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chocosvt · 1 month

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HER | part six (m).

✧✎ synopsis: wonwoo, a heartbroken and burnt out writer nearing the end of his math degree, wants nothing to do with the seemingly perfect, intimidating girl who has everyone under her thumb. you. unfortunately, his literary talent has got him shoved him between a rock and a hard place when you want to write a book and require his expertise. you two are the furthest from compatible. wonwoo can’t see this going well. at all.

pairing: wonwoo x fem!reader word count: 22.6k genres/tropes: writer!wonwoo, university!au, plug!vernon + boyfriend!mingyu as prominent side characters, SLOWBURN (i am not fucking around this is my slowest burn yet), relationship drama, soul searching, strong angst/hurt (i’m coming for the jugular), comfort, romance, smut, a smoothie of every emotion on earth.

(!) warnings: drug use (weed, cocaine, ecstasy), wonwoo has anxiety + anxiety attacks + fairly dark thoughts, prescribed medication, gambling, intense language, infidelity, throwing up.

✧✎ a/n: just some quick things i want to make apparent!

the fic is told from wonwoo’s pov, not the reader’s!

all major timeline events are organized through chronological dates

any smut or potentially triggering scenes are NOT MARKED bc the content is already quite mature, so just plz be aware of that!

bolded and italicized text implies the characters are conversing in korean, tho it doesn’t happen often!

the fic in its entirety is 140k, so it has been split into 6 parts.

here it is... the FINAL part 😭 it seemed that a number of you were quite worried as to how i'd wrap this up, and i can finally give you the answer! :3 this has been an epic journey. thank yew for ur time 💕

more rambling continues at the very end. as per usual. again, a little bit more of an early upload! as a treat <3

⇢ part one | part two | part three | part four | part five ⇢ soundtrack for those curious! ⇢ read at ur own pace! :)

—SEPTEMBER 30TH.

The morning after was strange.

Early sunlight permeated through the living room’s white cloth curtains, dappling in water-like speckles against the glasses still held on his nose. For a moment, Wonwoo was frozen, as his mind made the shift from deep sleep to consciousness, though when he finally did awaken to find his blanket half-pushed off the recliner and the remnants of Chinese takeout left scattered across the coffee table, his lethargy started fading.

Vernon was gone.

Judging from the text on Wonwoo’s phone, the boy had quietly made his way out at around seven in the morning. It surprised Wonwoo to no end that Vernon could manage to sleep so little yet remain fully functional all the time. He seemed magic—or maybe it was something else that Wonwoo would be concerned to know about.

He spent some time cleaning off the coffee table.

Down the hall, his bedroom door remained closed.

When you finally did emerge, it was with the olive-green dress draped over your arm and the ivory heels in hand, which you proceeded to arrange on the small dining table by the kitchen.

Notably, however, there was something off about you, something that Wonwoo interpreted as nerves with an underlying awkwardness you didn’t typically, if at all, demonstrate. When he asked if you wanted breakfast and tea, your response was a tiny head shake and a poorly fit smile. Though, Wonwoo wasn’t going to paw at you.

He found that mornings always tended to be quite sobering, even if he hadn’t exactly drunk enough to make the room spin or swallowed some colourfully disguised pill on his tongue. Just the air was enough to rewire his head—that cooler, crisp air that he either loved or hated.

Undoubtedly, you had much to think about.

Wonwoo helped you get a hold of Princess using his phone, and the two of you watched television in silence while waiting for her to pick you up. He escorted you down through the pottery shop when it was time, and you sported very little shame, walking out onto the bright city sidewalk in just his t-shirt, clothes and shoes wrapped in your arms. Princess had this awfully perplexed look slapped onto her face while leaning over to nudge the car door open for you, and in that moment, Wonwoo was scared of how it all appeared and what might transpire now that the giddiness and frivolity from the night before had ebbed away. He didn’t regret anything, though. Not at all.

But, in truth, what the fuck even were you two?

And what was supposed to happen now?

—OCTOBER 3RD.

Since you had left his apartment in a daze that Saturday morning, Wonwoo hadn’t seen or heard from you. It was concerning him as time passed, he couldn’t deny it, but he also trusted you and wanted not to make you feel pressured into explaining yourself.

He was caught in a brisk walk along campus after leaving his early lecture, a warm coffee cup pressed against his lip that he had grabbed from the ground floor of SRX—they had been giving hot drinks away for free, and, consequently, it tasted like it. Nonetheless, the air was chillier by the day as autumn pushed its way in and decorated the walkway with dry leaves that rustled and crunched under his shoes. It was nice to have something hot in his hand.

He took a second to glance down at his phone.

Still, no messages from you, Wonwoo realized with a suckling sip of the very watery coffee, nearly tempted to text you himself—not anything pushy—just a simple reassurance that he was there for you if things weren’t going well.

Suddenly, however, Wonwoo had smacked into someone.

“Fuck—sorry,” he muttered, readjusting the computer bag slung over his shoulder and pushing up his circled glasses.

To Wonwoo’s complete and utter misery, he was unfortunately acquainted with the person he’d bumped shoulders, and now he was wishing that he had just kept walking like an impatient asshole.

Seokmin was standing before him, dressed in a similar-style woolen trench coat that his hands were stuffed into, the sun turning certain threads of his chocolate brown hair all shimmery. He hadn’t gotten back to Seokmin’s numerous texts ever since Wonwoo sent a brief, very purposefully vague message to the boy that night he ran out with you at the dinner party.

Now he was wondering if the shoulder bump was intentional.

“Wonwoo… uh, hey,” Seokmin stumbled.

Sniffling, Wonwoo let a second or two pass before answering.

He was still debating whether or not to walk away.

“What’s up?”

“You just get out of class, or?”

Wonwoo nodded. “Yeah—advanced stats.”

Seokmin flitted a barely-there smile, staring at his coffee cup.

“Is that the free stuff from SRX?”

“Indeed.”

“How does it taste?”

“Uh, watery… like shit, basically.”

Wonwoo knew—he fucking knew—that there was something buzzing on the tip of Seokmin’s tongue that he just couldn’t spit out. His absentminded expression and clear not-giving-a-damness about whether Wonwoo’s free coffee was actually good completely betrayed him. Not wanting to dawdle and get stuck in the mud of conversation, Wonwoo swallowed the lump in his throat, flashed his friend a tight-lipped smile, and pitched a goodbye, blandly wording it as, “I won’t keep you. Later.”

But Seokmin didn’t seem prepared to let that happen.

And Wonwoo’s eyes nearly rolled backward into his skull when the boy turned around and attempted to catch his attention again.

For some stupid, incomprehensible reason, Wonwoo stopped.

Maybe he knew the conversation needed to happen.

It only made him loathe the situation more.

“Yeah?”

Seokmin dragged a hand through his hair, brushing it up and down against the back of his head while he squinted at Wonwoo.

“I think… uh… if you’re not busy… I think there’s maybe some stuff we need to talk about. I don’t mean to like, catch you at a bad time or anything… do you wanna go sit at the picnic table over there?”

At Seokmin’s carefully suggested inquiry, Wonwoo followed the boy’s pointing finger toward the empty table placed on the large grass circle that the walkway wove around. With his grip hardening into the coffee cup, Wonwoo stopped to think despite knowing his answer.

“Okay… yeah.”

Wonwoo realized it had never felt this weird and stilted to sit down with Seokmin despite him being quite a reliable friend over the months, though Wonwoo was developing the sneaking feeling that his study buddy was about to deal an irreparable blow to their relationship. Seokmin’s folded hands were sitting atop the flecked, aged wood of the table, thumbs nervously twiddling, meanwhile Wonwoo remained silent to sip from his coffee that only became more and more tasteless.

Eventually, his friend seemed to find the words he needed.

“So, I don’t know if you’ve heard… but… Her and Mingyu are taking a break. They’re officially pressing the big pause button. I wasn’t there to witness the conversation, although I get the gist it was a pretty… uh, unpleasant talk,” Seokmin winced, bracing his teeth, “and… well, naturally, I learned that you were a big part of that talk, seeing how it looked and all—you and Her running out at the dinner party…”

He left what seemed like a purposeful pause, and Wonwoo assumed that he was supposed to feel pressured and jump to make a correction or provide an explanation, but he kept silent and rather expressionless. Ironically, Seokmin was the one to continue his spiel.

“Well, basically, there were some accusations thrown around as you can imagine. And I’m not sitting here to point a finger and question you to death about everything, but I just thought I’d give you the table—uh, literally—to explain what’s been happening.”

Wonwoo finally set aside his drink, then shifting off the strap to his computer bag, letting it fall down his shoulder. He didn’t make a huge, overwhelmed sigh even though his body was screaming for it, nor did he ponder abandoning the conversation despite the magnitude of everything Seokmin laid out for him.

Fuck—he hated being matured.

“I can’t speak on her feelings. But I like her.”

“Oh—you do?” Seokmin was astonishingly surprised.

Wonwoo shrugged. “Yeah.”

“So, then, does that mean—”

“Actually, sorry, I’m downplaying it like a coward,” Wonwoo interrupted, shaking his head, “I don’t just like her. I’m in love with her.”

It was then that Seokmin simply didn’t speak at all. His mouth had formed a hollowed shape, resembling something like a gulping fish, and Wonwoo capitalized on the silence to keep his thoughts fluent.

“I understand, okay? I understand why Mingyu is pissed. It takes two to tango, I get all that. And I know you probably want me to state my regret and all that so I don’t seem like such an asshole, but, honestly, I don’t really regret anything. Mingyu doesn’t care about her.”

Seokmin chuffed, rubbing at his chin. “Okay… I don’t know if I would go as far as to say that in particular. But you are admitting to it? I don’t know what it is you’ve done but you’ve done things with Her.”

“We’ve never had sex if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And—”

“We’ve never kissed, either… the only thing I was supposed to do was help her write that little love story. Which you set up, by the way. I didn’t know it would turn into this. I tried to get out of it.”

“I never thought she would stick it out.”

“I know.” Wonwoo sucked in his bottom lip, staring across the weathered wood at Seokmin. “You probably wanted her to drop it the second she mentioned it. I bet Mingyu thought the same.”

Seokmin scrunched up his face in disagreement. “That’s not necessarily true. She just fixates on stuff and then burns out after. She's always been like that, ever since I've known her. I figured the book would be no different. I thought it was something she needed to get out of her system, I didn’t think it would start rolling and—” he leaned forward into his palms for a moment, swallowing audibly. “Sorry, I just—I don’t get it, that’s all. I don’t get her fixations.”

“I think you’re just uncomfortable with her self-expression.”

“She—it’s not self-expression, though. Look, I know a pinch of what her story is about. It’s not about herself. It’s about Mingyu.”

“You think that just because she’s writing about someone else, there’s no pieces of herself in it? Her own feelings? Her own perspective? C’mon, Seokmin. You’re fucking smarter than that. You know what it's actually about.”

His friend’s eyes drifted away from him.

Wonwoo then cleared his throat. “Look, you don’t really need all the details, Seokmin. Like I said, I don’t know exactly how she feels about me. I can surmise. I can say we’ve had moments that we shouldn’t. But—genuinely—you probably know more than I do and you’re lying to yourself if you can’t realize that Mingyu is just some advantageous prick who makes her miserable.”

“Well, I think that—I don’t know if it’s really—”

“He walked into an opportunity with her and he knew it. His whole fucking life and career was basically set up for him the second he met her family. He’s beyond lucky Her ever looked his way.”

“Jeez, Wonwoo. Honestly, it’s not like that.”

“How is it not?”

Seokmin ran a hand through his hair, appearing flustered and without a tongue to make sense. “Just—okay—I’ve been around them a lot. I know how it seems from an outsider’s view. They can argue and push buttons. Their relationship isn’t perfect, but whose is? Mingyu didn’t just walk into the family asking for this and that—he’s never asked for anything, no handouts. Everything that’s been ‘set up’ for him was because Her’s family wanted it. They know he’s a good guy.”

The scoff shot from Wonwoo’s mouth like an arrow. “I’m sorry but, what do they want for Her? Were we at the same dinner party? Did you see her nearly burst into tears? She has to live life in this rigid box, trying to conform to everyone else around her. Don’t you think she wants to live her own life? Be her own person?”

“Of course, but—”

“No—why is there even a ‘but’?”

“I don’t think you understand. Her has everything she needs.”

“You mean, what everyone thinks she needs.” Wonwoo tossed his hand up in the air, laughing, while also getting the strong impulse to ring out his friend’s neck. “It doesn’t make any sense to me. How can you be so close to her, but you don’t realize how unhappy she is? You know what I think? You’re part of it, Seokmin. You're always in her business, hovering, watching, sewing seeds of doubt, shooting down her interests—and you disguise it as help. No one in that house listens to her. They’ve told her who she should be instead of letting her figure it out for herself. How can you be so complicit in that? She gets no support from any of you, about the decisions in her life that actually matter. And Mingyu—honestly, he can go fuck himself. He’s just as complicit as you. He’s soul-sucking.”

“God—sh-she’s an adult.” Seokmin was exasperated, his cheeks reddening like two ripe apples. “She doesn’t have to visit her parents. She doesn’t have to date Mingyu. Nothing is forced on her. No one is dragging her there. I help because I know what she's capable of. I know the perfect life she can have. Her parents know, too. But she just gets sidetracked! She gets wrapped up in stuff that doesn't matter! If she hates everything, she can easily walk away.”

“But you guys have made that so impossible for her.”

“How?”

Wonwoo proceeded to clench his fist up so tight he thought his skin might bleed, the edge of his knuckles pressing down on the table.

“She doesn’t know who the fuck she is.”

Seokmin instantly paled. He looked whiter than a snowflake.

“That’s like clipping a bird’s wings and then asking why it can’t fly away. Knowing who you are is such a big part of life. It’s arguably the foundation. What the fuck do you want her to do? I don’t even—I honestly don’t even want to look at you, Seokmin. Let Mingyu beat me up if he wants to—let it happen a thousand times—” slinging the computer bag back over his shoulder, Wonwoo was rising from the picnic table while glaring down at the stiff, empty-faced Seokmin, who had suddenly morphed from a friend to a bitter stranger, “—I don’t care what he thinks. It’s not going to change how I feel about her, or make me stay away. I’ve seen who she can be and what she actually wants from life, and it's not some snotty, vapid, copy-and-paste hell that her parents are forcing on her. But neither of you seem to give a shit. You’re both completely undeserving.”

Stepping away from the bench, Wonwoo tensed his jaw as the sunlight splashed over him, breaking in between the skeletal trees and their resilient orange leaves. “Got everything you wanted to know? Go run it back to Mingyu. I’m sure that’s what you were gonna do anyway.”

The anger in his chest felt like it was going to crawl out from his mouth and squeeze Seokmin into a ball, therefore Wonwoo exercised his breathing while on a strict path back down the walkway.

Abandoning Seokmin did hurt him more than he had thought, knowing he just lost a friend from his already very limited circle, someone whom he clicked with so readily. At the same time, however, there was a lightness about it. As Wonwoo’s frustration seeped out during the walk back to his apartment, some of the weight pressed into his shoulders released itself like water evaporating from a blacktop.

He just wished he could be at your side more than anything.

There was obviously a reason for your silence.

[ Wonwoo | 11:28 am ]: I heard about the break.

[ Wonwoo | 11:28 am ]: I’m here if you need anything at all.

…

[ Her | 4:05 pm ]: you talked to seokmin?

[ Wonwoo | 4:07 pm ]: Yeah. Never again.

[ Her | 4:07 pm ]: mingyu is so mad

[ Wonwoo | 4:07 pm ]: I figure.

[ Her | 4:08 pm ]: please avoid him if you can. i’m worried

[ Wonwoo | 4:08 pm ]: I’m not.

[ Her | 4:08 pm ]: wonwoo he’s seriously pissed

[ Her | 4:08 pm ]: can’t you hang out with vernon some more

[ Wonwoo | 4:09 pm ]: Seriously?

[ Her | 4:09 pm ]: yes

[ Her | 4:09 pm ]: mingyu got into trouble with dots and had a real big scare. so he doesn’t like to mess much with him or his friends. he'll showboat but that's about it

[ Her | 4:09 pm ]: well ik dots died but u get the point

[ Wonwoo | 4:10 pm ]: Fair.

[ Wonwoo | 4:10 pm ]: But I can’t just pull Vernon around as my Mingyu repellent lol. Honestly, if he wants to rock me, idc.

[ Her | 4:10 pm ]: well I do care

[ Her | 4:10 pm ]: ugh

[ Her | 4:11 pm ]: life has been sucking so hard lately

[ Wonwoo | 4:11 pm ]: I want to come see you.

[ Her | 4:11 pm ]: I want that too. but I need more time, k?

[ Wonwoo | 4:12 pm ]: I know.

[ Wonwoo | 4:12 pm ]: Here if you need me.

—OCTOBER 18TH.

For the past two weeks, Wonwoo had been walking around with the looming possibility of getting jumped by your six-foot tall, rather muscley boyfriend, and he was thus very relieved to have made it this far without eating a fist to the face. Well, now Mingyu was an ex.

Maybe.

The pause in your relationship read like a gray area that Wonwoo had been treading the thinnest eggshells on, prompting him to wait and hear the truth from you directly whenever you felt steady enough to tell him. He wondered if today might be that day.

Placing another strawberry onto the cutting board, Wonwoo chopped his knife through the leafy green bit, removing the stem. The cleaned-up strawberry was then dropped into a bowl of fresh ones that you had been picking away at for the past few minutes or so.

Wonwoo smiled while grabbing another berry to cut.

“I feel like this bowl hasn’t gotten any fuller, for some reason.”

Your legs were swinging as you sat atop the small kitchen island while looking down at his every movement with the knife. Once he dropped another cut strawberry into the bowl, you scooped it out.

“Just making sure they don’t go bad,” you responded, shrugging.

He raised an eyebrow at you. “The fruit you buy usually goes bad within the minute? Are you getting into a fist fight with it?”

You poked at his hip with your socked foot. “Well, you said you were cutting it for me. So can I eat it or not? I’m getting mixed signals.”

“No, of course you can eat it. I’m just teasing.”

“I don’t do too well with delayed gratification.”

Wonwoo smiled at you, proceeding to remove the last few strawberries from the basket to cleanly dissect their stems. He then turned around, tossing the cutting board and knife into the stainless-steel sink with a clatter. After washing his hands, he was back at the island, noticing that the bowl was now seated in your lap like a bag of movie theatre popcorn with just the perfect amount of butter and salt. For a moment, Wonwoo didn’t say anything—that focused look to your face as you ate the fruit he prepared was much too captivating. He wanted to catch one of your swinging legs, pull you right to the counter’s very edge and have you wrap yourself around him. He wanted everything with you.

In your earlier days together, Wonwoo used to be a lot more evasive about his staring (at least, that’s what he wanted to believe), but now he didn’t feel as required to be so painfully subtle and imperceptible about things. He let you snack until you were satisfied, the empty bowl then being exchanged with a damp rag to clean your fingers.

“So,” clearing his throat, Wonwoo braced his hands against the granite island and glanced at you from behind his glasses, scanning down the unbothered, relatively straight face you had, “everything going okay?”

Pressing your lips together, you nodded, making only an “mhm” sound that didn’t leave much to be interpreted.

Wonwoo saw the hands that plunged swiftly between your thighs, how you were quick to squeeze around them, like there existed something weighted and hidden.

He wanted to leave it up to your discretion—he really did.

“Okay, that’s good… just—uh, he’s not giving you a hard time, right? He’s not bothering you at all?” Wonwoo asked, adjusting the rim of the black beanie he’d thrown on to keep his messy hair tucked back. “I don’t mean to disinter anything. I’m only asking because I—”

“Because you care,” you finished his sentence quietly with a trusting and faint smile, “I know. Thank you. It is hard for me, though… I don’t know why this particular thing is so hard but it is.”

Wonwoo slid his hands together, moving them slow along the cold granite. “No… that’s understandable. I get it plenty.” Hell—he didn’t just get it—Wonwoo had miserably and insufferably lived it for damn near a year at that point. In fact, tomorrow would mark the day that he came home to this same apartment only to discover the interior stripped of all the traces, sentiments, and artifacts that breathed miraculous life into the girl he once thought to be his other half.

A whole fucking year without Jeanie.

How flipped things were. How oddly coincidental that he was now in the same space but with a new person to create everlasting memories. You had the most opposite personality and spark.

Wonwoo sighed. He got close to you, settling his hand atop your knee before gliding it underneath your thigh, gripping at you firmly and pulling you forward until he was bracketed in between your legs. Your response was smitten, and he couldn’t deny that he loved to practically see your heart beating under your chest in addition to sensing the warmth that flourished off your skin like you were sizzling in a pan.

Wonwoo set one hand down on the counter, right next to your hip, while the other tended to the side of your face, his fingers running behind your ear and down the slender path to your silk-smooth neck.

“Look…” he breathed out, finding your eyes that were now a bit watery and tinged with stinging emotion, “I know it’s hard. And I would never rush you into figuring things out… but I like you…” Wonwoo swallowed, letting his thumb play with your earring meanwhile his deep voice triggered the sharp, raised hairs spreading down your arms like an electric current, “I love spending time with you—even just being in the same room as you, getting to stare at you—but I just—when I don’t know what you are to Mingyu, I don’t know what to do with us.”

You drew in an immediate breath, then releasing a quiet laugh mixed with a runny sniffle. “I-It seems like you know…”

He pushed both his hands into the countertop, smiling at you.

“Well, I know what I want to do…” Wonwoo murmured, gazing so intimately into your eyes as the oceans he urged to drown in, “but you have to understand my reservations about it. That’s all.”

Bringing a pinky finger to your mouth to nibble on, you nodded.

Softly, he pinched the bare expanse of your waist. You gasped.

“Because I do, in fact, want you.”

You didn’t say anything, although Wonwoo noted that you were staring back into his gaze with so many hues of simple human emotion pulsating behind your eyes—there was frustration, possibly at yourself and everything you couldn’t yet communicate, and twinkles of impulse that matched rhythm with your heart. Then, employing unforeseen abruptness, your fingers were running down the back of his neck all ticklish and he felt the warmth from your breath feather his lips as you moved in closer, smirking at him, hazy like a sunrise pouring its light through a thick cover of morning fog.

“If you can be patient for just a little longer, you'll have all of me.”

Thankfully (or maybe not so thankfully judging from the pure adrenaline coursing through his veins in a hedonistic, addictive sort of way) there were a few knocks at his door.

Your eyes rolled. “Is that your landlord or something?”

Wonwoo took a step back, letting you slide off the countertop while he adjusted his glasses and brushed down his t-shirt. How were you suddenly so casual? One second you were chewing nervously on your finger with the timidness of a newborn doe and the next—back to your typical self. He watched you approach the door, tilting his head.

“Uh, maybe? She usually texts me, though.”

“Or Seokmin with a batch of chocolate apology brownies.”

He chuckled, folding his arms. “Doubt it.”

Really, Wonwoo had no idea who it could be. It possibly was his landlord who had perhaps forgotten her usual warning text, or maybe his younger, sometimes irresponsible neighbour across the hall who would specifically ask to borrow his scent-free laundry detergent every now and then. As long as it wasn’t Lady Liberty on the other side (in Vernon’s tried and true nicknaming spirit) then Wonwoo had no reason to care.

“Welp,” you made a balmy, popping sound with your lips, “only one way to find out. I think I can smell the chocolate.” But once the door was pulled open, that little joking smile fell from your face concerningly fast, as though someone had plucked it right off.

Fuck—Wonwoo thought right off the cuff—it was Lady Liberty.

Your head quirked ever so slightly. “Uh, hello…”

Whoever the person was, they were just outside the threshold of what Wonwoo could see from his spot in the kitchen—except, now he didn’t think it was Mingyu at all, since your tone seemed more confused than anything else.

For a moment, Wonwoo just stood where he was, not particularly understanding why he couldn’t even twitch a measly finger.

“Hi—I’m sorry, is this the—is this—does Wonwoo still live here?”

From across the room, you shifted him a glance.

There was a heavy pause before you answered.

“… Yeah.”

“O-Oh, well… um… I’m so sorry, but are you living here as well? Is he home? I don’t mean to bother or anything. I guess I came by on a whim. It’s a little hard to explain… I can always come back later.”

At that point, Wonwoo was making his way beside you.

That voice—that delicate wispy voice, lighter than a tuft of cotton adrift through the breeze under a salt blue sky—there was such a familiarity about it that he was getting dizzier by the second. Your jaw was distinctly clenched as Wonwoo stopped at your side.

He took one look into the hallway and damn near fainted.

“What the fuck…” Wonwoo whispered, his mouth suddenly stark of moisture as he lifted a hand to grab the door’s edge, “Jeanie?”

“Uh, hey, Wonwoo.”

Wait—never mind, never mind—he panicked. Maybe he did want it to be Mingyu. In fact, Wonwoo would have anticipated Bohyuk showing up outside his door, or his parents, or his girlfriend of two weeks back in sixth grade who broke up with him over a juice box before he could guess that his ex who disappeared without a trace would be there.

It sounded borderline insane, but Wonwoo almost wanted to poke her just to test if she was even real. She looked real. She sounded real. You didn’t seem to be staring into empty space while side-eyeing him worriedly, rather you had very much acknowledged her. Wonwoo’s grip fastened to the door, then realizing he was using it as a personal crutch to keep him upright as his legs slowly regained their rigidity and strength. He also realized that you likely had no idea who she was until her name had been distantly tugged from his lips by his instincts.

Jeanie splayed out her hands in a demonstration of submission.

“If it’s a bad time, I can come back later…”

Wonwoo noted that you had taken a step away from the door, although you continued to stare at Jeanie with a countenance that refused to spoil much—it seemed inquisitive and curious but still hardened—the moment was probably overwhelming you, too.

He gulped dryly, flicking his eyes back to her. “Uh, well, I wasn’t even—you’re like, the last person I would expect to see and—”

“It’s okay. I’ll leave.”

Jerking back to you, Wonwoo nearly gave himself whiplash.

“Her—you don’t need to—”

But you shook your head.

Grabbing the cream purse off the couch and slipping back into your comfortable, clean white tennis shoes, you seemed eager to go while simultaneously jaded at the circumstances.

“No, don’t worry about it,” you stopped in front of Wonwoo, adjusting the strap wove around your shoulder, “this seems important, so… I don’t want to stand in the way of anything… I’ll see you later, ‘kay?”

Then, you turned to Jeanie, sticking out your hand. “Nice to meet you.”

She looked to Wonwoo for a split second.

“Um, yeah, you as well…” Jeanie eventually accepted the handshake, sounding breathy with nerves, “sorry about all this.”

While making your way to the staircase, Wonwoo quickly stepped into the corridor and waved at you, feeling his chest tighten.

“I’ll call you, okay?”

You flashed a transient smile. He hated watching you leave.

Jeanie was watching you, too, hands politely folded at her abdomen, bunny rabbit teeth digging at the skin of her ruby-stained and calloused lips. She had always been a chronic lip-biter—anxiety, thrill, or stress, Wonwoo vividly remembered the blisters she absentmindedly inflicted unto herself from the bad habit, similar to the scars marking the cuticle of his thumb. After a year Jeanie looked different no doubt, but she also reflected an unchanged image through her conserved, fidgety behaviours. She was shy like a budding flower kept just short of the sun.

“Are you okay if I come in?” Jeanie mumbled, hardly able to maintain eye contact with Wonwoo for no more than a second or two.

He stepped back, beckoning indoors.

“Yeah… that’s fine, I guess.”

“Looks pretty nice in here…” she remarked soft-spokenly, taking a moment to marvel the space she once came home to every day, although she couldn’t seem more like a stranger to the apartment even if she tried—like a magazine cutout slapped onto a novel.

Wonwoo rubbed under his nose. “Well… I make due.”

Her hair used to be a symmetric, blunt length with her chin, but she had clearly grown it out over the months. The black tresses thrived in long and loose ribbons down her back, shinier than sea glass polished by rough waves. She was never one to wear much makeup either—trimming her eyebrows, glossing her lips, and flicking on some mascara was all she really ever cared to do, and Wonwoo remembered being in love with her simplicity.

Jeanie proceeded to walk behind the couch, squeezing the back in her hands. She was so tiny. That hadn’t changed much. He could only stand in one place, keeping still, examining her every movement and fighting against the trillions of voices clawing to his mind’s surface.

“Feels strange to be in here,” she laughed, running her fingers along the couch’s fabric, staring around the space, “I think it definitely has more of your touch now… it was nice to see Saskia again, too.”

“Yeah.”

She stopped on him. “You look well. Healthy.”

Wonwoo squinted at her. “Why are you here?”

He didn’t say it in a rude, impatient way. Genuinely, Wonwoo wasn’t angry with her, not like he might have been a few months ago.

But he was confused and feeling increasingly anxious. You were gone, probably on your way back home, though Wonwoo wished you hadn’t left at all, even if it were to make things sticky and awkward. Your presence in a room was the comfort he badly, painfully missed.

“Sure,” Jeanie cleared her throat, “I’ll explain. Care to sit?”

Together, they nestled onto the couch.

Wonwoo was kept to one end while Jeanie sat more in the middle, pulling at the long, flowy hem of her fern-patterned blue dress.

He tugged at the rim to his beanie, waiting for her to speak.

The girl gripped onto her knees, poised a soft, gentle look in his direction while taking in a breath. Their nerves seemed to be coalescing like different colours bleeding from freshly soaked paintbrushes. If anxiety were personified into butterflies, the room would start fluttering.

“I guess I thought it was time. Taking a shot in the dark, I know. I didn’t know if you would still be here, but I got lucky…” she clutched at her dress, fingers pulling into the airy material. “Wonwoo, it’s not like I don’t think about you, or wonder about you. I know what I did, how much it hurt… then I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to come back to here, with you. But I processed it all and it became an itch I had to scratch.”

Puffing out through his nose, Wonwoo almost laughed.

“Yeah—you wanted to see if I, what? Threw myself off the building or persevered, becoming some big money writer?”

Jeanie blinked at him a few times, furrowing her neat, straight brow, with every hair gelled down perfectly in place.

