#I also really want him to loom over me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sluttywonwoo · 6 months ago

Text

fuck the neighbors

pairing: jeon wonwoo x f reader

summary: curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back- at least, that's what they say.

warnings: swearing, blood, asshole!wonwoo, mingyu is canonically a whore, light blasphemy, smut (18+ ; mdni)

smut warnings: hard dom!wonwoo, allusions to voyeurism, degradation, oral (f receiving), blood play?!?!? (just a little bit!!!), wap!reader, massive cock!wonwoo, choking, protected sex

word count: 3.3k

reader notes: reader is significantly shorter than ww + described to have long-ish hair

You’ve never felt as small as you do right now. Wonwoo looms over you, smirking. He isn’t even that much taller than you, you just seem to shrink into yourself when you’re around him, which seems to be happening more and more often lately.

“Found you,” he whispers.

“I... wasn’t hiding,” you say, your voice coming out in a squeak.

“You know it isn’t nice to lie,” he chides, taking a step closer to you. You take a step backward in kind, only to be met with the cool concrete wall against your back. “It also isn’t nice to eavesdrop.”

“I didn’t- I wasn’t trying to,” you insist.

Wonwoo tsks. “I don’t believe you. What did I just say about lying?”

“Well, it isn’t nice to be super loud all the time either!” you scoff. “You have neighbors, you know.”

The overhead light flickers. You and Wonwoo both stare at it, the inconsistent hum of electricity filling the silence before the light eventually decides to stay lit. You breathe a sigh of relief. You really needed to stop overlooking sketchy apartments for the sake of the rent, especially if you were going to have to deal with people like... him.

Wonwoo cocks his head to the side. “What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean what am I talking about? Listen, I don’t care who you fuck but if you could be just a little quieter-”

Wonwoo cuts you off with a laugh. “That’s what this is about? That’s why you were snooping outside my apartment? What, were you hoping to catch a glimpse of her leaving or something?”

So you had been right... you’re not sure whether or not you’re happy about that. What you are sure of, though, is that you’re offended that you’re being accused of snooping. You open your mouth to defend yourself but stop short.

“You’re bleeding,” is what you say instead.

Wonwoo touches his lip, thumb brushing across the cut he must not have noticed until you mentioned it. He looks down at his fingers briefly then back up at you.

“Come with me.”

“Wha- huh?”

“You want to know what’s so loud, right? So come on.”

You follow him blindly back down the hall to his apartment, the one right next to yours. You’re doing everything a final girl in a horror movie shouldn’t do, but you’re dying to know what’s been keeping you up at night.

Wonwoo unlocks the door and stands aside to let you in first. With a gulp, you cross the threshold and slip off your shoes. He does the same.

The apartment is quiet, for once. It looks a lot like yours but mirrored. The kitchen is off to the right instead of the left. The half bathroom is on the wall opposite to yours, likely connected via plumbing.

The place is a lot cleaner than you expected too. It’s sparse, typical for a single guy, but still relatively well decorated.

Wonwoo heads straight to the kitchen and turns on the sink. He wets a paper towel and dabs at his bottom lip, wincing as he cleans the wound.

“Why am I here?” you ask when he doesn’t offer an explanation.

He doesn’t answer right away. Granted, the man was still bleeding but he’d dragged you here for a reason and now you were just standing in his kitchen.

Eventually, he disposes of the paper towel, washes his hands, and walks across the living room without saying a word. You know he expects you to follow him but you almost don’t want to. You do follow him, you want to leave as fast as possible, but you consider it.

He opens the door to what you know is a bedroom and points inside. You stare at him blankly.

“What am I looking at?”

“This isn’t my room,” he says.

“What?”

“It’s my roommate’s.”

“You have a roommate?”

“I do. I have a roommate. He’s the one you share a wall with. He’s the one banging a different girl every night. Your issues are with him, not me.”

Now that you were thinking about it, you have seen a slightly taller, beefier man around the building. That must be who Wonwoo’s roommate is. He definitely had the face to pull all the girls Wonwoo was referring to. Not that Wonwoo didn’t-

“So take it up with him.”

You shake your head and purse your lips. “No, that doesn’t explain everything. I’ve heard your voice too. Unless you’re the one he’s banging...” you trail off, letting the implication hang in the air.

“He’s not my type,” Wonwoo says flatly.

“Okay, then what is it?”

“C’mere,” he says, moving along the wall to what you use as a breakfast nook in your apartment.

In his, the space is empty save for a punching bag hanging from the ceiling.

“You box?”

“It’s a hobby.”

“Is that why you were bleeding?”

“Yeah, I just got back from the gym.”

“And that’s what I’ve been hearing?”

“That’s what you’ve been hearing.”

You nod but don’t say anything else, half waiting for an apology that he doesn’t offer. He just leans against the wall with his arms crossed.

“Well, do you think you could practice your hobby before midnight? Or at least try to keep it down when you do?” you huff in annoyance.

He sighs like what you’re asking is the biggest inconvenience he’s ever been posed with but concedes.

“I guess.”

“Thank you.”

“You’ll have to talk to Mingyu about his... hobby, though. Or get noise canceling headphones. That’s what I did.”

“Oh, okay.”

Silence stretches between you again, heightening the tension in the room. You don’t know what to do. Were you supposed to show yourself out now that you had your answers? Wonwoo isn’t giving you any indication that he wants you to leave but he isn't giving any indication that he wants you to stay either.

You don’t have the time or energy to deal with this. You can’t read the man’s mind. No matter how hard he stares at you from across a room. With a definitive breath, you turn on your heel to head for the door just to be stopped by Wonwoo’s voice echoing behind you.

“Are you disappointed?”

You stop but don’t turn around. “What?”

“Are you disappointed that it isn’t me you’ve been hearing?” he clarifies.

Heat rises to your cheeks. “Wh-what do you mean? Why would I be?”

You feel him approach from behind, his shadow closing in on you before he does.

“Because it isn’t my voice you’ve been touching yourself to.”

“What?!” You do turn around this time, whipping around so fast your ponytail almost whacks Wonwoo in the face.

“You don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you look at me when I pass you in the hallway?”

You scoff, breathing a subtle sigh of relief. All he had to go off of was a look but if he had heard you through the wall, if he had that irrefutable evidence, it would definitely be over for you. “If that’s what you think lust looks like, I feel bad for all the girls you have slept with.”

“Resentment and lust have a very long history together,” he whispers.

“You think pretty highly of yourself, don’t you?”

“But I’m right, aren’t I?”

You feign ignorance. “About what?”

“About you.” He measures you up with his gaze, something triumphant flashing behind his eyes. “Tell me I’m wrong,” he presses. “Tell me you’ve never gotten off to the thought of me and I’ll drop it.”

You weigh your options. You could lie. You could save yourself the embarrassment and lie right to his face, although given your track record thus far he’d see right through it. Or, you could tell him the truth. You could admit to wishing you were the one in what you thought had been his bed all this time.

You settle on silence and let him draw his own conclusion. A smirk tugs at one side of Wonwoo’s mouth. So he did think highly of himself.

“I fucking knew it,” he murmurs.

Before you can deny it, he straightens back up and starts walking toward the back of the apartment.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he announces.

You don’t move from where you’re standing, unsure of what he wants you to do. Was he hinting at you to leave? Was it an invitation?

Wonwoo looks back over his shoulder at you. “Are you coming?”

“Hopefully,” you mutter.

“Hm?”

“Yeah, I’m coming.”

The water is already running by the time you slip into the bathroom after Wonwoo. You watch quietly as he undresses, letting the door click shut gently behind you. It occurs to you that you should be taking your clothes off too but you can’t look away.

Wonwoo’s kind enough to snap you out of it. “I didn’t ask you in here just to watch me.”

