understands what you're implying, but he schools his expression back to neutral. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine, and we both know it." You can feel the dread solidifying in your chest, heavy and cold. "If you won't tell me what you did, I'm going to have to find out myself."

His eyes widen slightly. "What does that mean?"

You don't want to do this. You've avoided this with him because it's invasive and a violation of the small amount of privacy dreamers have. 

"I'm sorry," you say quietly. You reach for his consciousness, bypassing his awareness and diving straight for his recent memories.

The reaction is immediate. Jake gasps, his whole body going rigid, and you feel the dreamscape shudder violently around you. Accessing memories without permission hurts. It's meant to hurt, a built-in defense mechanism to prevent guardians from abusing their access.

His hands come up to his head, and his face contorts with pain. You hate this. You hate hurting him. You push deeper anyway, searching for the memory of what he did before he went to sleep.

There. You find it and pull it forward.

Jake is in his bathroom opening the medicine cabinet. He takes out bottles, plural, and reading the labels before shaking pills into his palm. 

You pull out of his memories and back into the present moment. Jake is curled in on himself, hands still pressed to his head, breathing hard.

"Don't," he says, and his voice is raw. "Don't do that." He looks up at you, and there's betrayal written across his face, sharp and clear even through the drug haze. "You hurt me."

The words cut deeper than they should. "I needed to know what you did."

"So you just forced your way into my head?" He's moving away from you now, putting distance between you on the bed. "You were supposed to be safe.” His voice cracks. "Why would you do that?"

"You're taking medication you don't need to artificially extend your sleep," you interrupt, and you can hear the fear bleeding into your voice as anger. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

"I'm not hurting myself.”

"You are!” You stop, trying to find words that will make him understand. "Your brain needs natural sleep cycles. When you artificially induce sleep with medication, you disrupt that balance.” 

"I know what I'm doing."

"You clearly don't." You're standing now, pacing, the horror of what you saw in his memories crashing over you. "You're damaging yourself. For what? For a few extra hours in a dream?"

"For a few extra hours with you," he says, and even through the hurt and the drugs, his voice is certain. "And I'd do it again. "

"No. No, you won't." The words come out louder than you intended, sharp with fear. "You're hurting yourself because you're so desperate to hold onto something that was never meant to last. I can't watch you destroy yourself for this."

"For you," he corrects. "I'm doing this for you."

"If you care about me at all, stop."

He stares at you, and something in his expression shifts. The hurt is still there, but underneath it is a realization. "You're scared. You can't dismiss it anymore as just attachment or trauma bonding or whatever else you've been telling yourself."

"It doesn't matter if this is real," your voice sounds broken even to your own ears. "It still has to end."

"Then let me have as much of it as I can."

"Not if it means you're going to hurt yourself." You close the distance between you, taking his face in your hands, making him look at you. "Please, Jake. Please stop. I need you to be safe. Even after I'm gone, I need to know you're going to be okay."

His eyes search yours, and you can see the moment the fight drains out of him.

"Okay," he says quietly, giving into your fear.

The dreamscape is already starting to stabilize around you, responding to the easing of tension. Jake's consciousness is still sluggish from the medication, but he's present, holding onto you like you're the only stable thing in his world.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," you say quietly. "When I accessed your memories. I'm sorry."

"I know." His voice is soft against your ear. "I understand why you did it, but it still scared me. The one person who's supposed to be safe doing something that hurt."

You stay with him for the rest of the night, monitoring the way the medication affects his sleep cycle, making sure he's safe even though he shouldn't have needed you to. When he finally slips into deeper, dreamless slee, you disconnect and return to the archive room with your heart heavy.

Jungwon is there. He takes one look at your face and says, "What happened?"

"He's trying to extend his sleep artificially.” 

Jungwon's expression goes carefully neutral. "And you stopped him?"

"I tried." You sink into a chair, exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with the work. “I don't know if I can trust him to keep that promise when he's this desperate."

"You need to file a report. Let the elders handle this."

"If I file a report, they'll pull me off his case immediately. He'll get worse.”

"Or he'll adjust and find other support systems." Jungwon sits down across from you, and his expression is serious. "You need to request reassignment. Tonight."

"I can't do that."

He leans forward slightly. "Listen to me. I work with children, the elderly, and the terminally ill. Do you know how easy it would be to get attached to those cases?” 

"That's different.” 

"It's exactly the same." His voice is calm but firm. "I had a case two months ago with a six-year-old girl, dying of leukemia. Her dreams were beautiful, full of hope and wonder despite everything she was going through. Every night I had to watch her build these elaborate fantasies about growing up and living a full life. I had to maintain those dreams knowing she had weeks left at most.”

"I rotated off after three months. It hurt to leave her and know that someone else would be there for her final dreams instead of me, but I left anyway, because that's the job. Jake has had months of your time. Instead of getting better, he's now medicating himself to spend more time with you." Jungwon's expression doesn't change, but there's something almost pitying in his eyes. "You're enabling him."

The word lands like a slap. "I'm not.” 

"You're feeding his attachment." He pauses. "You're both bad for each other at this point. You need to leave."

"So what am I supposed to do? Just abandon him when he's like this?"

Jungwon's expression softens slightly. "I know it feels cruel. You care about him, maybe more than you're willing to admit. That care is making you blind to the fact that you being there is the problem, not the solution."

The words settle over you like a weight. You want to argue, to explain why leaving now would be worse than staying.

But a small, honest part of you knows he's right.

────୨ৎ────

The connection forms, and the dreamscape resolves back into the soft bedroom. You’ve barely fully manifested when he’s on you. One second you’re standing in the abyss, and the next his body is pressed against yours, arms locking around your waist with a desperate strength that steals your breath. He buries his face in the curve of your neck with a broken sound.

“You’re here, you’re here, fuck, you’re really here,” he mumbles, the words hot and damp against your skin. His hands are everywhere, skating up your back and clutching at your shoulders, as if trying to confirm you’re real through frantic touch.

“Please,” his voice is a shaky whine. He pulls back just enough to look at you. He looks exhausted, hollowed out. “Please, I need to touch you. I need you to let me touch you.” 

He’s trembling. You place your hand on his shoulder, trying to inject soothing energy inside him. It does little to help.

“I kept my promise,” he whispers, nuzzling back into your neck, his lips brushing your jaw. “No pills. I just laid there and waited. It took forever and I was so scared you wouldn’t come back after… after what I did.”

His hands fist in the fabric of your shirt. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I was stupid. I was scared. Please.” He grinds his hips against yours, and you can feel him already hard. The need radiates from him like heat. “I need you to take care of me. Please, just take care of me tonight. I’ll be good. I’ll be so good.”

It feels like the most intimate thing he’s ever done. You bring your hands up, one palm cupping the back of his head, fingers tangling in his dark hair. The other strokes down the tense line of his spine.

He melts at the touch, a full-body shudder of relief going through him. “Yes,” he whines. “Yes, like that. Just like that.”

His mouth finds yours with a consuming, clumsy desperation. The kiss is deep, and starving. His tongue sweeps into your mouth and you meet him in the middle. A groan tears from his throat.

“I can’t think straight when I’m awake,” he pants against your lips, his hands dragging your tunic up, fingers scrambling for purchase on your skin. “All I do is count the hours until I can sleep. It’s pathetic. I know it’s pathetic.”

“It’s not,” you murmur, and you’re not sure if that’s a lie or not.

He gets the tunic over your head, discarding it into the fog. His mouth drops to your breast, sucking a hardened nipple deep, his tongue flicking wildly. He kneads the other with a rough, possessive hand. 

“Need to be inside you,” he mumbles, his words slurred against your flesh.

He fumbles with the fastening of your pants, his fingers shaking too hard to work properly. A frustrated, almost childish sob escapes him. You help him, pushing the material down your hips, and he sinks to his knees, mouth trailing down your stomach.

His tongue laps a broad, wet stripe through your folds, and you gasp, fingers tightening in his hair. He moans like he’s the one receiving pleasure, the vibration against your clit making your knees buckle.

“You taste so fucking good,” he groans, his voice ragged. He devours you with a single-minded focus, his tongue plunging inside you, then circling your clit. His hands grip your thighs, holding you open. “Let me make you feel good. Please. I need to.”

The submission has twisted, turned into a different kind of control. His need to please, to serve, is just as dominant as any aggression. You look down at the crown of his head between your legs, the sheer abject devotion in the curve of his spine, and something cracks open inside your chest. You come with a choked cry, your hips stuttering against his mouth. He drinks you down, whining with satisfaction, not stopping until the last tremor subsides.

Then he’s rising, pushing you back until you’re laying on your back. He sheds his own clothes, cock jutting out. Pre-cum beads at the tip. He aligns himself and pushes forward, burying himself inside you.

“Fuck,” he breathes, his whole body trembling. “Fuck, you’re so tight. You feel like home.”

He starts to move, full of pure, pounding need. Each thrust is a deep, claiming slide, his hips slapping against yours. The sounds are obscene, wet skin on skin. He stares into your eyes, his gaze unfocused and drowning.

“Tell me,” he whimpers, his pace increasing and becoming frantic. “Tell me you feel me. Tell me I’m real.”

“You’re real,” you gasp, the words torn from you. He is a solid, desperate weight inside you. It is the most real thing you have ever known.

“I’m gonna come,” he warns, his voice high and broken.“I’m gonna come inside you. Is that okay? Please, can I?”

“Jake, slow down,” you manage to say, your hands sliding to his hips.

It’s a reflex, a guardian’s instinct to moderate, to control the environment. But the plea is weak. The drag of him inside you is perfect, a friction that ignites every nerve. Your own body arches, betraying you to seek more. 

“I can’t,” he whines, the words punctuated by another sharp, deep thrust. “Oh god, I can’t, it feels too fucking good.You feel too good.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers between thrusts, his voice high and tight with impending release. His hands scramble for purchase on your skin, leaving fleeting bruises. “I’m sorry, I know, I’m sorry.” 

The apologies are meaningless, ritualistic, lost in the animal need. He’s not sorry.

His rhythm becomes erratic, desperate. He’s chasing that feeling of home he mentioned, trying to obliterate himself inside you. One of his hands leaves your hip, slips between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit and rubbing rough, frantic circles. The dual sensation is too much. A sharp, keening cry is torn from you. Your internal muscles clench around him, a vice grip of pleasure.

He follows you down, fingers digging into the flesh of your hips. He fucks into you, deep and final, his body bowing, every muscle locking.

“Take it,” he sobs, his voice shattered. “Take it all, I’m gonna—fuck, I’m gonna knock you up so you can never fucking leave me.”

The words are deranged.They should horrify you. Instead, a dark current of something terrifyingly close to pride thrills through your veins. He’s spilling inside you, his whimpers muffled against your shoulder blade. He collapses onto you, his breath hot on your skin, his softening cock still nestled within you, twitching with the last of his climax.

This is a dreamscape. He cannot impregnate you. Your body in this space is a projection, a confluence of his subconscious desire and your manifested form. The threat is empty, a fantasy of possession. But the emotion behind it, the raw, desperate wanting, is terrifyingly real.