Wonwoo shook his head, lifting out his hand.

“Okay, my bad. That sounded like such an asshole thing to say.”

“No, it’s okay. I get it.” Her cheeks flooded with a tide of rosy pink as she chuckled. “I-I just… well, you seem different now.”

He pushed up his glasses. “You think?”

“Yeah.”

“In a good or bad way?”

Jeanie clasped her hands together, thumbs tapping.

“Well, I guess you seem more... upfront, not as prevaricating. Maybe that’s how you’ve always been and I just never really saw it or you picked it up from someone else.”

Wonwoo shrugged. “Probably a bit of both.”

“I am sorry. I know it was all so… sudden. I know this is sudden. I thought about calling... my hands would just shake so much whenever I picked up the phone, getting all sweaty and stuff. It felt like something that I had to just do. And, well, once I was back in the area, I didn’t even want to lend myself time to dwell. I only came in yesterday.”

“You went back home, then?”

“I did.”

“I figured… well, I got the hint pretty clear when your mom sent me that email. It was only a sentence or two long, but it hurt like hell.”

“It’s what I asked her to send. It’s all I felt you needed to know.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

Jeanie sighed, “I feel warranted in what I did… even so, I-I think I owe you an apology. Because, well, you were and still are someone I regard highly. You were going through something pretty serious… I mean, it’s obvious you’re taking such better care of yourself.”

“It definitely hasn’t been linear.”

Tucking some hair behind her ear, the girl smiled. “Well, what in life really is? It only feels that way when you’re going straight down.”

He hmphed, thinking. “… Yeah. Really though, don’t worry about it. An apology isn’t necessary. You’ve always been too gracious.”

“I-I guess… but, I think it is, since—”

“Jeanie, c’mon. It’s really not. I was dragging you down.”

“Wonwoo, I feel like—”

“I’m telling you—”

“Well, I’m telling you and it would mean a lot if you just let me speak and get this off my chest. Please. Then you can have the floor. Tell me to package it all back up. Whatever it is you have to say. But I spent our entire relationship just listening and trying to understand you and interpret all your vague signals when I should have been trying to understand myself, and what I wanted. I’m not the verbose type, I know that. Going off on longwinded tangents about my feelings has never been something that suits me but I’m here now and I owe it to the girl who just sucked it all up, all the time, trying to be this perfect girlfriend for you.”

He managed a long, introspective breath.

Fuck—he really did owe her that. He owed her so much more.

“… Okay,” Wonwoo nodded complicity, “you’re right.”

“Leaving was the very last thing I wanted. I swear it. I agonized over the choice every day. But you didn’t even notice. That’s when I knew it was more than bad, and whatever it was you were going through was just pulling you down so deep, like a whirlpool. It’s like… I would talk to you, and there was no one inside. When I felt like you needed space, I gave you space. When I felt like you had something hard to say, I would sit with you all day, trying to ease it out, waiting for you to say it.

When you seemed so angry at yourself and everything around you—I-I don’t know—I tried to be the best thing for you. But I was hitting wall after wall. Sometimes I wonder how much of it was my fault. If I had just been upfront about my feelings then maybe things would have been… well, you know, different. I guess I never did say much because it seemed like the last thing you needed to hear, like I would be adding to your already massive collection of burdens. You have to understand, I felt trapped, Wonwoo. Like I was in a glass box or something.

I was decaying from the inside out. If I didn’t leave, if I didn’t make that split second decision to phone up my mom and tell her everything that morning you left for work—then maybe we would have gotten even worse. Maybe we would have just drowned. I don’t know. I’m… glad, relieved, happier than ever, that I don’t know what might have happened. And now that it seems we’re both… whole… I feel like an apology is just a way for me to say that if I had the steel to speak for the both of us, maybe we could have spared so much pain in between.”

Jeanie’s doe eyes twinkled with tears. “I thought that being apart might heal us both… I-I did it ‘cause—in essence—I did it because I cared, Wonwoo. About you. So deeply. But I also needed to start caring about myself, too.”

The corners of his mouth flitted in an unbridled smile toward the girl, his gaze admiring how the evening sunlight warmed up her cool-toned skin and shimmered through her strong, healthy hair.

“I know,” Wonwoo finally answered. “I’ve known for a while.”

Jeanie stayed for about an hour longer, until the sky started darkening. Together, they filled each other in on the breakages in each other’s distant lives, like a spider reweaving a gash through its cobweb. He was pleased to learn that she was doing quite well for herself—now moved out from her family house and living with her younger sister, Jeanie held true to pursuing her ambition of managing the library she had always adored coming to during her childhood (he remembered it specifically as “the one with the bean bag corner and the giant toy crate with the giraffe.”)

Wonwoo felt he didn’t have much to say regarding himself, however, he had plenty to say about you.

Rubbing at a strand of her hair, Jeanie nodded. “Yeah, I remember Her. She—like—she did scare me a bit… I don’t know—she really seemed to know what she was doing. I was a little envious of that. And she had really great style. She could pull anything off. She came in looking for a textbook one time, but I made my co-worker help her instead. I think I was too nervous to talk to her.”

Wonwoo had his legs stretched out onto the coffee table, hands settled on his stomach. Itching at his eyebrow, he smiled. “I probably would have done the same, back then. Honestly though, she’s nothing like what she seems. I can promise you that.”

Jeanie was quiet for a moment, adjusting the legs tucked up underneath herself. “So… you two are… you’re dating?”

“No… it’s weird. I wish.”

“I recognized her when she opened the door. I was pretty confused since… of all the people that you could have over… she seemed like the most unlikely candidate. I-I mean, I’m not saying that you could never—I’m not saying that it could never happen—”

He tilted his head at Jeanie, grinning slyly. “No, just say it. You didn’t imagine I’d ever even be able to talk to someone like her.”

The girl’s face flushed. “Well, you’re quite the opposites.”

“In some ways.”

“I don’t think she’d like me.”

Wonwoo pursed his lip in disagreement. “That’s not true. To be fair, you’ve ever only got to see one side of her. She’s trying to figure shit out just as much as we are. You never really stop, I suppose.”

He felt Jeanie’s gaze still on him for a few seconds, her mouth twitching into a delicate, sincere smile made brighter by her eyes. “So… you figure she’d like me? Even if she knew all the details about us? How rough it all was?”

Wonwoo crossed his arms, staring back toward her confidently. “I figure she’d probably like you more than me, actually.”

8:28 pm

“Hey, thanks for picking up.”

“Oh, no big deal. You called me at a good time. I was just about to start my skincare and I would have needed to sit for fifteen minutes doing absolutely nothing in a slimy face mask.”

“Sounds fun.”

“I’m guessing your conversation is over and done with.”

“Yeah. She only left like, five minutes ago.”

“And you didn’t want to sit alone in your bedroom contemplating the universe for an additional hour with all the blinds drawn? Woah. Wonwoo, I am impressed. Finger snaps.”

“Finger snaps.”

“So… am I allowed to know how the whole thing went or did you just call me to hear the sound of my voice?”

“Both. But mostly to hear your voice.”

“Okay. Enlighten me then.”

9:45 pm

“Anyway… yeah. The conversation went well. I still can’t believe she actually came back to see me. Like, what a mindfuck, you know?”

“That took a lot of courage from her part.”

“Yeah, it did. Makes me proud, though. To hear her actually speak her mind. She really was just trying to be the best possible person for me and the only thing that got her is heartbreak. She’s putting herself first, now. She’s spending a couple days in the city with her sister.”

“… Do you think that you’ll want to see her again?”

“I don’t know. Do I need to?”

“Do you?”

“No. I mean, don’t get me wrong, as much as it was a shock to see her again, there was great closure in it. If she had come to see me way sooner, no way would I have been open to it—I probably would have freaked the fuck out and had an anxiety attack or some shit—but I feel way better about everything now. I felt like I understood her choices, kinda like I was the one making them... but, you know, we’re evolved people at this point. We’ve veered onto two separate paths, neither one being greater than or less than the other… just different.”

“Right.”

“We just wished each other well.”

“No, that’s great. You put a bow on it. I just didn’t really know what the whole thing was gonna entail… so, yeah, I had gotten kinda worried… like—once I knew it was her—I thought she looked so perfect for you. You two just made immediate sense in my mind. She’s got such a sweet voice, and the kind, shy personality that everyone always adores. I think if you stuck her in a room with me, she’d hate my guts.”

“Ha—Jeanie hates no one’s guts. She’s got no room in her heart for that kind of stuff. You two are different for sure, but I think that’s what would make you interesting and attractive to each other.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. If it makes you feel any better, she didn’t think you’d like her either. But I told her you’d probably like her more than me.”

“What! She actually thought that? I mean, maybe I seemed a little damp when I left, but that was just my mind on overdrive.”

“Need me to arrange a date between you two?”

“Ha—she did have a great perfume on. Maybe ask about that.”

“Well, I will if I see her.”

“She doesn’t know about the book you were writing for her, does she? I can’t believe that’s been sitting on your laptop all this time.”

“No, she doesn’t. I used to sit there and stare at it every day, but I don’t think I’ve even opened the damn document in months… since I met you, my mind has gradually moved away from it, I guess. I think now it’s more of an effort thing. All the time I put into it. It’s like, if I delete it, I’m deleting that time from my life… does that even make sense?”

“Yeah, I know what you’re saying.”

“… Did you ever finish your book for Mingyu? I know you wanted it done before your anniversary in December. It seemed like you were on track to have it done quite early, with all that time you gave yourself.”

“I did finish it, actually.”

“No fucking way—that’s a big accomplishment.”

“Yeah. Now I’ve just gotta decide what to do with it.”

—NOVEMBER 3RD.

Wonwoo was fairly surprised that Princess had invited him to her birthday dinner at Terra Cotta. At one point, he wasn’t certain where he stood with your closest friend, even if his relationship with her presented itself as amicable on the surface—he always thought that maybe deep down, Princess really did despise him. Then Wonwoo wondered if you had nipped at the birthday girl into inviting him, although that didn’t seem like something in your character.

Through all his fretting, thumb-scraping, and late-night pondering in the shower, Wonwoo eventually came to the conclusion that was probably the simplest and most accurate: Princess just liked him.

A call from Vernon came through right as Wonwoo was getting into bed last week, to which the rambling boy had impetuously thrown out, “yeah, I got an invite to Her’s best friend’s birthday dinner or somethin’ like that—what was her name again? Penelope? The sexy dark skin girl with the braids? Anyway, I told her I’d love to go, but I’m gonna be out of town for a few days in November. Said I could hook her up with a couple MDMA bombs, though. Y’know, as a gift.”

Thus, that concluded the story of Wonwoo having to sit at a rather large and reserved candlelit table in an expensive, esteemed restaurant, surrounded by some friends and strangers alike, with a plastic baggie of hard drugs shoved into his pants pocket that he couldn’t stop worrying about. Vernon had wanted him to leave it with Princess when appropriate. Most people invited were going to the club later in the night—Room 319—which he figured could only be survived by going buckwild off ecstasy. As his knee continued to ricochet underneath the tablecloth, Wonwoo was soothed by your hand sliding over his thigh.

You gave him a solicitous glance, smiling with care. “Why don’t I just put it in my purse?” The offer was whispered amongst the conversation.

Wonwoo couldn’t help but flit his eyes around the table, ensuring no one was giving his general direction a lick of attention. The waiters and waitresses would pop from the blue every now and then with bottles that seemed glued to their hands, scouring for anyone who needed a top up on alcohol. His glass had been seldom touched for the past half-hour.

He sighed, shaking his head. “No, it’s fine.”

“Wonwoo,” you deadpanned at him.

“It’s fine.”

“Oh my God—just give me it. It’ll take me two seconds to dig it out from your pocket and shove it in my damn purse. Besides, I can’t enjoy myself when the anxiety is emanating off you in waves.”

His knee immediately stopped jerking. Wonwoo looked you straight in the eyes, the stiffness turning him into straw. “Is it really?”

“Yes!” You laughed quietly, your head hunkering down on his shoulder for a brief moment. “Now, give me it please. Pretty please.”

Sliding a hand into the smooth pocket on his pants, Wonwoo began fishing out the small plastic baggie while puffing, “fuck—alright.”

“Gosh,” he heard you mumble while discreetly taking the capsules from him, rustling them into your purse, “you could never be a drug dealer, could you? How are you even friends with Vernon? That dude probably walks around with sample sizes taped to his jacket.”

“It’s different.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo was finally able to roll out his shoulders and relax—even give you a humorous little smirk, “I have a way better chance of escaping the drug dogs than he does. I’ll get a nice head start.”

His thigh was met with a slap before your hand pulled away. “I’m acting like I don’t know either of you.”

To be fair, Wonwoo couldn’t picture his bad-mouthed, fairly uncouth friend in a snotty establishment like Terra Cotta, especially considering his ideal places to eat were twenty-four-hour diners and cereal pantries belonging to girls whom he’d just slept with. The restaurant was no doubt beautiful, though it was definitely for the upper echelons who could not only afford it, but also act the pleasant, opulent guise.

At least the table that Princess reserved was a bit more separated from the other tables in the restaurant—it was close to a waterfall built into the wall, encompassed by all sorts of burnish-looking smooth stones.

Neither Seokmin or Mingyu were at the dinner—two absences that no one seemed to be questioning. To Wonwoo, that was a gigantic relief—he assumed you felt the same. Clara was there, seated further down the table, but Bells wasn’t. Seungcheol was an obvious guest, and besides you, he was the person that Wonwoo had spoken to the most since arriving at the restaurant—he’d even given Wonwoo the slip on his secret gift for his girlfriend, which was a two-week vacation to the Bahamas after the winter exam season.

Wonwoo was a little jealous.

He would love for you and him to vacation somewhere.

Maybe even take you back to South Korea.

“So, you guys,” Princess had started a conversation with you and Wonwoo from across the table, hands folded underneath her chin while she smiled kindly between you, “think you’ll come to the club after?”

You pouted at her, “we’re passing, babe. A million sorries.”

“Awe, that’s okay.” She reached across the pristine tablecloth to lay her hand over top yours. “You already took me out for my birthday, anyway. And let me vomit in your washroom for two hours.”

“Mmhm. You’d do the same for me.”

Princess giggled, her grin luminous and wholly genuine. “Oh, of course. I have already done it!”

“Well, you’ll have to tell me all about Room 319. The stories I’ve heard about that place—sounds like some shit from a movie.”

“Trust me, you’ll get the entire script in a bound book. I know the club thing isn’t for everyone—that’s why I did the dinner. And I’m doing cupcakes instead of cake! Remember those red velvet cupcakes we had that one night? And then that other night? Fuck—I couldn’t stop thinking about those damn things.”

“Oh, those were fucking delicious.”

“De-licious. Have you ever got to try one, Wonwoo?”

He swallowed, a bit jarred to be welcomed into their conversation that he had been happily listening to from the sidelines.

“I tried one. I liked it.”

Princess gasped at him. “Only liked? Be serious!”

“Well, ask me again later tonight. I wasn’t having it fresh.”

“I will be asking. How’s Vernon? I’m sad he couldn’t make it.”

“Oh, he’s fine. Sometimes he just mysteriously disappears from town for a couple days—I don’t ask because I don’t want to know. But, uh, he did leave me with a gift for you… if you didn’t already know.”

“Oh… oh! Right!” Princess straightened up, nodding. “Yeah, I remember. You can give it to me when we leave. Outside.”

“I have it actually,” you clarified, flickering a transient look at the tiny purse you had moved onto the table, “when we take a girl’s trip to the washroom, you can have it. The dose is pretty high. I know I don’t have to worry about you and this stuff, but be careful, y’know?”

“Of course. Just make sure you hide the purse in your lap when the waiter comes back. They love offering to take bags and satchels and all that stuff to hang in the coat room.” After clearing her throat with a sip from her pink, frothy champagne, Princess curiously poked at you two. “So, how do you guys plan to spend the rest of your night?”

Wonwoo opted not to speak.

You grabbed your wine glass, swirling the aromatic alcohol around inside while shrugging. “Not sure. It’s chilly out. Hope you don’t freeze your tits off standing outside in the mile long line for the club.”

“That’s what this push-up is for. The padding’s so toasty warm.”

Laughing with Princess, you ended up snorting.

Seungcheol, who was sat beside his girlfriend and had been occupied in speaking to a friend Wonwoo forgot the name of, finally parted from his conversation, turning his head at the last second to hear the giggling.

“Push-up? What are you guys talking about?”

You shook your head. “Nothing—just her bra.”

“Oh,” Seungcheol mumbled, “what about her bra?”

Princess smiled. “Just that with all this padding it’s got, it’ll keep me nice and warm when I’m waiting outside. Perfectly insulated.”

Rubbing a thumb and index finger along his jaw, Seungcheol grinned all relaxed-like while Princess rolled her dark brown eyes at his comment, the gold accents in her inner corners glimmering.

“I bet my hands would be a lot more efficient. Nothing warmer than skin on skin as they say.”

She shoved his shoulder half-heartedly. “Who says that? Now, bedroom eyes away before I make you wear a bag over your head.”

“I don’t see a bag here.”

“As the birthday girl, I’m pretty sure I can request one.”

The dinner officially wrapped up around ten at night. Wonwoo was able to reaffirm with Princess that the red velvet cupcakes were indeed moist and delicious. As everyone stood right outside the restaurant in the nippy, cold November weather, giving hugs and farewells to those who weren’t clubbing, he made sure to wish Princess probably the twentieth happy birthday she’d heard that night. He waited for you to give her another speech about staying safe but still having fun, sprinkled with lots of “I love you’s” and inside jokes that Wonwoo wondered if he would ever understand, before you two left on your own.

Each time he spoke, his breath would come to life in a warm wisp from his mouth, meanwhile the streets lights reflected in the melted snow all over the sidewalk he aimlessly wandered down, with you sticking close to his side. It hadn’t been a heavy snow, at least.

“Be honest,” you said, glancing toward Wonwoo, “how relieved are you that we’re not going to the club? On a scale of one to ten.”

“Is ten the most relieved?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at you, completely unabashed. “Ten.”

Kissing your teeth, you nodded. “That’s what I expected.”

“So,” Wonwoo hummed, stopping beside you at the intersection while waiting for the crosswalk light to change, “what now?”

Your eyebrows raised. “Still want to do something?”

As the cars whipped past, throwing up brisk winds and exhaust into the twinkling city atmosphere, Wonwoo shrugged. “The night is young.”

“What's on your mind?”

“We’re not far from Centertown. It’s maybe a fifteen-minute walk or so at this point. There’s a bar there I want to try. The Honeymoon.”

He was glad you didn’t seem opposed.

“Sure. I’m down.”

Once the crosswalk was open and the floods of people started pressing forward, there was somebody who passed them—somebody who almost went completely unnoticed by Wonwoo until his memory reloaded and he suddenly found himself pausing to observe over his shoulder.

You pulled at his sleeve. “What?”

“Uh, nothing,” Wonwoo replied, wetting his dry lips while heeding your polite tug, “the woman that passed us—she’s dressed exactly like this prostitute that Vernon told me he saw last winter, hanging outside Room 319. She has the heels and everything.”

“What the fuck. Really?”

“Mmhm,” he laughed, “he called her Pink Heels Lady. To be honest, I thought he was lying… but I’m pretty sure that was her.”

“Spooky. Coincidence or fate, do you think?”

Wonwoo glanced at you, seeing the intrigued smile on your face.

“I don’t know, actually,” he responded after the question hovered around in his mind for an oddly long second, deciding to pick up your hand in is, “I assume it’s just the universe working its magic.”

Wonwoo was never particularly into bars, although he could tolerate them much more than a club despite their parallels. The seedy lighting, deafening music, and signature throw-up gutter in the street or alleyway right outside the building was crucial to both, he had realized.

The Honeymoon was a newer bar that had garnered some notable buzz. It was less like a pub, being slightly more formal with a touch of modernity that had landed it just below presumptuous, in Wonwoo’s opinion. At least the music wasn’t overbearing, nor was there intoxicated, flush-faced men hollering at sports teams on televisions that would never hear them. You decided to sit at the counter, sliding onto the heightened chairs and leaving your jackets draped over the low backs.

You bristled, shaking out your shoulders. “I’m cold.”

Wonwoo cupped his hands overtop your icy cheeks for a moment, allowing some of his warmth to seep into your skin.

“A drink will fix that right up.”

“How are your hands hotter than mine? You’re always freezing.”

He smiled at you, letting you have your face back. “I can warm them up at will to your benefit.” Wonwoo joked, bumping his knee against yours. “What do you think of the place?”

Your lip pursed as you glanced around, examining the bartenders filling up glasses with their silvery, shiny spouts, and then over your shoulder at the numerous other tables occupied by the city’s strangers. For a frigid November night, it was quite full.

“It’s nice. The lighting is pretty. Reminds me of Alley Cat.”

“Oh, yeah. Vernon took me there once to celebrate my exams being done, then he got into a fist fight with this university student over something I can’t remember—smashed a glass on the dude’s head.”

Predictably, your eyes rolled. “Only Vernon is getting into fist fights at Alley Cat.”

Wonwoo chuckled. “Well, now he can’t get into fist fights there at all—management banned him and the other guy. Apparently, they’ve got this back wall of people who’ve been kicked out and he’s on there.”

“Figures,” you sighed.

“Oh my gosh! Wonwoo? It’s you!”

At the sound of his name being excitedly called, Wonwoo was soon met with the surprised but cheerful expression coloured to Sierra’s freckled face. He hadn’t forgotten that she worked there, but he was clueless about her schedule. She looked very pretty, glowing in a halo almost, with her coarse, reddish-brown hair pulled back slick into a ponytail and a crisp, clean black uniform tailored to fit her perfectly.

Wonwoo grinned. “Hey there. I didn’t know you worked tonight.”

Sierra set one hand onto the lacquered wood counter while the other stuck to her hip. “I don’t usually. Fridays are game nights with my little sister. But there was a call-in. A little extra cash never hurt.” The girl’s big, round eyes then flitted to you. “Her, right? I don’t think we’ve ever met formally. I know you’re one smart cookie, though.”

“I’d like to think so,” you answered, smiling back at Sierra, “you were at the party, weren’t you? The one Seungcheol threw this summer?”

She nodded, “I was. I made a few drinks here and there.”

“I never got to taste one,” you frowned, pouting.

Throwing up her hands, Sierra was quick to exclaim with her typical charisma and sugar sweetness, “what! Preposterous! I think I’m pretty wicked at it. What are you thinking of having?”

“To be honest, I’m not looking for anything too fancy at the moment. In fifteen minutes from now, I won’t be able to promise the same. I’d like to start off with a rum and coke, if that’s alright. For now.”

Sierra grinned. “No, that’s perfect. What about you, Wonwoo?”

He shrugged. “I’ll have the same. For now.”

“Well, for now, I’ll start you guys off with two rum and cokes.”

Leaning his elbows onto the countertop, he threw her a question.

“How’s it going with Carmen?”

While she prepared the drinks, Sierra blossomed into a smile. “Oh, it’s going great. She’s genuinely a blast. We’re going to the movies next week—that horror one is coming out, about the swimming pool—we think it’s gonna suck but that’s what makes it fun.”

Once Sierra slid you the cold glass, you tilted your head at her while fixing your lips around the black straw. “Who’s Carmen?”

“My girlfriend.” Sierra answered. “We met here, actually.”

“Ugh, no way,” you swooned, pressing a cheek into your hand as the next drink was given to Wonwoo, “that’s so fucking adorable. Does she ever tell you how beautiful you look in that all-black uniform?”

Giggling, Sierra wiped down the countertop and flushed. “I’ve heard it many times. It’s honestly just a t-shirt and slacks!”

“Well, you’re making it work.”

“Please—my face is heating up! You’ve got quite the gorgeous dress on yourself, you know. I always wonder where you get all your clothes. Wonwoo, have you complimented her yet, tonight?”

Mixing the ice cubes together to hear the satisfying clinks using his straw, he answered easily. “It was the first thing out of my mouth.”

Sierra nodded in satisfaction. “Good! Well, I won’t hover. But if you need any refills or have any questions, you can try to flag me down—or ask Jamie! She’s just down there. She’s great at martinis. Later!”

Once Sierra had left to busy herself with tending to others waiting service at the counter, you looked to Wonwoo, lips downturned.

“Jeez, she’s so freaking nice. How come I don’t have that kind of natural charm? Not that I’m not charming. But hers is so… magnetic.”

“Everyone’s got their natural quirks.”

“Yeah, well, my natural quirk is that I’m probably going to down this in the next two minutes. And then have three more after that.”

Wonwoo rubbed a hand to your shoulder, smirking into the glass that he raised to his mouth. “Just focus on the one you have now.”

3 more rum and cokes (+ 1 martini) later.

“No, no—but then, it gets even worse! Because not only had she been lying straight to his face the entire time, so was his best friend! They were seeing each other for weeks and weeks—he had no idea. What gave it away though, was the perfume. He was always telling her not to wear heavy perfumes and stuff because it will leave a scent on the sheets, but she messed up—so they freaked it, she spends the night, and then the next day when he’s over, he goes into his friend’s room looking for a charger and smells the perfume on the sheets! He puts it together! And then, and then—”

You paused, picking up the wide-mouthed martini glass to take a sip in the midst of your long-winded and passionate adultery story that Wonwoo had been struggling to follow for the past blurred time interval, the names now completely lost on his ears. There was hardly anything left in your glass, which led to your frustrated grumble, followed by an attempt to flag down the bartender, Jamie.

However, Wonwoo swiftly caught your hand despite his own impaired state, lowering it back to the countertop.

“Okay, I think that’s enough.” He pushed forward the cup of water he requested for you. “The least you can be right now is hydrated.”

Although you weren’t happy about his thwarting, you did yield to the advice and drink some of the water. Wonwoo knew he should probably have some himself after his own splurge on the bar’s pricy concoctions, but he still felt that he was holding up quite well. Before Jamie could whisk by again, he made sure to ask for another cup.

“So, what happened next?” Wonwoo nudged your elbow while you stared off cluelessly, urging you to continue the story.

“What?”

“He smells her perfume on the bedsheets. Now what?”

However, you were suddenly slumping forward, forehead nestled into your hands. For a moment, you stayed like that without word, until Wonwoo couldn’t help his concern and touched at your bare shoulder.

“Not feeling well?”

You shook your head, whining out, “no, no. It’s not that.”

He frowned, scooting to the edge of his chair and securing his arm across your shoulders. His voice was softer and closer against your warm cheek as he attempted to gauge that sour, twisted expression past your concealing hands, wanting to understand your hiding.

“Well, am I allowed to know what’s bothering you?”

Again, you remained silent, biting your lip. There was such tenseness in your body that he could simply feel with just his arm.

Wonwoo leaned back, instead tugging at your wrist. “Can I at least see your face? Please?” You didn’t budge. “Her, you’re worrying me a bit, here. Do you need me take you home—”

“Okay, I have something to tell you.” Breaking abruptly from your husk, you were now staring straight and square at Wonwoo with distinct inebriation cloudy in your eyes, although there was something else too that compelled Wonwoo to bite his tongue and listen. “Honestly, I think I’ve held onto this long enough. And, I’ve wanted to confess this to you for a while now, but there was just so much debris in my life that I needed to sort through first. But you’re beyond important to me, and I just think that it’s time you finally know… so, can I tell you?”

“Um…”

Wonwoo’s throat was suddenly bone-dry and his pulse had spiked to the point where he could feel a vein along his neck start throbbing—he even pondered waving down the bartender for another drink to pacify his growing nerves.

Ultimately, Wonwoo wouldn’t last that long. Pushing up his glasses, he nodded, noting that you hadn’t blinked once while you waited.

“Sure. Tell me.”

Your upper lip twitched.

“Mingyu’s been cheating on me, for two years.”

Wonwoo was quick to feel all his awareness become dull and drowned. He hardly registered his elbow shifting across the countertop, almost knocking over the glass of water onto the floor, nor did he realize the manner in which his mouth had subtly dropped open. You continued to stare at him with intensity, likely studying every tweak and fidget in his body language before swallowing deeply and choosing to continue the revelation.

He tightened up his jaw, trying to seem firm.

You looked ashamed of yourself as you admitted, “it’s been going on for two years, and I’ve known for about a year.”

“Really?” He answered, sounding mystified. “An entire year?”

“Give or take.”

Then, Wonwoo was shaking his head. His fist had clenched up tight, though it wasn’t the usual automated response that accompanied his anxiety—he found there was immediate distaste and anger swirling together like storm clouds in the pit of his stomach.

Your gaze was cast to the water glass on the countertop, which you moved away for no apparent reason, your expression emptied.

After a frail sigh, you continued, “do you remember that day I came into creative writing and got super upset at that guy for sitting in my seat? Remember how we talked about it at the nature museum, and I told you that I had a fight with Mingyu before going to class?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, that day, I tried bringing it up to him. And it totally didn’t go over how I thought it would. Mingyu denied it all… of course, I only had some vague but suspicious texts to go off of, which he explained his way out of pretty poorly. But I just accepted it for the sake of our relationship. And I never brought it up again until… you know.”

Wonwoo let a natural, stagnant silence fall in between you, meanwhile the encompassing atmosphere was kept flowing by the various conversations of those around you—seemingly happy—with plenty to drink as they kept warm from the bitter cold just outside.

He was biting his tongue, though he couldn’t hold the question any longer, piquing his, “do you know who he was cheating with?”

A huff shot straight through your nose.

“I know…” you mumbled, “and you know her, too.”

Suddenly, a name popped to his mouth without thought.

“Bells.”

When you didn’t confirm nor deny, opting to stare off to the side to conceal the emotion springing forth, Wonwoo knew it was solid truth.

“Fuck…” he cursed, grazing his hand across the smooth leg that was folded over your knee, “I’m so sorry… I’m at a loss for words.”

You could only sigh while a glossy film developed in your eyes.