“You didn’t ask me in here at all,” you point out, “you just expected me to follow you.”

“And you did.”

Damn, he had you there.

With a noise of indignation, you pop the button on your jeans and start to wiggle out of them, unable to bring yourself to look at him again now that you’re also exposed. You can feel his eyes on you, though. It has the same effect his presence always has on you, and you attempt to cover yourself with your hands.

“Shy?” he muses. “Cute.”

“Shut up,” you sputter.

You don’t think you’ve felt this self conscious since college and then he laughs at your response which does nothing to help.

“I can’t call you cute?”

“Not if you’re patronizing me.”

“How do you want me to say it, then?” he asks, sinking down to his knees on the floor in front of you. You stare at him in disbelief. “You want me to say it like this? Want me to tell you how cute, how pretty, I think you are, from down here? How pretty I think this pussy is?” Wonwoo leans forward as he talks, further and further until his hair is tickling your tummy and his lips are moving against your skin. “Spread your legs for me, baby,” he murmurs.

You do, taking hold of the countertop so that you won’t fall as Wonwoo slots himself between your thighs. You take a deep breath to brace yourself for the feeling of his mouth but absolutely nothing could have prepared you for the way he presses a gentle kiss to your pussy before diving in. The softness of the action compared to everything that led up to this moment, compared to the way he was now drowning himself in you, is enough to make your knees threaten to give. Your grip on the counter tightens and you bite down hard on your bottom lip to keep from moaning out loud. You don’t want to give him the satisfaction, though you’re sure he already knows he’s got you right where he wants you.

Wonwoo hitches one of your knees over his shoulder so that he can get even deeper inside of you with his tongue. He drinks you in, breathes you in, douses himself in you like he’s trying to baptize himself in order to atone for his sins.

If this was his apology for all the noise, he’s forgiven ten times over.

You can feel callouses on the palms of his hands as he traces them up your legs and over your ass, pulling you even further into him. The force of his grip causes you to stumble but he catches you before you can fall and helps you to regain your balance.

“I’ve got you,” he assures you, backing you up into the sink. “Here, hop up on the counter.”

“What about the shower?” you ask, suddenly remembering that the water had been running this whole time.

“Oh shit-”

Wonwoo turns around and reaches to turn it off, drying both his hand and his face with a towel that had been hanging on the wall.

“Now, hop up on the counter.”

“Are you sure?” you ask, glancing at all of the skin and hair care products scattered across it.

Wonwoo pushes them out of the way then nods.

“I’m sure. Mingyu won’t care, trust me. He’d be a hypocrite to.”

You sigh but hoist yourself onto the counter anyway, too horny to worry about it any longer. Wonwoo steps in between your legs and lets you wrap them around his waist. He leans down, you think he’s going to kiss you, but he goes for your neck and kisses you there instead.

“Why are you pouting?” he asks, voice muffled and vibrating against your throat.

“Want you to fuck me,” you lie.

It’s not a complete lie, you do want him to fuck you, but it certainly isn’t the full truth either. You’re afraid that if you’re honest with Wonwoo about wanting him to kiss you it’ll turn him off. He’s not about to make love to you, that much is clear, so was kissing off the table? Was that too intimate for a hookup like this? Would he think you wanted something more if you asked?

“I was getting to that,” he insists lowly. “So impatient.”

“You’re the one who ate me out as soon as you got me alone. You haven’t even kissed me yet.”

There. Maybe if you challenged him he’d give you what you wanted.

“Oh, you want me to kiss you, huh?”

He wraps a hand around your neck and pulls you in, finally pressing his lips to yours. Men were so easy.

He tastes like you imbued with unfamiliarity. Blood, you realize when you pull back and see the cut on his lip had reopened. It isn’t much, just enough to make him look vaguely vampiric. You swipe your thumb across his bottom lip and push it into his mouth for him to suck on.

He does, but he has the audacity to pretend not to like it.

“You’re sick,” Wonwoo scoffs.

“And you’re still hard.”

“Two things can be true at the same time.”

He kisses you again before you can get another word in, dropping his free hand between your legs to ensure you're truly unable to talk back.

He uses his fingers to tease you for a moment or two and then he teases you with the head of his cock, pressing it right up against you and making you whimper into his mouth.

“Tell me, what have you been thinking about all these months,” he murmurs, “when you’re in your bed all alone listening through the wall?”

“I- it’s embarrassing...” you protest.

Wonwoo draws back, tonguing his cheek as he gazes down at you. “Tell me or we’re done here.”

You’re not sure whether or not he’ll make good on his threat but you don’t want to call his bluff and risk blowing your chance to actually live out the fantasies you were too embarrassed to share.

“I thought about... this,” you say hesitantly.

“This? You thought about me fucking you here?”

“No...”

“You’re going to have to be more specific then, angel.”

“It was, um, in your bed.”

“You mean Mingyu’s bed.”

“I didn’t know that at the time,” you whine.

He smiles. “I know. You know, if you had just paid a little closer attention you would have realized he sounds nothing like me.”

“I was a little distracted at the time,” you whisper.

“Yeah? Distracted pretending it was you in those girls’ positions?”

You nod reluctantly.

“Poor baby,” he pouts, “must’ve been so jealous but so wet you just had to touch yourself, huh?”

You hate that he’s right. You hate that the condescension turns you on even more.

While he’s talking, Wonwoo snakes an arm behind you and grabs a condom from a jar on the counter. Did he and Mingyu just keep them out for guests like they were cotton swabs or something? Did they get laid that often?

He tears the foil packet open with his teeth and rolls the condom on as you watch and unconsciously spread your legs even wider for him.

“Ready?” he asks, holding your face with both hands.

It’s probably the first earnest interaction you’ve had with him. His eyes search yours for any sign of hesitation and even when he finds none, he waits for you to answer.

“Go ahead.”

You keep your eyes trained on his face as he guides himself inside of you, watching the way his eyelashes flutter and his breath hitches when he feels the heat of you around him. He pushes himself in slowly but the stretch still knocks the wind out of you, leaving you gasping for air.

“Breathe, baby, breathe. You’re okay.”

You can hardly hear him over the roaring in your ears but you do your best to listen, chest heaving as you desperately try to anchor yourself to him.

Wonwoo doesn’t move until you urge him to by wrapping your legs around his waist and squeezing his hips with your thighs. It isn’t easy at first, despite how wet you are for him. He’s that huge.

You almost wish he wasn’t just because you don’t think it’s fair for any man’s ego to be warranted, especially one as big as his. Though you suppose it’s fitting.

After a few rough strokes, he starts to play with your clit again to get you to relax a little. It works, your eyes roll and your head falls back against the mirror as the tension eases from your muscles.

“Does it feel as good as you thought it would?” he presses.

“B-better,” you admit.

“That’s because it wasn’t me you were hearing.”

You groan, annoyed that he still hasn’t let it go. You doubt he ever will.

“It’s okay. I’ve thought about this too,” he confesses.

“You have?”

“Have you seen yourself?” he scoffs, “Don’t sound so surprised. I’d s-see you in the hallways, see the way you’d glare at me- fuck... who knew all this time you were right next door fantasizing about me while I fantasized about you. We could’ve been doing this so much sooner.”

You want to tell him that you have all the time in the world to make up for it now but you can’t find the words. They’ve dissolved on your tongue and left you with only his name to repeat over and over like you’re in a trance.

“Louder,” he pleads as fucks you even faster.

“But our neighbors-”

“Fuck them,” he spits. “They already hate us because of Mingyu, let them know my name too.”

Apparently you aren’t the only jealous one between the two of you. You want to laugh but you physically can’t, too caught up in the incandescent feeling in your stomach that threatens to engulf you entirely.

“Fuck, are you about to cum?” Wonwoo gasps, lips parting in concentration.