He nuzzles the sweat-damp skin of your back. “Stay,” he murmurs, the word barely audible.

It’s the last plea of a drowning man. You wait, feeling his heartbeat slow against your spine, feeling the dream itself begin to soften at the edges as his mind descends into truer, emptier sleep. When his breathing evens out into the deep, rhythmic pattern of the dreamless, you gently disentangle yourself.

────୨ৎ────

You're standing at the edge of Jake's dreamscape, ready to enter, when Jungwon's voice stops you.

"Don't." Jungwon holds up the file. "He's been reassigned."

The words don't make sense at first. You stare at him, at the file in his hands, trying to process what he's saying.

"What?"

"The elders reassigned his case this morning. He's under my care now." Jungwon's voice is gentle, but there's no room for negotiation in it. "You're off the case. Effective immediately."

"His mental state has deteriorated to the point where he qualifies as a vulnerable case. Severe psychological distress, reality dissociation, compromised decision-making." Jungwon sets the file down on the table between you. "He needs a guardian who specializes in fragile cases. Someone who can work without getting their feelings involved."

The implication hangs in the air. 

"I can handle him," you say, but your voice sounds weak even to your own ears.

"You can't. That's why you're being removed." Jungwon's expression is sympathetic but firm. "The elders have been monitoring the situation. They made the call."

"When do I have to leave?" you ask quietly.

"You already have left. As of this morning, I'm his guardian. You're not to enter his dreamscape again."

"Not even to say goodbye?"

"A clean break is better."

"Better for who? The elders?" You can hear the bitterness bleeding into your voice. "Because it's certainly not better for him. He's going to wake up and I'll just be gone. He'll think I abandoned him."

"I know exactly what he'll do. He'll be upset. He'll be angry. He'll probably try to force himself to sleep more to find you, and I'll have to manage that." Jungwon's expression is steady, professional. "I've handled cases like this before. Dreamers who become attached to their guardians. It's not common, but it happens. There are protocols for managing it."

"He's going to hate you." The thought of him falling asleep tonight and finding you gone, finding Jungwon there instead, makes you feel like you're being torn apart. "Please, just let me see him."

"I can't. I'm sorry.” Jungwon moves toward the exit, then pauses. "For what it's worth, I don't think you did anything wrong."

He leaves, taking Jake's file with him, and you're left standing alone in the archive room.

You can feel Jake's dreamscape forming in the distance. He's falling asleep right now, his consciousness reaching for the familiar space where you've always been waiting.

But he’s not yours anymore.

────୨ৎ────

Jake knows something is wrong the moment he enters the dreamscape. The air doesn't feel right. The temperature is off by a degree or two. Everything looks correct on the surface, but something fundamental has shifted.

"Hello?" he calls out, turning slowly in the center of the room. His voice sounds too loud in the silence. "Are you here?"

Nothing, just the quiet hum of the dreamscape maintaining itself, a sound he's never consciously noticed before because she was always there to fill the space.

She's usually already manifested by the time he arrives, always there with that particular expression she gets when she first sees him, something between exasperation and something softer she never quite admits to. Jake can feel his heart starting to beat faster, that old familiar panic creeping in at the edges.

"I know you're here," he says, moving toward the center of the room, scanning the empty corners as if she might be hiding in them. "That's fine. I can wait."

He sits on the bed and waits, hands clasped between his knees, trying to keep his breathing steady. She's never been late before, but there's a first time for everything. He can handle it. He can.

Minutes pass. The dreamscape remains empty, unchanging, and the panic in Jake's chest is growing from a flutter to a roar.

"Okay," Jake says, and he can hear the edge of desperation creeping into his voice now, can't quite keep it out anymore. "Okay, this isn't funny. I know you're mad about last time. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I was desperate.”

The silence presses down on him like a physical weight. He stands up, paces to the window, back to the bed, unable to sit still. This doesn't make sense. She wouldn't just not show up. Even when she was angry with him, even when he'd done something wrong, she was always here.

"Please," he says, and his hands are gripping the edge of the bed hard enough that his knuckles are white. "Please, I'm sorry. Whatever I did, whatever I said, I'm sorry. Just come out. Please."

The air shifts.

Jake's head snaps up, relief flooding through him so intensely it makes him dizzy. "There you are.” 

A figure manifests in front of him, the space rippling and solidifying into a human shape. As the form becomes clear, Jake's relief curdles into confusion and then something darker.

It's not her.

It's someone else. A man, with a calm expression and dark eyes that take in the dreamscape with the kind of professional assessment that makes Jake's stomach drop.

Jake stands abruptly, the bed scraping against the floor of the dreamscape even though there is no floor, not really. "Who are you?"

"My name is Jungwon," the man’s voice is gentle, the kind of voice you'd use with a spooked animal or a confused child. "I'm your new guardian."

The words hit Jake like a punch to the chest. He stares at this intruder in a space that's supposed to be his and hers alone, trying to process what he just said. "My what?"

"Your guardian. I've been assigned to your case as of this morning." Jungwon takes a step closer, slow and deliberate, and Jake takes a step back on pure instinct. "I know this is unexpected. I'm here to help you adjust to the transition."

"Transition." Jake repeats the word like it's in a foreign language, like if he says it enough times it might start to make sense. "No. No, you're just part of the dream. She made you." 

He stops, looking around wildly as if she might appear at any moment to tell him this was all a lesson, something other than what it appears to be.

"I'm not part of a dream she made. I'm a guardian, the same as she was." Jungwon's voice remains infuriatingly calm, like he's explaining something simple and obvious. "I'm here because she's been rotated off your case. This is a standard protocol change. It happens with all guardian assignments eventually."

Jake's breathing is coming faster now, shallow and insufficient. His hands are shaking and he shoves them in his pockets to hide it. "That's not possible. She wouldn't just leave. She promised she'd stay. She promised."

"I understand this is difficult," There's something practiced about the way Jungwon says it, like he's said it before to other dreamers in other dreamscapes. "But guardian rotations are standard protocol. She was with you longer than usual, actually, much longer. But all assignments eventually end. That's how the system works."

"No, you’re lying. Where is she?” Jake backs up until his legs hit the bed again. The room is starting to feel smaller, the walls pressing in, responding to his rising panic.

"I want to see her." Jake's hands come out of his pockets, reaching toward Jungwon like he might be able to physically pull the answer he wants out of him. His throat is so tight it hurts to speak. "After everything, she owes me a goodbye."

"I'm afraid that's not possible."

"Why not?" The word comes out almost as a shout. "Why the hell not? You people can apparently do whatever you want. show up in my dreams and manipulate everything, but I can't have five minutes to say goodbye to someone who's been the most important person in my life for months?"

"Seeing her again would only make the transition more difficult. It would give you false hope that she might come back. This way is kinder."

"I don't care how it works!" Jake is shouting now, and the dreamscape responds violently to his emotion, the walls darkening from soft gray to charcoal, the light flickering like a dying bulb. "This is my mind. You can't just show up here and tell me she's gone and expect me to accept it. I didn't ask for you. I don't want you. I want her back."

Jungwon's expression doesn't change, but he takes a small step back, giving Jake space. His hands are loose at his sides, non-threatening, the posture of someone who's dealt with angry dreamers before and knows how to de-escalate. "I understand you're angry. That's a normal response to this kind of change. Loss of a familiar guardian, especially one you'd developed a strong working relationship with, is disorienting and painful. I need you to understand that I'm here to help you. That's my only goal. I'm not your enemy."

"You're not her." Jake's voice breaks on the words, and he hates the vulnerability, hates that this stranger is seeing him like this. The dreamscape shudders around them, the walls rippling. His voice drops to something quieter, more desperate. "I want to know why she left. I must have done something wrong, right?" He stops, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. "What did I do?"

"You didn't do anything wrong." Jungwon's voice is firmer now. "This wasn't about you failing or doing something that drove her away. The elders made a decision based on what they believed was best for your care and her wellbeing. You became attached to her in a way that was making it harder for you to heal, and her continued presence was reinforcing that attachment rather than helping you develop independence."

"I don't want your help." 

"You don't have to want it right now. You just have to not fight it." Jungwon gestures around the dreamscape. "This space is yours. I'm just here to keep it stable, to keep the nightmares away and help you rest. That's all. I'm not trying to replace her. I'm just trying to do my job."

Jake sinks down onto the bed, all the fight draining out of him at once. He feels hollowed out, like something vital has been carved out of his chest and all that's left is the aching space where it used to be.

"I miss her," he says, and the words come out broken. "I miss her so much and she's only been gone for a few hours. How am I supposed to do this?” 

"One night at a time." Jungwon says it simply, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "You don't have to move on right now. You just have to get through tonight. And then tomorrow night. And the night after that. Eventually it will hurt less."

his gaze softened almost immediately as he turned towards you. your face was half buried underneath the blankets, one hand tucked underneath your cheek as soft breaths escaped past your lips. he’d always wondered how someone could look so pretty doing absolutely nothing— it seemed unfair, really.

you looked beautiful laughing, beautiful crying and somehow, even more beautiful when you were drooling onto his own pillow.

riki spent years wondering whether he’d ever learn how to sleep properly.

he thinks falling in love with you was probably the closest thing he’d ever get to an answer. because even if sleeping didn’t come easy— peace always did whenever you were around.

carefully reaching over, riki intertwined his fingers with yours before smiling softly at the familiar ring resting comfortably on your finger.

you’d worn it everyday since he’d given it to you almost two years ago. he wasn’t sure you’d ever understand how much those little things like that meant to him.

sometimes he’d catch himself staring at your hand whenever the two of you walked together, smiling stupidly to himself because you were wearing something he’d picked out for you.

it was embarrassing how much he loved you— then again, everything about loving you had always been embarrassingly easy.

“you’re really pretty, you know that?” he whispered quietly, tracing small circles against the back of your hand with his thumb.

silence.

“like ridiculously pretty.”

“I think you’re the most perfect person I’ve ever laid eyes on, how do you do that?”

silence once again.

he smiled softly to himself before gently brushing your hair away from your face. “god, that’s embarrassing,” he laughed quietly. “i’m so glad you’re sleeping right now.”

“i think you’re perfect too.”

what?

riki froze immediately. slowly, he turned his head towards you only to find one sleepy eye peeking open as you smiled at him.

“…you’re awake?”

“mhm.” you chuckled gently, slowly turned your head towards him with a stupid smile— mirroring his mannerisms.

“HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN AWAKE?” riki shot up so quickly that the blanket slipped down his waist, his whole body stiffening as he sat upright. instinctively— he brought up a hand to his face as if it could somehow erase what he had just said.

“a while.”

“a while as in five seconds or a while as in you heard me talking to myself like a complete and total idiot?”

“the second one.”

silence.

“i’m moving countries, goodbye forever.”

you couldn’t help but laugh softly at his horrified expression as he immediately tried to hide under the blanket again, but you were faster—gently pulling it down just enough to reveal his face.

his cheeks were completely red, eyes wide, lips slightly parted like he genuinely didn’t know where to put himself. he looked so flustered it was almost unfair. you burst out laughing.