“I mean, I’ve been through all the stages already—grief, denial, acceptance—whatever the other ones are—so I don’t know why I’m still getting so choked up about it. I obviously didn’t want to believe it… I mean, who the fuck does? Especially when you truly do have feelings for that person.” Shaking your head and sniffling, you exasperatedly flicked out a hand. “Her and her stupid sparkles. That was when I really started putting it together. Oh, I’m going out to play poker, babe! And the next day, I’m wearing his sweater, and I realize there’s these fucking little bits of glitter on it, inside it—it was like a fucking beacon that was just screaming at me—hey! Your asshole boyfriend is cheating!”

That was something Wonwoo had noticed himself, after Bells had bumped into him at the party—the girl’s adoration for sparkly clothing and makeup essentially left behind a glaring trail of glimmery breadcrumbs. Wonwoo had found them on his clothes once he took them off and could really see the fabric underneath the light. The confession suddenly painted your actions that night in a new colour.

Rubbing against your temple, you explained further despite the struggle to speak over that clogged sound coming from your throat.

“It’s not like I’m stupid, either, even if right now, in this situation, I seem like it. I know what Bells is like… she’s spoiled rotten—always has been—and is used to getting whatever the fuck she wants. But, you see, that’s the thing! That’s the fucking thing! Seokmin, Clara, Bells, even Princess—I only met them because of the webs my parents have in their business world. I was never really allowed to find my own friends. It really just shows how much they had a say in my life… don’t misconstrue, I truly do love Princess and she’s by far the most normal, grounded person amongst them. She actually listens, and cares. But I was only allowed to befriend her ‘cause my parents know her parents.

Mingyu seemed like the one person I was actually able to connect with on my own… but he’s honestly changed so much. It’s like, my parents were able to get their little fangs in him and warp him. And now… I really don’t think he loves me at all… I think he loves my image, and what I represent, and the opportunities that come with me… but, I don’t think he actually, genuinely loves me like he used to... like, back then, he was so, so sweet. He was always fumbling over himself, nervous, trying his best. I mean, you've read about it! He used to want to be an architect, Wonwoo. A freaking architect! He sketched all the time. He has a closet drawer full of sketch books from when he was younger. But everything's different now. He doesn't care. He hates when I bring it up! He hates me!

And I don’t just think—I know it, Wonwoo. He resents me, but he won’t let go. Instead, he just sucks the life out of me, like he’s trying to get me to hate myself, too. And I do. I guess, as long as I hate myself, it makes me perfect in their eyes. I’ll just keep letting them mould me until I feel complete.”

Wonwoo didn’t know what to do.

Hell, he didn’t even know what to say except for the fact that you were right—as long as you always felt subpar, or lacking, or frustrated with your drought of true identity, it would lead you back to the reliance you had on the deceptive characters in your life—it was nothing but a miserable cycle designed to bog you down and snuff you out. At least your tearful eyes had dried up.

You looked at him fondly, with a gentle smile. “That’s what I like so much about you… even if you didn’t intend to—which I know you didn’t, judging from what I’ve heard about you trying to avoid writing with me—” (he bit his inner cheek coyly, casting a somewhat anxious hand through his hair), “—you helped me realize parts of myself that were always there, but only needed some nurturing. You actually encouraged me. Supported me. And—okay—I know I said that I hate myself—but since I’ve met you, I’ve been replacing it with an understanding of my situation. I’ve been kinder. I’ve been more of myself. I like to think what we have is a sort of symbiosis.”

Wonwoo nodded. “I think you’re right.”

“Do you think that I’m… stupid… for staying?”

Immediately, Wonwoo’s face furled in disagreement. “No, no. Absolutely not. Mingyu’s been with you for so long. He has an integral quality in your life. It would be difficult to uproot yourself just like that. No one’s a better judge of that situation than you.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

As you relaxed back into the bar chair, Wonwoo could practically see this heavy, dark mist levitate from you and dissipate into the air. He knew that feeling of relief and inner freedom very well, and there was almost nothing that could compare to it.

Wonwoo then sipped from his glass of water, continuing to watch the stiffness melt off you like ebbing spring snow. "So, what was his response like? To your accusations? Was he at least honest?"

"Yeah, I got it all out of him eventually," you revealed with a very cumbersome sigh. "But he was deflecting like crazy... I'd never seen him like that before... he was fumbling his words all over, like he used to when we were first dating. But it was different. It wasn't nerves, it was just blind anger. He said I was no better. I mean, he's convinced we've had sex, and he wouldn't accept my denial, no matter what."

"It's not black and white," Wonwoo said, squeezing your arm, "it seems to me like a natural consequence. You felt trapped and alone."

For a split second, Jeanie flashed in his mind. A sear of guilt snapped through him. Mingyu would have much reflecting to do.

Nodding your head, you looked to Wonwoo and graced him with the words he may or may not have been waiting months to hear: "it's all over now—Mingyu and I—I made that extremely clear. And I honestly don't care what anyone else has to say. My mom didn't want to believe it... she's been acting strange since. I don't blame her."

In response, he merely nodded, warming you up with his gentle eyes.

But then he was shifting forward in his seat, elbows settled to the counter. Although it was quite late and he felt exhausted from drinking, his curiosity about a particular matter was still sharp.

“So… I’m wondering… what's your reason for writing the book?”

You gulped. “I wanted a way of looking back on everything. Seeing if maybe I could find myself somewhere amongst all those memories. Maybe when I started losing Mingyu was when I started losing myself. Maybe that's when I realized I was losing myself. Maybe that's when I realized I never really knew myself to begin with.”

He shrugged, his face colouring with admiration for you.

“Well... have you found something?”

Your only means of response was a twinkle-eyed grin.

The walk back to your apartment wasn’t as dreadful as Wonwoo anticipated, mostly attributed to the alcohol soaking up in your stomachs, keeping your blood warm even in the face of a tough, harsh wind. Back when it wasn’t so late in the night and his lips had yet to touch his first rum and coke, Wonwoo thought he would take himself home after seeing you off first. But now it was almost midnight, and he had this impending feeling of vertigo while he walked, and he was therefore very limp to fight the offer that involved a comfortable stay at your place until morning.

Wonwoo wasn’t exactly sure where he deposited his coat or his shoes, or even his phone—instead he found himself sitting at the end of your bed, listening to the muffled sound of a running sink behind a closed door as you were busy in the washroom.

He leaned over, removing the glasses already slid down his nose and rubbing a palm into his eye until stars traversed the length of his vision. So, Lady Liberty was a cheater. For the past two years. It did bring Wonwoo to wonder what else Mingyu had said during your argument. Did he ever give a reason for cheating? Did he feel boxed into a life that wasn't the enriching utopia he surmised it might be, but he was toughing it out for the sake of success? Was he cheating because he was mad at you or mad at himself?

Or was he honestly just an asshole?

The Mingyu he was familiar with was shifty, and hardened, and image-obsessed, and now Wonwoo knew for a fact he wasn’t delusional for feeling the tension between you and him whenever you were together. God—he could practically cut all the thickness in the air using Seokmin’s nose and serve it like pieces of cake. But Mingyu hadn't always been like that according to your allegories. Deep down there could still be traces of the man you fell in love with, flickering like shiny little minnows beneath murky, clouded water.

But it was too late now.

Fitting his glasses back on, Wonwoo rolled back the sleeves to his crisp white dress shirt, proceeding to take a gander around your bedroom that he hadn’t revisited in quite some time.

The running sink in the washroom across the hall was finally turned off, although Wonwoo had stopped paying attention to the background noise in place of reading your every detail off the walls. In minuscule ways, the room had changed. There were missing photographs from the dresser, your makeup vanity drawers no longer left ajar in your likely last-minuting rushing to ensure everything was perfect. The closet seemed cleaned-out. Emptier than it once was.

“I thought you might fall asleep.”

He jumped slightly, realizing that you were in the bedroom now, setting down your heels in the corner before making a stride toward the closet where the dress over your arm was hung back up.

Wonwoo bit his lip. “I questioned it.”

You smiled, and within that moment he noticed the long t-shirt you were draped in was the dark blue, logoed math shirt, the one you’d picked after sprinting back to his apartment amidst a rain storm. He felt something in his chest swell and ache in response to how pretty you looked wearing it. Wonwoo knew he was staring, blushing, but he didn’t care. You had two of his t-shirts now. He hoped that collection might continue growing. He hoped that you wore them until his scent was naturally replaced by the strawberry sweetness of your own.

“Thinking about anything in particular?” You asked, arms folded.

Slapping a guilty little grin on his face, Wonwoo shrugged. “No.”

But then you started striding toward Wonwoo, uttering out something half-whispered that sounded a lot like “liar”, and now he truly wasn’t thinking about a damn thing, not even his own breath, as you proceeded to slide your arms around his neck and seat yourself in his lap. He was frozen. You hadn’t been this fucking close to him since you two had cuddled during Seungcheol’s party.

But this was worse—this was full-throttle intimacy with your penetrative, fluttering eyes eating up his soul while your bare thighs squeezed the sense out of him, trapping him, testing him.

“Scared?” You whispered, moving your face in closer.

Yes—he was horrified—he couldn’t even speak with you smiling at him so innocently despite the flames you were igniting.

Though, when he felt a wriggle from your hips that seemed to push against him in all the right places, Wonwoo’s hands were immediate on your waist, tight and stilling, and he swore there was a vulnerable, pliant spark in your eyes that he had never seen before. Maybe Wonwoo could have been more polite about the approach, but after waiting so, so long, he felt like a rocket ship rife with fuel.

He kissed you.

In one decision his lips were pressed to yours, and in a kiss that was full of friction and earnest want, he could only dig deeper. Your arms curled further around his neck, to which you slipped in a quick, sharp breath before pouring yourself back into him so suddenly, mouths moulding again and again, spit slickening, noses bumping. He would have paused to take off his glasses, though Wonwoo was in no place to leave your lips for even a second—especially when your playful tongue glided with his and the world around him melted like wax.

Maybe he was biased (or maybe it was love), but Wonwoo swore it had never felt this right to kiss someone. He knew it, somewhere outside himself, far out in the ever-expanding universe and every other version that belonged, that this moment felt destined to happened. Wonwoo had never particularly believed in fate.

But then he wouldn’t know how else to describe you.

His hands itching to touch more of your skin had gravitated to the thighs clenching at his hips. Your warmth and smoothness only made him greedier. As the kissing became messy in the desperation, he couldn’t help but slide his hands to your ass, immediately kneading his cold fingers into the flesh, pulling, squeezing, pushing you closer into him because he quite literally wanted you to engulf his body.

Then, you were gripping at the back of his hair. You had opened up his throat for your wet lips to continue exploring, and Wonwoo felt every suckle and teething bite draw him further from clarity.

Each kiss slithered lower, until you were gradually lifting from his lap and placing yourself onto the carpet floor. Wonwoo had leaned back to tightly fist the bedsheets behind him, although he would never waver his lusted eyes from the sight of you between his spread legs, on your knees, palming him overtop his dress pants while biting your swollen, glistening lip. He almost wanted the camcorder to capture it.

“How does it feel?” You hummed, staying focused on each pressured movement your hand applied to his prominent erection.

Wonwoo chuckled, clearing the huskiness in his throat, “like I’m gonna die.” His head tilted back. “Holy shit.”

Flashing nothing but a conniving, pleased smile, you tended to undoing his belt buckle. Wonwoo was burning up. As you pulled down the zipper to his pants and helped him shift down the waistband to his underwear an adequate distance, he couldn’t process anything but the fact that he might burst like an explosion of confetti the second your hand would touch him.

Except, you opted to sit back on your haunches.

Tilting your head, you smirked at him.

“I would like a demonstration, please.”

He almost choked. “A what?”

“A demonstration,” you repeated, shuffling closer in between his thighs and gazing up much too seraphically through your lashes, “won’t you show me how you touch yourself, Wonwoo? Please?”

For the life of him, he couldn’t produce one stupid fragment of a sentence, or even a word. God—it didn’t fucking help that you took reign and offered to get him started—your hand carefully reaching past his underwear, gripping onto him gently to spring his erection free. A shiver surged throughout his body at the sensation. Hotness spread like molten lava across his face as the result of your lascivious, teasing actions stood leaking and stiffer than wood right before your eyes, which were agleam with thrill and haze.

You seemed as though you were going to pounce on him.

But he could visibly see you swallow the temptation.

“Aww, you have the prettiest dick I’ve ever seen,” you giggled, wrapping a hand around him that was soft and warm, “would it make you feel better if I started you off, then? Gave you some help?”

Wonwoo’s fists were tangled so intensely into the bedsheets he was surprised the fabric hadn’t disintegrated. Holding his breath, he watched you lean forward until your mouth was hovering an agonizing distance over him, only to produce a line of spit that dripped onto his head. His jaw unhinged in a groan. Then you began working the saliva along his shaft, pumping a hand up and down, occasionally flickering your thumb over the sensitive tip only to remove the contact so casually, likely knowing it would rip him apart.

“Your turn.”

He took a second to push up his glasses and shake his head.

“M’not gonna last long, you know,” Wonwoo grunted, at last heeding your request and beginning to stroke himself for your viewing pleasure, “especially after that big display. You fucking tease.”

With an arm slid over his thigh and the drool collecting in your mouth, you couldn’t have looked anymore dazzled by the thirst you were experiencing, your eyes refusing to part from every tug delivered by his own hand. It was a spell, and you were unapologetically under it.

“Mmm, a tease?” You purred, smiling. “I was just trying to help.”

“Were you?” Wonwoo scoffed, pumping faster while continuing to twist up the bedsheets using his other hand. “Rubbing your fucking spit into my cock is tt-trying to help me? Is that what you think?”

“Mmhm,” you answered, straightening up as Wonwoo felt himself become tenser, felt the pressure in his abdomen climb.

He shuddered, a groan reverberating from somewhere deep in his chest. The sound of his fist wetly slapping up and down consumed the room and Wonwoo knew it was only a matter of seconds before he lost it. You were basking in every sound and movement.

“Fuck, fuck, I-I can't—”

Suddenly, you’d pushed Wonwoo’s hand away. His stomach flipped upside down. Before he could recognize the brief loss and regain of pleasure, your suckling, wet, hot mouth was already sliding down around his erection, your grip fastening to whatever you couldn’t quite reach. Wonwoo bit his lip so hard at the sensation that something coppery-warm was tasted on his tongue, although that was the least of his concerns when you were throating him with messy desperation. His hand rested on your scalp, nervous to push your head down too firmly, but once he did, you moaned out so erotically around him that Wonwoo fragmented.

His hips bucked straight into your face while his fingers had tightened at the back of your scalp, feeling every intense throb expand against your throat, spurt after spurt filthy in your mouth. But you were diligent and zealous and Wonwoo knew you were swallowing it all despite the few tears trickling onto his pelvis. His length didn’t leave the velvet, pillowy confines of your mouth until every bit was expertly milked out from him, though had Wonwoo let his hand drift off your hair in case you wanted a breath.

With a hiccup and a wipe against your chin, you were tasting the bedroom’s heavy air and exhaling ragged as Wonwoo marvelled you.

“Trying to take my soul with you or something?” He huffed, using his thumb to remove some leftovers from the side of your lips.

You caught his hand in an instant. “No—” you piped up, quick to close your mouth around the digit and suck off whatever he politely removed, laving your tongue like you were licking a popsicle, “—I want all of it.”

He thought he might crumble, hearing you mumble such obscene words while tracks of tears dried overtop your cheeks, your voice sounding somewhat hoarse from the labour of taking him whole.

You were climbing back onto Wonwoo’s lap almost blindly, his next breath taken away by a passionate kiss you pushed so fervently onto his lips. There was another tangling of tongues, saliva mixing together, but neither attempting to take control— though at this point Wonwoo would gladly oblige to throwing you on the bed and twisting off those frustrating panties he imagined were sticking to you. He could feel your arousal dampening through the baby pink cotton as his length twitched back to hardness underneath you.

“Wonwoo,” you whined breathily into his ear while grinding your hips against him in search of friction, “I’ve got to tell you something I did.” You bruised up his neck with more kisses. “Something bad.”

His eyes were shut, hands continuing to grope your ass. “Yeah?” He mumbled, feeling your tongue drag across a vein in his neck. “You did something bad? What could that be?”

Your hands drifted down his chest, yanking open the buttons on his dress shirt in satisfying pops. Warm, feathery breath hit his ear. “That day I stayed the night in your bedroom… alone…” you kissed him on his mouth, letting it linger and last, “I couldn’t help it.”

Wonwoo had gripped the side of your face, meanwhile he rubbed underneath the waistband to your tiny, thin underwear.

“Couldn’t help what?”

He flinched as your hand sunk down to grab his cock.

“I touched myself,” you confessed just an inch from his face, “I laid back against your pillows, spread my legs all wide… I had my fingers stuffed so deep inside myself, but it still didn’t feel like enough.” Again, you were softly stroking him. Wonwoo continued to uphold that unwavering, painfully honest gaze you were pinning him in. “Nd’ I came all over your t-shirt, Wonwoo. I played with myself until my fingers were cramping and my legs couldn’t stay open anymore.”

He gulped—heavy—like swallowing a chunk of lead. His tender thumb grazed along your cheek and rubbed over your puffy lips. “I wanted to fuck you so bad that night,” Wonwoo soothed your confession with another, which was already quite obvious, “I dreamt about it. I wanted to bury myself so fucking deep inside your gut.”

You shook your head, eyes teary. “Why didn’t you?” He felt the delicate stroking motion along his erection come to a pause.

Wonwoo cradled your cheek. “It would have fucked everything up.”

“But I wanted it,” you whimpered. “I’ve been wanting it for so long and you just left me there. I would have been quiet. You could have put me face down in the pillows and just used me all you wanted.”

“No,” Wonwoo argued, “I would never want to use you. I want us to be together in everything. I know you wanted it. But lust makes you think different. Just like it’s making you think different right now.”

He softly slotted his mouth with yours, exchanging a much slower, sweeter kiss that lit a glow in his belly. You puddled right into the contact, curling your arms back around his neck to hold him tighter.

Much lighter kisses dappled the edges of your lips.

Wonwoo could feel you start to smile.

“I figured something was off the next morning,” he said.

You chuckled, “I didn’t know how to face with you without thinking about it. I felt so dirty. But in the moment, I needed something.”

He nipped down your slender neck, letting his hot breath and reverberating, husky tone tickle your skin until your hairs stood up.

“How wet were you?” Wonwoo purred, smirking.

Immediately, your hips were pushing down on him. “Soaked,” you then whispered, “I was making such a mess. I tried so hard to be quiet. But part of me wanted you to hear.”

Wonwoo’s hands drifted up your t-shirt, gliding slow against your stomach, coming to reach the plump, sensitive breasts that he could only surmise were waiting for his attention. He cupped them in each palm, giving a tender squeeze and pull that pitched your breath into a squeak. Caressing your neck with more wet, open-mouthed kisses, he felt the absentminded grinding reignite the friction between you.

“Did you touch up here, too?”

His thumbs brushed your pert nipples. He felt you shiver.

“Y-Yes.”

Tsking his teeth, he pleasured them with slow, rubbing circles that you mewled in response to. “You’ve got the softest skin. I could touch you until I die, and it still wouldn't be enough.”

“Mmhm,” he heard you exhale shakily, “I touch myself at home, too. Put my pillow between my legs. Pretend I’m grinding against you. Then let my fingers take me again and again until it hurts.”

How dare you fucking say that to him—how dare you put such an intimate visual in his mind to haunt him like a ghost to hallowed grounds. How many times had you done it? How many times had you stood right in front of him, smiling so innocently, despite knowing damn well what you had done to yourself the night before.

Wonwoo pinched your nipples, watching you flinch.

“Does it hurt right now?”

You nodded.

“Where?” He lowered his voice, sinking his hand back down the creases in your tummy until it paused right on your mound, his eyes trained to your suddenly very desperate, misty look. “Down here?”

“Yes.”

Holding eye contact with you, Wonwoo trailed his hand further along your panties until his touch was situated right between your thighs, directly feeling the wet fabric, the radiating heat, the aroused pulsations. Your fingernails were pricks in his shoulders.

“Fuck, you are drenched, aren’t you?” Wonwoo commented, rubbing his hand against you through the cotton material, your hips soon chasing the overwhelming pleasure. “Can feel you throbbing against my hand, you know that? Bet it aches so fucking good, hm?”

He grinned hard at your eyebrows knitting together. While he massaged you with one hand, the other gripped your chin where he pushed a hot, uncoordinated kiss onto your whiny mouth.

“Lay across my lap,” Wonwoo whispered in between the hasty break for air, “let me play with you instead, make you cum. Please.”

To his delight, your compliance came easily.

It didn’t take long for you to splay yourself in the desired position, with Wonwoo pushing up the shirt to bunch at your waist while your bottom was perfectly presented in his lap. He massaged you, leaning down to mark a trail of kisses along your lower back, along your ass—spreading you wide to see the large, soaked patch glistening on those easily rippable underwear.

“Just open your thighs a bit more,” Wonwoo instructed, to which you quickly listened, “fuck—perfect—all this, only for me.” He pushed his thumb against you through the panties and you instantly squeaked.

“Right?” He urged. “Is this all just for me?”

“Mmhm—yes, yes. I fucking promise. Just for you.”

Wonwoo bit his lip to stop the size of the immediate smile from breaking across his face. Your hips wriggled up as his touch drifted away.

“I need more,” you groaned in frustration, “please.”

“More here?” Wonwoo pulled back on one side of your glute to help reveal the sensitive area, then rubbing his thumb against your clit.

Your entire body jerked, and he noticed your fingers dig into the bedsheets, clawing them up. He figured the wet friction between his thumb and your panties was frustratingly amplifying every little sensation in a dull but very cruel way. He continued his ministrations, adding some more pressure for you to squirm and moan at.

“Does it still hurt?” Wonwoo asked, letting his other hand slide up your bare waist, the skin beginning to sweat and turn even warmer.

“Please,” you groaned, attempting to adjust your hips against the stroking from his thumb, “I feel like m’gonna fucking die, Wonwoo.”

“Still need more, then?”

“Yes!”

Deciding to throw you a bone, Wonwoo grabbed those thin, pink panties in his hand and helped you slide the constricting fabric down and off your legs. Once he spread you nice and wide, let the cold air ghost the slicken, swollen skin, you had gasped. For a moment, Wonwoo didn’t speak—he only stared at you with all the stars in the universe collecting behind his eyes, glittering like a snow globe—at how beautiful and exposed and needy you looked.

He let his fingers slide ever so slowly along your clit, drawing up to your hole, then pushing back down to hear you whimper brokenly.

Wonwoo swallowed the dryness in his throat.

“Do you have any fucking idea how beautiful you are?” He complimented, his fingers soaking in your arousal. “I knew your cunt would look pretty, but this is more than that. God…” experimentally, Wonwoo shifted a finger gentle into your opening, giving the digit a wriggle and few shallow pumps. Immediately your intense warmth clenched down tight before loosening, engendering him to effortlessly press in two more long fingers. “There you go… good girl…” he mumbled his encouragement as you gripped the bedsheets and moaned a guttural sound, “taking in my fingers so fucking well—they slide in so easy… make such perfect, dirty noises whenever they fill up this gorgeous cunt.”

His thumb touched at your clit, lending it some attention that had you twisting and bucking back to receive even more pleasure.

“God, Wonwoo…” you gasped, sounding lost to the ecstasy while letting him take his time with mapping out your inner walls with curious strokes, “that feels so fucking good. You have no idea. Feels like m’gonna pour all over you.”

He grinned, further stimulating your swollen clit, maintaining the pattern as you propped up on your elbows, tugged at the bedspread, and released a mellifluous, shuddering moan from your throat.

“F-fuck ye-yess…” you whined as his fingers squelched deeper and his thumb continued its circles, “yes, yes, yes, keep doing that—oh-oh, fuck! M’gonna cum all over your fingers—m’gonna make a mess!”

“That’s all I want,” he breathed, his chest tightening at how much arousal was pooling sticky around his digits, “that’s all I’ve ever fucking wanted—make a mess all over me, like the pretty, desperate girl you are. Let me see it. Let me feel everything. Cum just for me.”

Your entire body proceeded to seize, Wonwoo’s fingers now struggling to pump, as this striking wave seemingly coursed through you and resulted in heavy fluids wetting his dress pants. It took a moment for you to power through the pleasure, though Wonwoo was at least able to maintain his stroking gestures against your clit until he noted the sharp, almost spastic twitches in your muscles.

“That’s a good girl,” Wonwoo hummed in satisfaction while he gingerly eased his fingers out and left your poor, throbbing bud alone.

He smoothed his hand down your back, offering you a moment to relax, breathe, and ride out the electricity.

“Fuck,” you wiped at the sweat on the back of your neck, chuckling at the discomfort, “I can feel it all between my legs.”

Wonwoo smirked. Hard. He bent forward to peck your temple, then brushed his lips against your stinging hot ear. "How about I clean that all up for you?" The velvety whisper caused your body to jitter.

"Clean me up how?" You turned your head, catching his eye.

There was a swap of positions. Wonwoo lowered himself to the bedroom floor, the carpet spongey against his knees, while you lay down on your back and draped your legs off the edge of the bed. But he was hungry for you, and greedier than a treasure hunter, and you went limp as he hitched your knees over his broad shoulders.

Being face to face with your intimate heat was like the kiss of life—new energy was taking over him—giving him desire unlike any other.

He didn't know if he wanted to keep staring at you, your soft skin messy with slick and twitching anticipatorly at his closeness, or if he should stop prolonging the moment and just bury everything into you. Adjusting his glasses, Wonwoo licked his bitten lips. You were in the midst of shuffling up to your elbows, likely wondering what the hell he doing, staring between your thighs for so long.

But as quickly as you squeaked his name, it was interrupted by an intense gasp a second later. You leaned all your weight onto a single elbow, tossing your head back, panting for dear life as Wonwoo striped his tongue long and flat against your heat. His hands gripped your hips, sculpting them over your bone while he tasted your arousal, all sticky and musky and delicious to the point of addiction.

"O-Oh my god, Wonwoo," you cried, letting your body collapse onto the bedsheets, limbs becoming jelly, "that feels fucking amazing."

He licked into you like he were trying to reach the centre of a sweet, colourful jawbreaker. Every pass from his tongue was firm, encompassing, smothering you in pleasure and painting you with spit. But you reacted best when he toyed his ministrations around your sensitive clit—your back would jolt off the bed, arched, as your thighs hugged him tight—Wonwoo heard your begging akin to a distant echo. He would even smile into you, glasses all foggy, chin running in wetness, as you preached his name dumbly, losing your mind. Wonwoo pressed his mouth hot against you, flicking his tongue to your overstimulated clit, focusing hard on his pattern.

"Fuck, fuck!" You shouted, writhing into the sheets. "Please, Wonwoo. Please, please, please—I'm—I'm gonna cum! Please, just—k-keep—"

There was a surge of something warm and liquid that Wonwoo wanted to drink like a peach's nectar. You were throbbing right under his tongue and he loved it to a point that felt utterly insane. He didn't want to stop even if the world was ending. His face plunged in deeper, his hands grafting into your hips harsher, completely ignorant to your fingers pulling at his hectic locks of hair. Wonwoo only wanted you and nothing else and he was going to drown in it.

But you were attempting to sit up, your sweaty body becoming better at escaping his eager, hungry licks that dug into your slit, and once he heard you wince particularly sharp, he knew he had to stop.

He sat back, removing his glasses and wiping off his chin. You slid a leg from his shoulder, using a foot to gently prod against his chest—a light scolding for perhaps enjoying you a little too much.

"Are you starved?" You laughed heavily, gulping down a breath.

Wonwoo fit the glasses back to his face. "For you? Yes." He then licked at his teeth and lips, still yearning to find traces of your arousal, only to realize you were shaking. "Shit—I'm sorry if I hurt you." Standing up, he cupped your face, bending down to kiss you gentle on the lips over and over. "I'm so fucking sorry. You taste amazing, that's all. And you're so beautiful. I couldn't fucking help it."

With a giggle, you tousled his hair. "No, I'm fine. I like a little pain." Your eyes were back to shining. Then, you caught his mouth, stealing another kiss. "But I’m even greedier than you—," pushing yourself up, you nipped at his lips, “—and I want that pretty, long cock inside me to hit all the right spots.” The exchange had you seated back in Wonwoo’s lap, where your bare, soaked pussy was free to brush against his straining and achingly hard length.

“Yeah?” Wonwoo smirked, welcoming your spit-smeared mouth.

Feeling your hips grind against him, you purred, “yeah.”

“I’ve got no protection,” Wonwoo admitted in between the make-out session, hardly able to pry your lips from one another as you slid backward on the bed with Wonwoo climbing over top.

Helping to shove off his dress shirt and slacks, discarding them to the floor, you shook your head. “Don’t need it.”

Returning the gesture, Wonwoo had you fully undressed. The entirety of your bare body on full display felt like something sacred—an artwork that had been crafted with unimaginable attentiveness to every single detail, no matter how miniscule. He couldn't liken it to anything else in his life but a distant memory from childhood—a grand mausoleum that he found himself inside with his older brother, the ceiling intricately chiselled with angelic, satin-like bodies.

Your words seemed distant. It took a second for him to remember.

“Don't need protection? Why?"

As your hands locked behind his neck, pulling him down close, you dug into his eyes with an emotional gaze. “Finish inside me.”

He stuttered, furrowing his brow, “seriously? You won’t—”

“No. I’m taking precautions, you know.” Brushing at his dampened, thick hair, you asked, “have you ever had unprotected sex?”

Wonwoo scoffed, surprised at the inquiry, “yeah. But—is that—you really want that? With me?” He stared down at you intensely.

“I only want it if you want it, too.”

He nodded, biting his lip, taking a moment to examine your perspiring face alongside the the rising and dipping of your chest.

“I want it,” Wonwoo reaffirmed, “I definitely want it.”

Truth be told, a splinter of nerves had lodged into his chest at the thought of having to perform to your anticipation—Wonwoo was never really sure if he would ever get intimate with you—and as his gaze again streamed your body, he felt overwhelmed. But then your fingertips were stroking down his bicep, seemingly drawing out the forthcoming anxiety from him like you were pulling out a thread of energy, and the easygoing smile he was met with tamed his heart.

Wonwoo eased closer toward you, allowing your expert touches to be the guide. Your hand had returned to his length for a few more thorough and especially lentamente tugs, prompting him to hiss into your neck while very flushed shades of pink crawled up his face.