You nod. “Just a little more,” you beg, “yeah, exactly like that... oh fuck-”

“I’ve got you,” he assures you. “Let go, I’m right there with you.”

It’s surprisingly sweet of him and you think he might realize it too because he grabs your jaw and pulls you in to kiss you as you fall apart together so that he can’t say anything else.

Once you come down, he’s the first to start putting you both back together.

“Wanna actually take a shower now?” he asks, holding out a hand to help you down from the counter.

Your knees wobble on your landing but Wonwoo’s quick to wrap an arm around your shoulders wounded-soldier style and sit you on the closed lid of the toilet.

“Take your time,” he tells you, kneeling on the tile in front of you.

“Thank you.”

“Do you want to stay the night? I mean you can hardly walk. There’s no way you’ll make it all the way home.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. “All the way next door?”

“Exactly! It’s better not to risk it, right?”

You chuckle. “I guess.”

Wonwoo grins. “Don’t worry, I’ll take you home myself in the morning. I’m a gentleman, after all. And then we can piss off your neighbors.”

lmk what you think i always appreciate feedback!!

#fuck the neighbors #seventeen smut #svt smut #wonwoo smut #seventeen x reader #seventeen x female reader #wonwoo x reader #wonwoo x female reader #jeon wonwoo smut #svt x reader #jeon wonwoo x reader #flashing tw

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gyuuberryy · 3 months ago

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fatal trouble

pairing: vampire!sunghoon x reader

synopsis: your roommate is hot. really really hot. and odd too. really really odd. after a strange experience with him, you slowly start distancing yourself from him. but, it becomes exceptionally hard with your feelings coming in the way. how are you supposed to protect yourself if you can’t resist him? the answer is you don’t need to. your fates are intertwined and there's no letting go.

genre: roommates to lovers, vampire au, soulmate au

warnings: suggestive content, mentions of nightmares and blood, jealous!sunghoon,

note: dropping this before i go on hiatus for a month due to school work. i haven't proofread it that well i hope there are no mistakes. also im obsessed with vampire aus, enhablr needs more of them fr!! i hope you enjoy reading this!

word count: 6k

if you liked it please reblog or comment to give me your feedback! <3

the soft glow of your laptop screen illuminated your face, casting long shadows across sunghoon's pristine white sheets. you were sprawled out on his bed, legs crossed beneath you, surrounded by a chaotic scatter of textbooks and papers. the quiet hum of the air conditioner filled the room, broken only by the intermittent clicks of your keyboard.

sunghoon sat at his desk, a silhouette against the darkened room, save for the focused beam of his desk lamp. his fingers danced across the keyboard with an almost rhythmic precision, the soft glow of the screen reflecting in his dark eyes. you’d grown accustomed to the sight of him engrossed in his work, a solitary figure lost in the world of ones and zeros.

you’d known each other for a few months now, the kind of acquaintance born out of shared living space and the occasional group project. as roommates sharing the same major, your apartment had become a de facto study hub. computer science had thrown you together more often than not, and tonight was no exception.

“hey, did you get the part about the algorithm?” your voice, a whisper in the quiet, cut through the comfortable silence.

sunghoon glanced up, his eyes a deep, almost unnatural shade of red in the dim light. for a moment, you were struck by how different he looked compared to the daylight. “yeah, i think so. isn’t it something about minimising the time complexity?”

you nodded, your eyes scanning the code on your screen. “exactly. i’m just having trouble with the implementation.”

a comfortable silence settled over the room as you both focused on your respective screens. the only sound was the rhythmic tapping of keys and the occasional sigh of frustration. you glanced up at sunghoon, his profile illuminated by the soft glow of his monitor. his long, slender fingers moved with an almost hypnotic grace across the keyboard.

there was something undeniably attractive about his focused intensity. his features, normally sharp and aloof, softened slightly when he was engrossed in his work. it was a side of him you rarely saw, and it was oddly captivating.

you shook your head, mentally scolding yourself for such thoughts. he was your roommate, nothing more. and besides, there was no way he could be interested in someone like you.

“hey,” sunghoon’s voice cut through your reverie, “i think i figured it out.”

you blinked, startled. “oh, really? want to explain it?”

he nodded, sliding his chair back and standing up. he walked over to your side of the bed, his tall frame looming over you. as he leaned in to point at your screen, his scent washed over you – a subtle blend of wood and something else, almost sweet, that you couldn’t quite place.

you felt a strange warmth creeping up your neck as he hovered over you. his proximity was unnerving, yet strangely intoxicating. you swallowed hard, trying to focus on the code in front of you.

sunghoon's breath was warm against your ear as he leaned in closer, his voice a low rumble, "try this." his finger hovered over your keyboard, about to demonstrate.

you felt a shiver run down your spine, not from the cool night air but from the inexplicable sensation of being so close to him. his scent, a mix of something woodsy and faintly sweet, was intoxicating. you tried to focus on the code, to ignore the way your heart was pounding in your chest.

he typed a few lines, his fingers brushing against yours. the contact sent a jolt of electricity through you. you forced yourself to concentrate on the screen, trying to understand the changes he made.

"see?" he said, straightening up. "it's simpler this way."

you nodded, still reeling from the physical contact. "thanks," you managed to say, your voice barely a whisper.

sunghoon stepped back, a small smile playing on his lips. "no problem," he said, turning back to his own computer.

you took a deep breath, trying to calm your racing heart. it was just sunghoon, your roommate. nothing more. but the way he had acted, the way he had touched you, it was making it hard to think of him that way.

the room was quiet again, the only sounds the soft clacking of keyboards and the occasional rustle of paper. you were deep in thought, trying to wrap your head around a particularly complex problem when a question popped into your head. on impulse, you asked, “so, sunghoon, what do you do in your free time, when you’re not, you know, studying?”

sunghoon paused, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. a flicker of something, perhaps surprise or amusement, passed across his face before he responded smoothly, “free time is a luxury for a computer science student, don’t you think? but when i do find a spare moment, i usually spend it reading or exploring new coding languages.”

his answer was polite, but it felt rehearsed, as if he'd prepared a response for just such a question. a sense of curiosity sparked within you. you’d always thought sunghoon was a bit of an enigma, but this was a new level of intrigue.

curiosity, a persistent itch, prodded you to ask something more than just about schoolwork.

“hey, i was curious about this” you started, your voice barely audible over the hum of the air conditioner, “where are you from?” it was a simple question, one you would normally ask any new acquaintance, but there was something about sunghoon that made you curious about his past.

he paused, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. for a moment, there was a stillness in the room that was almost palpable. then, with a casual shrug, he replied, "oh, just a small town. nothing interesting." the response was swift, deflecting your question with ease.

confused, you returned to your code, but your mind was racing. there was something off about sunghoon, something that had intrigued you from the moment you met him. you couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but there were strange little details that had started to accumulate.

there were those odd instances – like the time you'd woken up in the middle of the night to find the kitchen light on and sunghoon standing at the counter, completely motionless, his eyes glowing an eerie red. or the way he seemed to have an uncanny ability to appear and disappear without a sound. and then there was the peculiar lack of a reflection in any mirror in his room.

these memories surfaced, sharp and clear, as if your brain was piecing together a puzzle it didn't know existed. you shook your head, dismissing the thoughts as overactive imagination. after all, sunghoon was just your roommate, a fellow computer science student. nothing more, nothing less.

a yawn escaped your lips as you stretched, the late hour finally catching up with you. “i think i’m going to call it a night,” you announced, rubbing your eyes. the weight of the unanswered questions about sunghoon was beginning to feel heavy.

sunghoon nodded, his gaze fixed on the computer screen. “alright, good night then. i’ll probably stay up a bit longer.”