“you’re so cute,” you said between laughs, reaching up to cup his cheek.

“don’t look at me,” he mumbled instantly, trying to turn away. “i’m never speaking again.”

“no, no, look at me,” you teased softly, still smiling. “you’re so red, ki.”

“i want to disappear.”

“you can’t disappear, riki.”

“watch me.”

you laughed again, softer this time, and gently pulled him back by the cheek so he’d face you again. his eyes flickered to yours for a second before immediately darting away again, still mortified.

“you’re so dramatic,” you whispered fondly.

there was a beat of silence before you leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. it was quick, gentle, almost absentminded—but it hit him like a switch.

his entire body went still.

and then, just like that, all the tension melted out of him.

his shoulders dropped, his expression softened, and the embarrassment slowly faded into something quieter, warmer. he blinked at you once, then again, like he was trying to process what just happened. “you’re annoying,” he mumbled, but there was no bite to it anymore.

“you love me.”

“…unfortunately.”

despite his words— his actions were the complete opposite. he was already leaning closer again, forehead almost touching yours, like he couldn’t help it.

“hm… can’t sleep?”

his eyes softened almost immediately at the sound of your sleepy voice. riki smiled sheepishly before shaking his head slightly. “did i wake you up?” he asked quietly, gently rubbing circles against the back of your hand.

“a little.”

“i’m sorry, baby.”

you simply smiled sleepily before opening your arms towards him. he’d always loved how easily you’d make room for him.

“come here.”

he laughed quietly at your response before immediately pulling you closer against him, resting his head comfortably against your shoulder. it was almost funny at this point— he’d always become impossibly softer whenever he was around you.

“another bad night?” you asked softly, running your fingers through his hair. “mhm.”

you frowned slightly at his response before pressing a gentle kiss against the top of his head.

“how long?”

“since one.”

“riki.”

“i tried sleeping, baby.”

“did you really?”

“…for about ten minutes.”

“wow.”

“thank you.”

you laughed quietly before gently scratching against his scalp, smiling when you felt him practically melt against your touch. “you’re really cute.”

“even when I’m suffering from insomnia right now?”

“two things can be true at once.”

he smiled helplessly at your response before lifting his head slightly to look at you. he didn’t think he’d ever get tired of moments like these.

your fingers tangled in his hair, your very sleepy voice asking if he’d eaten dinner today despite barely being awake yourself. it was nice.

you were nice.

“what?” you laughed softly, noticing him staring at you.

“nothing.”

“liar.”

“maybe i’m wondering how you’re still pretty even at this hour…”

“that’s ironic coming from you.”

“i’m serious.”

“so am i.”

he smiled softly before pressing a gentle kiss against your forehead.

you two sat there quietly for a few moments, simply enjoying each other’s company. there was never any pressure to fill the silence whenever the two of you were together. some nights consisted of endless conversations until sunrise and others simply felt like this.

“baby, i think you’ve spoiled me.”

“how?”

“well, before dating you, i’d just stare at my ceiling in the pitch dark for hours.”

“and now?”

“now i complain if you don’t cuddle me.”

“that’s very cute.” you chuckled, stroking his face with your hand with your other one still playing with the strands of his hair.

“no, it has become quite a problem.”

you laughed quietly before continuing to play with his hair. you didn’t realize he’d begun slowly closing his eyes until his grip around your waist tightened ever so slightly.

“baby?”

“mhm?”

“i love you.”

you smiled helplessly. no matter how many times he said it, those three simple words never failed to make your heart race.

“i love you too.”

“i mean it.”

“i know.”

“no,” he laughed sleepily, pressing a gentle kiss against your hand, “i really mean it.”

his words were beginning to slur, sleep slowly finding him without either of you realizing it. you could tell when he was getting sleepy— with how affectionate he got.

“i know, riki.”

“i’m really lucky, you know.”

“mhm.”

“i got you.”

you smiled softly at his sleepy confession before gently brushing his hair away from his face. “and i got you.” he smiled sleepily at your response before closing his eyes once more.

“you’re really pretty.”

you laughed quietly. “you’ve told me that so many times tonight.”

“I should tell you more….” he yawned, burying his face comfortably in your neck, “i can do better tomorrow.”

somewhere between him talking about how he’d somehow won at life by getting to love you and you rambling about your whole day, his responses slowly became quieter.

“and then I saw someone holding their cat, it was a black fluffy cat, it had some spots on it—it kinda reminded me of a puma in a way.”

“mhm.”

“and i think the cat looked exactly like you.”

“that’s nice.”

“riki?”

“mhm.”

“you’re falling asleep, aren’t you?”

“no…”

“riki.”

“…maybe a little.”

you laughed softly before pressing a gentle kiss against the top of his head. “go to sleep.”

“can’t.”

“why?”

there was a brief moment of silence before he smiled sleepily against your shoulder. “because i’ll miss talking to you.” your expression softened almost immediately at his confession.

“i’ll still be here tomorrow, silly.”

“promise?”

“promise.”

“okay.”

his words had begun to slur together, sleep slowly finding him without either of you realizing it. he was practically melting into your arms now, tightening his hold around your waist whenever your fingers slowed against his hair.

“baby?” he called out, his voice raspy.

“mhm?”

“i think you’re the prettiest girl on earth.”

you smiled helplessly, you could feel your face burning up at your boyfriends compliments. “that’s sweet.”

“m’ serious.”

“i know.”

“i like looking at you.”

“even when you’re sleeping.”

you laughed quietly before pressing a gentle kiss against his forehead.

“i like kissing your face too.”

“you do?”

“mhm.”

he hummed sleepily before smiling against your shoulder. “i wanna kiss your face all the time.”

“that’s a lot of kisses.”

“you deserve all of them.”

your heart softened immediately at his sleepy confession. there was something so unbearably affectionate about him whenever he was half asleep. he always became softer with you somehow.

“i like you so much.”

“i like you too.”

“no.” he frowned sleepily before shaking his head slightly. “i like you more.”

“that’s not how that works.”

“mhm. that’s exactly how it works.”

you giggled quietly at his response before continuing to play with his hair. “okay, if you say so.”

“you’re really warm.”

“thank you?”

“you’re really soft too.”

“riki…?” you chuckled softly.

“and really pretty.”

“…you’ve told me that many times tonight.”

“I don’t think it’s enough…” his eyes widened slightly as if it was totally unacceptable. “i’ll do better for you tomorrow.” you laughed softly before pressing another kiss against his forehead.

“you can tell me more tomorrow.”

“okay.”

there was another moment of comfortable silence before he suddenly tightened his arms around your waist once more. “please hug me tighter.”riki asked quietly, your expression softened immediately at his quiet request.

“of course, baby.”

you pulled him impossibly closer against you, smiling when you heard him let out the sleepiest, happiest sigh against your shoulder. “that’s better.”

“mhm?”

“i love you.”

“i love you too.”

he smiled softly at your response before pressing a sleepy kiss against the back of your hand. “thank you for loving me.”

you paused briefly at his words before gently brushing his hair away from his face.

“thank you for loving me too.”

“i’m really lucky.”

“we’re both lucky.”

“no.” he shook his head stubbornly despite barely being awake. “i won.”

“…won what?”

“life.”

your heart melted immediately. “that’s cheesy.”

“don’t care.”

“you’re half asleep.”

“still right.”

you laughed quietly before kissing the tip of his nose.

“go to sleep, pretty boy.”

“okay.”

you watched as he closed his eyes uncontrollably, adjusting his position as your body was tangled together— you admired this sight, it was more than you could ever ask for.

“baby..?” he let out.

looking down— you waited for what he was gonna say or ask now, but to your surprise, he’d fallen asleep halfway through his question, arms still wrapped tightly around your waist as soft breaths escaped past his lips.

you smiled quietly to yourself before pressing one final kiss against his forehead. perhaps you’d tell him tomorrow that he’d nearly made you cry at all his words.

for now, though, you’d simply hold him a little tighter.

He was evil, beyond what words could say. He had no regard for anyone but himself, he threw girls around like fucking trading cards, and he seriously, truly swore by alpha male podcasts as a source of motivation.

You never let yourself dwell much on the fact that you had given Jay a chance, or that you really had faith that he would change for you, but Jay was gone past any possibility of redemption, and he played in your face before you could see it coming.

You hated him, with everything you had. There was nothing you wished for more than to never see his face again. 

To others, it looked hypocritical of you to continue to attend Jay’s frat parties despite your hatred for him, but what they didn’t know was that you weren’t there for him. Shit, you weren’t even there for the party. 

You weren’t sure how it started, but a year ago, at a party just like this, you’d met the man who would sweep you off your feet like Jay never could.

Jake Sim, the love of your life and, unfortunately, your ex’s younger brother.

You often wondered how exactly a guy as perfect as Jake could have a brother as twisted and demented as Jongseong, how one could grow up with the literal devil on their shoulder and still come out an angel. 

Jake was a breath of fresh air, a distraction, a kind of escapism you couldn’t get enough of if you tried. He made you feel heard, feel seen, and most of all, he made you feel loved. 

Jake had known of you casually, from both parties and whatever he’d heard from his brother. He’d been just as surprised at Jay’s actions as you were, fully convinced that you were his one before your relationship went to shit. After your breakup with Jay, Jake had come by your sorority house to apologize on behalf of his brother, and from that moment sprouted a relationship that would change your life in the best way possible.

Jake was your boyfriend, you were his girlfriend, but the two of you moved strictly in secret. 

You couldn’t go public, at least not for a while, for both your wellbeing and Jake’s overall safety in the frat house. The mere thought of Jay finding out that his brother and his ex had gotten together behind his back was enough to send shivers up your spine. 

It was the default fix, the mutual agreement you and Jake had come to when you defined your relationship.

You would keep the relationship away from the public. You would keep Jake from getting smothered in his sleep, and Jake would keep Jay from going completely mental.

He’d never tell you this, but, despite all of Jay’s shortcomings as a boyfriend, you had been his first and only girlfriend, and Jake knew that he wouldn’t have stuck around as he did if he didn’t at least have some feelings for you. Dickhead tendencies aside, he did love his brother, and though he couldn’t control his own heart, he figured that he’d try and preserve Jay’s for as long as he could.

It wasn’t always easy, lying to Jay. There were moments of dread, nightmares about the day his brother would realize what was happening. There were times where Jake would have to turn down put-ons from Jay, and insist that he simply “wasn’t looking for love.”

There was guilt for a while, but he got over it quickly. Jake had better things to worry about.

Like you, at his door instead of at the party downstairs, in a dress that is entirely too dangerous for his heart, waiting for him to acknowledge you.

“I gotta tell you, Jake,” you pushed yourself off of the doorframe, kicking your heels off and making your way towards him, “I’m way too tired to care about people seeing me, and I’m sure they won’t anyway.” 

You kneeled on the mattress on one knee, leaning forward and taking Jake’s chin in your hand. His heart was quick to stutter, his calm facade beginning to shatter under your hold. Jake would always have a weakness for you, no matter how collected he pretended to be.