He felt himself throb, wanting to simply collapse against you and climax at your hand for the second time. To make matters even more complicated, Wonwoo felt you shift slightly, and then the tip of his impatient cock was suddenly gliding all slippery like butter along your folds. Wonwoo’s arms started to shake.

You laid your palm gentle against his neck.

“How’s that feel?” You whispered in a trembling breath, meanwhile continuing the heavenly ministrations of tracing your clit with his length. “I-I think it feels quite nice—getting you all wet.”

“Amazing,” he answered, pressing his forehead to yours and pecking at your lips, “you want me to take it from here?”

Keeping silent, your grip drifted from his erection and you seemed satisfied to let the control sway now that Wonwoo was adjusted. Just before he aligned himself, however, he looked at you and laughed.

“Can you push up my glasses real quick?”

You chuckled, “seriously?”

“What’s wrong with wanting to be see you properly?”

“Nothing,” you flashed a tender smile, then using your finger to help position the glasses back up his nose, “there you go.”

Wonwoo proceeded to slide himself inside you at a slower pace that allowed him to bask in the intimate sensation—he made damn sure every little squeeze, flutter, and convulsion your heat cushioned him with was felt—though that made it considerably hard for him not to release in pathetic fashion, before he had even made a good, swift thrust. You were soaking up the moment just as much.

He didn’t want to advert his eyes from the pleasure cascading like ripples across your face for even a second. Once he was buried in still and deep, completely stuffing you to the hilt, your breath had fogged up his glasses.

“Fuck—s-sorry—” you squirmed through the apology, your hips occasionally canting against his in unbridled twitches, “—I can hardly fucking think right now. Do you know how much you’re throbbing?”

He choked out a hoarse laugh, “do you know how insanely good you feel to me? Feels like m’gonna fucking break into a million pieces. ”

“I want you to break me into a million pieces,” you whined so needily, looping your arms around his neck, “fuck me, Wonwoo. Please.”

He was positive you had told him that in a dream once.

As euphoric as you felt clenching around him, Wonwoo truly did want the sex to last. His thrusts into your heat weren’t frantically impatient, rather they grooved incredibly, purposefully deep—each stroke was thoughtful but hard, slow but timely, and judging from your high-pitched keens and the nails scraping against his shoulder blades, he knew you were appreciating the moment just the same.

Wonwoo grasped your sweaty hands in his, your fingers interlocking tight, in order to hold them against the sea of silky pillows above your head. With another especially daggering thrust that made his teeth clench and his abdomen flutter, you had jerked and cried out his name, followed by a breathless, “rr-right there!”

A leg wrapped around his hips, your ankle digging uncomfortably into his side while he continued to push his length into the spot that was making you howl. But it was getting increasingly difficult to continue the tempo—your leg was tightening around him like a boa constrictor and your warmth was clamping down with plain strength, almost as though your body was attempting to lock him inside.

He merely squeezed your hands harder, losing his breath. “You’re almost there, aren’t you?” Taking advantage of another thorough stroke, Wonwoo had the bedframe thudding the wall, his words hotly pressing into your ear. “You’re trying to keep me suctioned in.”

Your whimpers were falling apart like crumbling clay. Wonwoo tried to understand what it was you were mewling at him, something involving his name, how good it felt, that he should keep going, meanwhile tears were springing to your eyes and wetting your glimmery cheeks. Wonwoo bit his lip. He was throbbing wildly inside your heat, knowing you were only getting dumber and turning incoherent as he speared you so intimately on his cock.

Wonwoo wasn’t going to last much longer and neither were you. He was already feeling himself burst and break—the convulsion ripped through him like a landslide and now your leg was fully hooked around his hips, pinning him against you while he emptied himself disgustingly deep inside your warmth.

The sensation must have triggered your own orgasm, because his cock felt like it was practically being suffocated as you squeezed down on him. Wonwoo thought he might blackout when you whined his name into the dim bedroom humidity, strung in a loud, trembling lilt that cracked beautifully in the middle.

Your arms were winding back around his neck, pulling his face to yours, a kiss crushed onto his awaiting mouth.

“I need more,” you panted in between the kisses, “don’t feel full enough yet. Cum inside me again, Wonwoo. Please, take me again.”

“Again?” He smiled, his glasses bumping your nose. You were completely uncaring, only nipping at him harder. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” you chanted, “I’ve never been surer of anything in my fucking life.” Suddenly, you were wriggling underneath him, rolling onto your stomach, and repositioning yourself such that you were face-down-ass-up. With eyes twinkling bright in pure, carnal lust, you threw him a a yearning glance from over your shoulder. “Fuck me again, nice and deep like before." His heart shot into his throat. When you begged, it was like his world was shrinking into a bubble where only you and him existed. "Please—I need it before your cum starts leaking out. I need to be filled by you, Wonwoo. Please.” You looked like you might cry if he didn't oblige the plead.

And so he did, his fingers planting a firm grip on your strong hips.

As much as you were willing to take, he was willing to give, finding himself submerge further and further into the intoxicating nature of it all until he started to lose his mind—all he knew is that it was concerningly late at night, your bedsheets were sticky and ruined, and you had gone from being thrust into the pillows to slapping yourself down on his cock while Wonwoo hazily watched. He loved the sight of your sweat, your glowing light, your bouncing breasts and pleasure-drunk face far too much. At some point, you had slumped forward into him, spent to fucking hell.

With your chests were pressed together, his cock still throbbing and stuffed inside you, there was a moment of nothing but thick, laboured breathing and heartbeats synchronizing. He kissed your temple and wrapped his arms around you, proceeding to mumble something sweet and half-asleep that contained your name.

You had squeezed his length unforgivingly in response.

“Fuck—don’t get me hard again. I’m fucking exhausted.”

“I like when you use my name.”

He smiled into your cheek. “I can tell.”

Wonwoo had woken before you.

Mostly because the bedsheets had been gradually wrapped up and tugged away and progressively stolen from him during the night, letting the cool, morning air dust over him like spray from an ocean. You were a fidgety sleeper, he had realized, sometimes even a mumbler, although Wonwoo had never been able to discern what it was you were sluggishly declaring in your dreams.

He turned his head to you, saw the bare groove of your back, shapely like a flower petal, and your arm dug underneath the silk pillow, observing every breath your unconscious body took.

Then, Wonwoo was leaning over you, feeling his fingers sink into your fleshy waist while his lips touched a kiss against your warm cheek. He hoped you wouldn’t mind him using your washroom for a shower.

Afterward, Wonwoo retraced the apartment, finding his shoes a questionable distance apart—one stood square at the front door while the other was left in the hallway leading to your room. His winter jacket was tossed over the arm to the couch, meanwhile his phone involved a more in-depth search. For some reason, he’d left it atop a shelf beside the television, hidden by a clumsy stack of textbooks.

When he tapped the screen, it illuminated some text messages from Vernon that had been sent at around two in the morning—mostly inquiries about the birthday dinner and whether or not Wonwoo had bothered going to the famed and mysterious Room 319.

Though, he opted not to respond, realizing the details he wanted to share with his friend would likely require a sit-down discussion over burgers, fries, and sodas at Solar Pop. Making his way back to the bedroom, Wonwoo carefully creaked open the door to find you half-shoved onto an arm, making tired circles against your eye.

He smiled, coming to sit beside you, handing off the glass of water he poured for himself.

“Are you leaving?” Was the first question you blearily pieced together after accepting the water but not drinking anything from it.

Wonwoo shook his head. “No.”

You managed to sit up properly, the sheets settling around your hips while you continued holding onto the glass. For a moment, you seemed to just observe Wonwoo, your eyes still swollen from sleep.

“Where are you going, then?”

He furrowed his brow. “Nowhere,” Wonwoo laughed, pulling one leg up onto the bed. “I got up to shower. Went and found my things. Got a glass of water, which you’re now holding, by the way.”

You swallowed, looking down at your lap.

“Oh…” after a recollecting pause, you took a sip from it.

Wonwoo smiled, his eyes softening like fresh brown sugar, as he proceeded to unstick some matted hairs from the edge of your face.

“You’re a pretty big sheet stealer,” he said, continuing to spread his fingers about your features, removing fluffs and rubbing off bits of dried spit, “and you seem to like talking, even in your sleep.”

“Oh, yeah… I should have told you that.”

He shrugged. “It’s fine. I liked not knowing.”

“Did you?” With a laugh and smile, you drank some more water.

“Yeah. Because it’s you, it makes me adore it even more.”

“I don’t always mumble. I swear. Only sometimes.”

Wonwoo didn’t care. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I guess I should shower, too. Then I’ll change the sheets and get new ones on.” You abruptly raised the blankets at your lap, lifting up a leg to examine something Wonwoo couldn’t see. “Yeah, I definitely need to change the sheets… oh! And take my pill. Fuck. I can’t forget.”

“I can help with the sheets.”

“Okay,” you said while leaning forward to pull open a drawer on your nightstand, revealing a thin, silver cartridge of pills, “thanks.”

After you had showered and gotten dressed in a clean spare t-shirt, you changed the dirtied sheets to your bed together.

Then you and Wonwoo spent some time together in the open, bright living room, lounging on the couch. Maybe you had kissed a few more times, and maybe his naturally cold hands had found their way underneath your loose t-shirt to curiously massage and press along your pretty chest, and maybe you had kissed a little more after that while the sun rays slid up your sensitive skin.

You twisted away from Wonwoo’s lips with a giggle.

“M’kay, that’s enough, or else I’ll need another shower.” You grabbed at Wonwoo’s hands that had been squeezing your breasts.

Although he didn’t want to stop, he listened, relaxing against the pillow he had stuffed between his spine and the arm of the couch, now throwing an elbow behind his head. You were leaning back against him, getting comfy between his legs, and for a few minutes or so, the two of you gazed out those large, floor-length glass windows into the awakening, snow-capped city.

He felt you stir against him.

“You know… sometimes you don’t always speak English.”

Wonwoo itched his eyebrow, chuckling, “what?”

“Last night, like, when I was riding you—” your head tilted back onto his shoulder, beaming him a smile, “—you would start switching languages. In between English and Korean. It was so cute.”

“Oh, yeah.” He adjusted his glasses, staring down at you while his cheeks became rosy. “I don’t know, it’s just something my brain does automatically. I don’t always realize I’m doing it.”

You grinned; eyes sparkling. “When it feels too good?”

Ruffling a hand through his hair, he simply smirked at you.

“Having a front seat view to the most beautiful girl in the world riding me just happens to be something that makes me feel really good.”

You pushed your head up to kiss him, followed by a sweet and brief whisper that he smiled at, “compliment appreciated.”

A few more quiet minutes passed. Wonwoo thought he could spend the entire day just sitting on the couch with you warm in his arms, watching the snow tumble down like wisps of tender willows.

“Wonwoo?”

“Mm?”

You got quiet.

Then, your weight against his chest was gone, and you had half-turned yourself around to look at him, seeming nervous.

He tilted his head. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you answered, glancing down briefly before soaking him back into your agleam eyes. “I just want to apologize, actually.”

At that, Wonwoo stiffened. “Yeah? What for?”

With a sigh and another anxious moment to fiddle with the rolled-up cuff belonging to his wrinkled dress shirt, you were reserved.

“Ever since we fought, I can't help thinking about it. I mean, I’ve thought about what you said, and the fact you apologized, and explained yourself, and how you gave me time to process it all. You gave me so much grace, even when I felt like I hated you… but… I also said some hurtful things about you… I mean, back then I felt like you deserved it. And, I don’t know… maybe you did? Like, maybe we both needed to just be there, screaming at each other, digging our guts out, throwing up all this stuff to the surface because no one else has ever given us that freedom or made us feel like we could before. Anyway, I just feel like it’s only right that I say sorry, too.”

Scratching at his neck, Wonwoo swallowed. He never thought of it like that. “Uh, sure. If that’s what you feel you need to do. ”

“I’m sorry, Wonwoo. I really, truly am.”

He smiled, grasping at your hand and threading his fingers with yours. Pangs of regret were flooding your eyes, filling them up until they were undoubtedly teary and Wonwoo had to wipe it all away.

“It’s fine, I swear,” he whispered, moving in closer to you, brushing at your cheek as you sniffled. “Nothing has ever truly changed how I feel about you. You’re incredibly firm but sensitive, and have such fiery passion, and you’re curious about everything, and I know that it hurts so much to live without really knowing yourself. But I see you, and I feel like I know you. I never want to stop knowing you, alright?”

“Wonwoo?”

“Yeah?”

Your mouth pressed against his, and he tasted the salt from the tears that beaded down the slopes of your cheeks, warm with life.

“I love you.” He felt the whisper touch at his lips. “I really do.”

Wonwoo held onto your face like he was cradling a big pearl. “I love you, too.” Another kiss sealed the expression into felt, tangible emotion. “But honestly, you already knew that.”

Later in the day, you came up to Wonwoo as he ate lunch at the table, only after having disappeared into a distant office space further down the hallway. You dropped before him a clear, plastic duotang, which held a notably thick stack of papers that had quite a weight to it upon picking up. It only took a few flips into the papers for Wonwoo to realize that it was the completed book he used to proofread for you—a series of chronological memories between yourself and the boyfriend you had gradually drifted apart from.

True to your word, you had forged ahead and finished the book alone.

He was proud to hold the evidence.

Wonwoo asked what you planned to do with the book now that it was done. He even wondered if you might let him read some parts he never got to work on, though he understood if you preferred to keep the contents private. As he was in the middle of lifting a hot spoon to his mouth, Wonwoo suddenly paused at hearing your response.

“I think I’ll just shred it.”

You didn’t seem to care.

The decision came easier than pressing a button. There was only one copy of the book, apparently, and you had plans to turn all its pages into literary confetti. But that was a very you thing to do, Wonwoo had come to accept. Writing served many purposes, and it seemed that the purpose you had sought out was met. Somewhere, in all those paragraphs, sentences, letters, and ink, you found the fulfillment you had always ached for. At last, you struck a glimmer of promising gold after digging through all the haze and confusion.

“Sure,” he answered, “shred away.”

—8 MONTHS LATER. END OF JUNE.

“It looks so pathetic!”

“What?! No it doesn’t!”

Peeking up from the mason jar of earthy blue water he’d been swirling together using some dirtied paintbrushes, Wonwoo saw you seated across from him, talking to a very dismayed, upset twelve-year-old girl. Sierra’s little sister, Cora, had enrolled in his landlord’s ceramics class over the summer, and thus every Saturday evening she spent her time moulding unwilling chunks of grey clay alongside other similarly aged students. It was only Cora in the shop since she had been the last to get her teapot in the kiln, taking extra time with every minute detail.

Though, despite her care and attentive pace, Cora was still not pleased with the teapot, leading her to grumble and shake her head.

You were sitting beside her, a hand rubbing along the little girl’s back while she continued scrutinizing her creation. Ever since you moved into Wonwoo’s apartment back in May, Saskia had quite liked you more than her average tenant, and that somehow transformed into an offer to help her teach the summer ceramics class (with pay).

Wonwoo was always there to assist in the clean-up afterward—his favourite part was submerging all the greasy, bristly paintbrushes into a clean jar of water so that he could watch how their colours bled out in thin, swirling hues.

“No, no, no—it’s just bad.”

“I’m telling you. It’s not.”

Cora picked up the lid to the pot, then placed it back down. “There—look—it doesn’t even close properly. And the spout is not spouty enough… it’s too thick, I think. Hardly any tea will go through!”

“Well, I really like it.”

Tucking a tuft of poofy, rust-brown hair behind her ear, Cora gave you a suspecting and funny sort of look that made Wonwoo smile to himself. She was a very shy student, but she talked to you the most.

“You say that about everything I make,” Cora sighed.

“So what?”

“So…” she nibbled on her small lip, looking off to the side, “you have to say that, because you're nice. You’re like my mom. She says she loves everything I make. But then why don’t I ever love it?”

“She loves it because you made it, obviously. And she loves you. I think love changes how we look at things. Even the impractical.” Then, you picked up her teapot and moved it closer. “You know why I like this teapot? Because it shows you’re determined. I mean, look at all those bowls on the newspaper over there—you’re the only one who did the teapot! And you did it mostly by yourself. You wouldn’t even let me help you roll out the clay. So, that’s why I like it. Because I see you in it. And when you tackle it again, you’ll know what to do differently. Plus, you know you can ask me for help, right? You know I’ll always help you.”

The little girl’s freckled face suddenly became less twisted with judgement and frustration. She set her elbows onto the table, scratching at a Hello Kitty bandaid along the back of her hand, while you gave her hair a quick ruffle. Wonwoo started drying off the paintbrushes using paper towel before moving them into the cup labelled “clean” with a piece of tape.

“What should I do with this, then? If it won’t work,” Cora asked.

You shrugged. “I don’t know. But for now, just leave it with the other stuff. We’ll give it a nice glaze next time around. Make it even prettier. Then you can decide what to do with it—whether or not you want to keep it or smash it on the ground. It’s up to you, Cora.”

Wonwoo tilted his head. “Why don’t you turn it into a miniature flower pot or something? Fill it with soil and plant something in it?”

Cora raised her eyebrows. “I like that idea, actually.”

“Me too,” you said, shooting Wonwoo a sly wink that he smiled very stupidly at, “look at this guy over here. Lurking with his good ideas.”

By the time Sierra was available to pick up her sister, Wonwoo had officially finished cleaning all the paintbrushes and whittling tools, as well as replacing the tablecloth with a fresh one. The three of you stood at the base to the shop’s very small stoop, exchanging some general conversation while a sleepy Cora held onto her sister’s hand and leaned her seemingly heavy head against her side.

The sky was a tame yellow shade, not as bright as a buttercup, but something delicate of the like.

“Hey—I heard you guys are planning a vacation!” Sierra chirped, adjusting the car keys in her hand, “is that all true?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, flashing Wonwoo a soft smile, “uh, we decided that we’re gonna spend some time in South Korea. I haven’t visited his family at all. But, yeah. Gonna leave start of August and come back right before October. So, a pretty good chunk of time.”

“No way!” She exclaimed.

“We’ll see how it pans out,” Wonwoo commented, sliding his arm around your waist and digging his fingers into your hip. “But my brother won’t shut his mouth about meeting her. And my parents are obviously curious. Besides, there are some great places I want to show off.”

Sierra shook her head. “I’m jealous. And totally sure you guys will have a great experience together. We’ll miss you here, though.”

“Please do,” you laughed, and Sierra pinched your cheek.

She then looked down at her sister, who had her eyes shut.

“Okay, I’m gonna get this little dove home. Thank you so much for helping her at ceramics by the way. She talks about you all the time.”

“Really?” You touched at your face, seeming flustered. “Well, I love helping her out. She’s a sweet girl with a lot of will on her shoulders.” Lowering your voice, you moved in closer to Sierra. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a cute gift she can have while we’re gone.”

After parting ways with Sierra and Cora, you and Wonwoo returned upstairs, back into the apartment to prepare for supper.

Both of you were feeling particularly lazy, and the shiny red tomato he was supposed to chop ended up being ignored in place of eating ice cream straight from its tub.

You were the one who grabbed it—Wonwoo was only following suit as he picked up a spoon and curved some out.

Something else interesting about you that Wonwoo had learned since moving in together was that you didn’t really care to ever sit on a chair, even when you were eating. It was either the sofa, the floor, or the kitchen table, in which you would be holding onto your food even though he always thought how easier it could be if you did sit down properly. The quirk was fun, nonetheless, and Wonwoo had admittedly started looking at the kitchen table in a different light after he proceeded to give you oral on it one night. Consequently, it bloomed a very dangerous habit between the two of you.

A habit that might become drastically less accessible once you two jetted off to his native country for over a month, confined between his parent’s cozy home where he grew up and the two-story apartment his wealthy brother and sister-in-law owned in the glittering heart of South Korea’s Seoul. He was nervous. You were nervous. But at least you were together.

Over the months, your parents had gradually come to accept him as your boyfriend, even if they weren't exactly warmed up to the idea at the start. Wonwoo revisited your home a few times alongside you to help in the explanations of your story and future prospects, although he partially understood that Mingyu was like a precious sapphire to your family and having him out so suddenly was hard to stomach.

He spent years nestling himself a comfortable burrow and smoothing out the bumps to make a crafty façade that, particularly your mother, couldn't help but outwardly adore. Like a son. Like Seokmin, too.

Wonwoo thought Mingyu might give him trouble.

In truth, he'd scarcely seen him, unless transient glimpses of his towering, quickly bustling figure from across a university campus or city street were noteworthy. Obviously, he wasn't inside Mingyu's head and he really had no inclination as to what the boy might be thinking on the occasion he spotted you and Wonwoo hand-in-hand at the park, or sharing breakfast at the café along Sunnyside.

But if Mingyu maintained even half the feelings that Wonwoo did for you, then he was positive it hurt like fucking hell.

Of all people, Wonwoo supposed he himself knew best.

—AUGUST 1ST.

“Wonwoo!”

He closed his dresser drawer, almost slamming his fingers inside. Your voice echoed from the living room, sounding hectic.

“Yes? What’s up!”

“The taxi’s here!”

Fuck. He immediately thought. The time was flying by.

Wonwoo had made a gigantic list of what to pack, but over time he kept adding and taking things away from it. Now, it was early morning, soft rain and cracks of bursting light coming down outside, and he was doing a final clean-sweep of the bedroom as well as his poorly scribbled list to ensure everything he needed was with him.

Quickly approaching the window, Wonwoo glanced outside to see the cab parked at the curb. Fuck. Again. Vernon always said he would happily provide you two a ride to the airport, but then the boy was unsurprisingly wrapped back into some trouble, and Wonwoo hadn’t seen his best friend in over a week.

Graciously, however, Vernon had given him a heads up and a proper goodbye beforehand. He’d even left him a voicemail to listen to, which immediately jumped into Wonwoo’s brain at random as he scrambled around the bedroom in search of his phone.

“Just give me one more minute!” Wonwoo shouted.

There was a pause on your end, and then a sigh.

“Do you need help?”

“No—all good. I promise. Can you let the cab driver know?”

“I will.”

“Thank you!” Wonwoo sang, finding the phone blended into his bedsheets, then proceeding to open his inbox. “I love you!”

“I love you, too!” You shouted back. “Just hurry the fuck up!”

He let Vernon’s message play while also tossing his suitcase onto the bed, stuffing in a few more last-minute grabs with utter clumsiness.

“Heyyy, Glasses! How are things? I’m shooting you this cute little message at arounddd—oh! Looks like it’s two in the mornin’! It’s two in the fuckin’ mornin’ and I’m pulled up outside this dude’s house all ‘cause he can’t pay me back for my good, hard services. It’s nothin’ serious, though. Don’t get all uptight like usual. You know I’m good at handlin’ stuff and keepin’ my cool. Probably my better qualities. Anyway, I’m bored as fuck. I’ve spun this Lloyd CD about four times and I just can’t listen to that dude anymore. He can sing, though.

I am pissed you’re leavin’ me. And I’m pissed she’s leavin’ me, too. You guys are what I look forward to whenever I drive down into that shithole city. Well, I think just about every city’s a shithole city. In fact, the city I’m in now is probably more of a shithole… Seokmin texted me the other day—said he wants to talk—which is vague as fuck and to be honest, I’ve been ignorin’ it ‘cause I can’t get myself to give a god damn. But maybe I’ll hear him out. That guy was a cutie, wasn’t he? I still think you’re a bit cuter. And better at mini-put.

I’ll miss you a lot when you’re down there… it got me thinkin’ about the night when we first met. The New Year’s Eve party. You remember that pretty well, don’t’chya? I saw you come in with those guys—they didn’t look like your crowd at all—but then after a while you were alone. Wanderin’ around. It didn’t even seem like you knew anyone else was there. You had the blankest look on your face. Like you were stuck in a loop and you didn’t even know it. I don’t know that I felt pity or anything… hell, maybe I felt a little. I just talked to ‘ya ‘cause I wanted to know if you knew where you even were.

You knew you were at some stupid, loud, awful fuckin’ house party jammed with unfamiliar faces. You knew how much you hated bein’ there. But I don’t think you actually knew how you got there, or why, or what was supposed to happen next. It kinda drew me to you. I wanted to understand it. And you gave me the weirdest look, too, when I stopped you. But once I got you outside, away from all the bullshit, you loosened up just a bit and I realized I was talkin’ to this smart, well-rounded, thoughtful guy who was just a little lost in the weeds.

I know you didn’t really care about me like that. I was just some jumped-up weirdo who could give you mint weed at a sweet price. But I still liked you… I dunno… other people see you differently when they care a whole lot, don’t they? I guess they see things about you that others can’t, or they know exactly what you could be when others don’t. They see stuff even you can’t see. It’s like a superpower, I think… my best superpower is probably makin’ girls giggle. I’ve got a lot of charm, wouldn’t you agree? Ha—anyway—stay safe on your trip, tell Her that I’ll miss her a lot, too—oh! Oh!

Fuck! That’s it. That little fucker is comin’ outside—he can’t resist his two am darts on the porch. God bless you, nicotine! Okay, uh, guess this is me hangin’ up on you. Later, Wonwoo!”

At that point, everything Wonwoo needed was packed. But he’d taken the additional time to complete Vernon’s voicemail, now sitting on the edge of his bed while staring out into the early, glimmering rain shower and the water droplets collecting against his window.

Then, Wonwoo glanced down at the laptop he had open.

He hadn’t written in… months. Not even months—it had been over a year since Wonwoo wrote. And, somehow, it felt good not to write.

It felt necessary to step away from the craft.

Besides, writing would always be there. Just because he hadn’t filled up a document on his computer with harmoniously arranged words, or penned anything down in the journal he used to scribble poetry in, that didn’t make him not a writer. In fact, it could be crucial to know when to step away from something—when to let go of an invisible weight keeping one from progressing. While he hadn’t thought about it in months, it floated to the surface of his mind that there may be something he should let go.

The unfinished book. 01.

Wonwoo deleted it. Simple as that.

Shoving the laptop into his shoulder-sling bag, Wonwoo made sure to knab his journal from the nightstand before he left, just in case anything did excite him with a crack of inspiration as he embarked on his newest chapter with you at his side. Rolling his suitcase hurriedly behind him, Wonwoo rushed out onto the street, feeling the rain graze his hair and skin, while you were leaned against the cab, arms folded and teeth anxiously raking over your bottom lip.

He peppered the cab driver in apologies while he helped shove the suitcase into the trunk.

“Liar—” you grumbled after sliding into the cab, undoing the buttons on your coat, “—you said one minute, not one lifetime.”

“I know, I know,” Wonwoo laughed, removing his glasses to rub off the mist and dew, “but that voice mail from Vernon distracted me.”

“Let me do it,” you said, taking his glasses with a sigh, “we should be fine. I know we’ll make it on time… I guess I’m just on edge.”

He watched you massage at the lenses gently with a sleeve. The driver climbed back into the cab, now pulling away from the pottery shop and driving toward the beam of light that sliced through the dense clouds, like the sun was handling a giant blade.

“Everything’s gonna work out, I promise… and I already told you that we’ll be staying with Bohyuk first, right? Him and Nari?”

Handing the glasses back to Wonwoo, you nodded.

“Yeah… god—I hope he likes me.”

“Oh, he will. You guys are pretty similar, actually.”

The look you gave him warbled slightly.

“What if that’s a bad thing? Every time you tell me a story about your brother, it usually involves you loathing him for something.”

“Those stories took place years ago.”

“But the feelings are still there, aren’t they?”

Wonwoo settled his hand over top yours, giving your fingers a soothing squeeze. He knew you wanted to make the perfect first impression. After all, first impressions were not something that could be easily taken back or erased, unless the people you were meeting were quite forgiving. And Bohyuk was fortunately the forgiving type.

It was only time that Wonwoo exercise the quality as well.

Leaning in close to your face, Wonwoo gazed into your eyes, watching their frantic nature become still like the surface of a calm pond.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, alright?” He murmured.

Huffing out an intense, long breath, you nodded.

“Alright… can I have a kiss, please?”

Lifting his hand to graze against the side of your cheek, he paused to admire your beauty for a moment, only to properly cup your face and push his lips to yours—which tasted sweet and balmy—before feeling you push back firm. He proceeded to give you another soft kiss for good measure, one that cured you to smile all fluttery and coy against his mouth until he was inevitably smiling, too.

In fact, Wonwoo only ever found himself smiling that hard when he was with you.

—END.

heyyyy :] ramble incoming...

first and foremost, ABOVE ALL ELSE, i just want to say thank you! i know this was a very, very long fic for me to be uploading on tumblr. this site is not the most fanfic friendly (or creation friendly for that matter) so stomaching the fact that this needed to be split up into so many parts was like a dagger to the heart! for those who decided to buckle up and lock into this journey, i honestly thank you so much <3 life was not always kind in the process of writing this (hence the fact it took me 2 years, plus some extra) but i was so dedicated to seeing this story through! a lot of the frustration i was feeling toward myself was funnelled into wonwoo's character, so this is quite personal :3

nonetheless, i hope there's something, even a single thing, someone else can take away from the story as well! both wonwoo and her as characters introduce their own unique themes--wonwoo (at the core) is more so about learning to let go in order to progress, whereas her is about using creative tools to help guide the search for identity. i think that writing has helped me learn a lot about myself (even uncomfy, icky things) so i wanted that to be represented through her.

of course, these are not the only things they stand for! but these are the elements i based their characters on, to which other concepts sprouted from. i also loved the idea of pairing someone as lost and misguided and emotionally stunted as wonwoo with this girl who seems so bossy and firm. at first he doesn't like it, but that was really what he needed to accept some of the flaws holding him back. idk if you're familiar with the EXCUSE ME! HE ASKED FOR NO PICKLES! meme but that's what comes to mind when i think of them xD

additionally: special shout out to vernon. he became a much bigger part of this story than i originally intended. he is in some ways wonwoo's foil. vernon knows he's flawed but that's sorta his strength and what makes him genuine. he witnesses wonwoo's entire journey, so at times he also feels like our role, the "reader" and gives wonwoo some wisdomy parting words without rly knowing it (but that's part of his charm <3 i don't want vernon's emotional intelligence to be underrated, which is also an ode to the conversation wonu & her have back in the museum. wonwoo knows there are different types of intelligence and emotionally he is lackinggg).

also small s/o to seokmin. SORRY! HAD TO DO IT!

this has been my slowest slowburn! i wasn't sure how late they were going to kiss. but i didn't want to force anything. i wanted to add the moment when i felt it was surely right! also, if you haven't yet listened to the playlist and you're curious, i recommend listening to the very last song, writer, by ellie goulding. i've been listening to that song for many years, and one day it hit me how coincidentally her lyrics overlap with some of the fic's storyline!

i think it adds a nice final touch <3

LASTLY!

upon contemplation, i will be uploading this fic to ao3 in the same chaptered format it's been posted here! i realize the convenience to bookmarking on that site (and it also doesn't give people's phones a heart attack when trying to read something lengthy) so i hope that appeases some of you who wish to reread with more leisure! i'll be under the username @/uglypluto!

i'll upload the final chapter (this chapter) to ao3 probably between late sunday & early monday.