you nodded in response, swinging your legs over the side of the bed. as you stood up, you glanced down at the floor. something was off. the soft glow from sunghoon’s computer cast long shadows on the floor, including a distinct one from his chair. but there was no shadow of sunghoon himself. the spot where his shadow should have been was empty, an inky void against the illuminated floor.

a chill ran down your spine. your heart pounded in your ears. your mind raced, trying to come up with a logical explanation, but nothing made sense. you snatched up your bag, your movements jerky and panicked. without a second thought, you fled back to your room, the door slamming shut behind you. you fumbled with the lock, your hands trembling. only when you heard the satisfying click of the lock did you allow yourself to breathe.

your heart pounded in your ears as you leaned against the cool metal of your door. the realisation of what you had seen was slowly sinking in. no human lacked a shadow. it was impossible. a chill ran down your spine.

you tried to rationalise it away. maybe there was a draft, or a trick of the light. but deep down, you knew better. something was profoundly wrong, and it was connected to sunghoon. the friendly, quiet roommate you thought you knew was now shrouded in an unsettling mystery.

you glanced at the clock. it was late, and exhaustion was starting to creep in. you needed to sleep, to clear your head. but how could you sleep with this looming over you? you decided to distract yourself by pulling out a book from your shelf, hoping the words would drown out the unsettling thoughts.

as you turned the pages, your mind kept drifting back to sunghoon. his unusual behaviour, the absence of his shadow, it all fit together into a terrifying puzzle. you tried to shake off the feeling, but it was like a persistent itch you couldn't scratch.

sleep finally claimed you, but it was restless. your dreams were filled with shadows, long and menacing, closing in on you. you woke up with a start, your heart racing. the first light of dawn was filtering through your curtains. you got out of bed and went to the window. the world outside looked ordinary, peaceful. but you knew the truth was far from it.

something was wrong with sunghoon, and you were determined to find out what.

the days following your unsettling discovery were a blur of forced normalcy. you tried to interact with sunghoon as if nothing was amiss, but the weight of your knowledge cast a long shadow over your interactions. you found yourself avoiding his gaze, your voice trembling when you spoke to him.

sunghoon seemed oblivious to your discomfort at first. he’d always been a quiet person, so his reserved nature didn’t raise any immediate suspicion. however, as the days turned into weeks, his patience began to wear thin.

"hey, are you free to study together tomorrow?" he asked one evening as you were both making dinner. his tone was casual, but you could detect a hint of underlying disappointment.

your heart skipped a beat. you’d been avoiding his study invitations, coming up with increasingly elaborate excuses. the truth hung heavy in the air, a tangible thing between you. you hesitated, your mind racing.

"i... i’m really busy tomorrow," you stammered, your voice barely audible. "maybe next week?"

disappointment flashed across sunghoon’s face before he masked it with a forced smile. "sure, no problem," he replied, his voice flat.

as he turned away, you couldn't shake the feeling of guilt. you'd hurt him, and you knew it.

the night was a descent into terror. you dreamt of shadows, long and menacing, closing in on you. sunghoon was there, but not as you knew him. his eyes burned with an unnatural light, and his form was distorted, monstrous. you were running, but your legs were leaden, and the shadows were gaining on you. a scream built in your throat, but no sound escaped.

you woke with a start, drenched in sweat. your heart pounded like a drumbeat in your chest. panic washed over you as you gasped for air. you were disoriented, unsure of where you were. a noise from the living room startled you, and you jumped out of bed.

the light was on, and there, standing in the doorway, was sunghoon, his face etched with concern. before you could react, you found yourself lunging at him, your hands grasping at his neck. he didn't fight back, instead, he held you tightly, his arms wrapping around you protectively.

your sobs racked your body as you clung to him, finding solace in his warmth. he shushed you softly, his voice a soothing balm to your frayed nerves. gradually, your breathing began to slow, and your body relaxed.

when you finally calmed down, sunghoon gently guided you back to bed. he sat on the edge, running a comforting hand through your hair. you clung to him, your fear slowly dissipating.

in the quiet that followed, you felt a strange urge to confide in him. your voice was barely a whisper when you began, "i dreamt of you... as something... different."

sunghoon stiffened, but his grip on you didn't loosen. something flashed behind his eyes, but he listened intently as you recounted the terrifying details of your nightmare. when you finished, he was silent for a long moment. finally, he whispered, "go back to sleep," and you felt him lean down to kiss your forehead.

with that, he quietly left the room, leaving you alone with your racing thoughts.

the days that followed were a careful ballet of avoidance. you moved through your days with a practised detachment, constructing an invisible wall between yourself and sunghoon. the weight of your decision pressed down on you like a physical burden. despite the burgeoning crush that had blossomed in the quiet corners of your heart, you'd created a formidable wall between yourself and sunghoon. his enigmatic nature, coupled with the unsettling discoveries you'd made, had convinced you to keep him at arm's length. it was a lonely existence, a self-imposed exile that offered a semblance of safety.

your days were a monotonous cycle of lectures, assignments, and solitary meals. you'd found solace in the company of your classmate, lee heeseung, his cheerful demeanour a stark contrast to the storm raging within you. yet, even as you laughed and shared stories with him, a part of you longed for the quiet intensity of sunghoon's presence.

in the vast, impersonal lecture hall, you’d sought refuge in the anonymity of the crowd. but even here, you couldn't escape the weight of your decision. a persistent sense of being watched gnawed at you, a constant reminder of the eyes that followed your every move. and you knew very well who it was. it was during one such lecture that the tension reached a breaking point.

you were engrossed in your notes when a subtle shift in the atmosphere caught your attention. a cold prickle ran down your spine as you slowly turned your head. there, in the row behind you, sat sunghoon, his gaze fixed intently on you. his expression was a complex interplay of emotions - longing, pain, and a flicker of something darker.

your heart pounded in your chest as a wave of guilt washed over you. you'd hurt him, pushed him away without a second thought. in that moment, as his eyes held yours, you realised the depth of your own cowardice.

not to mention, with each passing night your nightmares had intensified. each night a descent into a darker, more terrifying realm. sleep, once a refuge, had transformed into a battlefield, leaving you exhausted and on edge. the physical toll was evident - dark circles shadowed your eyes, and your skin had started to take on a sickly pallor.

despite your deteriorating condition, you continued to maintain your distance from sunghoon. guilt gnawed at you, but fear held you captive. yet, in the aftermath of each nightmare, you found yourself seeking solace in his presence. he’d sit by your bed his silent vigil a comforting anchor in the storm of your nightmares. his touch, gentle and reassuring, had become a lifeline, pulling you back from the brink of despair.

one particularly harrowing night, you woke up screaming, your body drenched in sweat. sunghoon was by your side almost instantly, his arms wrapping around you in a comforting embrace. as your fear subsided, you began to recount the nightmare, your voice trembling.