His eyes widened slightly despite himself as you gently pulled him closer, your face closing the distance between you two. Jake’s eyelashes fluttered as he looked down, suddenly fixed on your lips and how close they were to his. Your lips brushed lightly against each other, enough to feel the slightest hint of a kiss, but not nearly enough to satisfy anyone properly.

All it took was one nudge, the slightest movement for his lips to touch yours, and he wanted it, he wanted it so bad, but Jake liked to tease.

He wouldn’t give it to you, even though his heart screamed at him to let go.

Your voice was a whisper as you exhaled against his lips, “I missed you.”

And just as you leaned in, your eyes shutting as your hand shifted to Jake’s cheek–

“Not yet.” 

He pulled away, turning his head to the side before you could get to him. You gasped lightly, and Jake smirked. A smug, knowing smirk that was a painful reminder of his relation to Jay. He looked back at you, his eyes low and dark with a want that nearly made you shiver.

He eyed you from the face down, before returning to your eyes and taunting, “Say please.”

You were completely gone, consumed by the explosive need for Jake’s touch that bubbled in your chest, his lips so beautiful and tantalizing that your thoughts had been reduced to nothing more than raw desire. 

You breathed out, “Please.”

“Again.”

“Please.”

“Like you mean it.”

“Jake, please, just let me–”

“Beg for it.”

You were at your wit’s end, your voice reaching a pathetically whiny pitch that only Jake could bring out of you. You were falling apart, and he hadn’t even touched you. 

“Jake, I need you to kiss me, I’m begging.”

He paused. Looked around as if to think about whether or not he approved your pleas. He hummed in disappointment.

“It could use some work.”

“God!”  You cried out. You’d completely given up on waiting, on Jake’s games, the need for satisfaction clawing at you uncontrollably. Your hands grabbed Jake’s head, and you smashed his lips onto yours. 

As if a switch flipped, the both of you immediately began moving frantically against one another, leaning in as if you’d wanted to melt into one person.

The kiss was hungry, charged with the fervor that came from restraint– it was desperation, the way your lips moved against each other. You were quick to sigh into the kiss, your mouth rough and feverish as you leaned further into Jake. 

Despite his teasing, the moment you brought their lips together sent a shock of pleasure through his whole body, exiting from his mouth through a groan that made you dizzy with pleasure. You threw your other leg onto the bed and over Jake’s lap, straddling him as he held your waist in his hands.

“So impatient,” he chuckled against your lips, and you could feel his smirk through the kiss.

“Oh, shut up.” Your hands moved with minds of their own– up and down his chest, playing with the waistband of his sweatpants, going up and settling in Jake’s hair. You grabbed at two chunks of hair and lightly tugged at it, Jake gasping at the sensation just enough for you to deepen the kiss, sliding your tongue into his mouth as your body curved into his.

There was something about the way Jake made you feel that would never be topped, the satisfaction he gave you beyond anything you’d ever experienced that made you cherish him even more. 

Even through the most heated moments, you can still feel the love and deliberation in his movements, through the way he handled you.

You could tell that he loved you, and you always made sure to return the favor tenfold.

Jake’s lips began to travel down your neck, leaving wet kisses everywhere from the tip of your jaw down to your collarbone. You sighed, eyes closed as your hands played in his hair. 

He whispered against your shoulder, “I love you,” and looked up from where he was.

You looked down at him, and you swore it that your heart would stop one day because of him. His eyes were lazy and filled with need, yet so desperate that it brought about a complicated feeling you purposely chose not to put a name to. 

You grinned at the sight of him looking up at you, and leaned your head forward until your forehead connected with his. “I love you, too, Jake.”

He mirrored your smile, giggling to himself before leaning in for another kiss and–

It was so sudden.

A glass bottle of beer, now shattered, spilling, and long forgotten on the floor.

A whisper so quiet and choked that the loud panting in the room nearly overpowered it.

“Jake?”  

You and Jake flew off of each other, looking at the door with wide eyes.

The cold, biting air of the ice hockey and skating rink no longer made Sunghoon shiver, he had long since grown used to the kind of cold that could seep into your bones. He had been skating for as long as he could remember, and at the age of fourteen, he had made the drastic decision to abandon his career as a figure skater to dedicate himself body and soul to hockey. Let’s say his parents had been slightly horrified at the idea of seeing their son, who had always worn elegant costumes and skated to classical music, switch to a uniform with physical protections to keep his face unharmed. Many people wouldn’t have bet a penny on him, convinced he was "too elegant" or "too delicate" for such a violent sport.

And yet, there he was: for the second year in a row, the undisputed captain of the university team. The previous year, he had led his teammates all the way to the NCAA Division I Hockey Championship, the main student league, where talent scouts from professional **NHL **franchises like the Boston Bruins or the Chicago Blackhawks watched with hawk-like focus, agents on the hunt for their future champions—or pawns to maneuver for millions of dollars thanks to their contracts.

This year, Sunghoon had one goal in mind: win the championship and get signed before the draft. As he sped across the ice, his AirPods blasted Nirvana at full volume, giving him the right energy for the exhausting training session that was about to begin in a few minutes.

His hockey stick was tilted with millimeter precision as he guided the puck in a perfect slalom between the plastic cones placed on the rink. Getting into university on a sports scholarship had been a blessing, but also a curse in his eyes: if he didn’t become a champion, all his efforts would have been for nothing. He had never been a fan of books—he only did the bare minimum to pass his exams. But thankfully, his hybrid-human genes had gifted him with an infallible photographic memory. He used it both for books, absorbing concepts in minutes, and on the ice, memorizing every single opposing play.

Let’s just say Sunghoon was the classic smart guy who didn’t apply himself much in everyday life, but not on the rink. In the rankings, he was one of the most tactically intelligent players, which was why he had also become the team captain. At that moment, he was executing a series of perfect puck-handling drills and bank passes against the boards. His love for music was an obsession a fundamental part of his life. Without it, he didn’t know what he would do, whether during his solo training sessions, on trips, or before games, when he pumped himself up with specific songs based on his mood.

Under the heavy hockey helmet, his snow fox ears—usually well-hidden and flat against his raven-black hair, with tips as white as fresh snow caught a sound that was completely out of place: a feminine laugh.

Inside his helmet, Sunghoon slightly furrowed his eyebrows as he took a sharp slapshot at the goal. At that time of the afternoon, it was extremely rare to hear a woman’s voice: the figure skaters had the rink reserved all morning and never dared to invade the hockey players’ time. Sometimes, junior skaters tried to sneak in, but Sunghoon had made it clear to the skating team: skaters in the morning, hockey players in the afternoon.

Slightly distracted, he turned and, at the edge of the rink, spotted his teammates arriving for the official training session. But three of his players had formed a tight circle around someone, laughing like three idiots. Sunghoon skated toward them, driven by sharp curiosity, and stopped a meter from the barrier abruptly. The blade of his skate kicked up a cloud of tiny frozen snowflakes, and he removed his helmet with a fluid motion, his dark, sweat-dampened hair swaying. With his usual deep, cold, and authority-laden voice as captain, he said aloud:

“How many times have I told the skaters that it’s seriously forbidden to come in the afternoon to try to sneak in and watch us play, or worse, to steal our rink space?”

At those words, his teammates turned abruptly, opening the circle with an almost guilty air. But when your eyes met his, Sunghoon froze every movement because his jaw clenched instantly. In front of him wasn’t a skater in a bodysuit and leg warmers, but a real, live nuisance—or a walking mine.

His eyes immediately went to your body, and he saw you were wearing an outfit completely out of context for an ice rink: a white lace-trimmed bodysuit with a soft, fluffy light blue cardigan, a burgundy felt skirt, high socks, and Ugg boots that clashed with your skirt. The whole look was completed with a glossy lip gloss that made your lips look like a lollipop. Your hair was loose and straight as spaghetti, and your dazzling smile could have melted an entire glacier but the person in question felt his tail twitch for a moment, and it wasn’t a positive sign. You smiled at him, not at all intimidated by his severe and icy scowl, and tilted your head impishly, stepping slightly toward him.

“Mmm, I don’t think I’d make a very good skater,” you said in a bright, ironic voice, playing with a lock of your hair. “My dad tried to raise me to be a future hockey champion until I got tired of spending every single day training… instead of watching TV shows like Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, or The Vampire Diaries and drooling over Chuck Bass, Damon Salvatore, or Jason DiLaurentis!”

A tomb-like silence fell for a moment around the barrier while Sunghoon’s teammates held back their laughter, enchanted by your chatter and your sparkling energy, which was perhaps completely lacking in that rink.

Sunghoon, however, felt his teeth clench against each other inside his mouth. He didn’t understand what the rival coach’s daughter was doing in his kingdom. You were the daughter of the man they would most likely be fighting for the season title against, and not only were you a walking threat to the team’s tactical secrets, but you were also the very same girl he had seen his stupid defenseman flirting with for weeks on end. That same player had spent weeks doing nothing but talking about you, losing focus during every single training session, trying to figure out if he had a chance with you or if you were just playing with him.

Without saying a word, Sunghoon took a step forward on the ice, towering over you from the height of his frame and skates. His fox ears lowered imperceptibly beneath his hair, tense with irritation at you being there, drawing attention that he considered malicious but that the other players saw as angelic.

You, far from being annoyed by his reaction, didn’t back down. Instead, you observed him from head to toe. If it weren’t for his reputation as a first-class grump—cold and completely detached from the rest of the world—you might have even tried to flirt with him. Sunghoon had an absolute beauty that you couldn’t even explain. He had been signed by famous skincare brands and sports brands like Adidas to appear in promotional posts for the start of the hockey season. But Park Sunghoon seemed to be simply untouchable for any girl at the university.

All the figure skaters had tried at least once; hundreds of girls had slid into his Instagram DMs, and at parties, any girl who approached him to try to start something was always caught off guard by his gaze. The less timid ones were flat-out rejected.

In his mind, there was no room for distractions: only the championship victory, a mind-blowing NHL contract, and the title of Season MVP.

In a way, at his age, he bore a striking resemblance to the character your father had at his age when he became Season MVP and was signed by the Chicago Blackhawks. And this intrigued you to no end, though you’d never admit it out loud, not even under torture.

“What are you doing here, Y/N?” Sunghoon snapped, then turned sharply toward one of his teammates, glaring at him. “Don’t tell me, Kai, that you told her the training sessions were open and she came to see you… because I’m fucking tired of this push-and-pull between you two.” He said this, exhausted by the back-and-forth between you and his defenseman, and as he spoke, he pointed at you with a finger as if you were some kind of alien or contagious virus.

You instantly bristled with pride and stepped even closer to the railing, closing the distance between you. “This one has a damn name that you know very well by heart, Sunghoon! And I didn’t come here to be a groupie for your hockey team. If I were to be a groupie for anyone, it would be for my dad’s team or the Montreal Canadiens, certainly not yours! I came here because…”

You couldn’t even finish the sentence before a loud applause echoed through the rink, and the team’s coach made his entrance onto the ice, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. The players turned toward him as the coach cleared his throat with an ironic cough.