THANK YOU x100! 💕

#seventeen scenarios #wonwoo scenarios #seventeen x reader #wonwoo x reader #seventeen imagines #seventeen fanfic #wonwoo imagines #wonwoo fanfic #svt scenarios #svt fanfic #svt x reader #seventeen fluff #seventeen smut #seventeen angst

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chocosvt · 1 month

Text

HER | part five.

pairing: wonwoo x fem!reader word count: 23.8k genres/tropes: writer!wonwoo, university!au, plug!vernon + boyfriend!mingyu as prominent side characters, SLOWBURN (i am not fucking around this is my slowest burn yet), relationship drama, soul searching, strong angst/hurt (i’m coming for the jugular), comfort, romance, smut, a smoothie of every emotion on earth.

(!) warnings: drug use (weed, cocaine, ecstasy), wonwoo has anxiety + anxiety attacks + fairly dark thoughts, prescribed medication, gambling, intense language, infidelity, throwing up.

✧✎ a/n: just some quick things i want to make apparent!

the fic is told from wonwoo’s pov, not the reader’s!

all major timeline events are organized through chronological dates

any smut or potentially triggering scenes are NOT MARKED bc the content is already quite mature, so just plz be aware of that!

bolded and italicized text implies the characters are conversing in korean, tho it doesn’t happen often!

the fic in its entirety is 140k, so it has been split into 6 parts.

posting a bit earlier tn since i've got work tmo morning! i can't believe there is only one part left after this one!! :o

last chapter was angst up to the eyeballs so hopefully this one mends some of that heartache <3 still, much has yet to happen! this chapter contains one of my fave scenes teehee.

⇢ part one | part two | part three | part four | part six ⇢ soundtrack for those curious! ⇢ read at ur own pace! :)

—AUGUST 3RD.

The last time Wonwoo had been at your apartment to help you write, it was around the evening, into supper. He remembered the scent from the three-wick candles lit up in the kitchen—bonfire and vanilla—which you insisted was a necessity because it was the perfect way to relax your tense mind. Deciding not to cook, you had ordered Chinese takeout instead, and the entirety of the evening was spent sitting criss-cross on the comfortable rug splayed across the living room floor, indulging in warm food, writing, and letting the TV flick through a random season of your favourite drama show.

It was perfect.

Even now, as he sat on the bench across the street from your apartment complex, Wonwoo could still recall all the infinitesimal details—the fried crunch to every vegetable-filled spring roll, how the candles softly crackled when you blew them out at the end of the night, your small and very sleepy voice bidding him goodbye as you walked Wonwoo downstairs into the lobby—each memory sprung alive with such vividness. Wonwoo wished he could be poised outside your apartment knowing everything was the same; undamaged and intact. But that was an outcome too blissful for reality to maintain.

You had a specific nightly routine, particularly on Thursdays, after work: showering, followed by having a quickly thrown together dinner, applying a face mask, and then a movie before bed. He found himself memorizing a lot of your patterns over the months.

Wonwoo hadn’t texted you—he was doing this completely unprompted, without an inkling of his arrival. Maybe that was a terrible idea which should be discarded for something gentler and less likely to explode in his face, but that would only lead to more ruminating and more ruminating meant less doing.

The thing was, it was nearing eight o’clock. Wonwoo had been sitting on the bench for almost a half hour while the sun gradually sank, watching the occasional green leaf flutter down from the chestnut oaks adorning and shading the parkway behind him. The longer he waited, the further the shadows of the trees stretched, until he was completely engulfed and framed alone underneath their dark, cool silhouettes. Light still spilled across the street, igniting the space where everyone else was strolling, each person steadfast in their pace to be somewhere that wasn’t a sunset orange city street.

Breathing out slowly, Wonwoo glanced down at his hands.

It was like the first time he met you.

Just suck it up. Go do it.

He walked between the trimmed hedges that led to the complex door. The lobby area was exactly as he remembered it, though Wonwoo had come to learn those little complimentary desserts and cucumber waters set out the first day he visited you were no longer a thing, which you had vehemently complained to him about during a brief promenade through the park—another one of your palate cleansing ideas.

“Oh! Those pastries, by the way—they stopped doing them! I heard about it from my neighbour when I went down to get the mail. I was pissed, pissed, pissed! Apparently, there’s a lady who made them specifically for our complex because her grandson lived there. Well, he’s moved out now, so we all got fucked! If I don’t get my cute little lemon square with the raspberry on top and the powdered confectionary sugar all placed in a decorative doily, I will legit kill myself. Something has to be done… hey—can you bake, at all?”

Hence your immeasurable disappointment when Wonwoo revealed to you that he wasn’t notably talented at baking. Still, the incident provoked him to spend at least an hour a night researching different recipes for lemon squares that he could manage to pull off if given enough time and a handful of supplemental trial and error.

Wonwoo pushed the button to the elevator.

The heartbeat heavied in his chest while waiting for the doors to pull apart, the anticipation and nervousness coming down hard like thick snow flurries. A commercial ding at last echoed throughout the vacant lobby. Wonwoo immediately stepped into the small, confined space, feeling his breaths begin to drag, becoming almost audible in his desire for more oxygen.

Without a doubt, this was probably the hardest thing Wonwoo had ever done in his life. Even moving away from the comfortability and closeness of his family in Changwon—no matter their disagreements or quarrels—couldn’t compare to the emotion so palpably tugging within him akin to an ocean tide under a full moon.

He felt every twinge, but he was still doing well to maintain his composure, though Wonwoo couldn’t help himself from fearing that the control might leave him in the cold wind of seeing you again.

To look into your eyes could feel quite dissecting and Wonwoo didn’t know if he was yet strong enough to stomach the scrutinization despite how warranted it was. The best he could do was to expect nothing—this wasn’t about gaining closure, or basking in the liberation from righting a wrong—it was about the effort of accepting a profoundly hurtful problem he caused. You were hit front and centre by the shrapnel and you deserved to hear acknowledgement.

At the moment of reaching your floor, he didn't knock straight away.

Wonwoo stood outside the unit for a moment, removing his glasses and pulling at the sleeve to his large black hoodie, massaging away a smudge from the lens. After fitting the frames back to his face, he knocked. Each breath was fluttery. He tried so damn hard to soothe himself because life was unfortunately not a loop of constant aid and permanent reassurance and sometimes there was no other option but to be discomforted. At least he had his own company.

There was no movement from behind the door.

Swallowing very dryly, Wonwoo knocked again.

Nerves twisted in his stomach and turned his complexion pallid, though it was just on the edge of manageable and Wonwoo would have otherwise been quite proud if not for the lock suddenly clicking and the gentle, slow twisting of the doorknob. His fist clenched, the blunt nail on his index finger picking at his scarred cuticle.

Even when he saw you—Her—for the first time in over a month, accompanying the liminal doorway, staring back at him with an expression that he could use an entire pencil detailing, Wonwoo was able to sustain his control. Still, his heart was fucking racing.

Your eyes were wide, glassy, though somewhat veiled by the dip in your brows that began to gradually furl deeper in their recognition of his presence. He felt his stomach drop faster than lightspeed when a frown twitched into your lips, distorting the surprise in your face to anger, while the fingers at your leg curled into a rigid fist. There was a dewiness to your bare cheeks and a sweetened aroma from your skin that suggested you had gotten out from the shower not too long ago.

Wonwoo relaxed his hands.

��Hey.”

Expectantly, you said nothing.

There was a rolling, emotional sea unabashed to your face, continuously morphing between every shade of wrath within the sticky silence. Wonwoo worried you might slam the door shut.

He needed to say something fast.

“I know what you want to do—you want to close me out. I get that. I can see it all over your body. And, believe me, I understand.”

Your hand grabbed the edge of the door. That initial glassiness in your eyes only grew glimmerier; the frown tacked onto your mouth somehow threaded with even more fulgurant rage. He could see that you were going to snuff him into nothing, like grabbing onto a candle wick with your fingers despite the hot wax and flame.

But it couldn’t end so abruptly.

Wonwoo held up his hands, baring his palms in defense.

“Just—okay. Her, I hurt you. Hurt is even too weak of a word to use. I know that. I promise I do. I know what I did… and… and I know that I must have some fucking gal to come here unannounced after everything I said, but I've got an explanation. I swear.”

There was notable uplift in his chest, watching your grip loosen on the door, fall down to the handle, losing the hostility. Wonwoo paused to catch his breath, ensuring his eyes never wavered.

“And… if you decide to listen to me… and you still really don’t want me in your life… I-I can respect that. If all you want is for me to disappear and never bother you again… I can respect that…” he felt sick just voicing it, like he could faint at the prospect. “It might be such a stupid fucking thing for me to say, considering how I treated you, but I genuinely want to do whatever will make you happiest.”

Was it good enough? Feasible, even marginally?

Wonwoo didn’t know. He could only stand in place and study the metamorphosis of your face—from deep-seeded anger, to something pained and unintelligible, and now, contemplation. The inner monologue in your head was probably running on overdrive.

Your fingernails carved into the door.

He kept quiet, waiting, until you quickly wiped something from your cheek and swallowed the lump in your throat.

“… Fine,” you uttered in a raspy, weak tone.

Relief struck him like a breeze during a heatwave.

“Thank yo—”

“But if I say I want you to leave, then you will leave, and you will not say one word on your way out my door or spare me one glance, even if it’s from the corner of your fucking eye.”

Wonwoo was staring straight into your gaze, then shifting to the pointed finger sticking in his face. You were deadly serious.

He nodded.

Finally, however, you stepped aside to let him in.

Wonwoo didn’t know if he should sit or stand. If he should grab a stool at the marbled kitchen island or come to fit himself at the edge of the cream sofa. The interior was pretty much identical to his previous visit, though he realized that a few potted plants you once kept by the elegant floor-length windows were missing—he’d assumed they’d died—it was probably somehow his fault.

“Um, where should we—where do you want to—”

“Kitchen.”

With your arms folded stiff, you walked behind the island.

He stood on the opposite side, knowing it was likely not a coincidence that you opted to put a barrier between yourselves.

It was a foolish idea and he would certainly not extrapolate, but Wonwoo wanted to ask about you. He wanted to know how your work was going at the beauty salon, if you had any more obnoxious dinner parties with your parents—were you still writing? To even look at you from across the hard countertop, captured in the quiet dimness of your kitchen, with your soft and bare face and those cute silk pyjamas, was enough to stop his heart if he allowed it.

Wonwoo pushed up his glasses, sighing.

“Before I explain anything… I just want to say—”

“I don’t care about that,” you interrupted without hesitation, eyes scalding and sharp, “I know you’re sorry. It’s the least you could feel after everything you said to me. I don’t care.”

“R-Right…” he trailed off, sensing the heat from the overhead lights as though they were shining directly into his face. Wonwoo pulled at the sleeves of his hoodie, gulping, “I guess you want to know—"

“Why. I want to know why you did what you did.”

“Why?” He echoed dumbly.

“Yes, why. Pull out an entire script and apologize—I don’t want that. Acknowledge what you did—good for you. I’m glad you can see how fucked up it was, all while I had to cope with your analysis on why I’m such a god-awful person. People say sorry all the time. I know it can be genuine. I just don’t care. Sorry doesn’t help me understand. Sorry doesn’t take away the weeks I lost, tearing myself apart. Sorry doesn’t mean fucking anything to me if all you’re apologizing for is something I already lived and breathed.”

“No, that—yeah, it makes sense...”

His fingers suddenly gripped the edge of the island, knuckles ivory white. Your intensity was more disorienting than a drug, but Wonwoo knew he needed to stay calm. Breathe. Listen.

“Okay, so?” You shrugged. “Tell me, then.”

“Why I did what I did…” Wonwoo exhaled, staring at his reflection in the marble while his mind twitched into complete blankness. “Well... I-I guess I was feeling… there was a lot I was feeling and... fuck.”

At the last second, he scraped everything he was going to say.

Wonwoo then looked up at you, who was so cold and reluctant.

“You know, um… before I met you, I had a girlfriend. I know I've never mentioned it. But her name was Jeanie. I met her at the university, actually. She worked in the Morrison library—like, the big stone building that looks like a castle, almost. Anyway. I met her because I needed to sign out a textbook for this elective I was taking and she helped me find it… Jeanie. Yeah. I don’t know if you ever saw her or—she was really shy. But I felt like she listened well, no matter what you were saying, or what you were talking about. She would give you her full attention. And… I just remember thinking… I could tell you anything, Jeanie. I could tell you I fucking pushed someone in front of a bus and you would wait and listen and hear me out until the end. She would make you feel… normal… human.

But—the thing is—I’m sort of laughing because I’m saying all this now, but… at the time, even despite my love for her, and how much I trusted her… I just… I kept her out. I didn’t think it was a bad thing. She knew I had anxiety, but never knew how bad. I never told her I stopped taking my pills. I never told her my actual feelings about anything… like, despite having this perfect person in my life, I still couldn’t open up. I didn’t think there was much harm to it, either. It would cause tension. Things would get… uncomfortable… but as long as she was there, I was like—I can get away with this. I don’t need to really discuss anything. She will always be here.

And then… one day… she just… wasn’t… uh—ahem—sorry, just—something in my throat, b-but, uh… yeah. She was gone. All her clothes, all her belongings: toothbrush, makeup, clothes, stuffed toys, notebooks, mugs, house decorations. It was all gone. I remember coming home to an apartment that was stripped bare. Like a skeleton. She took every part of herself from it. And all I could do was dumbly stand there and look at the bones.

Her number was disconnected, too. There was no one I could get a hold of that would tell me anything until I got this weird, vague email from her mom. ‘My daughter won’t be seeing you anymore. She’s safe. No need to worry.’ Those words picked themselves into my brain. I would go to sleep seeing them. I would repeat them in my head all night, and wake up with them still chiming. And I thought to myself, with all the weight in my heart… how could she do this? How could she leave and take everything and erase me without a word? It had to be her and it had to be the world just proving my point: being vulnerable, trusting, expressive—it isn’t worth it.

I really, truly believed it. I mean, I held onto it. I always looked at her as the one with the issue, but—fuck—it was me. I was the fucking issue. I… I must have made her feel so unimportant. I probably confused her, destroyed our trust, fucked up her concept of love. Like… I made her feel so trapped… that she felt the best thing to do was disappear, because there was no other way out… I made her feel that way. Me. It was me the entire time. And… I never really processed that until you were six feet away, screaming at me, cursing me up and down in the same living room I came home to that day, all emptied out. I had it out with you, the way I never had with Jeanie…

And the truth is, Her… I kind of… I always sort of knew I had that problem. I lived without ever wanting to acknowledge it. But I never really… I-I basically… I didn’t care about fixing it until I met you.”

Wonwoo tilted his head and stared at your quivering bottom lip, the shininess to your razor-sharp eyes, the manner in which your fingernails were sinching indents upon the skin of your biceps.

He paused, chuckling.

“I know I already told you… but you used to terrify me. I didn’t think we would ever mesh. Whenever I looked at you, I saw someone who knew herself, and I was so severely the opposite. But miraculously, I guess, you ended up being the person I feel the most comfortable with… when I see someone strong like you unravel, it makes me want to unravel, too. The trust I had for you was infinite.”

From across the island, Wonwoo noted how your eyes momentarily drifted down. A lump was sitting square at the base of your throat and it took a very dense swallow for you to even speak.

“… Had?” You whispered with a sniffle, hugging yourself.

Rolling out his shoulders, Wonwoo frowned.

“It was the party, Her. If you remember us talking in the guest bedroom… I told you that story about my brother and I, about my decision to move from Changwon… you’d nearly grappled Bells down to the ground an hour before. You apologized to me because you thought it ruined my night, but I promised you that it was fine, that I would always be here for you. And then we split ways. And you… you were… well, there’s really no clean way to say it but—”

“I had sex with Mingyu.”

“Uh, well… yeah.”

You shook your head. “He’s my boyfriend, Wonwoo.”

“I know, I know. It makes it sound stupid but—”

“No—wait. You’re pissed at me because I chose to have sex with my boyfriend? Are you—are you hearing yourself?”

“Her, please, listen—”

“I went through all of your bullshit because of that!”

“Can I just—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“It was because I liked you!”

Wonwoo’s heart was thumping almost audibly against his chest while his veins soared with adrenaline. Your fists were sitting, balled, on the kitchen island, though they began to unfurl as the weight cupping his confession—which was a mild version of what he truly meant to say—hung in the air like the plumes from a wildfire.

“I liked you, a lot," he admitted, watching your eyes slim with confusion, "and I’m sorry if that ruins us even more… but it’s true.”

“Wha—what—no. What do you mean you liked me? You liked me as in what? You liked me in a crushy silly way that’s just for fun, o-or you liked me in a serious way, that’s like, you want to… you want…”

Your mouth hung open, shoulders hunching.

His teeth gritted. “I thought I could… I wanted to…”

“Please just spit it out.”

“I wanted to be with you. I wanted to be your boyfriend.”

Flares of heat melted slow across his face. Wonwoo could feel his temperature climatically rising. Still, it wasn’t the entire truth. His likeness wasn’t just that—it was a fully blossomed and unshakeable love. Though, he figured it might be too much, too suddenly.

“O-Oh…” you stuttered, “… and, you thought that…”

“Maybe you felt the way I did. Not that I’m going to ask if you did or didn’t. I mean, this was over a month ago. I’ve had lots of time to myself. I’ve been thinking plenty… the point is, I let those feelings affect my clarity and that’s why I felt so hurt. I felt like I was so open and candour just to kinda have it… thrown back in my face. But it just seems like every relationship I have, I sabotage it somehow… I didn’t go about us in the right way—not at all. It blew up into something terrible. I wish every day that I would have handled it differently. But I didn’t. I kept my mouth shut when I should have just talked to you.”

“Oh… god, Wonwoo.”

“I-I don’t know. It was late, and I was high—you were off a line of coke for fuck’s sake—I just—in that moment, didn’t it feel… like we were something? More than friends? Maybe you don’t remember everything. Some of it’s a blur, even to me. Like some fever dream.”

“No… I do remember some of it. I remember the spare bedroom. I remember how fucking comfortable that bed was. You were there… you were… helping me… and we... I know at some point we were lying down together but I don’t remember what I was thinking or everything I said… it’s just—it’s a lot… too much, almost.”

A groan reverberated from within your deepest cavity and he could only watch through the warm kitchen light as you leaned forward into your hands, your body slumped against the countertop and radiating with agony. Wonwoo didn’t know what to make of the spectacle, though he chose to let you swim in whatever sentiment was swallowing you whole, your head beginning to shake back and forth.

“Wonwoo… listen… I get that—I get what you’re saying, okay? I get that you have this fucking problem with vulnerability, and trust, and the—the, um—the self-sabotaging. I know. I have that, too. And I can understand that it was possible to misinterpret us…”

That word was like a decommissioning punch to his gut—misinterpret—as though it was merely wishful, ditzy thinking and it was him and him alone living inside the delusion despite the fact you were snuggling up against him. However, Wonwoo bit his tongue and simply listened. He didn’t need his bruised heart getting in the way.

“But that night was just—it was irresponsible, okay? On both our parts. I have a boyfriend who I very much l-like, and… and we’re just—you and I, I mean—we’re good at being friends. And you said it yourself that you’ve had time to think and get past it, so…”

“… Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Wonwoo didn’t need his love to be reciprocated nor did he want to know if you actually harboured any feelings toward him back then. All he desired was for you to get what you had plainly wanted—the why. Perhaps it was unsatisfactory, lacklustre, or maybe it was beyond ridiculous and too inconceivable for words.

He was grateful that he’d even made it this far.

With a heavy, laboured sigh, you managed to push yourself from the marbled counter. A hand then propped onto your hip.

Your nails clicked once against the island.

“So… that’s it, huh?” There was a nasally tone to your voice.

Biting his lip, Wonwoo adjusted his glasses, nodding. “Mmhm.”

Your head tilted straight back, like you were attempting to stop a runny trail of tears from escaping down your cheeks. You suckled in a breath, pressed your lips together firmly.

And then, abruptly, you laughed, pinching at your nose while your eyes squeezed shut. It was an exhausted, humourless laugh.

“Fuck… fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He didn’t exactly know what it was you were cursing, whether it be the realization of what the fight actually meant, or a reaction to his timid, but expired, confession. It could be that the information was too daunting and you were left with no instinct of how to manage it. Wonwoo chewed down on his tongue, keeping silent.

When your eyes opened again, they fell toward the fridge.

“Um… wasn’t it your birthday? Back in July?” You asked with a wet sniffle, brushing a wrist underneath your nose.

“Yeah… July seventeenth.”

Not bothering to speak, you walked over to the fridge and pulled the door open, pale light emanating from inside as you rifled around, moving containers and cartons and fresh produce. It was then that you revealed a cardboard box. Returning to the counter, you set the box in the very centre, and with trembling hands, you began unsticking the corners in order to reveal the surprise inside—a decent sized cupcake, frosted high with thick, white icing.

You sniffed again, turning to grab something from a utensil drawer, and then another item or two out the cupboard.

“It’s from Terra Cotta—it’s just a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing—which I ordered as a dessert when I ate out with Princess the other night. But I was too full to eat it after stuffing my face with pasta, unfortunately. So, I got it packaged up. Stuck it in the fridge. Forgot about its existence until now.”

A butter knife fell onto the island, followed by a lighter and a single pink candle. You sighed, eyes turning waterier by the minute, and Wonwoo felt a twinge in his chest that ached like hell.

“Do you like red velvet cake?”

Wonwoo huffed, shrugging. “Um, I’m not sure. Never had it.”

You picked up the candle. “Want to?”

He smiled. “Sure.”

Rather than keeping the cupcake inside the box, you moved the dessert delicately onto a clean porcelain plate and proceeded to shut the lights off. The orange sunset that painted the streets had bled out all its lurid colour. Wonwoo was just beginning to realize how dark it was in the apartment. You propped the pink candle into the expertly piped cream cheese frosting and ignited the tiny wick. A shivering halo of fire reflected in the marble countertop as the flame wriggled and the wax burnt.

Honestly, he didn’t know what the moment signified—if it was a mere gesture of forgiveness, or just a simple means to release all the tension—Wonwoo had not a clue. He thought he should be looking at the cupcake but Wonwoo was looking at you and the lambent glow flickering across your very upset, still face.

Sniffling again, you picked up the butter knife.

“Okay… hurry up and make a wish, please.”

“Really?” Wonwoo chuckled. “You want me to make a wish?”

“Uh… yes. That’s what people do when it’s their birthday.”

“It’s not my birthday.”

“Well—fuck—the spirit of your birthday, then.”

“You're asking a lot of me, you know. All this pressure.”

“Oh my god—it's just one ditsy little wish. I'm not asking you to write out your will, or solve world hunger. It's one stupid, tiny wish. For the sake of the moment. Hurry up before the wax drips on the icing.”

“I think you can just peel the wax off once it hardens—”

“Fuck! I don’t care, Wonwoo! God! Just—” he watched with a satisfactory smirk as you leaned forward and impatiently blew out the candle for him, “—there! Now, you don’t even get the opportunity to make a wish. Hope it was worth it.”

“So, you made a wish in my place, right?”

“Shut up. I’m cutting you the smaller half.”

“You didn't answer my question, though.”

“Hey, I don’t sound like that.”

“No, I didn't make a wish in your place—here.”

“Thank you.”

“… How does it taste?”

“Uh, it’s good. A little firm. The icing is really rich, but I suppose that’s typical of cream cheese stuff. But overall, I like it.”

“I really love red velvet. Especially in cupcake form.”

“Hm. Didn’t know that.”

“I wonder if I could get a dozen ordered for my birthday...”

“We’re celebrating my birthday and you’re already thinking of your own? Can you at least wait until I’m out the fucking door?”

“You said it doesn’t matter!”

“Now, that’s not what I said.”

“Don't act like such a smart ass.”

Wonwoo knew he missed your quippy retorts, but he hadn’t realized he’d missed it this much. It was filling a pitted crater within his chest that had remained empty and stone cold ever since the argument.

As you turned the kitchen light back on, Wonwoo stuffed the rest of the frosted cupcake into his mouth and dusted his hands clean.

He didn’t know what was supposed to happen now.

Stubbornly, Wonwoo didn’t want to leave your apartment. It had been too long since he’d last seen your beautiful face, and half his summer was already wasted to lamenting the relationship he’d ungraciously snipped in half like a fresh garden rose. If you wanted him to leave, then he would oblige, because Wonwoo could never go back on his word to abide by the choices that might make you the happiest. That was what he cared about most, anyway.

From the opposite side of the island, you began to cross your arms again, fingers digging tight into your ribs. Wonwoo could see that the hues of grief and melancholy hadn’t really abandoned your face since his arrival, and the tears that had earlier welled up in your eyes were steadily returning, glinting along your bottom lashes as though they were dew droplets. Feeling his throat turn dry and sensing the air become dampened with your sadness, Wonwoo knew what you were going to ask—he braced himself quick.

“So… um…” you began pulling at the short sleeve of your silk-buttoned top, rolling the fabric between uneasy fingers, “it’s getting a little bit late and I just t-think you should go now, Wonwoo…”

He nodded, pushing at his glasses. “Yeah… of course.”

There was such an evident somberness about the way his feet dragged toward the door. You had walked him over, and now that the space between you was significantly less, Wonwoo had never battled so hard with his self-control to keep himself from touching you—even if it was just a slight, chaste brush of his fingers against yours—the simplicity and feel of your strawberry-scented skin would appease his constant aching. He glanced at you, saw that your arms were still crossed and your eyes trained to muse over the floorboards.

Wonwoo scraped against the cuticle of his thumb.

Does he just… leave?

It felt too abrupt.

He smiled at you, keeping it soft and mindful.

“Thank you for listening to me… I mean it… you didn’t have to but you did anyway and… uh, I don’t know. Just—thank you.”

“Mmhm…”

You were squeezing at your ribs even tighter now, pressing in your fingers so unnaturally deep. In fact, Wonwoo was beginning to feel worried, especially when he noticed the quivering in your frame and the hard bite you were sinking into your lower lip—how there were tears streaking one by one down the slope of your cheeks.

Wonwoo’s hand had been lingering on the doorknob, though it slipped off absentmindedly. He wanted to reach for your shoulder and give it a comfortable, warm massage, but he was still too fearful.

“Her… are you alright?”

After a cautious step closer, Wonwoo paused, attempting to peer at your face despite its pointed direction toward the floor. The question was worthless, he realized. You were crying and choking up.

“Do you… should I go?”

God—what an even more stupid question to ask—the thing he wanted to do least was leave when you were this hurt. But Wonwoo needed to know if it was his presence that was disturbing you.

You shook your head, sniffled up all the wet, runny congestion in your nose. He watched the teeth free from your lip as you gasped.

“I-I don’t know… I’m really, really sad, Wonwoo.”

He thought he might panic in the midst of your crumbling, however, there was too much guilt and heartache inside him.

“I know…” he murmured.

Somehow, it felt so criminal to just stand there and watch you weep, hearing every desperate attempt for a breath as you could only clutch onto yourself harder and let the tears helplessly fall.

Wonwoo swallowed, feeling his throat burn.

“Can I comfort you for a bit?”

You hiccupped, and your face pinched up in complete misery, the response struggling to escape through the large sob you cried out.

“Please.”

Immediately, his hands braced against the edges of your very warm, wet face. The heat was radiating like a summer blacktop, and the tears were quick to pool against his fingers as he did his darndest to softly clean and wipe them from your skin—though, Wonwoo came to accept that it might be futile—and he opted to cup your cheeks for just a brief moment, staring into your damp lashes and puffy eyes.

“Still such a gorgeous girl, even when you’re crying.”

You huffed at him, grasping onto his hoodie and tugging it.

“I need you closer, please.”

Waddling into his arms, your face smushed right against his shoulder. In the dim august dusk that meekly glowed through the windows of your downtown, sumptuous apartment, Wonwoo cradled you, coaxing a hand nice and gentle along your trembling head while his arm kept you secured firm into his body. As wonderful as it felt to hold you in the way he always dreamt of, Wonwoo knew that those tears wrinkling his clothes were mostly driven by him.

Your arms dug into his chest. It seemed like you wanted to burrow impossibly closer, into his ribs if you could, but the desire frustratingly couldn’t be fulfilled. To compensate, Wonwoo attempted to squeeze you even more, though he was somewhat afraid of cracking you in half. Maybe that’s what you were craving.

But he liked you very much alive.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into your hair, still damp from the shower and rife with the scent of fragrant blossoms, “I know you don’t want me to apologize, but I have to. Everything I said to you… it was just stupid, pent-up rage from my own shortcomings… so much was building inside me and I made such a dumb fucking mistake—taking our situation and using it as a target—it was all bullshit..." inhaling a breath, Wonwoo sighed. "I shouldn’t have let you walk out that door… but I don’t think you would have wanted to listen, anyway... you probably would have just told me again to go fuck myself… you know, that was actually the first time I’ve ever been told that?”

Your cheek nuzzled against his shoulder. The breath you proceeded to cough out made it sound like you were terribly ill.