"i... i dreamt of a place," you managed to say, your words halting. "a dark place, with... with strange symbols."

sunghoon's grip tightened around you. "and you were alone," he finished for you, his voice low and soothing.

your eyes widened in shock. how could he know what you had dreamt about? you hadn’t even managed to complete your story. yet, sunghoon had described it perfectly, as if he had been there with you.

a chill ran down your spine. you pulled away from him, your eyes filled with fear and confusion. sunghoon simply looked at you, his expression unreadable, before turning and leaving the room.

what did this mean? how could sunghoon know about your nightmares? the answers were as elusive as ever, but one thing was certain: the line between the ordinary and the extraordinary was blurring, and you were caught in the crossfire.

the nightmares ceased as abruptly as they had begun. you woke each morning feeling refreshed, the spectre of terror finally lifted from your shoulders. a sense of relief washed over you, but it was tinged with a strange melancholy. the nightly visits from sunghoon, a comforting ritual amidst the chaos, were now absent.

initially, you welcomed the return to normalcy. the constant fear and exhaustion had taken a toll on you, and the ability to sleep soundly was a precious gift. but as days turned into weeks, a nagging sense of unease crept in. sunghoon's absence, once a welcome respite, now felt like a void.

you started noticing subtle changes in him. his eyes, once bright and alert, were now shadowed by dark circles. his once sharp features seemed softened by fatigue. it was as if a weight was pressing down on him, a burden he carried alone.

a pang of guilt struck you. perhaps your avoidance had contributed to his deteriorating condition. you wanted to reach out, to offer support, but fear held you back. what if your presence only made things worse? what if you discovered something terrifying?

you longed to reach out to him, to offer solace and support, but the words remained trapped in your throat. the fear of rejection, of further pushing him away, paralyzed you. it was a cruel irony that the person you yearned to comfort was the one causing you the most pain.

the afternoon sun beat down on the bustling campus as you made your way towards the nearest convenience store. the promise of a refreshing popsicle was the only thing that could lure you away from the confines of your dorm room. with a popsicle clutched in your hand, you emerged from the store, ready to face the world, one frozen treat at a time.

just as you were about to savour the first bite, heeseung materialised beside you, his infectious grin lighting up his face. "arcade?" he suggested, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. you nodded, the prospect of a distraction proving too tempting to resist.

you split the popsicle down the middle, the sweet, icy treat a welcome respite from the oppressive heat. as you handed one half to heeseung, a strange sensation washed over you. it was as if a cold draft had swept across your skin, a shiver that had nothing to do with the melting popsicle in your hand.

instinctively, you turned around, your heart pounding in your chest. there, on the other side of the road, stood sunghoon, his figure cast in the harsh sunlight. his eyes, usually guarded, were fixed on you with an intensity that bordered on hostility. a scowl marred his usually indifferent features, and his jaw was clenched tightly.

you offered a timid smile, a feeble attempt to bridge the chasm between you. but his gaze remained unwavering, cold and unforgiving. with a final, contemptuous glance, he turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd.

a wave of guilt and confusion washed over you. you'd hurt him, you knew that. but the intensity of his reaction was unexpected, almost frightening. as you turned back to heeseung, you forced a smile, determined to push the unsettling encounter to the back of your mind.

the encounter with sunghoon left a bitter taste in your mouth. his hostile glare had shattered the fragile peace you'd been cultivating. as you and heeseung made your way to the arcade, your mind raced, trying to decipher the meaning behind sunghoon's outburst. had your avoidance pushed him to the brink? or was there something more sinister at play?

the arcade, with its flashing lights and the cacophony of sound, offered a temporary escape from the turmoil within. you lost yourself in the rhythm of the games, the competitive spirit temporarily drowning out the unsettling incident. yet, even as you laughed and cheered with heeseung, your mind kept drifting back to sunghoon, his angry gaze burning into your memory.

as the afternoon wore on, a sense of unease settled over you. the carefree atmosphere of the arcade couldn't mask the growing storm within. the incident with sunghoon had opened a wound, a raw and painful reminder of the complex dynamics between you.

you glanced at heeseung, his laughter infectious, and felt a pang of guilt. he was doing everything to lift your spirits, to distract you from your troubles. but your mind was elsewhere, trapped in a labyrinth of doubt and fear.

the walk back to your dorm was a solitary affair. the campus, usually bustling with activity, seemed deserted. with each step, the weight of your worries grew heavier. the encounter with sunghoon had forced you to confront the reality of the situation. you couldn't continue to bury your head in the sand, hoping that the problem would resolve itself.

the weight of the day pressed down on you as you unlocked the apartment door. exhaustion tugged at your limbs, but the lingering unease from your encounter with sunghoon kept your mind racing.

as you stepped into the living room, a jolt of surprise ran through you. sunghoon was standing in the kitchen, his silhouette outlined by the soft glow of the refrigerator.

there was an unnatural stillness to him, a predatory calm that sent a shiver down your spine. his eyes, when they met yours, held a strange intensity, a glint of something dangerous lurking beneath the surface. "fancy seeing you here," he said, his voice low and measured.

you forced a smile, your heart pounding in your chest. "just got back," you replied, your voice barely a whisper.

he approached you slowly, his steps deliberate. "we have that new assignment," he began, his voice low and seductive. "maybe we could work on it together tomorrow?"

your mind raced, trying to come up with an excuse. "i'm... i'm pretty busy," you stammered, avoiding his gaze.

sunghoon's expression darkened. with a swift movement, he closed the distance between you, cornering you against the kitchen counter, his hands grabbing your hips. his proximity was unnerving, his scent, a mix of wood and something faintly sweet, filling your senses. you could feel his breath on your skin, hot and heavy.

"don't lie to me," he hissed, his voice low and menacing. "i know what's going on."

his grip tightened around you, and you winced.

"it's nothing," you insisted, your voice trembling. "just... busy."

"busy with heeseung?" he spat out, his jealousy evident in his tone. his eyes narrowed, and you could see the anger simmering beneath the surface.

your face flushed with embarrassment. he was taking this the wrong way. “it’s not like that,” you stammered, your voice barely a whisper.

sunghoon's grip tightened, pinning you against the cool surface of the counter. his breath was warm against your skin, and a strange sensation, a mix of fear and excitement, coursed through your veins.

“don’t lie to me,” he repeated, his voice low and dangerous. “you're avoiding me.”

you didn't know why, but the power dynamic between you and sunghoon was intoxicating. he had never behaved this way before let alone showcase jealousy so blatantly. it was hot. you felt a blush creeping up your cheeks, a mixture of embarrassment and arousal.

before you could respond, you found yourself leaning in, your lips brushing against his. it was an impulsive act, a desperate attempt to silence him, to end the confrontation. but, to your surprise, he responded, his lips moving against yours with a gentle intensity.

the world seemed to slow down as the kiss deepened. but as quickly as it had begun, it ended. you pulled away, your heart pounding in your chest.

overwhelmed by a rush of emotions, you turned and fled to your room, slamming the door behind you. you leaned against the door, panting, your mind racing.

the realisation of what you had done hit you like a tidal wave. you had kissed your roommate, a person you were actively avoiding due to a growing sense of fear and unease. the implications of your actions were terrifying. you'd crossed a line, a boundary you had carefully constructed to protect yourself.

a series of frantic knocks on the door jolted you out of your stupor. it was sunghoon, his voice muffled through the wood. "open up, please," he pleaded. your heart pounded in your chest. you couldn't face him now. you needed time to process what had happened, to regain control of the situation.

the knocking continued for a few minutes before finally ceasing. silence enveloped the room, heavy and oppressive. you slid down the door, your body trembling. what had you done?

morning arrived with a sense of foreboding. the thought of facing sunghoon filled you with dread, but the need to uncover the truth was stronger. you waited until the sound of his footsteps faded down the hallway, a sign that he had left for his morning jog.

with a deep breath, you crept into sunghoon's room, a sense of trepidation gnawing at you. the room was immaculate, a stark contrast to the chaos that often reigned in your own space. everything had its place, every surface spotless. there were no hidden compartments, no secret drawers, no clues to the enigmatic man who inhabited this space.

disappointment washed over you. you'd hoped to find something, anything that would explain the strange occurrences, the unsettling behaviour. but the room held no secrets, only a sense of emptiness.

your eyes scanned the room, searching for any hidden compartments or secret passages. everything seemed ordinary, almost mundane. disappointment was beginning to creep in when your gaze fell on a small cabinet tucked beneath sunghoon's desk. it was always locked, a tantalising enigma that had piqued your curiosity countless times.

today, however, there was a change. a key was lodged in the lock, an open invitation to delve into the forbidden. a wave of hesitation washed over you. you were invading his privacy, crossing a line you had sworn never to cross. but the allure of the unknown was too strong. curiosity, like a relentless tide, pulled you forward.