“Oh, I see Y/N has already introduced herself to the group!” the coach exclaimed before turning directly to his captain. “Sunghoon, I wanted to talk to you about this this morning, but I completely forgot. My apologies…”

And then, he dropped the bombshell in front of everyone:

“Y/N will be our PR and Content Creator for this winter season! She’ll handle our social media, make you do TikToks, and all those Gen Z things you’re obsessed with. She’ll promote our games weekly to reach a wider audience, and… yes, she’ll also travel with us to all the away games.”

A frozen silence fell over the rink at this news. Okay, there were women on the athletic staff, but none as young as the players. Immediately afterward, a general murmur rose, and the guys were stunned by the announcement. Kai, upon hearing that you’d be with them for an entire season, turned red as a tomato all the way to the tips of his ears, a small hopeful smile forming on his lips.

But all the team’s eyes inevitably slid to Sunghoon, the captain, who clenched his jaw and ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. He stepped off the ice, vaulting over the railing, and as he did, he shot you a venomous glare before furiously addressing the coach:

“We don’t need a PR! We’ve always managed on our own, and this one will only bring trouble among us! Coach, she’s the daughter of the coach of our number one rival team, and you don’t even get along with him! Why did you agree to this?!”

You bit your lower lip to keep from laughing in his face or causing a scene, because at that moment, he didn’t seem like a 23-year-old athlete seeking sponsors and a professional contract—he seemed like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum.

“I didn’t think the mere presence of a girl would make you this hysterical, Sunghoon,” you teased, tilting your head with an angelic and provocative smile. When he turned sharply toward you, looming over you, his glare could have incinerated you.

“It’s not the presence of a girl that bothers me. It’s YOUR presence that isn’t welcome in my rink.” He said loudly, but you, completely unfazed by his words, twirled a lock of your hair around your finger, continuing to play the part of the sweet girl.

“Well, I think that’s a problem solely and exclusively yours… because I already get along great with the other guys. Especially with Kai.” You said with a wink, and at that provocation, something happened that left everyone present speechless.

Sunghoon didn’t respond with words. For the first time in his life, he lost control in front of a girl. His snow fox hybrid nature took over his human, pragmatic facade that he showed to everyone.

His fox ears, which until that moment had been flat and hidden among his dark hair, snapped to attention at your behavior. The pupils of his eyes narrowed into thin slits, and his white tail rose instinctively behind him, sending a few small flakes of ice flying. What came out of his throat wasn’t a human voice to scold you, but a deep, feline growl that seemed dangerous to all the humans around you. Sunghoon was a top-tier canid, and his sharp canines slightly protruded from his upper lip as he took half a step toward you, completely invading your personal space to make you feel the weight of his dominance and violated territory.

His teammates’ eyes widened, paralyzed, because Sunghoon had never, ever shown his hybrid side in such a visceral way—not even with gruff opponents, and certainly not with a girl. You realized that the ice captain wasn’t just angry… he was a predator whose patience had just been shattered by you.

The coach quickly intervened between the two of you, stepping in to break the electric and dangerous tension that had built up.

“Sunghoon, enough. Y/N won’t interfere with anything,” the coach declared, trying to restore order in the group. “I know it might seem like a strange situation, but Y/N is studying Communication and Multimedia. She needs an internship for her study plan, and the university assigned her to our hockey team. She’s a student like any other, and I imagine that even if she is the daughter of the coach of another team—or the team we’ll face in the finals—she wouldn’t dare interfere with our tactical matters.”

At the coach’s voice and the gentle touch of Jungwon’s hand (his trusted teammate and feline hybrid from his pack, with whom he had lived for years) caressing his shoulder to soothe his predatory instincts, Sunghoon began to slowly regain his composure.

His fox ears flattened again among his dark hair, while Jungwon’s calming pheromones took effect on his nervous system. However, Sunghoon pointed at you and whispered to the coach in an angry voice: “She’s the daughter of the opposing coach… she could tell him anything.”

You took a step forward without losing your composure, but softening your tone slightly to try to make him less angry. “Sunghoon, I’ll only be here to make videos, take photos, and promote you on various social platforms. I’ll be here maybe two days a week, plus game day. I certainly won’t be planted in your private meetings peeking at tactical sheets to then go blab to my dad! And besides, come on… your coach and my dad have known each other for like thirty years? By now, each of them knows the tricks and strategies of the other by heart!” You said to get him to approve your presence in his "territory."

Sunghoon, for his part, closed his eyes for a few seconds, taking a deep breath to let Jungwon’s pheromones fully calm him. After a moment, you saw him yank off his gloves with a sharp motion.

“Fine. Do as you please. But don’t come crying to me later that I didn’t warn you. I’m going to change… today I’ll train alone.”

You widened your eyes at those words, left speechless with disbelief because you had grown up on bread and hockey beside your father, and such behavior from a captain seemed like pure sports madness to you.

“Wait, what? Are you serious?” you immediately retorted, crossing your arms over your chest and looking at him as if he had lost his mind. “You’re leaving the team high and dry just because I’m here? Let me tell you, with my dad, that kind of attitude would never have flown! The captain is the first one who has to be a team player, not the one who throws tantrums and leaves the field because there’s a presence he doesn’t like!” You said loudly, watching him walk away without a second glance.

“Sunghoon! Get back on the ice now!” the coach tried to call him back, raising his voice, but it was all useless. Sunghoon had already almost completely taken off his skates with quick gestures and was heading toward the locker room tunnel, not deigning anyone a second glance, leaving behind his entire team and you shaking your head at his behavior.

The second hybrid protagonist in this 'Enhypen Hybrid' series will be Sunghoon!! I hope you like this little draft, let's just say it will be very different from Jake's story. Y/n is seriously a diva with no restraints on her tongue and Sunghoon will be really cold but he will also understand that he has to let go and I don't know which of the two will fall in love first

Wherever you go, one will be able to find him hot on your heels. Some find it cute. Some find it suffocating. You, on the other hand, find it downright amusing. 

Sunghoon is not a jealous man. And yet, why does he feel something ugly crawling inside him as he watched from where he stood?

He crossed his arms, watching with narrowed eyes, furrowed eyebrows and lips pursed in a thin line at the sight of you engaged in a conversation with some…peasant. Someone who thought they had the chance to be with you. The thought itself was laughable, enough to make him roll his eyes, not caring that the gesture itself was rude. 

He agreed to accompany you to the party after you pleaded with him for fifteen minutes straight. He doesn't remember the exact details, but it was a party hosted by your friend.

And where you go, he's willing to follow.

Sunghoon didn’t want to go in the first place, as he’d rather be at home, like the true introvert he is. But he’s nothing more than just a whipped man whose head over heels for you, which led him to his current situation. 

His jaw tightened as they had the audacity to lay their hand on your shoulder. You tried to politely tell them to remove their hand but they paid you no mind. To add fuel to the fire, they even invaded your personal space, acting like he knew you when he doesn’t. Unable to take it anymore, Sunghoon pushes himself off the wall and approaches you, silently seething with rage as he gets closer. 

“Come on, we can get out of here. I don’t see that boyfriend of yours anywhere and he’s stupid to leave a pretty—” 

“Get your fucking hands off her.” 

You turned, shoulders sagging in relief to see your knight in shining armor coming to save you. Sunghoon was immediately by your side, one arm possessively wrapped around your waist, pulling you close until you’re pressed against his side.

Shivers ran down your spine and heat pooled in the depth of your stomach at the fleeting sensation of him drawing circles on your skin, through the thin fabric of your skirt. 

Thankfully, the guy didn’t put up a fight and was quick to scurry away, his invisible tail between his legs. Sunghoon rolled his eyes at the stranger’s cowardice and dragged you out of the venue, not giving you any chance to speak. 

“Sunghoon—”

“Don’t,” he cuts you off, and you go silent at the coldness in his voice. 

He didn’t say another word the entire ride home but you could tell he was barely holding onto himself. The silence was filled with so much tension that one could practically slice it apart with a mere butter knife.

Eventually, you arrived home and the moment you stepped foot into your apartment, Sunghoon was quick to pin you against the nearest wall surface. You let out a gasp, which was cut short when he crashed his lips against yours in a strong, intense kiss that made your mind spun. 

Unlike the usual ways he kissed you, which was filled with nothing but pure love and adoration, this was him taking control of you. Dominating you. Showing you who you truly belonged to, like a physical claim.

You couldn’t keep up with him, your lungs screaming from the lack of oxygen but there wasn’t room for you to make your escape. You whined into his mouth—the sound pathetic and breathless when he yanked your skirt and panties down, leaving them pooling around your ankles.

You cried out his name as Sunghoon pushed two fingers into your entrance without warning, bypassing your soaked folds without feeling any resistance. 

“Fuck, you’re already dripping wet. Was it because of him?” He snarled, jealousy evident in his voice. “Was he the one who made you like this?” 

You broke the kiss, tilting your head up, hands scrambling to find something to grip onto but the only nearest thing was a wall behind you.

“N-No!” You managed to squeak out, eyes rolling up as your boyfriend easily found your sensitive spot with just his long, slender fingers alone. 

You attempted to tilt your hips forward so you could feel more of his fingers, but you were stopped by Sunghoon tightening his grip on your waist. It was a silent warning. A warning where you knew too well.

Your boyfriend chuckled at the needy look you gave him, hoping there was some part in him where he’s still kind enough to give you what you want.

Instead, he pressed his thumb down on your pussy lips, savoring the way your legs twitched at the simple touch—a sign of how sensitive and reactive your body is when it comes to his touch. You would’ve fallen to the ground if he didn’t catch you in the nick of time. 

“Look at you, you’re dripping all over me. Don’t even need lube with how wet you are,” he sneered, words dripping with disdain. 

True enough, you tightened around his fingers as you shakily exhaled, shoulders trembling. “H-Hoonie.. please…wan’ you.” 

“How do you want me, sweetheart? Use your words and tell me,” he coos, moving his fingers in a scissor like motion, opening and preparing you for what’s to come. 

You couldn’t speak, not when you were this close to cumming. In a desperate attempt, you tried to push forward. Keyword: tried. Only for Sunghoon to rip his fingers out from your pussy, creating a loud and lewd squelch sound. It pierced through the tense, thick air, ringing in your ears, causing heat to creep up your neck.

It didn’t matter how hard you clenched down on him, trying to prevent him from slipping out. You let out a disappointed whine, pawing at the front of his shirt but he wasn’t fazed. He’s not falling for your pitiful act. Not this time. 

Sunghoon used his clean hand to grab your face, forcing you to look at him. A twinge of satisfaction curled around him at the sight of your current state. To him, you looked divine despite your teary, dazed eyes and swollen, bruised lips. 

“Already a mess when I barely did anything,” he chuckled, leaning in to brush his lips against your neck, savoring the way you whimpered. 

You blindly reached out, hands gripping onto his shirt. “Sunghoon, p-please…touch me.” 