“T-That’s hard to believe…”

Wonwoo smiled, smoothing a hand down your back. “You think so?”

Threading your fingers deeper into his hoodie, you nodded.

Stopping to contemplate, Wonwoo ended up agreeing, “hm… yeah... you’re right. There were probably a lot of times in my life where I deserved to hear that. But you’re the first, anyway.”

“Y-You… you deserve to hear it again… I mean, what were you thinking, Wonwoo?” Raising your head from his shoulder and sucking in a much-needed breath, you rubbed at the glisten iridescent to your face. “I didn’t know… I was just trying to t-tal-talk to you…”

Wonwoo unstuck some small, matted hairs from your forehead, guiding them away with the daintiest movements.

“I know you were...” he answered, keeping his voice quiet.

“And then, in the car… I-I just sat there and cried for so long that the sky got dark. I didn’t know what to do—like, I thought I might call Mingyu but he was at work a-and I had no idea what I would even say to him... and then, I called Princess. And she said I could come over and I legit couldn’t get one fucking word out to her.”

Meanwhile focusing on your choked, heavy sentiments, Wonwoo continued to clean the tears from your face. A warm hand had grabbed onto his wrist, not stopping him—just gently holding—as though you needed the contact to ground yourself, even a little bit.

“The shitty part was… even when I was at my angriest… I still couldn’t get myself to hate you. But I wanted it so bad, Wonwoo. I stayed up almost every night, trying to convince myself that you were the worst person I ever met, a-and that I would be better off without you—that you were a poison to me and everything about you is just a ruse to hurt people. No matter what I told myself, nothing would ever work… because I would—I-I don’t fucking know—I would think about how fucking good you make me feel inside. H-How happy I am when I’m with you. You listen to me, a-and you care about my thoughts and my interests and you’re just—you—you fucking live inside me somehow and I want you out so bad but there’s nothing I can do.”

Wonwoo had removed his hands from your face.

They slid down to your hips. He squeezed them tight, digging his thumbs into your flesh and bone over the silken shorts.

“You live inside me, too.”

Rubbing off your nose, you shook your head angrily.

“It can’t be like that.”

His throat twisted up.

“Why?”

“B-Because it—it can’t. You know I have Mingyu…”

“I only think about you. It’s always you. I don’t want it to change.” Wonwoo pleaded, hanging onto every word—trying to search for your eyes despite the adamant refusal to meet his gaze.

“But I just—I can’t do it.”

“Why?”

“Because!” You pushed at his broad chest, forcing him away as the anguished, grief-stricken shout reverberated between the high ceilings. Gripping at your head, you started to cry again. “I-I’m still so fucking angry at you, Wonwoo. I hate holding onto it and I hate that it’s been over a month and I’m still processing everything, but I can’t just move on from those feelings! I have to see it through. ”

The air was ice cold against him.

He just wanted your perfect body back in his arms.

“O-Okay… okay. I get it.”

“You do? Because I can’t keep reliving this. I just can’t.”

Wonwoo sighed, curling his fingers in and out.

“No, I—I hear you. I promise.”

You still needed time. You weren’t ready to forgive him. That was okay, and he wasn’t the least bit vexated by it. If he had to wait an entire year, then he would wait. Nothing would shake him from you.

Slapping a palm against your cheek, you shoved away the further tears which were seeming to become an annoyance. Wonwoo wanted desperately to be the one to wipe your pretty face and kiss away the salty taste of your sadness, but he knew not to push his luck.

Beyond the windowpanes, the sky was nearly pitch black, pinpricked by all the distant lights from the city buildings.

“I’ll go now, okay?” Wonwoo murmured.

Folding your arms, you sniffled a little, nodding.

“Okay...”

He wanted to say goodnight to you, but then he thought of that rule you had proclaimed during your late-night phone conversation many moons ago—you had to say it first as courtesy.

Except, you were silent.

Nonetheless, Wonwoo had liked to think it was sitting right on the tip of your tongue, just as it was sitting on his.

—SEPTEMBER 8TH.

When he thought back on his summer, Wonwoo couldn’t believe the quickness with which it had flown by, especially considering how nauseously slow some parts moved while he existed, trapped, inside them. Still, it was probably Wonwoo’s most eventful summer since his move from Korea, in more ways than one. Now, it was back to university for his final year as a maths student, and Wonwoo actually couldn’t be happier for the introduction of routine and the opportunity to test all the inner workings he’d accomplished.

Just last week, Vernon had thrown together a small party in the backyard of his friend’s rental home. He was housesitting, and though Wonwoo wasn’t sure why the friend in question would pick a promiscuous drug dealer for hospitality upkeep, the party was apparently approved and Wonwoo had made the effort to attend.

It gave him the chance to reunite with Seungcheol and Seokmin who he’d unintentionally given the cold shoulder. He was just thankful they were relaxed about everything. The night was spent swapping stories from their summer by the makeshift firepit, drinking cold beers, and watching the fireflies twinkle in the dry backyard brush. Vernon had spent all his time sweet-talking some new girl he’d invited from the club, and when they disappeared inside for about half an hour, Wonwoo prayed his bladder could hold out.

Wonwoo had also invited Sierra.

He figured she was just too warm and amicable and he knew she would get along seamlessly with everyone there.

Since they last spoke downstairs in the pottery shop during late July, Sierra had gotten herself a girlfriend—a patron of the Honeymoon who worked up the courage to ask Sierra out after admiring her bartending skills, as he’d heard it—and Wonwoo was more than happy to extend the invite. Seungcheol had predictably brought along Princess, though Wonwoo hadn’t been too worried. They seemed to be on good terms despite the chip in the relationship.

If you had been in town at the time, Wonwoo would have invited you, too. But you weren’t, instead accompanying your mother on a three-day venture outside the city for some publisher’s trip.

But he kept you in mind the entire night. He saw you in the wide, bright moon sitting squarely above the crackling fire, and he felt you in the colder breezes that whispered the beginnings of a soft, fresh autumn. You were everywhere inside him, just like his blood.

Wonwoo had liked to think he’d done it right. All those conversations he shared with you over the phone since the reunion at your apartment seemed promising—even when they flared and ached like a broken bone—Wonwoo had just wanted to hear your voice and know your heart. Though, the conclusion had dipped him in a strange, confusing predicament he still struggled to reason.

“I think we work best as friends… we’ll always be friends.”

The moment was followed by the most intense silence, and then Wonwoo had shifted the phone against his ear, spreading on an audible smile that couldn’t have looked any faker in person.

“Yeah… I see that, too.”

But he didn’t.

He was still in love with you.

And now Wonwoo didn’t know what to do.

You had come to an agreement that he should no longer help you with the book as it had been a point of contention since the start. Plus, you were now confident enough in your skills to finish it.

Surprisingly, Wonwoo was okay with that.

Nonetheless, he did offer his help if you ever needed it.

In fact, as Wonwoo sat in the small auditorium for his newest elective—the continuation to last year’s creative writing—he was scrolling through an old document you had sent him months ago, containing a litany of the same messily written paragraph, just rehashed as you attempted to find the best wording for it. Wonwoo couldn’t help but smile against the palm squishing at his chin.

Your mind always did seem to work in twelve different ways.

Since he’d shown up early to the lecture, Wonwoo was able to pick a good seat in the middle. He recognized a few faces from last year as more students began to trickle in. Wonwoo kept his bookbag on the chair to his right because he liked the extra space, though he began fearing he might have to move it when the lecture hall filled to a degree past his expectations. Since when did all these people take the class last year? Was it because of the new professor? He spun a pen between his fingers, observing everyone rather judgementally.

“Hey—are you saving a seat for your non-existent friend, or are you leaving your bag here to make sure no one else would sit beside you? Not that anyone would want to with the way you’re begrudgingly staring down every single person who walks in here.”

Wonwoo grinned, the pen stilling into his hand.

He knew your attitude like the ducks on his aunt’s shower curtain.

“If it’s such a big deal to you, you can move it.”

“Oh, can I? Do I get the pleasure of moving your bookbag, Wonwoo? Are you really that kind as to save such a life-changing, personal, and intimate experience, just for me?”

Smirking up at you, Wonwoo dropped his bag onto the floor.

He was promptly greeted by a very shiny smile.

“That’s what I thought,” you said matter-of-factly, setting your iconic cream purse onto your lap after sliding into the chair.

“So,” Wonwoo huffed, leaning back and casting you a curious glance, “you didn’t tell me you were going to take creative writing.”

Pulling out some chapstick, you laughed. “Uh—you didn’t tell me, either,” the comment was wry and muttered through the obstacle of moisturizing your lips.

Scratching his temple, Wonwoo chuckled, “fair.”

“Gosh, there’s so many people in here. Way more than I was expecting. I mean, who even are these goddamn people? I hardly recognize any of them—oh my gosh, do you think it’s because of the new professor? I looked her up, you know. She’s published three books—they’ve all got crazy good accolades—and one of them was even made into a movie! That has to be why. Should I try to get face time with her after class? No—actually, I won’t. Then I look totally desperate. I’ll play it cool. I’ll wait until, like, three classes from now.”

“Well, you’re never short of making an impression.”

“Meaning what?”

“Fuck,” Wonwoo laughed, “what the fuck do you think it means? It’s not like I’m talking in morse code. You make an impression.”

You smacked a hand down on his knee. “Well, how do I know if you mean good or bad! And don't curse at me like that.”

“Okay, okay. You're right. I'm sorry.”

“Are you?”

“Yes,” he replied, softening his voice, “I am very extremely sorry.”

That little smile you gave him was enchanting.

Wonwoo cleared his throat. “And I meant good, obviously.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. If you say anything to her, she’ll love you.”

“That’s a bit extreme.”

“She’ll keep you reasonably in her thoughts?”

“Hm. Yes. I like that better,” you agreed.

While you busied yourself with removing the laptop from your purse and taking an extra minute to inspect your face with a small, compact mirror, Wonwoo glanced around the room again. A few people standing by the professor’s podium at the front were looking at you, their mouths moving in conversation, though Wonwoo could hear none of it from the general chatter. He supposed you were used to getting those dissecting, curious, maybe even sometimes hurtful stares. There was always a light shining on you, wanted or not.

As Wonwoo pulled open the class syllabus on his laptop, he felt a tap against his shoulder. Slightly turning his head, he spotted someone shuffling by in the cramped row behind him, waving.

“Hey, Wonwoo,” the stranger said quickly in passing.

Squinting at him through his glasses, Wonwoo nodded. “Uh, hey.”

You quirked an eyebrow. “Who was that?”

He shrugged. “No idea. Someone from last year, I guess.”

“I see. Mr. Popular. Taking names and breaking hearts.”

Wonwoo laughed, shaking his head. “The opposite, actually.”

You giggled so lightly at his response, and for a very slow moment, Wonwoo saw and felt the heat of your eyes stilling in focus upon his face. He squirmed somewhat in his seat, fingers picking at the rough, dark blue material upholstered over the chair’s arm. But then you resumed staring back at yourself in the compact mirror while applying another layer of lip balm, and Wonwoo had to subtly breathe out all the butterflies that fluttered up from his stomach.

With a satisfying snap, you’d shut the mirror, stuffing it back into the purse that was sitting atop his bag on the floor. He wanted to ask you how the book was coming along, how much progress you had made since he last proofread anything, if you were still engaging in those messily long sentences or had you since learned to clean them up.

But it was hard for Wonwoo to ask.

He studied the nervous hands in his lap.

“So… are you free after class?”

You tilted your head in thought. “Uh, I think so? This is my only class today, actually. No more SSA. I’m beyond happy. No one else seemed to take it well but me. I don’t care, though.”

“No, you made the right choice.”

“So, why do you ask?” Angling your body toward him, you smiled, and Wonwoo felt this pool of warmth expand in his chest.

“Do you want to stop at the café on Sunnyside?”

“Maybe. Is it good? I’ve never actually ate there.”

“I think it’s good,” he said, bouncing his knee. “I used to sit in there all the time. I don’t as much anymore, but it’s a cute place to visit. About a ten-minute walk from here. Plus, it’s nice outside.”

You nodded. “I’ll think it over.”

Knowing that class was starting soon, Wonwoo moved the phone sitting on the edge of his tabletop into his back pocket.

“Actually, can I ask you something?”

He stiffened in his seat, hardly managing a nod. That always seemed to be a weighted question, especially in your hands, and the fact that you were biting the skin of your bottom lip only stirred forth more worry. Wonwoo folded his arms and nodded, feeling his heart beat.

“Well, it’s just—there’s no exact date yet, okay? But sometime in very late September my family is having another dinner party.”

Wonwoo’s fingers dug into his arms. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah…” you trailed off, continuing to bite your lip, “and, I basically—I-I’ve kind of been blabbing to my mom and stuff. You’ve definitely come up in some conversations. She made a comment that I could invite you and even though I disagree with her on, like, millions of things, I thought it might be a good idea…” your eyes flashed at him doubtfully. “So, like, I’m not gonna force you or anything. I’ve ranted to you about these dinner parties before so I’m sure you know how awful they can be. But… I don’t know… I mean, you don’t even have to stay the entire time. You could just pop by, o-or, or something like that. I just… I think seeing you before will help calm me down.”

Out of everything you could have asked, Wonwoo was least expecting the dinner party question. It seemed to have a very routine structure and Wonwoo couldn’t help but think that his presence there might throw everything off-kilter and the last—the very fucking last—thing he wanted was for your parents to absolutely loathe him. You always complained about them. Even with Mingyu and Seokmin there to accompany you, it seemed never to be enough. However, Wonwoo would hate to leave you hanging so dryly out in the open.

Even if he dreaded it, you mattered more to him than any awkward or nervous sentiments he harboured about the situation.

“Uh… okay. Yeah. I can go.”

You straightened up like a hair standing on end. “Really?!”

He nodded, pushing up his glasses. “Yeah.”

“Oh my gosh! You’re the best!”

Leaning over the chair rest, you bracketed your arms around Wonwoo’s neck, squeezing him into a quick hug that left his heart racing. Your sweet smell lingered in his nose as you slipped away.

“That’s such a relief… and—yes—for as much as I complain about it, I promise I’ll do my absolute best to keep everything on the rails. I’ll get you out of anything awkward or uncomfortable. And if you feel like it’s too much, I’ll be right there. I promise.”

Wonwoo smiled bashfully, shaking his head.

“Don’t put so much pressure on yourself. I can manage a few shit conversations and uncomfortable silences. I’ve got my own problematic parents. I appreciate the thought, though. Means a lot.”

It would be another matter to anxiously dwell over until it actually happened, but Wonwoo was okay with it knowing how receptive you had become to his mood. More than anything, he didn’t know how to deal with Mingyu. The party had been decent. There were multiple people to bounce off and uplift the weight, substances to mellow the tension and distract the mind. But this felt very different. This would be more intimate. Less room for error in the form of lasting, arduous glances and short but gentle touches.

All he hoped for is that it might end better than the party.

—SEPTEMBER 29TH.

“So, I’ll come pick you up, okay? Just gotta text me.”

“… Yeah, that works. Okay.”

“Take a breath, Glasses. If anyone’s got this, it’s you, alright? No negative Nina shit. You’re lookin’ gorgeous, even more than me.”

“It’s Nancy.”

“What?”

“It’s—never mind.”

“Who’s Nancy?”

“I said never mind.”

“Okay, okay. Jeez… make sure you drop the attitude when you get in there. It’s not very cute of you, yeah?”

Wonwoo felt Vernon’s hand grip onto his shoulder, bestowing him a confident shake that somehow only served to reveal how jellied and weak he’d become. But Wonwoo also knew he couldn’t sit inside the mint-scented interior of his friend’s vanilla Camry the entire night, waiting for some lightning bolt to strike him with the energy he blatantly needed. Consequently, his attitude had gotten a bit snappy.

Vernon was right, though. Wonwoo had to find it within himself to relax, take a breath, and realize the time would fly once he was past the initial haze. Besides, you were there. That was all he really cared about. It made the most impossible things possible.

Looking down at the sleek, unwrinkled material of his black suit jacket, Wonwoo gave it a final and deciding tug. He then reached for the gift bag sitting by his feet. Inhaling, his lungs filled deep with air and Wonwoo was clicking his fist against Vernon’s.

“You’ve got this, playboy.”

“See you on the other side, I guess.”

Exiting the vehicle, Wonwoo spared one last hopeful glance at his face-studded friend before slamming the door shut, now caught outside underneath the moon’s shimmer. Late nights in September always seemed to be somewhat dewy and cold, with golden, ruby, and amber leaves slicked against the streets like flowers pressed into paper. Wonwoo shivered, smelling the earthiness in the atmosphere.

After tightening his fingers around the straps of the gift bag, he began making his way up the smoothly paved driveway, toward the welcoming and aglow ambiance that beamed from your family house.

He grabbed the rung at the door, slamming it a few times.

The anxious breath slowly flowed from his mouth as Wonwoo’s mind raced with who would be the one to answer. Feeling his circled glasses slip, Wonwoo pushed them back up using his finger. At the same time, the front door swung open, and in the clarity, relief washed over him like the caress of that autumn wind.

“Fuck! You’re here!”

Before Wonwoo could get a word out, your arms were already thrown around his neck. The hug was fleeting. As quickly as your body was pressed flush against his, it was gone a second later.

“Uh, yeah. Just got dropped off.”

“Oh my gosh. Come in, come in,” you chirped like an excited bird, pulling at his elbow, “I’m legit so happy you’re here. Don’t worry about taking off your shoes. I know I’m barefoot at the moment but I’ve been so freaking scatterbrained that I haven’t even picked out a pair of heels yet. You look amazing. I’ve never seen you dressed up!”

His face began to burn at the compliment.

“I don’t attend many things that require fancy clothes.”

“Well, there’s a first for everything.”

Smiling, Wonwoo realized that he hadn’t really marvelled your dress, but there was something awfully familiar about it—the shiny olive-green colour, the elegant, revealing slit at the right thigh, the thin yet simple straps draped along the open, lowcut back—he then remembered it was the final dress you had tried on from that expensive boutique in the mall. Somehow, the material looked even more stunning on you now than it did before.

His face grew warmer, sizzling almost.

“That dress has always looked perfect on you.”

There was so much more he could spew in the moment, some cloying, sweet thoughts and some very impure ones, too. But Wonwoo wasn’t trying to cross boundaries and he had to respect your wishes of staying as friends, even if it tore him up inside beyond words.

Fiddling with your fingers, you gave him a soft smile. “I’m glad you recognized it.”

The hallway suddenly got very quiet. You were both just standing there, staring at each other, biting lips and scratching skin.

“So, um, I guess I can show you arou—”

“Oh, there they are! Honey, they’re out here!”

Wonwoo’s tender gaze had suddenly snapped toward a woman barging out from an illuminated doorway, a wine glass poised in her hand while the largest, most bedazzled necklace he had ever seen weighed down to her chest. Weathered heels beat the floorboards, echoing between the walls as she stalked toward him.

“You must be Wonwoo!”

Her hand was gripping onto his wrist and Wonwoo could only prompt a weak smile that was indicative of his racing, feeble heart.

“Yeah, correct. Pleased to finally meet you.”

“Oh, charmer. Pleasure’s all mine, sunshine. Okay, but—let me get a good look at you. Don’t feel like you have to stand by the doorway, all polite-like. Come a bit more into the light, over here.”

“Mom, don’t pull him,” you warned between clenched teeth.

“Ah, it’s alright, it’s alright. Don’t fret so much. Sheesh.”

Standing beneath the warm and yellow glow from the hallway chandelier, there was notable heaviness in Wonwoo’s chest as your mother’s dilated, intensive gaze wracked along his every feature, as though she were the reading the fine print to one of her catalogues.

“You’re certainly gorgeous,” she complimented, “and that voice! So soothing. How do you not have a lovely lady on your arm?”

Wonwoo’s eyes skipped to you in complete and utter panic.

Grabbing onto her shoulder, you gently guided her away.

“Mom, come on. You’re smothering him, alright? Remember the thing with Mingyu? I told you not to do that anymore. He just got here and I want him to actually enjoy himself. Don’t be so… pouncey.”

“Okay. I got it,” the mom said, lifting her hand and wine glass in submission, seeming serious for no less a few seconds. “The princess of the house, FYI. She always gets what she wants.”

You knocked her touch away as she wriggled your chin, very poorly veiling your annoyance through a grumble, “it’s not like that.”

“Didn’t I call in your father? What’s taking so long?”

“I don’t know. He’s probably hiding in his office.”

“Is that where he is? Really? When I asked him to set the table? Jeez. You spend all day cooking a meal, chopping and dicing and braising and frying, and the man just can’t be bothered to put out some knives and forks. This is why I opened the wine early, y’know.”

Your arms folded, and you appeared so much smaller.

“Seokmin set the table already.”

“Oh! What—he—he did? I didn't even notice!”

“Yes, like an hour ago.”

“Oh my gosh! That boy’s an angel. Raised so well, wasn’t he? You know Seokmin, right, Wonwoo? You’re all friends?”

Awkwardly shifting in his place, Wonwoo nodded. He couldn’t help but wonder where Seokmin or Mingyu were. There was dulled music echoing softly from a distant room in the house. Down the hallway corridor, it seemed to open up into a big living space.

Suddenly, your mom began to wiggle her finger at the bag he was holding limp in his hand, and for a moment, Wonwoo had even forgot it existed. She sipped from her gradually disappearing wine again, her words sounding muffled as they fogged up the glass.

“Is that a gift I spot in your hand, dear?”

“Oh, yeah,” he answered.

Flattening a palm over the intricate jewel necklace glittering down her chest, your mother fawned adoringly, and Wonwoo’s stomach immediately dropped knowing it wasn’t her gift at all.

“Gosh! You shouldn’t’ve!”

“Uh, a-actually, it’s not—it was—I got this for your daughter.”

His gut twisted, watching the excitement and gleam drain from your mother’s face, her smile wiped away like an eraser to a penciled drawing. At least you had brightened up, though it wasn’t without caution, and Wonwoo wasn’t entirely sure what to say.

Straightening her spine, a grin then twitched unnaturally to her mouth. She was directly back into the wine for another drink.

“Well, that’s certainly thoughtful.” Wiping off her lips, she unnervingly held Wonwoo’s gaze for a brief moment, her eyes harder than diamonds. She then turned toward you, proceeding to gesture in a swirling motion with her finger at your face. “Sweetheart, if you don’t mind, could you take a few minutes to just fix your makeup?”

Your expression faltered, shoulders sagging.

“My makeup? What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, the lashes are lifting a bit. It’s not too noticeable in this dusky hallway but out in the proper light, everyone will be able to tell. And I wouldn’t use that shade of lipstick. Remember the tip I gave you? When we take photos that colour is not going to show well.”

“I do remember, yes. But I thought it could match with—”

“No but’s. These dinners are important for us, alright? Go fix.”

Wonwoo held his breath. In all his time spent getting to know you—your likes and dislikes, your pet peeves and oddly specific rules about the way things should work—the one cardinal sin was to never interrupt you. Even when he was fighting tooth and nail against you in his apartment, aching with hurt and bitterness, he didn’t cut you off once to get his word over yours. He doubted Mingyu had ever done it, and he was positive Seokmin hadn’t, either. To actually witness it felt somewhat like a crime requiring swift punishment.

Though, for all that Wonwoo was expecting in response to the rage that had just rippled across your face, there was nothing.

Because you’d choked it down like foul cough syrup.

He watched the fist unclench at your side.

“Okay,” you stated in surprising simplicity, “I’ll go fix it,” still with a sprinkle of attitude that your mother opted to ignore as she announced her trip into the kitchen to check the food.

The second she was obscured from view, a noticeable glisten of tears and exhaustion glimmered in your eyes, though you sucked all the emotions back with a deep, deep breath.

“Do you want to come with me, upstairs for a second?” You asked in a tight, shaky voice. “Unless you want to find Seokmin.”

Wonwoo shook his head. “No, I’ll see him later. Of course I’ll come with you,” he answered, smiling at you with all his tenderness.

He proceeded to follow you up a dimly lit staircase draped in a chocolate brown rug. The house looked quite small from the outside, hidden almost, by the inky night, but as Wonwoo accompanied you at the robust, wooden dresser kept against the corridor wall, he realized just how long the house actually was.

Your lower back pressed against the dresser, hands gripping the edges and fingers scraping the underside of the chestnut.

Wonwoo left the gift bag sitting next to an amorphous, black metallic sculpture that he couldn’t even begin to understand, then dusting off his palms and watching you shake your head.

“I mean, you’ve only been here for five minutes, and I’m already breaking out my seams,” you laughed, dabbing at a tear travelling too far down your cheek. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend for it to be like this so soon and I’m not gonna force you to stay.”

“Stop saying that,” Wonwoo urged, tucking his hands into his pockets, “I told you I would come. I’m not going to abandon you.”

You paused, biting the swollen skin of your bottom lip.

“… Okay.” Looking down at the ground, you wiped your damp face again before hugging yourself. “She always does this… she always has something to point out. Nothing can ever be perfect for her. I’ve spent, like, all day, preparing myself, because that’s what she wants, and it’s still not enough. I don’t get it. I feel—” you sucked in a needy breath, pinching at your nose, “—I feel like I’m just some stupid doll she’s trying to perfect, but I never came perfect in the first place, so it’s all a big waste, and somehow, it’s my fault… I know I’m unloading and I’m sorry for that, too. This day has just been—I hate it. I hate these dinners. I fucking hate everything about them. I want to bang my head against the wall.”

Wonwoo smiled at you.

He untucked a hand from his pocket and reached for the clenched fist at your hip, spreading apart your fingers into his.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m listening, okay?”

Though your eyes were misty with tears and tiredness, you managed to return a frail little grin that was deeply sincere. Your hand tightened in his for a moment, and then you were stepping into him like he was a fresh blanket straight from the laundry. Fingers bunched up his suit jacket and your face was warm against his neck.

“I think it’ll be a little better tonight,” you whispered. “You’re the only one here who doesn’t make me feel like I’m going insane.”

Wonwoo passed up and down your bare back with his hand, admiring the softness to your pampered skin and the luscious scent of your hair, though he knew you had probably hated every moment trapped in the hot shower, exfoliating and shaving and scrubbing your body clean. He felt you squeeze onto him harder.

“Can I see what your gift is?”

“Oh, yeah…” he muttered, pulling apart from your heat, “it’s kind of a two-in-one thing. It’ll make sense once I explain.”

“That seems exciting,” you answered, returning to your lean against the chestnut dresser, folding your arms and smiling.

“So, um—if you remember the poker game—I owed you a pretty big lump of cash,” Wonwoo said, reaching inside the bag to grab a smooth, matte box, “and then there was the day at the museum, of course. Running home in the rain. You lost a shoe.”

“Oh my gosh, yeah…” you giggled fondly at the memory.

“I was at the mall—and, yes, I know. Why would I be at the mall when I hate the place? But I was getting my laptop fixed at that tech store on the third floor, and I also needed wires for my—okay. Never mind the rambling. Fuck, I’m turning into you now. Anyway, I walked past that one store you love and get pretty much all your clothes from. They had these heels in the window. The white ones, which you said to me are actually not white, but a very specific shade of ivory that I couldn’t see and still fail to see, to be honest. And they had that little bit of gold in the straps… but the point is—I got them for you.”

You glitched for a second, and it wasn’t until Wonwoo was basically pushing the box into your chest that you seemed to realize.

“Wait… you actually went to Rosette?”

He nodded matter-of-factly. “Yes.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Immediately, you flipped the box open and began flicking away the neatly trimmed cover of glittered tissue paper. “You got me the Gold Crystal Rope-Strapped and Ivory Ankle four-inch from Mirabella? Wonwoo! I-I was just talking when I saw them in the mall! I mean, you didn't have to actually get them!”

“I know,” Wonwoo answered, helping you pick the heels out from their imprints, “you’re always just talking, though.”

“Unnecessary.”

“To you.”

He was thankful you were too enraptured by the shoes to bother retaliating. Under regular circumstances, Wonwoo wouldn’t ever have been able to make such an expensive decision, but he still had some leftovers from winning the other poker matches at the party, in addition to a work bonus, and he knew that he still needed to repay you those favours even if they weren’t being held against him.

“They’re so freaking gorgeous,” you fawned, inspecting each heel like a jeweller would to their collection, “I can’t tell if I want to hit you or jump on you in happiness. I love them so much.”

“Well, I’m glad.”

“Oh my gosh, can you help me put them on? Pretty please?”

“Uh—yeah, ‘course.”

You gripped the edges of the dresser, slightly sitting on the surface as Wonwoo squatted down to your bare feet. He collected the first ivory heel and loosened the anklet buckle, proceeding to help slide the shoe on until it was fit perfectly. As he busied himself with loosening the buckle to the other heel, Wonwoo felt the ghost of your fingertips brush through his hair. In a spilt second, he froze, staring up at you, who was grinning back in utmost beauty.

“Just fixing your hair a little,” you stated innocently.

Wonwoo readjusted his glasses, nodding. “O-Okay.”

The action hadn’t felt that innocent, and as Wonwoo swallowed tight and continued sliding your ankle through the heel, he was overwhelmed with the most blaring, vivid, heart-hammering thoughts of smoothing his hands along each your soft thighs, pinning up the slippery silk to your olive-green dress, tugging aside your thin panties, burying his face and tongue so hot and heavy into your—

“Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes!”

“Fuck,” you groaned, lolling your head back while Wonwoo finished settling the heel onto your foot, “just in case you didn’t connect the dots, that means we need to get downstairs.”

He returned to height, straightening out the sleeves to his suit jacket. For some reason, there was such an intense disappointment burning in his chest, as though his carnal thoughts were not just thoughts but an actual intent to pleasure you—which was completely ludacris given your friendship and the fact your boyfriend was probably downstairs—that had now been ripped away from him by the shrill pitch of your mother’s beckoning voice.

“Should I take the box—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

You grabbed onto his hand, tugging him toward the staircase.

“C’mon. Let’s get this shit over with.”

And Wonwoo followed, though he couldn’t help but note how you carefully dropped his hand upon rounding the corner into the kitchen, where Seokmin and Mingyu were standing about.