with trembling hands, you grasped the key and turned it. the lock clicked open with a satisfyingly smooth sound. you slid open the cabinet door, your heart pounding in your chest. a mini-fridge, small and unassuming, greeted you. a wave of relief washed over you. so this was the secret? a hidden stash of snacks?

you reached out to open the fridge door, a smirk playing on your lips. but as the cool air enveloped you, your blood ran cold.

inside, lined up neatly on the shelves, were rows of blood bags. the crimson liquid glinted in the dim light, a chilling contrast to the sterile white plastic. the sight was so surreal, so utterly horrifying, that for a moment, you thought you were hallucinating.

your mind went blank. a wave of nausea washed over you as you stared at the horrifying contents of the fridge. this couldn't be real. this was a nightmare, a twisted hallucination. but the cold, hard truth stared back at you, undeniable and terrifying.

the world tilted as your legs gave way, sending you crashing to the knees. blood bags. sunghoon kept blood bags. your roommate, the seemingly normal guy you knew, was a… vampire? the very concept seemed absurd, ripped from the pages of a fantasy novel. yet, the evidence sat before you, a stark reality that defied logic.

panic clawed at your throat, but a desperate hope flickered within you. maybe it was a medical condition. maybe he had a strange blood fetish. anything but a vampire!

"vampires don't exist, do they?", you mutter to yourself still in shock.

"yes, they do," a low voice confirmed, sending a tremor through your entire body. you spun around, scream caught in your throat. sunghoon stood in the doorway, his face unreadable, his eyes a bottomless well of emotions.

shame washed over you in a tidal wave. you felt exposed, not just for snooping, but for the fear and disgust that clouded your mind.

jumping out the window, a ridiculous notion moments ago, now seemed like the only way out. here, trapped in this surreal nightmare, your only escape seemed to be a dramatic leap from the fourth floor. it wouldn't kill you, right? you’d only break a few bones at best, which you were absolutely okay with.

with a burst of adrenaline, you scrambled to your feet and bolted towards the window, desperation fueling your actions. but before you could reach the latch, a hand clamped around your waist, pulling you back with an iron grip. "don't even think about it," sunghoon's voice was a low growl, the air crackling with unspoken emotions.

you were pinned against his chest, his warmth a stark contrast to the chilling terror that gripped you. his eyes, no longer cold and distant, burned with a mix of anger and concern.

his words hung in the air, a stark contrast to the wildness of your actions. you struggled against his hold, your fear fueling your resistance. but there was an undeniable strength in him, a power that held you captive.

"please, let me go," you gasped, your voice trembling.

sunghoon's grip loosened slightly, and he took a step back. his eyes held a mixture of concern and something else, something you couldn't quite decipher. "i won't hurt you," he said, his voice soft. "i need to explain."

your eyes met his, a mixture of fear and confusion swirling in their depths. sunghoon seemed to read your mind, his expression softening as he took a step closer. he sighed, a heavy exhale that seemed to carry the weight of centuries.

"i know this is a lot to take in," he began, his voice low and steady. "but i need you to trust me."

you nodded, your mind racing. there was something about his tone, a vulnerability beneath the hardened exterior, that compelled you to listen.

"i'm a vampire," he said, the words hanging heavy in the air. "it's not how i wanted things to be, but it's the reality i've been forced to live with."

he paused, his eyes searching your face for any signs of revulsion. but to your surprise, a strange sense of calm washed over you. this was the answer, the missing piece to the puzzle.

he went on to explain his existence, the centuries of solitude, and the desperate hope that had brought him to you. he talked about the blood bags, a necessary evil to sustain his life.

he continued, his voice laced with a hint of vulnerability. "i’ve been alone for so long. i've tried to live a normal life, to blend in. and then i met you."

his gaze softened, a tender look replacing the earlier intensity. "you're my anchor, my reason to keep going. your nightmares, the ones you've been having, are a connection between us. we share them, a soulmate bond, if you will. it's the only way for me to experience human emotions, to feel truly alive."

the revelation was mind-boggling. a vampire? your soulmate? it was a story straight out of a gothic novel. yet, as he spoke, a sense of peace washed over you. there was a truth in his eyes, a vulnerability that resonated with your own.

without thinking, you reached out and hugged him. your arms wrapped around him, offering comfort and acceptance. he froze, surprised by your sudden embrace.

"i don't care," you whispered, your voice muffled against his chest. "i'll figure it out. we'll figure it out together."

he returned the hug, his arms tightening around you. his face was buried in your neck, his breath warm against your skin. you could feel his heart pounding against your chest, a rhythm that mirrored your own. in that moment, surrounded by the warmth of his embrace, fear and confusion faded, replaced by a sense of hope and possibility.

"i'm so sorry about the nightmares," he murmured, his voice filled with regret. "i stopped sleeping for a while, trying to find a way to stop them. i hated seeing you scared, all because of me."

your heart ached for him. he had sacrificed his own well-being to protect you. anger and concern warred within you. how could he be so selfless, so reckless? you pushed against his chest, needing to see his face, to read the emotions swirling in his eyes.

"don't be stupid," you scolded, your voice stern. "you can't just stop sleeping."

you gently pushed against his chest, trying to create some distance between you. you needed to see his face, to gauge his sincerity.

"stop," he whined, his voice laced with playful annoyance. "just stay like this for a little longer."

his words were a stark contrast to the seriousness of the situation, but they had the desired effect. you froze, your body responding to the unexpected shift in tone. sunghoon's grip tightened around you, his face buried in the crook of your neck. his lips brushed against your neck, sending shivers down your spine. the warmth of his breath mingled with the scent of his skin, creating an intoxicating blend that clouded your senses.

you were caught in a whirlwind of emotions, fear and confusion replaced by a growing sense of intimacy. the line between platonic comfort and something more was blurring, and you were dangerously close to crossing it.

his voice dropped to a low octave, a husky rumble that sent shivers down your spine. "i can't stop thinking about how your lips felt against mine last night," he confessed, his breath warm against your skin. he pulled back, his eyes holding yours, a mischievous glint in their depths.

"can we do that again?" he asked, his voice laced with playful arrogance.

before you could respond, his lips were on yours, claiming your mouth with a fierce urgency. the kiss was a whirlwind, a tempest of emotions and sensations. his tongue explored your mouth, demanding entrance, while your hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer. the kiss was different from the one you had shared the night before, filled with a newfound urgency and intensity. his tongue explored your mouth, a dance of desire and longing. you could feel the heat radiating from his body, a warmth that was both intoxicating and terrifying.

his hands found their way to your waist, pulling you closer. with a swift movement, he lifted you onto the bed, his lips trailing a path of fire down your neck. he nuzzled your skin, his breath creating a tingling sensation. "you smell so good," he murmured, his voice a low growl. "i had to stop myself from pouncing on you the first time i saw you."

"from now on, you're sleeping in my bed," he declared, his voice firm. "i need to make sure those nightmares don't come back. and besides, i like having you close."

as he pulled you closer, his arms wrapping around you, you felt a sense of peace wash over you. in this moment, with sunghoon holding you close, everything else seemed to fade away. the line between reality and fantasy blurred, replaced by a single, undeniable truth: you were in the arms of a vampire, and you were dangerously close to falling in love.

his lips trailed down your neck, with such heat that it left you breathless. he nibbled at your skin, his teeth gently scraping against your sensitive flesh. the sensation was both painful and exhilarating, a heady mix of fear and desire. you gasped, your body arching involuntarily.

"i'm not going to bite you," he promised, his voice laced with a hint of mischief.

"not yet, at least."

𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 ©𝗴𝘆𝘂𝘂𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘆𝘆 on Tumblr

˚ · .𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗱

#౨ৎ 𝓐dy writes🪄#enhypen #enhypen imagines #enhypen oneshots #enhypen fics #enhypen x reader #sunghoon #park sunghoon #sunghoon x reader #sunghoon imagines #sunghoon fics #sunghoon oneshots #kpop fics #vampire au #enhypen vampire au #vampire!enhypen #vampire!sunghoon #enhypen horror

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honeyhotteoks · 11 days ago

Text

an innocent man doesn't stand a chance (j.yh)

summary: it's halloween and your boyfriend has a fantasy. he wants to be the masked killer and for you to be the final girl, and he wants you to run.

note: this was written in a feverish haze of ghostface yunho brainrot, you can thank this fanart and this edit for making this one about yunho, but i have to give all credit for the idea to the nsfw audio creator augustinthewinter who's masked hookup audio killed me. also please read the warnings, this one is potentially very triggering.

warnings: ghostface!yunho x final girl!reader, boyfriend!yunho, hard dom!yunho, girlfriend!reader, sub!reader, sadism, masochism, knife play, primal play/chasing, threats of violence, heavy cnc that really looks like noncon because part of the play is that he wants her to struggle and say no BUT there are consent checks explicit throughout, rough sex, fingering, gloves, masks, breath play, impact play, mirrors, finger sucking don't look at me, dry humping, clothed sex, ripping off clothes, size kink, ass play, lots and lots of degredation including use of sl*t/wh*re/fvcktoy/c*cksleeve, yunho is seriously mean in this i'm not kidding, fear, forced orgasm, orgasm denial, creampie, subspace, there's more i'm sure but this one is a doozy. also lots and lots of aftercare!! after a scene like this i had to write detailed aftercare and confirmation of limits, so that's there too! yunho is v sweet when not in the zone.

pairings: yunho x reader

genre: smut and more smut, no plot in sight

word count: 7.9k

The party is in full swing when you arrive. The house bumping with music and every corner decorated for Halloween. You’re late enough that you can just slip in through the back door, and that was the plan from the start. Yunho arrived first, nearly two hours ago, and made excuses for why you were late, for how you might not even make it to the party. No one would see either of you come or go together, so when you both disappeared to play your game no one would ever know. You had come up with the plan in bed, whispered fantasies and what-ifs between the sheets as he rewarded your willingness to try something new with his tongue.

His fantasy is special, and to do it right you can really only do it on Halloween night.

You weave through a throng of drunk acquaintances, searching the crowd for him, but it’s not as easy to find him as you thought it would be. You’re not sure how a six foot something Ghostface killer could hide from you in the crowd of your friend’s house party, but no matter how many rooms you check you can’t see him. Nervousness pits inside you as you check your phone and see nothing. He could be caught up with friends, he could be changing his mind, but you can’t tell if you can’t find him.

Adjusting your very 90s costume, you dart away from the kitchen where a group of your girlfriends are pouring shots and weave your way into the back of the house. Maybe you can call him? Text him? Would that completely ruin the mood of psycho killer stalking? Maybe, but it’s been forty-five minutes and you haven’t so much as seen a sliver of his mask.

You flick through your phone, checking for any new messages, and then scroll to find Yunho’s contact card in your phone. Your finger hovers over the call button as you lean against the quiet hallway wall, and then in your peripheral vision you see it.

A dart of black, something looming, and when you finally turn your head, you see him. Ghostface, standing wide and imposing in the hall, blocking any way past him and back out into the party.

“Spooky,” You sigh, tucking your phone away.

Silently, Ghostface nods his head.

The hair on the back of your arms stands up. This is it.

“What? Are you looking for the bathroom or something?” You take a step or two towards him, leaning into the character you dressed for.

He shakes his head.

“Looking for me?” You bite the inside of your lip to keep from smiling.

Slowly, he nods.

“Mm,” You raise a brow at him, “what’s the line from that movie? You wanna play psycho killer?”

His head tilts slightly to the side and he nods once again.

“And who do I play?”

He takes a step towards you and you fade back.

Fear starts to spread through you, even with it all being pretend, you can’t fight the feeling that your subconscious drums up in your gut.

He takes another step, and then another, and then you’re running.

Spinning on your heel you push deeper into the house, away from the party and towards a line of doors down the hall. Your heart is pounding out of your chest, your stomach a bundle of nervous trembling knots, and your hands are so slick with sweat you can barely grab the door handle of the basement. It’s not as easy to run as it looks in the movies, especially not in a tight skirt and penny loafers, and you skid down the basement stairs taking them two at a time until you slip forwards and crash down onto your hands and knees.

You don’t have time to assess the sudden sharp pain as the skin of your palm drags over the concrete floor though, so you scramble up in a flash and in a panic you weave your way deeper into the basement.

It’s familiar enough to you, your best friend’s parent’s place. You know there’s a tiny half bathroom in the far back corner, a rarely used guest bed against one wall as you descend the stairs, a collection of old video games and movies, and then around the corner to the left more and more basement, more storage, more dusty nooks and crannies to hide. You’re frozen for a split second, trying to decide the best place to go where he won’t find you, but heavy footfalls on the stairs ring in your ears like drum beats and you don’t have time to weigh your options.

You take off towards the bathroom, fumbling with the door again when you reach it.

The masked man behind you doesn’t say anything, but you hear him moving. His feet are sure and quick, the heavy fabric of his robes making a whooshing sound as he darts forwards to try and close the space between your bodies.

A panicked sound leaves your mouth as you tumble into the sink, clocking your hip hard on the porcelain and bracing yourself on the wall. Turning you reach back for the door, if you just get it latched maybe you can give yourself a second to think, to shimmy out of the very small, high set window. Pushing yourself into action you grab the door, he’s so close you can hear his breath, seconds away. Seconds away.

The door stops abruptly as you throw your body against it, six inches from closing. You push again, but it doesn’t budge, and when you look down it’s clear you’ve lost this game. His heavy black boot is firmly set in the door’s path, and you know there’s no chance for escape.

He crowds you instantly, leaving you no time to recover, his body pushing into the cramped space of the bathroom and flinging the door backwards into the adjacent wall. You stumble into the sink and he moves right up against you, the firm length of his body pinning yours in place.

For a moment everything is still, completely and shudderingly still with only the sound of your hitched breathing and thundering heart filling the room. You’re not sure what you should do - beg? Plead? Stay silent and let him do what he wants?

The masked man’s head tilts to the side as if he’s observing you, something you can’t tell through the ghostly plastic of his mask and dead black eyes. You’re trembling for real, hands shaking as they grip the cool porcelain. Ghostface leans into you, one of his gloved hands reaching for your face, a soft brush against your chin at first that turns to pressure as his fingers slide up your jaw to push you face to the side. It’s like he’s studying you, his hand slipping lower and dragging down your throat.

Your breath comes faster, stomach tight.

Ghostface closes his hand around your throat and your eyes widen. He holds you like this for a moment, his other hand locking down over your waist and gripping you tight, pinning you in place.

When he squeezes, panic bubbles through your body.

Yunho’s never choked you before. He’s never even suggested it, despite all your little jokes about how nice his hands would look around your neck. It seemed pretty clear to you that within the bounds of your relationship that was one thing he just wasn’t interested in, but whoever has you in the bathroom knows exactly how to hold your throat and where to press. Part of the fun is not knowing who’s beneath the mask, but your body still locks up, and an anxious voice inside you starts to wonder - what if? It’s not as if Ghostface is that rare of a costume choice, you see dozens of them on the street every year. It’s not inconceivable to think that at this party there would be more than one.

Your heart beats in fluttering fits and starts in your ribcage as your mind turns over this possibility, and then he squeezes. The fight comes back into you full force when you hear him sigh, his hand tightening even more and cutting off your airway. You wriggle in his arms, pushing against his chest and trying to use your hips for leverage, a startled whine ripping from your throat, but fear laces through your body as you shove against him and realize just how immovable he is.