You heard him sharply inhaled with how delicious his name sounded from you. Just when you thought you had him, your boyfriend pulled back, ignoring your poor attempts of holding him in place. One moment you were standing on your two feet. And the next, you were being carried by him. You squeaked, hands gripping onto his toned upperarms out of pure instinct.

Reaching the bedroom, Sunghoon tossed you onto the bed, instantly hovering over you as he kissed you for the second time, dragging his tongue painfully and teasingly slow along the seam of your bruised, swollen lips. This time, you eagerly reciprocated it as your hands greedily trace his body, feeling the way he stiffened underneath your palms.

"Hoon, don't tease," you whined against his lips, flinching when he grabbed your legs with his large hands, only for him to spread you apart as he situated himself between your legs.

Your ears register the faint sounds of a belt unbuckling followed by the rustle of clothes, making your breath hitched with your heart beating in anticipation for what's to come. You couldn't tear your eyes away from the sight before you—his poor, hardened and neglected cock that proudly stood upright against his stomach.

The tip had turned an angry and a concerning shade of red, due to the lack of attention. Your mouth waters as you pushed yourself up, wanting to feel and taste him in your mouth but Sunghoon stopped you with a hand on your shoulder as he gently pushed you back down.

"Wha-?" You blinked, bemused.

"As much as I'd like to fuck your throat, I need to be inside you now before I lose my mind," he confessed, voice raw with desire.

His words made you clenched down on nothing but thin air. Biting down on your bottom lip, you watched with your fullest attention as he aligns himself against your entrance. You tilted your head back at the fleeting sensation of his cockhead moving along your puffy, loose folds.

"Sunghoon!" You whined, hating how he was teasing you now, of all times.

"What? Need something?" He asks with faux innocence, although there was nothing innocent with what you are doing now.

You huffed, fingers digging into the sheets beneath you. "Please fuck me already."

Your boyfriend huffed out a laugh, obviously having too much fun, "I don't think that's how you should be asking."

Your left eye twitched and the words slipped out before your mind could processed it. "Fine, then maybe I should go and find the guy from earlier. I'm sure he'll know how to treat me well."

Silence.

"Wai—fuck!" You cried out as he slammed his thick and heavy cock inside your creamy walls with just a singular thrust, drawing a startled and high-pitched gasp from your lips at the abrupt intrusion.

Sunghoon didn't give you time to adjust, pistoning his hips against yours without any form of mercy. You were already reduced to a flushed, whimpering and moaning mess underneath him as you squirmed about on the sheets, getting drunk on the feeling of his cock ruthlessly abusing that one spongy spot, over and over again.

"What happened to you acting all smart and cocky a few seconds ago, hm? Think you can say that kinds of things and not face the consequences?"

He sneered, reaching out to grab a fistful of your hair to give it a rough tug, forcing you to raise your head to look at him. Satisfaction rippled through his veins at the your teary and dazed eyes, his thrusts neither slowing down or stopping.

"What? Cat got your tongue? All you need is a cock shoved inside you and you're already fucked dumb and stupid," he continued, the hand previously grabbing onto your hair now trailed down to cup your chin with one hand.

"F-Fuck, p-please, ngh," you shamelessly moaned, shooting your arms out to wrap them around his sturdy shoulders, digging your nails into his skin—drawing a hiss from him.

Luckily for you, Sunghoon was reaching his limit and seeing his precious, beloved girlfriend in such a lewd state is not helping him either. Groaning, he grabbed your right leg and slung it over his shoulder.

The slight change of position allows him to hit deeper places where you thought it was impossible. Heck, you swore he might be able to hit your womb with how deep he is. His eyes trailed down and that's when he saw it.

A bulge in your stomach—right over where his cock is.

Your boyfriend watched, mesmerized by the sight of the movement of his cock moving in and out of your gaping, stretched-out pussy, creating a series of loud and obscene squelching sounds that was music to his ears.

He reached out, gently pressing down on it and your reaction was immediate. You instinctively clenched even harder, making Sunghoon groaned at the feeling of you tightening around him.

"Shit, squeezing me so tight. Like you don't want me to move," he swore under his breath, his thrusts gradually growing sloppy and frantic as he feels his climax reaching.

"H-Hoon, gonna c-cum.. fuck, pleasepleaseplease," you babbled, eyes rolling up to the back of your head as your back arched off the bed.

"Yeah? Then cum for me, princess."

You reached your high while chanting his name like a sacred prayer, thighs trembling like fallen leaves. Your boyfriend was quick to follow suit—spilling thick and hot semen and painting your gummy, velvety walls white.

You felt unusually bloated when he was done, grimacing at the uncomfortable feeling. Your right leg slid off his shoulder, landing on the now dirtied and soaked sheets with a soft thud. Sunghoon, on the other hand, made no move to pull out.

Instead, he collapsed on top of you, suffocating you with his much heavier and larger frame.

"Ow, you're heavy!" You exclaimed, delivering a whack to his shoulder but he remained unfazed.

Sunghoon merely hummed, wrapping his arms around you as he buried his head in the crook of your neck, his lips brushing against your skin.

"..By the way, were you jealous?" You asked, feeling him going still at your question.

"No, I wasn't," he answered immediately and that only confirms your doubt.

"You should've seen the way you looked when you jumped in. You looked like you're going to kill him," you joked.

Your boyfriend sighed, "It's not my fault he doesn't know how to not touch what belongs to someone else."

You paused and when you realized the meaning behind his words, your face turned red and out of pure instinct, you whacked his shoulder again. This time, he lets out a pained yelp, moving away so he can face you with an offended look.

"What's that for?"

"That's for being cringy and cheesy."

8 Days. 8 Whole days since he’s last spoken to you. Heeseung feels as though he might just die. He’s in complete and utter agony without you. Yet, here you were, having the time of your life in Miami. The situation would have been funny under literally any other circumstance, but right now, he’s not in the state of mind to find anything comedic.

How did the two of you end up in this situation, you may ask? Well, it all started when a certain someone hadn’t met a certain compromise.

You’d originally agreed to go on a girls trip, you and 3 other friends on a week-long getaway. In theory, it sounded amazing. The only issue was the “no boyfriends” rule. Now, it wasn’t that you were overly clingy or obsessive. No, never that. Any sane person would miss their boyfriend after a week of being apart!

This is when said compromise came into play. You and Heeseung had agreed to spend as much time together before you had to leave. However, that all went to the dump when he also agreed to spend the rest of the week in the studio. But, in his “defense”, he invited you!

Naturally, you tagged along, trying to make the best of it. But as the week dragged on, your patience wore thin.

It was on the last day that you finally snapped, silently calling an uber and leaving without a word. To say he was dumbfounded was an understatement.

He came home to you packing your luggage, mid squeezing your skincare products into smaller, travel-sized containers and tossing them into your toiletry bag.

“Baby? Do you want any help?” he asked curiously, to which you just walked past him. You were acting as if he wasn’t even there.

“I’m sleeping over at my friends house. We’re going to the airport together in the morning.” you finally spoke, zipping up your suitcase and grabbing your backpack. With that being said, you’re quick to gather the last of your things and exit your shared apartment, leaving him standing there in shock.

And so it goes... the start to his week in hell. He starts off annoyed, finding your avoidant antics a bit childish.

It’s at the 4 day mark that his annoyance simmers into worry. He’s worried sick. You’re in another country and you won’t answer your phone? No yeah, he’s practically spiraling, and he makes that apparent to you. 45 missed calls and god knows how many texts in just an hour.

It’s not until day 5, when you post on your instagram that he realizes everything is just fine.

He instantly clicks on the notification, anxiously tapping his foot as his phone loads. Suddenly, he’s faced with several photos of you having, what seems to be, the time of your life. Photos of you partying, drinking, dancing, swimming, you name it. Not to mention the occasional photos of your pretty face that he wishes you would have sent him first.

It’s when he reaches the second-to-last picture that his heart drops.

To anyone else's endless scrolling, it’d seem like a regular fit check. But the more he analyzes it, the more he notices. The way your tits are practically spilling out your shirt, the way your ass hangs out of your mini-skirt. And if they really looked close enough, anyone could notice the peeking pink lace of your panties. A very petty move on your part, if I may add.

He honestly thinks a photo of you in a string bikini would’ve been better. But he’s not mad, of course not. He could never be mad at you. So why are you still mad at him? And more importantly, why are you torturing him like this?

He manages to survive two more days of agony until you arrive. He’d promised to pick you up from your friend’s place. So, you have to talk to him, he thinks.

Wrong! Your silence doesn’t even resume in the car. You’re too stubborn for that.

The minute he sends a sweet text, a simple “hi baby i hope u had fun. can u send me the address? :)” all you reply with is a pinged address. Not even bothering to greet him back!

Next, he’s pulling up and getting out the car to greet you. Instead, he’s greeted by the sight of your suitcase on the sidewalk while you’re already hopping into the passenger seat. He groans internally, popping the heavy baggage into his trunk and sulking his way back into the car.

You’re focused on the view outside, resting your head against the window as you both drive in silence, when his hand slides over your lap and onto your thigh. You glance down for a split second before rolling your eyes and returning your gaze to the road outside.

He’s insistent, though. Rubbing and kneading at your plush skin the rest of the way home. You try to stay distant but you can’t help the way your thighs clench a few times.

It’s when you both get home that he realizes something. It’s his turn to stay quiet, in order to get what he wants. So, that’s what he does.

Everything he does from now on is calculated. Bringing your stuff down, opening the door for you, letting you walk into the apartment first. He even goes out of his way to put your luggage away and make you something to eat.

With each act of service, you loosen up. The time and distance between the both of you slowly starting to catch up.

You’re sat at the counter, thoroughly enjoying the ramyeon he made you, when he heads to the living area. You watch with wide eyes as he sits, spreading his legs and adjusting his hips. And if that wasn’t enough to get you going, he leans his head back against the couch with a small groan. Your eyes zero-in on the way his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat and every ounce of self-restraint drains from your body. He knows exactly how to turn you to putty in his hands.

Having had enough, you near stomp over to the living room, stopping in front of him.

He looks up at you with a puzzled expression before raising an eyebrow. "Yes?" he asks casually. Wayyy too casually.

You feel your eye twitch at his audacity but shake your head nonetheless. And to make matters worse, he decides to ask “Was the food okay?”

“It was good, thank you” you answer, taking a seat beside him. He nods and turns his attention back to his phone. A good two minutes of him scrolling passes before you decide to stoop back down to his level.

You move to lay down, opting to rest your head on his thigh, dangerously close to the growing tent in his sweats. He lets out a shaky breath and drops his phone beside him to be able to rake his fingers through your hair.

It should be ridiculous, how you go out of your way to make exaggerated hums and mewls of satisfaction. Instead, it just sends blood rushing to his cock. Oh how he’s missed the sounds you make for him.

“Fuck,” he breathes in frustration. “Do you know what it’s been like without you? Not being able to see you? To touch you?”

It’s so sudden, the way his hand tightens in your hair and pulls you up. A pained gasp falls from your lips that he’s quick to swallow, his lips crashing yours. He laps at your mouth, sucking at your tongue and biting your bottom lip.