“Hey!” Seokmin exclaimed, pointing toward him. “Wonwoo!”

Expectantly, Seokmin looked like he belonged in a suit. That dark cherry red colour was rather fitting and only served to amplify the glow of his indestructible enthusiasm. Wonwoo awkwardly sauntered over to them, playing with the threads in his pockets.

Mingyu’s suit was more charcoal in tone, with his hair expertly gelled and combed. He mirrored a suave movie star as he leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping from his partly-filled wine glass.

“Uh, hey guys.”

You were hovering at the stove alongside your mother, talking in a hushed manner, while she stirred a large and bubbling pot of aromatic sauce, smelling like rosemary and perhaps cooked off vodka or some other alcohol. There was food everywhere—warm bread plates and fresh salad bowls and artistically painted casserole dishes covered by tinfoil. A window had been cracked open to help alleviate the heat swarming the kitchen, which Wonwoo could feel a little too uncomfortably in the air.

Seokmin grabbed at a couple crackers and cubed cheese organized onto a charcuterie board behind him.

“Don’t you clean up well?” He complimented with a big grin.

Wonwoo shook his head. “Not that well.”

“Hey—” Seokmin suddenly grabbed onto Wonwoo’s shoulder and pointed a finger at him, “—you’re here, alright? That’s an honour.”

Mingyu brushed the cracker crumbs off Seokmin’s suit.

“Don’t snack too much. She hates when you can’t eat.”

“Uh—I made this stupid board. I get to eat from it whenever I want. I’ll be fine, anyway. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

Mingyu stopped tidying Seokmin’s suit, instead grabbing his wine glass off the countertop, sighing aloud, “that was a stupid idea…”

From the dreariness to his words and the slouch pulling down his shoulders, Mingyu didn’t seem to be all that excited or even half as chipper as Seokmin, though Wonwoo suspected that he knew the dinner parties to be a complete trainwreck. If Mingyu could hardly stomach a night with your parents despite all the stunning food and drink, then Wonwoo had no idea as to how he’d survive.

“So, um…” Seokmin lowered his voice, tipping his head close to Mingyu’s ear, “should we give him the rulebook?”

“Rulebook?” Wonwoo echoed.

“Uh,” Mingyu sipped quickly from his wine, “yeah, guess we can do that. Not in here, though. Let Her talk to her mom.”

“Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” Seokmin smiled, flashing a sly wink at Mingyu. “Hey, we’re gonna give Wonwoo a quick tour, alright!” He then called, his hand wrapping around the boy’s bicep, already beginning to tug him toward the hallway. “It won’t take too long; we’ll just show the bottom floor! Be back in a few!”

“Oh, uh, I guess that’s fine,” your mother replied while grabbing onto the pot handles with two tea towels, moving the sauce from the element, “but please do be quick! And, Seokmin—do you mind fetching the hubby from his office after you’re done?”

“I can do that, for sure,” he answered, smiling bright.

“Thank you, dear. I appreciate you so much.”

He was escorted out the muggy kitchen and down the corridor, flanked by Mingyu and Seokmin until they reached the living area where the piano music had been coming from.

Before he could issue even one question, Wonwoo was pressed down onto the red, very large-cushioned couch. Seokmin sat on the marble coffee table while Mingyu fixed himself onto the arm of a sturdy leather chair, crossing an ankle over his knee. Neither boy spoke for a moment and Wonwoo couldn’t help but feel a bit frightened as he listened to the elegant, soft piano tune fill the space.

“So… what’s the rulebook?”

“Well, it’s not an actual rulebook,” Seokmin corrected, “that was just for dramatics, allure, etcetera. But that’s what we call it.”

“We? You and Mingyu, you mean.”

Shifting in his place, Seokmin nodded, and his voice dropped an octave lower, "play the game long enough, you learn the rules.”

Mingyu’s chuckle dampened into the wine glass. “And there a lot of fuckin’ rules, that’s for damn sure,” he said with a scary smirk.

“But—we’ll just give you the crash course for now, as to lessen the overwhelmingness of what it takes to endure a dinner party.”

“Um, does Her know—”

“There are three principal rules; I’ll give them to you quick, so listen good,” Seokmin interrupted, leaning further into Wonwoo’s space, speaking quietly. “Rule one: do whatever the mom says, even if she doesn’t say it directly, or scarcely alludes to it. Makes everything ten times smoother, and gets her to like you, which is very important. Rule two: there is a guaranteed argument between Her’s mom and Her every fucking time—you stay out of it—never pick sides.

If you do get roped into whatever petty, passive-aggressive shame-fest they rake up, insert a compliment. Example: this steak is so tender and perfectly cooked! FYI—we’re not eating steak, so think of your own thing—and rule three: Her is like a freshly shaken can of carbonated soda and she can explode at any given moment. As her dear friends, and boyfriend, we have to make sure that doesn’t happen or else you’ll want to axe yourself.”

Wonwoo furrowed his brow heavily at Seokmin, noting a few crumbs left on his cherry suit from the cheese and crackers.

“How do we stop that?” He asked genuinely.

Mingyu proceeded to lower the nearly emptied wine glass against his knee, clearing his throat, “you don’t stop it.”

“But I thought—”

“It happens every time, without fail,” Seokmin answered, shaking his head, “but you can prolong it. You know, like cracking open the cap and letting out some air instead of the bottle fizzling into obliteration right away. The explosion’s not as big then. It’s easy. You just keep the conversation pushing. Don’t leave any space for bickering. Mingyu sometimes takes Her downstairs, or outside. To be fair, you don’t really have to worry about the last part.”

“Yeah,” Mingyu huffed, hardly amused, “lucky you, huh?”

“What happens if that fails?” Wonwoo asked.

Seokmin leaned back, tipping his head to the side. “Last year Her’s mom spent six hours braising these honey-garlic barbeque ribs with asparagus and stuffed potatoes. Guess where the food ended up by the end of the night? Because it wasn’t my starving mouth.”

“I don’t think I want to know,” Wonwoo sighed.

Bobbing his head approvingly, Seokmin smiled. “Exactly.”

“If these dinners are always such a mess, why do they keep happening? I mean, it doesn’t seem like anybody enjoys them.”

Fiddling with the thick folded cuff of his dress shirt, Seokmin shrugged. “I don’t know, to be honest. They used to a be a lot bigger in the past. Way more relatives and family friends. Just get-together's with a lot of food and drink and intoxicatedness. A way to maintain community and repore or something. But it’s shrunk down over the years. I still can’t tell if that makes it better or worse.”

Mingyu rubbed tiresomely down his neck, somewhat wincing as he massaged a sore spot. “It definitely makes it worse.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Seokmin agreed, “it puts more pressure on the rest of us… anyway, I should grab ‘the hubby’ as per request.”

Snickering, Mingyu flashed his pointed canine teeth and raised the wine back to his lips. “Makes your skin crawl, doesn’t it?”

With an uneased laugh, Seokmin smirked. “Every time.”

As the boy disappeared down a dark hallway to the right of the large living area, Wonwoo assumed he and Mingyu might return to the kitchen as it was probably not the best idea—leaving you alone for too long with your nitpicking mother—but when Wonwoo began lifting himself from the plump couch cushions he was sunken into, Mingyu’s hand touched at his shoulder to stop him.

In an instant, trepidation surged throughout his body.

Wonwoo’s face had most certainly gone white, though the lighting in the living room was too warm and orangey to tell.

“I just wanna talk to you about something real quick,” Mingyu said, stretching forward to leave his empty glass on the marbled table.

“Oh—um, okay.”

When he thought about the past few months, Wonwoo realized he hadn’t even spoke to Mingyu since the blowout party back in June. So much had happened since then, good and bad. Wonwoo could only suspect that he was about to hear the worst talking-to in his life, though he attempted to feign the terror for casualness.

Mingyu swooped a hand behind his ear, brushing back his perfectly styled hair, and looked to Wonwoo almost… forgivingly?

“I know you and I haven’t seen each other since the party at Seungcheol’s. I know some shit went down between you and Her and that it really blew up and you guys weren’t talking for a bit. She said, like, it was something to do with the book she’s writing and you were having differences about the direction and it kinda exploded.”

Wonwoo prayed it was imperceptible, the gigantic breath of relief he fought to exhale without too much giveaway, knowing that you hadn’t told Mingyu the truth to the argument. He was happy about your work-around, though he didn’t know if it was… morally right… that you opted not to tell your boyfriend—the person you supposedly trusted most—one of your biggest miseries.

“Oh… yeah,” Wonwoo exhaled, “it got pretty ugly.”

Mingyu nodded. “I honestly don’t even know if she’s still working on it. She doesn’t tell me about it. I don’t get why it’s so fuckin’ important to her but… I digress. Anyway, like Seokmin said, you’re here now, so you two obviously hashed it out. She seems to really appreciate you as a friend. And—hey—it helps takes some of the weight off my shoulders, y’know? Girl’s a fuckin’ handful sometimes.”

Wonwoo swallowed, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation and the alcohol he was beginning to smell from the boy’s clothes. He understood the situation was stressful for Mingyu, that he might be teetering between things absentmindedly, yet he nonetheless questioned what Mingyu’s intentions even were with you.

“Well, uh… I really enjoy spending time with her, too,” he murmured as Mingyu reclaimed his emptied wine glass.

There was a strong grip on his shoulder, shaking it.

“You’re a good person, man. Seriously.”

Using Wonwoo as a support crutch, Mingyu heaved onto his feet, then proceeded to straighten out his charcoal suit jacket.

“M’kay, I’m going back to the kitchen. We’re probably gonna eat soon so don’t spend too long losing your head out here.”

“Yeah, got it.”

He watched Mingyu amble down the long and subtly aglow corridor, carrying his wine glass low at the hip until reaching the threshold to the kitchen. You had suddenly popped out, stumbling into him with a smile and some hushed words that were impossible to comprehend as Wonwoo sat alone, listening to the jazzy piano tunes from the record player. After nipping a quick kiss against your boyfriend’s lips, you entered the living room with a crooked head.

“What’chya doing out here?” You inquired, pressing a hand against the grand, wooden frame adorning the entry way.

Wonwoo grabbed at his knees while pulling himself up.

“Just a quick pep talk. And a fly-by of some rules.”

“Oh,” you chuckled, “Seokmin’s crash course, was it?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes I call him John Green just to piss him off.”

Wonwoo smiled, stepping around the marble coffee table. “I feel like that might serve to stroke Seokmin’s ego above all.”

“No, it starts to irritate him after a while. You should know at this point I can piss off just about anybody. Even Seokmin. It’s a talent. Though I don’t think it’s enough for me anymore. I want to start pushing people to rock bottom or I haven’t done enough.”

There was a teasing sparkle in your eye as Wonwoo approached you. He could smell all that deliciously cooked food from down the corridor and his stomach was certainly responding to it.

“I can get you there,” Wonwoo said. “Don’t stress.”

“Forgot to fix my makeup. Want to come with me?”

He agreed, and you began to guide him across the living room, swathed in all its expensive mahogany fabrics, obtuse looking vases, and jade-green lamp shades that reminded him of late-night study sessions at the campus library. You pulled him past a wide shelf that was organized with much smaller, glazed sculptures that caught his attention as they lowly glimmered in the mellow light.

“Woah,” he gripped at your wrist, stopping your swift walk, “someone in your family loves ceramics, I’m guessing?”

You ricocheted back into his side, then taking a few seconds to adjust some invisible flaws in your hair before responding.

“That’s just some pottery I did when I was younger.”

Wonwoo squinted at you. “Really?”

“Mmhm.”

“You took classes?”

Shrugging, you muttered a simple, “yeah.”

“Is that why you were so interested in that vase back at my apartment?” When you continued to stare at him blankly, Wonwoo cleared his throat and reiterated, “the red one? It was really round at the bottom, but the stem was tall and skinny. You really liked it.”

“Oh—yeah—sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve last been to your apartment. I don’t know if that’s why I liked it. Probably.”

He smiled at you inquisitively. “I’m surprised you never mentioned that to me, considering my landlord is a ceramics teacher. I mean, as you know.”

Your eyes seemed reminiscent and adrift, glancing from sculpture to sculpture—lopsided teapots, poorly shaped toadstools, crooked little spoons—there were a plethora of your small creations laid across the shelf, gathering dust and appearing untended to.

Wonwoo cleared his throat, hands buried in his pockets. “I just didn’t peg you as someone who liked getting their hands dirty. I suppose it’s different when you’re younger, though.”

Pursing your lip, you nodded. “Things are always different when you’re young. My mom used to use the spoons I made to scoop sugar into her coffees. But she doesn’t drink coffee anymore. Just wine.”

“Well, it’s nice she appreciated your effort.”

There was a beat of silence. Your expression twitched.

“I had to beg to take those classes, y’know?”

Wonwoo raised an eyebrow at you. “How come?”

Your arms folded, and you shrugged again. “My parents honestly saw it as a distraction. I mean, why let your daughter play with some clay when she can hardly pass her math tests. But there was this super artsy girl in our recreational class who always made the best teacups from the clay, and she would paint them so beautifully… I wanted to be able to do what she did. So I asked my parents again and again and again until they fucking gave up and found a pottery class to enroll me in. Although, I'm pretty sure they supposed I would drop it sooner or later. Like it was just an itch I had to scratch. It was in this little art shop that looked similar to your landlord's.”

He smiled at you. “Was your instructor a polish lady?”

“No, she was not polish,” your head shook as you swept some dust from the black shelf, rubbing your fingers together, “I remember that much, but I don’t remember her name. It was after a flower, though. Something too complicated for my eleven-year-old brain to retain.”

“Probably Chrysanthemum or some shit,” Wonwoo muttered.

You laughed at his comment, “probably.”

“… Well, you must have liked it. You made so much stuff.”

“Oh, I loved it. I mean, looking at some of this stuff now, it’s not that great. But I didn’t really care that much at the time.”

“Considering you were a child, it’s pretty damn good.”

Wonwoo felt your elbow dig shallowly into his ribs. “Don’t try to flatter eleven-year-old me,” you warned him. “If you would have seen the other girl’s creations, mine would turn from pretty damn good to: well, at least she tried something new!”

“No,” Wonwoo chuckled, “that’s dumb.”

“Honestly, there was so much stuff that I made. More than half of it’s not even on this shelf. There wouldn’t be enough space.”

“Shit. What happened to it?”

You pinched at the olive fabric of your dress, massaging the silk between your fingertips for a moment while examining each and every sculpture moulded and grooved by your tiny childhood hands.

“My favourite part was destroying it,” you answered.

Wonwoo narrowed his brow, “I don’t think I could do that to something I spent so much effort and time creating.”

“Yeah, and that’s all good and fine,” you reasoned, adjusting your shoulders, “but I just didn’t see it like that, I guess...”

Intrigued, Wonwoo smiled at you. “How did you see it, then?”

For a moment, you thought, staring off into space.

“Well, I just don’t understand why people are so afraid of things being ephemeral. When you’re an artist, or a writer, or a musician, I feel like you want to make something that will last forever, transcend eras, touch people for a lifetime, or, I don’t know—you want it to stay preserved, like when they embalm things. But I feel like there’s just as much worth and importance to the things that hardly last at all. I feel like there’s so much freedom and self-assurance in building something up and then crushing it down.

That’s what I loved about it. When the clay would explode from between my fingers and stick into the lines of my palms because I was squeezing it so hard—it just felt good. Like it was supposed to happen. Like I was letting go. It doesn’t have to mean I… failed. It doesn’t have to mean I’m good at it either… I guess I just want to enjoy things without the burden of having to prove I deserve to enjoy them. Why can't I just do it? Why can't it just be between me and myself, you know? Why can't I decide what to take from it?"

Wonwoo nodded at you.

Contrarily, that was the opposite to his own beliefs surrounding his art, and maybe even his life. Wonwoo could never let things go, nor was he sure when that quality had permanently wedged its way into his human nature. For some reason, Wonwoo saw the past memory where his older brother had scampered away into the bushes surrounding the public pool during that game of Lifeguard all those hot summers ago, leaving an adolescent Wonwoo to get dragged from the water and thrown onto the sun-scorched concrete as everyone watched.

He saw the fuzzy, white glow that beamed from his laptop left open in the darkness, sitting still with all those pages he wrote, and yet to be filled with the words that he could never string together.

Unlike you, Wonwoo had never figured out the mechanism to letting things go. Instead, he held everything—between his fingers, across his shoulders, on his tongue, under his skin, deep inside his chest. Hence, for a split second, he was incredibly jealous that it seemed you could live without weight. You were just a breeze.

And just like everyone else, you were still discovering yourself.

“Anyway. That’s my take on it."

"Why'd you stop? This seemed like such a big part of you."

You flicked your eyes around, shrugging. "Things got in the way."

Wonwoo wondered what things, though he didn't ask.

"But we should hurry. Dinner will be ready soon and my mom will flip if we’re not at the table in time. She interprets it as ‘we don’t care’ and that will open a can of worms nobody wants to see.”

You sighed, then grabbing onto Wonwoo’s arm to pull him down another mysterious, long corridor in your maze of a house.

“Oh, Mingyu, that’s brilliant! I’m so glad the interview went well! I had him slip in a good word for you, too. But I’m sure you put the nail in the coffin. Walking straight into a promotion, you know, that’s something so hard to come by. You’ll settle just perfectly.”

“Yeah, thanks. To you as well. That word went a long way.”

“Making the right connections is certainly key.”

“It is. But I’m just lucky, is all. Your daughter is the real key. She’s given me so much—you all have—I just wanna let you know how grateful I am. Seriously. You’re some of the kindest people.”

“Shush! Before I give you a lash from this towel. It’s been sitting under the potato tray so it’s nice and hot… I’m so excited for your future together. A real power-couple! That’s for sure.”

“Hm. Yeah.”

Wonwoo was pressed flush to the wall just outside the kitchen, simultaneously holding his breath while listening to the conversation between your mother and Mingyu as everyone was presumably sat around the dressed table. Your fingers were hurriedly ruffling out some wrinkles in his tie while you repeatedly cursed at both your tardiness, and he simply let you do what you pleased. After a half-second adjustment made to his collar, you wasted not an instant more—Wonwoo was suddenly thrust into the warm kitchen with you impatiently in tow.

As expected, everyone was sat and waiting. Even your father had been at last pulled from his study, and he was positioned at the head of the long dinner table while twiddling a fork around in his fingers.

Your mother had an elbow propped on Mingyu’s chair.

She was the only one standing.

“Quick,” you whispered into Wonwoo’s ear, practically shoving him down into the empty seat beside Seokmin, “sit there.”

Upon the nervous side-eye that his friend shot at Wonwoo, he suspected that he may have just wriggled his way into an unfortunate ticket straight to hell. You held up the flowy, billowing silk of your olive dress while making your way to the seat across from him and beside a very unenthused-looking Mingyu, who was evidently chewing on his inner cheek. Wonwoo caught Mingyu’s stare for no less than a second, and there was nearly enough electricity in the glance to make a crackle.

A few more dishes had been squeezed onto the table since he was last in the kitchen. Despite the fact there was only six people eating, nearly every corner and crevice of the table was occupied. Your mother had cooked enough to feed an entire party, unless she was planning on sending everyone home with tupperwares full of leftovers.

“Looks super delicious,” Seokmin complimented.

Mingyu nodded in agreement. “Smells even better.”

Wonwoo didn’t know if he was also supposed to throw out some off-the-tongue compliment and keep the train chugging. The atmosphere was just so heavy—everything felt like an extreme effort—he could hardly breathe without the sensation of his lungs itching, as though they were adorned in cobwebs. Unconsciously, he’d started picking at his thumb, his appetite disappearing by the second in place of dread.

“You boys are so lovely, thank you,” your mother commented, straightening out the orange tea towel in her hand while continuing to lean into the side of Mingyu’s chair. “This was all a labour of love.”

Seokmin flashed a picturesque smile that Wonwoo had seen many times before. “Well, I’m feeling the love. That’s for sure. Are we ready to dig in all?” Still, there was a bit of anxious haste in his actions.

“One moment, first,” your mother stated, pausing Seokmin in his reach for a large casserole spoon. Wonwoo clasped his hands together even tighter as she said, “we’re going to wait a few minutes more.”

You had pulled out your chair, but you didn’t sit.

“Mom, I was just fixing my makeup. That’s what you asked me to do. There’s no reason to make everyone keep waiting.” You removed the towel from her hand and laced it through the oven handlebar. “Just take a seat, okay? I’ll start making everyone’s plates if they pass them.”

She smiled at you. “Well, that’s a very sweet gesture. But it doesn’t take long to fix an unstuck lash or change a lipstick. You’ve got yourself a makeup chair. You should know better than anyone, my love.”

Wonwoo hated this—he hated the way your mother’s criticizing was buttered up nice with a practiced, insincere smile and a crooning voice. He hated the way Mingyu was pushing fingers against the knot in his stiff eyebrow like something horrible was about to happen. He hated the way your father was uncomfortably mute, sitting only with a pursed lip and folded arms in complete disinterest, like he’d rather be anywhere else. He hated that Seokmin was continuing to beam his signature-watt smile even though the air was dense enough to crush everyone flat.

You picked up Mingyu’s plate, presumably because it was the closest to you, and started slopping some hot casserole onto it. Every movement was autopilot, thoughtless, as the steam from the breached casserole rolled up into the air and shrouded you.

“I was only trying to make it perfect,” you muttered.

“Make it what?” Your mother questioned, staring you down.

“Perfe—”

“Stop mumbling, my love. I can’t hear you.”

Mingyu’s messy plate was collapsed back onto its placemat with a very loud thud, and you looked to your mother with utmost annoyance.

“I was trying to make it per-fect.”

She quirked her head. “And you needed Wonwoo to do that?”

Just as he ruminated—the universe had a fearsome penchant for whirlpooling him into the centre of everything and anything horrible, like his name was written in the water. Though, Wonwoo couldn’t say he was expecting to survive the dinner party unscathed. He tried to remember the quick spiel of rules Seokmin had relayed to him—was it better to get involved or just shut the fuck up? Wasn’t Mingyu supposed to do something? Wasn’t Seokmin supposed to keep the conversation pushing?

“Mom, please, just—I was showing him around, okay? He’s the guest. He’s never been over before. Wonwoo has nothing to do with us being a few minutes late to dinner. So just leave him be.” You removed the tinfoil from another bowl. Grabbing a wooden spoon, you started slapping creamy mashed potatoes onto Mingyu’s plate. “Trying to make something out of nothing… why can’t we just eat for once?”

“Honey, we could be eating, but you’re choosing to sulk.”

“I’m not sulking! I’m trying to help!”

“No, no, no. Mingyu’s plate looks like an animal that got squashed by a car. If you can’t even properly fix your future husband a nice-looking plate of food without pooling all your anger into it, then there’s an issue, there.” She shook her head. “A very big issue.”

Wonwoo could see your eyes burning.

Mingyu had then sighed, removing the wooden spoon that was clenched up in your hand like a weapon and slipping it back into the mashed potato bowl. The boy tugged a few times at your wrist, keeping his tired voice as soft as possible while imploring you to sit down.

“It’s alright, everything’s fine,” he said, probably to soothe himself more than anything, “all the food goes straight into my mouth, anyway. Same goes for all of us. Sit down, Her, alright? Please?”

“No,” you snapped your wrist free, “I don’t want to sit.”

In a desperate hope to experience some sort of consolidation amongst the tension, Wonwoo angled a glance toward Seokmin. When his friend wouldn’t look back and merely opted to keep biting his blistering lip, Wonwoo quite literally felt a meteor sink into his stomach.

Slicking a hand along his shiny hair, Mingyu sighed even deeper. “Please just sit. You know what’ll happen. Please.”

Again stepping away from Mingyu’s attempted touch, you began to shout, and Wonwoo’s breath froze as your voice echoed around the kitchen in a hauntingly similar manner to the quarrel at his apartment.

“I already said no!”

From the head of the table, your father pushed out his chair. His voice was oddly gruff when he spoke, like he hadn’t said a word all day and his throat was hoarse by consequence.

“Don’t shout,” was all he warned.

Your mother shook her head. “She will raise her voice when she doesn’t get what she wants.”

Wonwoo couldn’t help but feel the cut from her disappointed eyes even though she wasn’t even looking at him.

“I’m raising my voice because you’re not listening! You haven’t listened to me all fucking day! Oh my god! It’s eating me alive!”

In an instant, Mingyu was to his feet, almost trying to court you into the corner by the open window with his hands that you battered away. Wonwoo gripped onto his knees. He couldn’t choke out a damn word and Seokmin seemed to have become stiller than stone.

“Calm down,” Mingyu urged, “take some breaths.”

“You still won’t listen!”

“I’ll listen later, I promise.”

“Mingyu, do you even hear yourself?!”

“Just—you’re blowing this out of proportion again.”

“Stop trying to control me!”

“Calm down and—hey!”

With a frustrated groan, you squirmed away from Mingyu and rushed back to the dinner table where your mother continued to stare at you with such conflict in her expression, as though it was mentally taxing her to compute how such a seemingly perfect, established daughter could simultaneously appear so unraveled and incomplete before her. For a second, Wonwoo thought you might take the mashed potatoes or casserole and just completely drench the wall in their remnants.

But you didn’t do anything. Instead, you looked across the organized table—the vibrant food, sparkling drinking glasses, and expensive, unpopped bottles of alcohol—at Wonwoo, who had admittedly felt pretty useless and paralyzed throughout the ordeal. You looked straight into his eyes and he could see that you were almost physically begging him for an out. And, if he could see himself as an outsider, it was probably the same damn look he was giving you.

Wonwoo hadn’t even noticed the silence in the room.

Your father coughed, retrieving his utensils, ready to sweep the argument and very obvious hostility under the rug—put a small little bandage on a gigantic wound that had been festering for years.

“Same dance every time. Come sit, Mingyu. Let’s just eat.”

That would be nice, if Wonwoo had any appetite.

That would be nice if he wasn’t pushing out his chair, getting up from the table, keeping his gaze level and connected with yours, watching you swallow hard, hold back your tears, anxiously flex your fingers in a momentary contemplation and then—unprompted—run. Just run.

Wonwoo fled into the corridor with you right behind him, your hands kneading against his lower back as he threw open the door to the quiet, dimly lit front porch where that damp and black September night was ready to breathe him in and whisk you two away. He heard the very confused shouting from the kitchen, but there wasn’t any time to waste.

Wonwoo flew down the wood steps and splashed through a shallow puddle reflecting the moonlight, running toward the long street drifted in thinly strewn mist. He continued to run, only stopping for a brief moment to turn around and observe you quickly fling off your heels before scooping them up while everyone crowded onto the porch, yelling.

In your bare feet and a smile so pearlescent, you sprinted straight into Wonwoo’s outstretched arms, giggling aloud while he gripped your body firm and spun you in a circle that saw your dress twirl like a ribbon and your legs brush through the alive air.

Mingyu began stalking down the driveway, visibly angry, his face twisted into a snarl that might see Wonwoo getting split in his nose.

“Fuck, fuck!” You cursed, squeezing your fingers into his. He was suddenly being tugged down the empty, dark street, as though there was some invisible curtain for you to magically disappear behind. “Let’s go!”

Wonwoo didn’t mind one bit. Indefinitely, he would let you tug him over a cliff if it meant you two could fall together. The street was long and wet but the air was so fresh. Every breath he took was pure.

He didn’t know where you were going.

But he didn’t need to.

“Be careful. I don’t want you to step on something sharp.”

“I think I already did.”

Wonwoo pulled tight on your warm hand, stopping you.

“Seriously? Let me look.”

You made a slight huffing noise while sitting down on a large boulder, not caring that the surface was sandy and damp, forming a dark imprint against your olive dress. Wonwoo squatted down, looking at the dirty underside to one bare foot, and then the other, realizing there weren’t any cuts. He then used the cuff to his suit jacket, brushing off the small pieces of grit stuck into the skin in case he missed anything.

In all honesty, Wonwoo had no idea where you two were. After running far down the fancy Hillcrest Street until your family house was completely obscured into mist and memory, you led Wonwoo off onto a separate footpath by the treeline. Your fingers were slotted into each other’s. This was the first time Wonwoo had let go of your hand since running away, and the chilled air felt like prickles on his palm.

Removing the phone from his pocket to shine a light, he wasn’t at all surprised to see the missed calls and texts that had collected minute by minute from Seokmin earlier. You didn’t even have your phone. The only thing you carried was the ivory heels that Wonwoo gifted you at the start of the evening, which were still clutched in your hand.

“No blood. No lacerations. Just dirt,” Wonwoo said. “If you did cut yourself, you might not even feel it with all that adrenaline.”

You smiled at him. “Your phone a graveyard of Seokmin texts?”

He smirked, flicking through them all. “Precisely, yeah.”

Leaning backward on the boulder, you at last let go of the heels and stretched your arms out behind you, staring up at the moonlight patterning between the forest trees, their branches more barren as the autumn leaves came loose in the breeze. They fell down one by one, rustling softly whenever they hit the ground. He heard you sigh.

“Everyone there can go fuck themselves.”

Putting his phone away, Wonwoo smiled. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“That line’s a classic, coming from you.”

He attempted to sit beside you on the boulder, ignoring how uneven and rough it felt under his butt. Wherever you were along the footpath, it was perfectly hushed, almost felt hidden. The tree branches above him had framed the moon akin to a picture—except, he felt like he was the one painted, and that it was the moon who was watching him.

“I’m sorry.”

Wonwoo began to look at you rather than the night sky.

“Don’t apologize.”

You stared at him deeply, licking your lips and shaking your head. His eyes were now well adjusted to the scarce light. Just the silver through the trees was enough to read and inspect your pretty face.

“It went off the rails.”

He shrugged, staring back. “It seemed like it needed to.”

“I made you part of it.”

“I made myself part of it.”

“But, I mean—just—if you… if you never…”

Wonwoo raised his eyebrow. “If I never what? Met you?”

Puffing out a long breath, you looked down, picking at something on the boulder with a manicured nail. “… Yeah.”

“No,” Wonwoo was firm to correct, continuing to stare at you intensely even if you couldn’t face him in the turmoil of processing all the emotion and chaos, “you’re the best thing to ever happen to me.”