God, it’s filthy. Saliva, from both your mouths, leaking down your chin and onto your shirt. You’re struggling to catch your breath when he pulls back, collecting a glob of spit on his fingers and shoving them into your mouth.

Your whines of protest are quickly shut down when he uses his free hand to squish your cheeks, giving him more leverage over your face. Or more specifically, your mouth. His fingers push down and back on your tongue, forcing a choked gag out of you.

You whimper as he drags his fingers out your mouth and you can feel him throbbing beneath you. He must be aching after so long, you think. Poor thing. With a gentle hand, you toy with the waistband of his grey sweats. Your nails graze his lower tummy a few times, making him shiver and twitch under you.

“Baby, f—fuck, please stop teasing” he rasps, looking down at you with those perfect, pleading doe eyes. And you comply. How could you not? Especially when he looks at you like that.

He lifts his hips as you lower his pants, just enough to pull him out. You give him a few, experimental pumps but his cock is so wet and sticky with pre that you’re struggling to get a good grasp on him. You tighten your hold—making a tight, makeshift hole for him to fuck.

Your hand feels like heaven to him. His head is tossed back as strings of loud whines and groans leave his pretty lips. You watch in awe for a second; offering the tip a sticky kiss and smearing his arousal over your lips before taking him in your mouth.

Now, he’s fucking into your mouth, making you gag every time he hits the back of your throat. Your mouth is just so wet and warm that he can’t help it. He’s missed this, missed you.

The sounds he’s making above you have your mind reeling. And before you know it, you’re moving a hand down to play with your achey clit.

“That’s it, s—shit. Play with your pretty pussy just like that.” he urges, twitching in your mouth. You continue to rub tight circles on the sensitive bud, moaning around him and sending vibrations around his length. The feeling leaves him spilling in your mouth with a hand tangled in your hair and a drawn out moan.

You feel your own heat pool in your tummy, the band of your orgasm pulling taut before he pushes you onto your back. Gently, of course!

“Sorry, baby. Need to be inside you,” he huffs, hiking your leg up and lining himself up with your needy cunt. He’s lost all composure, fucking into you with lust-driven thrusts. This must be what it means to be pussy drunk.

He thumbs at your clit, opening you up further to reach deeper. You swear you feel him in your stomach as you’re reduced to a writhing, moaning mess beneath him.

“Hee—! S’too much!” you whine, clawing at his back. He dismisses your concern, licking and nipping at your neck in a way that’s sure to leave marks. Your orgasm washes over you before you can even process. His cock drilling against your cervix leaves you breathless and gushing around him. That’s all it takes for him to finish inside you. It’s not often that you squirt, after all.

The slick squelches and plaps of your mixed arousal should make you cringe. But you’re so drunk off his cock, you can’t bring yourself to think of anything else. And Heeseung? He’s not any better. He’s already came twice. Yet, he’s still fucking into you like there’s no tomorrow. It’s then that you realize you’re in for a looong night.

a whole week had passed since that morning, and the silence between you two had been nearly deafening. you’d exchanged a few scattered, hesitant texts mostly logistical check-ins or some tiktoks but you hadn't seen each other in person. the weight of what had happened was probably too much for you.

when jake finally texted asking to meet up at a quiet little bubble tea shop not so far from where you lived, your heart did a little nervous flip.

the café was small and cute, filled with the sound of an indie playlist and the scent of sweet tapioca and brewed tea. jake was already sitting at a corner booth when you walked in, staring down at his phone, his tall frame looking slightly awkward crammed into the small wooden seat. he was wearing a simple gray hoodie, his dark hair falling over his forehead, looking devastatingly handsome.

when he looked up and caught your eye, his posture instantly straightened.

"hey" he said, his voice soft as you slid into the booth opposite him. he pushed a plastic cup with a fat straw toward you. "i ordered your usual taro with boba, half sweet."

"thanks jakey" you said, offering a faint smile as you took a sip.

for the first ten minutes, the air was thick with a fragile awkwardness. jake kept fidgeting with his cup, his long fingers tearing the paper wrapper of his straw into tiny pieces. he looked like he wanted to jump out of his skin, his eyes constantly darting to your face, then down to your lips then back to his drink. the shameless pervert from a week ago seemed to have retreated behind a wall of pure anxious restraint.

"so," jake started, clearing his throat, his dark eyes fixing onto yours with a sudden serious intensity. "are we...how are you? you've been a little quiet this week."

"i was just giving us space to process," you admitted, swirling the pearls at the bottom of your cup. "it was a lot jake. we jumped from best friends to...whatever that was, in less than twenty four hours."

jake swallowed hard his jaw clenching slightly. "i know and i'm sorry if i freaked you out, i was so desperate that night y/n. i couldn't hold it in anymore but the last thing i ever wanted to do was make you feel weird around me."

he reached across the small wooden table, his hand hovering hesitatingly over yours before he finally plucked up the courage to let his fingers brush against your knuckles. the simple touch sent a little shiver through your spine.

"i miss you" he added, his voice dropping into a whisper, completely dropping any act of playing it cool. "fucking hell y/n. this week has been torture, i couldn't stop thinking about you. i couldn't even look at my couch without losing my mind."

a soft flushed giggle escaped your lips, the thick tension in the air instantly dissolving. "you're ridiculous dummy."

"i'm serious" jake insisted, a small hopeful smile tugging at his lips as he squeezed your hand tightly. "look, my apartment is like five minutes away. do you want to just... leave here and go back to my place? we can actually talk properly or just chill. no pressure i swear, i just want you near me."

you looked into his eyes, seeing the same devotion, warmth and desperate needy edge that had drawn you in from the start. "yeah" you whispered. "let's go to your place".

the walk to jake’s apartment was quiet, but it was no longer tense. his fingers were securely intertwined with yours the entire way, his thumb stroking the back of your hand gently.

the moment the front door to his apartment clicked shut behind you, the pretense of "just talking" completely shattered.

jake didn't even wait for you to take your shoes off. he threw his keys onto the entryway table, turned around and crowded you right up against the wooden door. his hands came up to frame your face, his palms warm against your cheeks, his dark eyes blown wide with an overwhelming hunger.

"i tried so hard to be normal at the café ugh" jake panted out, his forehead resting against yours, his hot breath fanning over your lips. "i swear i tried to be good y/n but having you right here, in my space…i'm losing it all over again."

"j-jake" you gasped, your hands automatically coming up to grip his waist feeling the tight, firm muscles beneath his sweater. "we were supposed to clarify things."

"we are clarifying" he insisted, his voice breaking into a needy, pathetic whimper as he leaned down and slammed his mouth over yours.

the kiss was instant, deep and intoxicating. jake tasted like sweet brown sugar and pure heat, his tongue sweeping past your lips, he pulled you flush against him, his hips pressing into yours until you could feel the unmistakable rigid length of his erection straining against his jeans.

"you're my girlfriend," jake mumbled against your mouth, his hands sliding down to grip your hips, lifting you up slightly so you were completely pinned between him and the door. "tell me you're my girlfriend y/n. tell me we're doing this for real now please please please, no more secret obsessions, just you and me."

"we're doing it for real" you whimpered back, arching into his touch, your fingernails digging into the fabric of his sweater. "i'm your girlfriend jake."

a groan escaped his chest at your words. he practically carried you to his bedroom, the two of you stumbling through the hallway in a mess of desperate kisses and frantic hands. he deposited you onto his bed, instantly stripping his hoodie off and tossing it somewhere across the room, leaving his broad chest exposed and heavy with ragged breaths.

he knelt on the mattress between your legs, his hands trembling violently as he reached for the hem of your shirt. "can i? please y/n let me look at you, let me worship you."

you nodded, lifting your arms as he pulled your shirt over your head, followed quickly by your bra. he smiled his gaze dragging over your bare skin with a dirty, worshipful reverence that made your entire body flush red.

he didn't waste a single second. jake slid down your body, his hands hooking into the waistband of your pants and underwear, tugging them both down your legs in one swift, impatient motion until you were completely bare beneath him.

he pushed your knees wide apart, settling himself comfortably between your thighs on his knees. the view of your soaked aching core open for him made his dark eyes darken even further, a shameless hungry grin stretching across his face.

"mmm you are so pretty for me," jake whispered, his voice dripping with thick, heavy praise as he leaned down, his hot breath brushing right against your sensitive core. "so wet, y/n. look at what you do to me, i'm going to eat you out until you can't even remember your own name."

before you could even respond, jake pressed his mouth directly against you.

a loud cry tore from your throat as his warm tongue made its first broad, wet swipe up your center, flattening out over your clit. jake groaned loudly against your skin, the vibration sending intense electric shocks straight to your core. he held your thighs open with a bruising grip, his knuckles white, completely refusing to let you pull away as he dove in with a wild intensity.

"jake, oh- fuck!" you screamed out, your fingers tangling into his dark hair, pulling him closer, pushing him harder against you.

he was relentless. jake ate you out with a needy, desperate rhythm, his tongue working over your clit in fast, slippery licks while two of his fingers slid deep inside your soaking cunt, pumping into you so good. he made the filthiest, most pathetic sounds into your lap whimpering, groaning and drinking you in as if he were a dying man in a desert.

"you taste so good y/n" jake gasped out against your slick skin, breaking his suction just a second to look up at you with blown-out, ruined eyes. his mouth was dripping wet, flushed pink. "so sweet for your boyfriend, suck my fingers baby. come for my mouth, let me taste how much you want me."

he slid his wet fingers out of you and pushed them straight into your mouth. you sucked on them greedily, the taste of your own arousal mixed with the salt of his skin driving you over the absolute edge.

jake went back to work with a smirk on his face, his tongue flicking over your clit in short, fast strokes, his thumb pressing hard against your sensitive spot. the coil in your stomach tightened so fast it made your vision go blurry.

"jakey~ i'm going to- i'm coming jake!" you cried out, your hips thrusting helplessly off the mattress, riding his face as the climax hit you with force.

jake didn't pull back. he ate you out through your entire orgasm, his mouth swallowing your cute moans, his tongue licking up every drop of your release with a dark, obsessive hunger until your thighs were shaking violently against his shoulders.

when he finally lifted his head, his face was flushed, his lips swollen and his eyes completely ruined with love and dirty satisfaction. he crawled up your body, hovering over you, his chest heaving as he stared down into your unfocused eyes.

"you're mine" jake panted out softly, kissing your nose, your cheeks, and then pressing his wet lips firmly to yours, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. "forever y/n, you're never getting rid of me."

"i don't ever want to" you whispered back, wrapping your shaking legs around his hips, pulling him down to finish what you started.

jake didn't give you a single second to catch your breath. the moment he pulled his wet mouth away from yours, his hand was already at the button of his jeans, undoing them with uncoordinated clumsiness that betrayed just how far gone he was.

"i can't wait anymore y/n. i need to be inside you right now" he groaned, his voice completely broken. he kicked his pants and underwear off in one quick desperate motion, his long rigid length springing free, heavily flushed and leaking at the tip.

he hovered over you, his eyes entirely fixed on where you were still slick and open for him, you were just too pretty.

"look at you" jake whispered, his voice trembling as he positioned his tip right against your entrance. "you're so wet for me. you look so damn good spread out on my bed like this. tell me you want me inside you, tell me please."

"jake put it in" you whined reaching down to grip his hips, pulling him forward. "please i need you so much."

jake let out a sharp breath at your words. he gripped your waist tightly, his hands digging into your skin and slowly pushed his hips forward.

the feeling of him filling you up slowly and completely was so fucking good, he stretched you so deliciously. jake moaned loudly, his eyes closing tight as he buried himself all the way to the hilt, his forehead coming down to rest against yours, his whole body shuddering from the intense heat of your core wrapping around him.

"fuck- y/n" jake whimpered against your lips, his hips beginning to roll into you with a perfect pressure. "you feel so tight and so warm nghh i love you so much. you have no idea how long i've dreamed about this, about being inside you like this."

"don't hold back" you gasped out, your hands sliding up his back, your nails digging into his shoulders as he pulled back and plunged in deep once more. "move faster p-please."

that was all it took to completely break his self-control.

jake began to fuck into you so wildly, his hips smacking hard against yours with every stroke. the bed frame creaked against the wall, but neither of you cared. he was panting directly into your ear, showering your face and neck with messy wet kisses.

"you're my girl" jake praised as his pace turned completely feral. "so good for me taking all of me, just like that, look at me y/n~ look at your boyfriend."

you opened your eyes, staring up into his ruined, adoring face as another wave of intense heat began to coil tightly in your stomach. jake's eyes were wide, blown-out and completely locked onto yours, his hands moving to lace his fingers with yours, pinning your wrists to the mattress as he rode you with absolute, unchecked devotion.

"jake i'm close again" you cried out, your hips arching up to meet every heavy thrust, your voice cracking under the pleasure.

"come for me my baby, do it" jake begged, his voice breaking into a whimpering gasp as he speeded up his rhythm, his hips hitting you at a relentless, perfect angle. "come all over me, let me feel you squeeze around me."

the second climax hit you like a wave, crashing through your entire body and making your thighs lock around his waist. the tight squeezing of your inner muscles immediately pushed jake right over the edge.

jake let out a cry, his entire body going stiff as he shoved himself as deep inside you as he could go. he came right after you, spilling himself thick and warm inside you, his breath coming in ragged, broken sobs against your neck as he collapsed completely on top of you.

jake stayed buried deep inside you, his heavy body pressing you down into the mattress, his arms wrapped tightly around your frame as if he were afraid you would vanish into thin air if he let go for even a second.

he slowly lifted his head, his face flushed, his hair a total mess, and his eyes shining with an overwhelming fluffy warmth. he pressed a soft sweet kiss to your lips then your nose then your cheek.

"i'm never letting you leave this bed" jake whispered softly, a completely smitten grin spreading across his lips. "we're staying right here forever."

────୨ৎ────

♡ ; @kristynaaah @biasseventeen @solarhrted @kazehee @temptingtea @heejaketilidie

JONGSEONGㅤloosens his tie with a heavy sigh and sinks into his chair, already wanting to go home.

but then you enter his office with a knock, not really bothering to wait for a reply. “i got the files you asked for,”

and he visibly perks up like he won a lottery, which he did because it’s you— his secretary, but also his beloved girlfriend.

“anything else?” you ask, ever so professional like you weren’t with him a night ago. he hates how you seperate your personal and professional life so well while he hands are always itching to hold you.

“nope, thank you,” he smiles, expecting you to leave like you always do but you catch him by surprise, pulling onto his tie and capturing his lips with yours.

your boyfriend freezes before his hand comes up to your waist like it’s instinct, pulling you closer as he kisses you back softer than you expected.

“that was...unexpected,” he clears his throat, trying to play it cool as if your kiss didn’t sweep him off his feet. but after you leave, he is staring at the wall and replaying it.

JAEYUNㅤ is on cloud nine because he learnt a cool thing during his quantum mechanics lecture and now he gets to tell you all about it— he has never been happier.

“like, you can actually walk through a wall if your atoms align— how crazy is that?” he is so ecstatic, smiling ear to ear. then he looks at the soft smile on your lips and falls for you all over again. “it’so cool, isn’t it?”

“very cool, baby,” you nod and he feels like he’s in heaven right now.

“and it sounds fake but it’s a real process—”

in one swift move, you pull him closer by his belt hoop and shut him up with a kiss. it takes him a while to not freak out and kiss you back, losing himself into you.

and when you pull back, he actually whines, not wanting the kiss to end so soon but also equally flustered to say anything.

“that was so cool—” he doesn’t know why he is describing a kiss as cool. “cooler than quantum tunneling, which reminds me that it powers nuclear fusion in the sun which means it is a very real process...”

“sim jaeyun,” you put a finger on his lips and his heart does a backflip. “shut up and kiss me, please,”

the way you are looking at him— you’ve officially broke him. “yes, ma’am,” and the next second, he loses himself in the kiss again.

SUNGHOONㅤ thinks he is all that for wearing a black tank top while cooking for you, flexing his biceps because he knows just the effect they have on you.

“see something you like?” he smirks at the way you’ve been staring at him for past fifteen minutes— not that he minds it. it only fuels his already huge ego.

and you roll your eyes, feeling the heat creep up your face. “you wish,”

“you say that but you keep looking at me like i’m dinner,” he teases and honestly, he is right. he is girl dinner... and you look away shyly when he points out the way you keep staring at him. “don’t be shy, doll. you can look at me all you want,”

and it’s the shit eating grin on his face that you want to wipe— he’s so cocky and for what?

so you do the first thing your mind comes up with : tip toeing just enough to press your lips against his. he cannot even process while you kiss him, pulling onto his lower lip— he almost drops the spatula to the floor.

when you pull back, he is all red, cheeks and ears, not even meeting your eyes, and you know you’ve won the game he started. “who’s shy now?”

SUNOOㅤ returns from a long day at only, wanting nothing more than burying himself in your arms. he spots you lounging on the couch with a magazine and he beelines to you— loosening his tie, taking off his suit and throwing it somewhere on the floor.

“my angel, i missed you,” he whines, as if every inch of his body aches after being away from you ( it does. ) he goes in for a kiss and you dodge— he had no idea you were going to play in his face.

weird, but he tries again, only for you to dodge once more, biting back a smile— your boyfriend is now freaking out. “why are you doing this to me?”

you shrug and it’s fun watching how he is moments away from crashing out. when he gives up and tries to leave, you grab his collar and kiss him just the way he likes— sweet and slow.

his hand settles on your hips and you can feel him smile against your lips— and even after you pull back. “you had me worried for a second,”

JUNGWONㅤ watches you walk into his study and immediately clocks your intentions. he has been dating you for years now, just one look at you gives away what you’re upto.

so when you lean against his work desk and fiddle with his collar, a soft “hi, baby,” leaving your lips while waiting for the perfect moment to surprise him, he snakes his arms around your waist and pulls on on his lap.

one hand tilts your chin, the other on your thigh— he turns it into a moment. confident, slow, a little smug in a that makes you forget why you were here in the first place.

he doesn’t let up, lips moving against yours in a slow, passionate dance. it feels so good, your brain is a mush— if kissing him like this is how your pranks end everytime, you don’t mind losing.

with a soft nip at your lower lip, he pulls away, both of you breathing erratically. “so, what are you here for?” he asks ever so innocently, as if that even matters now that he has you on his lap.

RIKIㅤ follows you around the house as you do the chores. yes he helps, only as an excuse to be near you— folding laundry so he can ‘accidentally’ brush his hands against yours, bump into you and steal a kiss.

“riki,” you sigh, getting tired of his antics. not that you mind the kisses, but you need to finish up the chores!

“what? i’m just kissing my pretty girl,” and he is so proud saying it, tilting his head down to kiss you again, “can’t i kiss my girlfriend?”

he presses short pecks on your lips, making exaggerated ‘mwah!’ sound while you simply give up and accept the sudden love attack.

but when you finally melt under his kisses and try to kiss back, he pulls away with a shrug. “nope, thought you said no,”

he is so annoying, thriving off the flustered and pissed off look on your face, only for you to pull him by his belt loop and crash your lips against his— his eyes wide open trying to understand what just happened.

you don't exactly know why you feel this jittery. your anxiety is probably palpable to every on-looker who glances your way, your nervous tapping and constant prayers audible to all, but apparently not to the one supernatural being you wished to reach. since six a.m., you've been wondering, alongside him of course, if there was something wrong. the kind of urgency in yuki's voice that day, his call and his cryptic words calling heeseung to the office felt so estranged. you'd practically known the seven boys and their manager like they were your family, but today he sounded eerily like a real manager instead of a tired dad. heeseung was inside the suffocatingly high-end boardroom of the vast hybe building, and still you could feel the remnants of his presence around you, sitting near the fountain outside said complex. his voice, his hand gripping yours pretending to console you while calming his nerves, his frantic movements in making his way up by the stairs, not the elevator because that would make him think, everything felt surreal. and not in a good way. you wait outside a little dumbly, like a mother after her kid goes to preschool for almost an hour. you don't even know what victory would mean for him. it was only around two months ago when he snuck into your apartment and told you that he wanted to venture in his own element, music that was solely his, not a vampire's, not a pre-produced and manufactured one, but his. in every sense of the way, he had confessed under the warm lights of your kitchen that he wanted to become the version of himself that he had buried beneath choreography, concepts, and boundaries. the one that used to stare into the void and think about his career fondly, the one whose hand you had held since high-school. but he didn't want to let go of what he was, his very essence being intertwined with what was home to him, his people, his haven, his enhypen. but perhaps he was being too selfish, wanting everything to himself. maybe he didn't know that it was either abel or cain, not the both of them you could kill and get away with. eventually, he had mustered up this courage to the members, his forever leader, his 'wife', as engenes joked about jake, his pretty and brave hoon, his and enhypen's princess sunoo, and of course, the boy he had basically raised, riki. they all understood it before he had finished speaking, as if they had already known about it from the look on his face of wanting to be something bigger than himself. they knew that he wanted to be his own entity, to write, produce, dance, sing, and flow in a way that was in solidarity, and they'd all cheered for him, raised a beer for it too, about how all he would write would be sappy r&b and that he would never be able to be as mysterious as his photoshoots made him look. but understanding only gets you so far, because the magic that music meant to heeseung was merely an asset of categorized stocks to the executives upstairs. an hour of 'negotiation' and poorly concealed coercion later, the man you had loved and held through everything was left behind a very, very, fragile mess of teary-eyed compliance. it would have hurt if heeseung came up to you and told you what the deal was. it would have pained, and you both would have been melancholy about it in a weird way that would remind you too much about the past. but heeseung is nothing if not carved out of raw compassion and emotion, and so he does the worst thing possible. he walks up to you like any other devastatingly beautiful guy while you look at him with the same worried gaze, and then once his eyes can bore into yours, he looks straight at you, and falls.