You lolled out your tongue, smiling and sheepish. “Blah.”

He laughed, “I mean it.”

Sighing again, you glanced back at Wonwoo, your eyes flickering along his every detail in the dewy night. Your hand reached out to his collar, making another brief, probably unnecessary adjustment to it before sliding the gentle fingers down his chest. Wonwoo’s mouth ran disgustingly dry in that moment, to the point that he was relieved when you removed your hand because you might have felt how fast his heart was beating and thought him to be quite pathetic.

Tightly swallowing, he brushed an itch off his nose and opened his mouth with a question, his gaze catching yours. Although, at the last second, he weened himself from speaking when the doubt found and froze him. A breeze tickled through his hair and Wonwoo shivered.

Your brow furrowed.

“What?” You urged him.

Wonwoo chuckled. “Fuck. Nothing.”

“Not nothing. Please. What is it?”

You were leaning closer into him, enthralling him with those earnest, gleaming eyes. He swore the nighttime wind was pushing your sweet, blossomy scent against him—was pushing you against him—because now your thigh was squished right beside his and your shoulders were warm together. Wonwoo adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat.

“Who are you?” He paused, but didn’t falter. “Actually?”

Your forehead wrinkled. “What do you mean?”

Wonwoo examined every aspect of your face that he had come to know so well over the months—the face he gradually couldn’t stop thinking about, to the point you would appear in his dreams. The face he was once completely disinterested in, because you were not someone that should have any reason to be in his life, just as he had no reason to be in yours. He felt his body move closer into your inviting warmth.

In fact, you two were so close that if he moved even an inch or few forward, then his lips might find themselves pressing to yours and his hand might settle and smooth up along your thigh to your cheek. Then, it would be impossible to leave the footpath without digging into you right then and there, kissing and tasting from you everywhere.

“What’s your name?”

It sounded like an obvious, warranted question that just about anyone would ask given the opportunity. But Wonwoo had never found himself wondering it. The things he wondered about you were much different and more character-driven, yet Wonwoo had come to realize that your name was just as important and precious and intact with your identity as everything else. He almost felt like it was the very last piece of you that he hadn’t shifted into place—his last chapter in a very long, complicated, topsy-turvy, seemingly-never-ending book.

Wonwoo thought you might laugh at him.

Tell him, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” in that very smug tone of voice he’d hear from time to time while smiling hot with your secret.

Instead, however, you just stayed silent.

His hand touched with fragile softness at the edge of your face, a thumb then stroking along the space before your ear as you swallowed.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” he whispered, hearing the leaves rustle above him, “it’s fine either—”

“No, one second.”

Wonwoo bit his tongue, opting to watch you lean back while digging fingers into the cleavage of your dress. From somewhere—he could only surmise—you had pulled out a thin tube with a cherry lid.

“Was that the lip stuff you put on?” He snorted.

“Lip liner. With a sticky patch on it right here. Figured I should keep it close. You know, in case a crumb managed to remove a single spec of it. Can't have my mother passing out from shame.”

“Clever thinking.”

“Give me your hand.”

Stretching out his fingers, he let his hand sit in your lap while you pulled the lid off with your teeth, then gripping his wrist and halfway leaning down to push the tip of the lip applicator against his palm. The sensation was cool and smooth. He felt each letter you traced, though he refused to let himself guess until you were done.

Under the moonlight, Wonwoo raised the calligraphed hand to his face, pushing up his glasses as he realized—at last—the complete gist of who you were. And with your name came the understanding of what you were, in fact, doing in his very meaningless life.

Wonwoo kept staring fondly at his hand. But, as he was staring, you suddenly reached forth and smeared your thumb across the neat letters until they were lost. A memory made, and then covered.

Only between you.

When Wonwoo looked to you again, he saw everything about you so clearly that it was almost shining. Every decision you made, every word you said, the way you walked and dressed and flourished so openly before crashing so hard—Wonwoo could snap all those pieces into place.

“Can I ask you something?” You said.

He blinked at you absentmindedly, too caught up in his daze.

“Wonwoo?”

“Sorry—yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

Pressing your knees together, the wind fluttered the fabric of your silky olive dress, and he could tell you were getting cold.

“When you were at my apartment, apologizing to me about our fight, that was the first and only time I ever heard you mention your ex-girlfriend.” Clicking your nervous feet, you looked over his shadowy face and the moonlight dancing in his glasses, “was she your first love?”

Crushing his hands tight into each other, Wonwoo bit his lip. “Yeah.”

Keeping your eyeline steady, you nodded. “Was she… like… what did you love about her?”

He almost couldn’t breathe. “Everything.”

You frowned. “Even the bad stuff?”

“Yeah…” he mumbled, “even the bad stuff.”

It was very quiet for a moment, with you simply sitting in reflection and staring into the dark silhouettes of the trees. He was sure you already knew the answer to your initial question, although he understood that hearing him say it was different than infinitely assuming about a past that wasn’t yours. Wonwoo had been in love before, and then heartbroken down into little fragments of himself that he spent months soullessly dusting around. And somehow, he was in love again—a new love that felt so much different but still fit him so right.

“Hm…” you hummed.

Wonwoo placed his hand on your bare back, beginning to sweep his fingers up and down, sensing your skin quiver in response.

“It’s late,” he whispered, nudging his knee into yours and warming your ear with his breath, “I know you don’t want to go home, and that’s alright. I get it. But we should figure something out before my phone battery dies, yeah?” He proceeded to grab your hand and squeeze it. “I don’t wanna leave a pretty girl like you out in the cold and wet.”

When you looked at him, you were pouting, exhaustion shining on your face like the dew in the moonlit leaves. “I don’t want to go anywhere without you.” Your fingers gripped his impossibly tighter.

“Do you want to stay the night at my place?”

You snuggled your head into the crook between his jaw and shoulder, wrapping your arms around his elbow to hold him close. “Yes.”

“Well, I’ve got one call,” Wonwoo sighed, fishing out his phone and squinting against its lurid light, “better hope he fucking answers.”

Vernon was confused to say the least, beckoned down a random street at near midnight when he could be in bed with the girl he was happily feeling up just half an hour ago, until a certain phone call ruined it. Wonwoo could tell from the manner in which his friend’s heavily furrowed brow remained creased when he opened the vanilla Camry’s back door, allowing you to slide in first with your heels in hand while Wonwoo followed. Tugging the door shut, Wonwoo could then only smile at poor, disgruntled, face-studded Vernon who was continuing to inquisitively stare him down through the rear-view mirror as though there was something smeared across his cheek or stuck in his hair.

Perhaps it was the patches of dampness and dirt on Wonwoo’s suit and your once very elegant dress, but it didn’t matter anymore.

“So… uh… dinner went well, then?” Vernon asked in a big huff after no one offered to break the silence, slightly turning his head to analyze the backseat using his busted, buzzing ceiling light.

Wonwoo and you were pressed together. Both unreceptive.

“Woah. Stop talking over each other, guys,” he joked dryly.

“Couldn’t have gone better,” Wonwoo decided to say.

“… M’kay…” Vernon replied, still perplexed but probably sensing it was best to save all the questions for later. “Music?”

Wonwoo nodded and turned off the ceiling light. “Sure.”

That was the beginning and end of the conversation.

Vernon pulled out from Hillcrest, keeping his elbow against the half-opened window during the drive, meanwhile you were allowing your heavy eyes to at last flutter shut. Leaning your head against Wonwoo’s broad shoulder, he noticed that your fingers were playing with his—you had gently grabbed his thumb and started rubbing his pigmented scar in absent circles, massaging into all the weathered years spent scratching himself until his anxiety would peddle away. The lip liner was still smudged against his palm in a cherry-tinted blur that he never wanted to wash off.

Smiling, Wonwoo let his cheek sit atop your hair, sensing the delightful breeze from Vernon's window flow into the backseat.

He was glad he went to the dinner party.

“Here are the keys. This copper one here is for the shop. This blue one is my apartment key. Go inside and get warmed up. I’ll join you in a few, alright? Promise… be careful on the steps,” Wonwoo instructed after opening the car door, proceeding to wrap his keychain in your fingers once you had emerged into the wind and sodden air.

With the white heels strung through your arm, you nodded at him sleepily and walked up the three little stairs to the pottery shop.

After you disappeared inside, Wonwoo turned around and opened the passenger seat door, climbing back into his friend’s Camry kept stalled but running at the curb. At first, there was silence between them. They both gazed down through the illumination of the headlights washing out the empty street. Vernon then slid his hand off the steering wheel, letting it cascade through his messy black hair instead.

“Do I even wanna know what fuckin’ happened?” His friend asked, his head clunking back against the upholstered seat.

Wonwoo blinked down at his lap. He started to smile, feeling it creep along his mouth even though he knew how suspect it looked.

Then, Wonwoo chuckled.

“We ran out.”

He finally looked to Vernon, who was staring back with highly quirked eyebrows and a dropped jaw. After exchanging an incredulous glance with each other, the two boys were laughing and ripping apart the silence. Vernon crossed his arms, sunk further down in his seat.

“Never would I picture you doin’ that…” he said through a lazy grin, “runnin’ out with another dude’s girl is insane, can’t lie.”

Wonwoo rubbed a palm along his cheek, still fucking smiling. “Think he’s gonna beat my ass?”

Vernon stared at him, deadpanned in his expression. “Is that even a question, Glasses? I’d beat your ass. I don’t even have a girl.”

“I don’t care.”

“If he beats your ass?”

“Yeah.”

Suddenly, a hand was pushing against Wonwoo’s shoulder. Vernon was smirking at him hard, teething over his bottom lip.

“Damn. She’s got you by the scruff, huh?”

Wonwoo shrugged, beginning to shake his head. “You should see the way he treats her… there’s some weird ties between him and her family. I think he’s playing the long game… getting what we can while he can and then parading her around as a trophy or something. But she's miserable with him.” Running a thumb along his knuckles, Wonwoo grinned. “He can beat my ass if he wants to.”

Vernon clicked his tongue. “Well, just to float the idea, I’m s—”

“No,” quickly laughing away his friend’s questionable response, Wonwoo merely rubbed under his glasses and refused. “I’m not trying to get locked away for first degree murder. And neither are you.”

“I’m just tryin’ to say I’ve got you is all,” Vernon said with his usual nonchalance, as laid back as an ironing board, “but—you’re right. Save that for when I’m an actual drug lord. He’s not gettin’ anything from me. Not even a Flintstone gummy.”

“Well, I appreciate the favour. Sorry to interrupt.”

“Nah, I could tell it was somethin’ important,” Vernon excused, giving Wonwoo a comfortable smile, “s’not like I can’t ever get brain again. Your situation seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

Looking back at the pottery shop and the single light within keeping everything aglow, Wonwoo wondered if you made it into his apartment okay. He was worried about leaving you on your own for too long, especially when taking into consideration the extremities of the dinner party (that hadn’t really been a dinner or a party when he thought about it). Rolling out his shoulders, he turned to Vernon again.

“She needs to eat something. I’ll order food. You want any?”

Vernon scrunched his face. “What—you’re askin’ me to come inside with you two? I’m not on real good terms with her, y’know that, right? Just ‘cause she’s fuckin’ with you doesn’t mean that for me."

“It won’t be like that.”

“How do y’know? You guys gossip about me?”

Wonwoo smiled, pushing up his glasses. “I just know.”

Vernon paused to think for a moment, his hand returned back to the steering wheel while sharp teeth pulled at the skin along his bottom lip. With just the edge to his face streaked in yellow light from the outside street lamp, it was difficult to interpret his mindset, although Wonwoo knew it was a done deal when Vernon removed the glittering keys from the ignition and the rumbling car at last went silent along the empty midnight street.

Besides, Wonwoo would pay for it all, anyway.

Vernon quietly trailed behind Wonwoo into the apartment, the front door left unlocked and the living area bathed by the warm-coloured light fixture but absent of your presence. His friend placed the car keys onto the coffee table with an uncharacteristic softness, and Wonwoo figured that Vernon was probably still feeling uncertain about spending time with you—which made sense—the last time Vernon had spoken to you (spoken probably wasn’t an accurate word) was the confrontation at the gas station where he feared you might light his hair on fire.

Though, when Wonwoo poked open his ajar bedroom door, he found you standing near his desk, peering across the walled corkboard and all its pinned photos from his life back in South Korea.

He flicked on the light, pulling out the deep blue darkness from the air, and smiled at you.

“Everything alright?”

With your arms folded, you seemed smaller than usual. “Yeah—sorry that I came in here without permission.”

He was quick to shake his head. “No big deal—you don’t need permission.”

You were silent for a few seconds, grinning to yourself, and then gestured to one of the glossy developed photos stuck to the cork.

“That’s Bohyuk?”

Wonwoo nodded, “yeah.”

He realized you hadn’t spent much time in his room over the months that you’d known each other. For the most part, Wonwoo would always be at your apartment, or some unique location necessary to your story-telling when he was still helping with the book. At one point it would have perturbed him to see you gazing along the finer details of his room so curiously. Now, however, he welcomed it.

Stuffing hands into his pockets, Wonwoo let you observe the corkboard, watching you with a very amorous, kind smile that he hadn’t even processed until his cheeks started flaring with a heated ache.

“Wonwoo?”

“Yeah?”

“… I’m hungry.”

Unable to flatten out his smile, Wonwoo walked over to you and smoothed his hand along the side of your face, then caressing his thumb underneath your twinkling eye and against your cheekbone.

“I know,” he murmured, “I’ll order food.”

“Chinese?”

“If that’s what you want, then I’ll make it happen.”

Delighted to see your expression brighten, Wonwoo at last removed his hand from your skin. He knew he shouldn’t touch you or look so fucking pathetically in-love into your eyes, but he didn’t care.

“Do you think I can shower? I want to take all this makeup off.”

“Yeah, of course. Go for—”

Suddenly, from the living room, there was a loud bang that distinctly sounded like Vernon plowing straight into something heavy.

“What was that?” You asked, covering your mouth.

Wonwoo chuckled, “Vernon. Hey—you alright?!”

“All good!!” His friend shouted back. “Just—how ‘bout don’t keep your fuckin’ weights right beside the couch, yeah? Almost broke my fuckin’ foot!”

“Oops.” Wonwoo shrugged very unapologetically, staring into your amused eyes and giggling together. “He’s gonna eat with us… he did a big favour coming down to get us and everything, you know?”

“That’s okay,” you answered, “I just want to shower.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll give you the room. Wear whatever you want. I’ll just take the keys so I can lock up downstairs.” He was nearly on his way out, but stopped abruptly. “Should we… uh… should I at least text Seokmin and tell him you’re safe? I mean, just in case—”

“Sure,” the response was quick and muttered with little care, “I’m sure they can surmise where I am, but you can do that, too.”

“Yeah, okay… well, I’ll leave you be. Food will probably be here by the time you’re out and dried off. I’ll make sure it doesn’t get cold.”

Finally, Wonwoo clicked his bedroom door shut. Keys in hand, he re-entered the living room to find Vernon plumped down on the couch with a pillow in his lap, all spread out like he owned the damn place, texting away on his phone. Wonwoo laughed as he walked by.

“Writing out your apology letter?”

“Somethin’ like that…” his friend mumbled, clearly more focused on his pixeled screen, “I might not be gettin’ that head after all.”

“Life’s all about sacrifices,” Wonwoo sighed while opening the front door, pausing briefly to mention, “we’re getting Chinese food by the way. She didn’t care that you’re staying. Anything you want?”

Vernon smiled while keeping his eyes trained to the phone. “No way. That’s a relief… n’yeah—I like the chicken balls with the sweet and sour sauce. Pork-fried rice is good, too. I’m not picky.”

“Noted.”

“So—wait—I have to ask, and you can tell me to fuck off if you want, but how did you become a drug dealer? Like, at what point did you even realize that was your… I don’t know… calling?”

Sitting cross-legged on the carpet with a carton of noodles in hand and a napkin splayed upon your bare lap, pointed chopsticks were being angled at Vernon from across the coffee table. He took a sip from his can of bright red soda, placing it back onto the coaster with a thud.

“Uh, fuck,” Vernon coughed, smiling subtly while beginning to pick through his own personal container of pork-fried rice, “well, I can answer it, I guess… do I get to ask a question in return?”

You grabbed the napkin, wiping off the sauce from your mouth.

“I’ll allow it.”

“Fair enough,” his friend answered.

Wonwoo had heard the story only once before during a smoke session on the apartment rooftop, though he doubted Vernon would trudge through all the details. Despite seeming like an open book who couldn't care less, there really were some sweet spots he didn’t like having prodded. Nonetheless, Wonwoo thought it was a good, earnest opening between the two of you, so he opted to stay silent while pulling the meat off his ribs with his teeth.

“Uh, I was a stubborn kid, let’s say that. Tried my hand at school but I could never get the hang of it. Could never keep a job long. My parents caught me usin’ once, weed and ecstasy, and they said if it happened again, I’m out.” Vernon fed himself another forkful of rice, taking a moment to swallow while you listened intently. “I thought I could keep it straight, but no luck. Yeah. They had no tolerance for it. I was out the next day. My mom was the most pissed, but she tries to reach out every now and then. I dunno... I feel done with ‘em, if I'm bein' honest. I’ve got somethin’ that works so I just run with it. The money speaks for itself so I can’t complain.”

As Wonwoo expected, it was the heavily watered-down version of everything that happened between Vernon and his family, however, it was enough to paint the picture. Taking a moment to slurp up some spicy noodles, you soon set the carton down and patted along your gradually swelling lips. The crumpled napkin was placed on the table.

“Yeah, I bet the money speaks for itself. You’ve got a bunch of stupidly rich university students on your roster. They go through just about everything they can get their hands on. It’s fucking insane.”

Vernon propped his elbows onto his knees, gathering more rice onto the plastic white fork while smirking at you knowingly.

“You’ve got that coke sniff, y’know?”

Wonwoo widened his eyes at Vernon, suspecting a wildfire.

But you merely shrugged, quite honest in your response.

“I know. I did it once with Mingyu, some friends, and I thought never again…” with a sigh, you massaged at your shoulder, staring off into a random spot that Wonwoo couldn’t pinpoint. “Mingyu was getting it for me at almost every party we went to. I don’t know. I thought, since he paid for it, since it’s right here, I might as well do it.”

Slipping the fork out from his mouth, Vernon grinned. “Coked-up sex is crazy. Especially when you've got the right cut. It hits.”

“Vernon,” Wonwoo immediately chirped at him while setting down his emptied container of food, his voice sounding particularly stern, like he was scolding a child for making an ignorant comment.

“What?” His friend laughed, raking a tattooed hand through his loose and shiny black hair. “It is. Feels like you’re on another planet.”

“Yeah, whatever. Just think a little before you speak, please.”

Again, Wonwoo was surprised to see your nonchalance.

“It’s okay. I know what you’re saying. I think… like… Mingyu only wanted me to have it for that reason—I’m making it sound like some non-consensual, pressured shit—it’s not,” you muttered, waving around your hand in dismissal, “I just… the thing is I don’t like how I feel afterward. But it was never enough for me to say that I didn’t want it. I liked that it would take me out of my head for a bit. My mind would stop running on overdrive.” Then, you pulled your knees up to your chest, wrapping your arms around them. “The last time I did anything like that was the party at Seungcheol’s, though.”

Whenever the party was mentioned, Wonwoo would always bite down on his lip and tightly curl his fingers. He had discussed it with you in the past, beyond the summer evening spent at your apartment with a red velvet cupcake in between you and a painful, aching hug he could still feel all the warmth and regret to.

There were long, long phone conversations. And somewhere, stuffed in his mind, was the memory of you and Mingyu behind the door as he listened to every little sound—skin hitting skin, the desperation in your voice, wood smacking the wall.

“Yeah, is what it is,” Vernon replied. He pulled a toothpick out from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “Do I get my question now?”

“Uh… sure.”

Wonwoo had almost missed you staring at him. There was a concernedness to it, but when he smiled back you seemed to breathe.

“Still think I’m a gigantic fuckin’ tool?”

Immediately, you started laughing. Wonwoo followed suit, on the brink of embarrassingly blowing out the soda he just sipped from in a big spray. He was actually quite relived that Vernon had picked a more light-hearted question rather than something intimate. His friend swirled the toothpick around with his tongue, continuing to smirk in confidence.

“Giggle away. I’m curious, is all.”

Kissing your teeth, you held Vernon’s coppery, honey eyes. “You are a tool, one-hundred percent… but, I think you know that about yourself. And, um, you’re a good friend to Wonwoo. So… I guess my opinions about you have shifted. Appearances are deceiving.”

Pleased with your candour, Vernon grabbed his drink, leaned against the recliner behind him, and nodded his head approvingly.

“That tickles my fancy well enough.”

"Don't you think you'll want to settle down eventually?" You asked.

Vernon scrunched his eyebrow. "What?"

"Like, what if you find a girl. A really nice girl who could change your perspective. Do you think you'd want to settle down?"

With a quick laugh, Vernon shook his head. "Nice girls don't use half their last pay check to buy drugs. It's business at the end of the day."

Seeming skeptical, your eyes narrowed. "Right..."

"Vernon has his mind set on very specific things," Wonwoo smiled.

Straightening out the large shirt that draped around your frame—another garment belonging to Wonwoo that you had pulled from his dresser—you glanced between each boy and smiled.

“So... now I'm curious. How did this unlikely pairing meet?”

As Vernon was busy with navigating his toothpick, Wonwoo decided to tell the story, prompting him to sit up straight and alleviate his spine from being crooked against the hard bottom of the couch.

“I was convinced into attending a little New Year’s Eve party thing by these guys I don’t talk to anymore. Spent about half an hour wandering the halls, doing aimless laps, hating every second of it, debating if I should just take off. Not like anyone would notice. Then I bump into this guy—” Wonwoo nodded at Vernon, “—who was all tattooed and pierced up with this girl all over him. She was on the kitchen counter, one hand gripping his bicep while she was laying hickies to his fucking neck from behind.”

You snorted, rolling your eyes. “Who was that?”

Wonwoo shrugged. “Fuck if I know. Vernon?”

“Uh—I don’t know if I remember, honestly. She used to buy poppers off me like every damn week so I called her Poppy. That’s not her real name, though. She’s long gone. Moved cities months ago.”

“Yeah, well, he told me I looked like a lost ghost. Asked if I wanted a swisher. I agreed for some reason, and we went out back.”

Brushing a hand down your neck, you giggled. “A lost ghost?”

Vernon nodded, folding his arms.

“Yeah. Glasses always used to have that look to him. Dead man walkin’ kinda thing. Just wanderin’ around with no purpose.”

Wonwoo hoarsely chuckled at his friend, “jeez—thanks.”

“You can’t deny it.”

“I know. But to be fair, I was fucking going through something.”

“Mmhm, that’s why I took you under my wing,” Vernon sang, his eyes swimming with their usual gold-tinted mischief, “I could just tell you needed some guidance. Gave him the swisher of eternal friendship.”

“Is that what you call it?” Wonwoo huffed sarcastically.

“I call it many different things.”

You smiled sweetly at Wonwoo while your fingers played with the long cuff on the borrowed t-shirt. “Whatever it was, I guess it turned into something pretty good... and, Vernon, I am sorry for how I acted at the gas station. There was just a lot going through my mind.”

True to his casual, untroubled nature, Vernon swung his head dismissively while letting an arm collapse across his knee, the toothpick now in his hand and being spun between his ringed fingers. “No, you’re good. Don't worry 'bout it. It was just ‘cause you care n' shit. I get that.” Quirking his expression in an endearing manner, he proceeded to flash you a solid grin. “You didn’t singe my hair off so, I’ve got no grudge.”

You laughed, “I wouldn’t have actually done anything to you.”

“Eh, it’s hard to tell, isn’t it?” Vernon answered in a smirk.

Reaching for your drink, you sipped from it and then snuggled the can between your criss-crossed legs. Wonwoo examined that very intriguing smile opening its way across your mouth like a spring blossom, wanting to know the exact moment that sparked it.

A quiet pause passed, and then you were sighing with bliss behind it—that relaxed kind of sigh when everything seemed to click.

“It’s nice hanging out with you guys…” you murmured, staring across the coffee table scattered with ripped-open sauce packets, empty cardboard containers, wood chopsticks, and unfurling napkins. “It just feels lighter… I don’t know… making friends has always been so tough for me. The right friends, I mean. Friends that actually feel like friends.”

Wonwoo pinched his lip in his teeth.

“It can take a while before you hit the right people.”

Vernon shrugged, concealing a burp that had him rubbing down his broad chest. “If we’re all friends, then we’ve gotta be the weirdest fuckin’ collaboration of people I’ve ever seen.”

You snickered into your hands while Wonwoo lounged an elbow onto the couch to help prop up his head, rolling his eyes toward Vernon.

Though, Wonwoo could easily understand what Vernon was getting at. You, a popular and high-fashion campus honorary who at first glance seemed to have very little patience for anyone but yourself, followed by the guttural and unbothered drug dealer without a care in the world, beside an anxiety-ridden hermit just trying to exist and somehow not turn to a puddle in the process. Vernon was right—it was a strange grouping of people suckled together despite their completely different paths and choices. Somewhere, somehow, though, there was a connection.

Like a fated string weaving everything into a knot.

Since Wonwoo had already ordered the Chinese food fairly late, it was quite difficult to find an ice cream place in the area that was open past midnight. Vernon and his sudden craving for cookie dough had offered the idea, and you easily caved, which led Wonwoo on a spiral of searching through his phone. Unfortunately, the only ice cream they could order was vanilla soft-serve cones from a twenty-four-hour fast-food chain which arrived to his apartment dripping. But no one really cared, and Wonwoo threw on the television for some background noise.

The conversations lasted until about two in the morning.

Vernon had not so gracefully taken up the entire couch, his face shoved into the embroidered pillow, an arm left dangling limp over the edge, and a smear of soft-serve dried to his cheek. You and Wonwoo were sitting side by side on the floor, a blanket spread around your shoulders with your knee spilled onto his lap, attempting to finish up the random movie that he couldn’t even remember playing. When the credits began rolling, it took him a moment to process that the drama flick was even over. Your head was tucked against his shoulder, eyes shut but still twitching against the dull, meek light flooding from the screen.

He placed his hand on your bare thigh, fingers stretching eager over the warm and soft skin to carefully grip it and give you a squeeze.

Then, with his lips feathering at your forehead, he mumbled your name to get you awake. Wonwoo did feel somewhat guilty about stirring you, but he’d rather you have a comfortable sleep on his bed than the living room floor. He continued to rub your thigh nice and slow, watching your eyelids flicker open and squint at him through the dark room. There was a shallow grin that you gave him, full of contentment.

“You’re all fuzzy…” you yawned, proceeding to rub at your eye.

“It’s late,” he answered quietly, almost whispering, “I think I should get you to bed. You’ll be much comfier in my room.”

“Is Vernon asleep?”

“Mmhm.”

Turning back to glance at the couch, you yawned again.

“… Oh… so, we’re going to your room?”

“Yeah… c’mon, I’ll help you up.”

Wonwoo didn’t turn on the light in his bedroom since there was already a small separation in the curtains, allowing just the right amount of moonlight through to outline everything around him in bluish-silver.

You sat down on his bed, letting your fingers travel along the sheets to feel all the slight rumples and divots, only to look up at Wonwoo with a tired smile and sincere, blinking, gorgeous eyes that felt akin to a gut punch. As much as he wanted it—needed it—Wonwoo knew that he couldn’t sleep next to you. He couldn’t trust himself. He couldn’t fathom having you so fucking close in the intimate, cocooning darkness and not being able to squeeze his cold hands along every perfect part of you.

But you weren’t making it easy.

In fact, you were making it excruciatingly hard.

“Are you not going to lie down with me?”

Wonwoo felt the twig snap in his chest. You wouldn’t stop staring up at him through those wispy eyelashes and nibbling on your lip.

“I’ve got the recliner in the living room…” he could hardly choke it out. There was so much heat in his body that he could melt.

“Why sleep there? The bed is big enough.”

His deep voice twisted into a laugh he couldn’t avoid. “Yeah, the bed’s not the issue… uh, it’s fine, though. The recliner’s nice.”

He took a step back, but then you had grabbed his wrist.

“Wonwoo,” you said his name in a tender, breathy, desperate sort of way that sent his heart shattering to his feet, your eyes glistening through the sparse light like two comets, “I don’t want to sleep alone.”

Fuck—it was all he could think—fuck, fuck, fuck.

With your fingers still wrapped to his wrist, Wonwoo pushed his hand gently against the side of your face. He was closer to you now, applying a soft pressure to angle your head up at him. You were breathing thick per every second that passed, holding his eye contact without one fracture, smiling arch. Wonwoo wanted to drink you.

Leaning into his palm, you swallowed and squeaked, “please?”

His thumb was on your chin. Right under your bottom lip.

“Fuck, you can't look at me like that…” Wonwoo rasped in a low, hushed voice that was struggling not to crack.

Truly, he meant it.

Your hand slid further along his wrist, almost tickling him.

“Ple—”

Immediately, Wonwoo pressed his thumb past your bottom lip and onto the ridge of your lower teeth, stifling that dangerous little word before it could hit his ear the wrong way and render him spineless.

“No more, okay?” He murmured, slowly sliding the digit from your warm, damp mouth, feigning obliviousness to your thighs clamping together and the manner in which your fingernails dug at his skin.

There was another moment of intense, humid silence while he wiped the wetness against the edge of your jaw.

“Seriously,” Wonwoo firmed up his voice, “no more.”

When you at last seemed compliant, nodding, Wonwoo let his hand drift from your heated-up face. You stayed in place, quiet as ever, on the edge of his bed, watching him disappear through the doorway.

As he collapsed onto the recliner and pulled the blanket once pooled on the floor over his body, Wonwoo didn’t even bother shutting his eyes or removing his glasses. Instead, he stared up at the popcorn ceiling, letting his heart thump, thump, thump and his mind wander until he naturally couldn’t fight the imminent feeling of sleep.

It certainly didn’t help that you had wandered into his dreams—dreams that he should probably keep to himself, warped fully by desire and longing.

—END OF PART FIVE.

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