Ghostface releases your throat, the same gloved hand slipping into the back of your hair to hold you steady.

“No!” The word tumbles out of your mouth as soon as you can properly make noise again.

He crowds you more, masked face dipping by your ear, “Shh, shh,”

You freeze.

“Safe word?” Yunho’s voice is a balm in your moment of sudden panic, his tone low and hushed.

“T-treasure,” You manage it, the realization coming back into your body that this isn’t a total and complete stranger, it’s still him. Your fear starts to melt into anticipation.

He gives you a squeeze, just one gentle pulse with his hand on your hip to communicate that he’s heard you, “Color?”

You take a second to assess yourself. This game is intense in a way that you’ve never experienced. Yunho had tried to tell you how your body might react to this kind of manufactured fear, how it would play tricks on you, how even if you knew it was him your body would still have the urge to fight and flee. You knew it, but you didn’t really understand it until this moment.

Yunho’s gloved thumb drags lovingly over your cheek for just a moment, “Color?”

If he has to ask you a third time he’ll end the scene, you know he will, but the brief flicker of tenderness in his touch reminds you of everything you already know about him. He has you. You’re safe. This is a game.

“Green,” You finally answer, “I’m green,”

One more quick pulse to your hip, he’s heard you again. More than that, he’s pleased with you.

His shoulders straighten as he draws to his full height, his body filling the space of the tiny bathroom and caging you in. You swallow tightly, audible in your ears and then he moves fast.

His hands around your waist, lifting you up and then shoving you back until you’re sitting on the lip of the porcelain sink, uncomfortably balanced and pushed back flush to the mirrored wall behind you. You yelp when he moves you, hands scrambling for purchase on something, gripping the sleeve of his black cape in desperation. Fear and anticipation pulse through you, but he doesn’t give you a rest to get your bearings.

He shoves your legs open wide and slots between your thighs and shoves your face to the side until your cheek is squished against the cold mirror, his hand a controlling brace from your jaw to the crown of your head.

“You look so pretty running from me,” He strokes your face, but this time it’s not loving, it's possessive, it’s pure control.

You grip the edge of the sink and whimper.

“Should we play a little game?” He teases, “It’s Halloween, you must like scary movies,”

Your breath quickens, “Y-yeah,”

He drops his voice low, in a mimic of the movie, “What’s your favorite scary movie?”

You’ve heard Yunho do that voice before, lazing on the couch last October when you had yourselves a movie marathon, the day he realized something about your favorite scary movie that turned you on, the day you called him out for being hard during a kill scene. It took a year for you both to work up the courage to actually act on any of those fantasies, but here and now with his mask on and his voice low, you feel that mix of terror and arousal bleeding through your body in a way only he can elicit from you.

You can’t help the little smile that passes over your lips, “Scream,”

“Meta,” He teases, pinching you hard on the thigh, “for every question you get wrong, I’m taking something off you,”

You swallow hard again.

He reaches into his black robes and then you see it, shining in the reflection of the mirror and in your hazy peripheral vision. The glint of a real knife is unmistakable, the cool sharp edge of the steel crystal clear and you can’t stop the actual fear that jolts through you. You jerk in his hold, instinct driving you for a split second, and he pushes your face harder into the mirror.

“Tch,” He makes a disappointed noise with his tongue against his teeth, “the game’s no fun if you don’t play.”

He won’t hurt you, at least not in ways you don’t already like. You have to trust that.

Settling yourself with a slow breath you summon the act he wants, find the fear within yourself and let it inform your words to give him what he wants.

“Please, don’t,” You’re trembling is real, that you know.

He shifts between your legs, drawing the knife closer, shifting it in his hand so he simply presses the cool flat side of the blade against one of your nipples. You hiss at the sensation, tightness building in your gut.

“First question,” He drags the knife a little over your nipple, “What movie franchise is Jason from?”

It’s an actual quiz, of course it is. At least he’s starting off easy.

“Friday the Thirteenth,” You reply fast.

“Correct,” He lifts the knife, and with the blade pointed away from you, he pushes up your tight tshirt until it’s bunched above your breasts.

“I got that right,” You glance down at the way he’s touching you, breaking his own rules already.

“Just getting a better view,” He insists, and then the cool knife is against your nipple again, only the thin fabric of your bralette between skin and steel.

Your body is aching in this position, but you can feel the heat off his body, and the heady tone of his voice from under the mask still has you starting to ache in different places.

“Let’s make this a little harder,” He taps the knife against you and you shiver, “what movie has a group of teenagers being stalked on an island by a killer fisherman?”

“It’s,” You start to answer but he taps the knife again and you jolt, “fuck, it’s I Know What You Did Last Summer,”

You watched it with him two weeks ago. You remember it, clear as day.

“Wrong,” The knife twists, the tip gently skating over the swell of your breast.

“Wait,” You start but he tips the knife under the center of your bra.

“I Still Know What You Did Last Summer,” He clarifies the sequel, “they weren’t on an island in the first movie. I thought you liked scary movies,”

“I,” You press back into the wall as the knife edge kisses your skin, “I… I do,”

“You’re not very good at this,” He twists the knife and drags the sharp edge out so that it severs your thin bra in half, falling open and revealing your breasts to his wandering eyes.

A little gasping sound leaves your lips, a desperate noise you try to bite back, but he hears it.

He hums a soft, amused laugh and suddenly the knife is gone, sheathed and away and he leans into your space again, “You fucking like this, don’t you?”

“No,” You insist, despite the way your stomach is in tight knots.

“Did running away get you hot?” His gloved hand skims over your exposed body, “Do psycho killers make you wet?”

“Fuck,” You whine, “no, no,”

“Liar,” He whispers, and then he delivers a pointed slap to your thigh, “spread.”

Your legs widen instinctively at his command, but he doesn’t reward you or praise you like he normally would, this is different. He reaches under the hem of your taut mini skirt, finding the apex of your thighs, and his fingers gently rub up and down from the base of your slit to your clit. A tiny gasp bubbles out of your throat.

“Are you afraid?” He all but growls.

Your stomach flips and his hand tightens in your hair, “Y-yes,”

“Tell me you don’t want this,” He finds the edge of your panties and drags them to one side.

“I don’t want it,” You answer him, body shaking now.

“Tell me to stop,” One gloved finger presses into your entrance, the softness of the leather and the warmth of his skin beneath it making you tremble.

“Stop,” You beg, “please, please, stop,”

“Why would I?” He slowly pushes inside, stretching you around his finger, “When I know how wet being fucked by a stranger in a mask makes you,”

A tense thready sound pulls from your throat as he adds a second finger.

“If you don’t want this,” He pulses his hand once, forcing both fingers deep into your slick channel, “why are you panting like a dog in heat?”

“N-no,”

“If you don’t want it,” He whispers, “don’t come.”

Your eyes shut as his hand starts moving, a steady pulse of his gloved fingers inside your aching cunt, curled just right in the way he knows gets you off fast. A pumping drag against your g-spot, the sound of his heavy breath, the unmistakable sensation of your own wetness making a mess between your thighs.

“Looks like you want it to me,” He adds the circle of his thumb against your clit and you jerk in his hold.

“Stop, fuck,” Your nails dig into his forearm.

“You don’t want me touching you, but you’re soaking my fingers,”

“N..No, no,” You babble, heat pooling in your gut.

“Fight it,” He pumps his fingers faster, drumming against your sweet spot, “don’t come,”

You hiss sharply, pleasure dropping low in your belly, the sensation of his gloves and his hot hand too much to bear.

“Moaning like you want it,” He laughs, pulling his hand suddenly out from under your skirt and yanking your head back to center.

You yelp at the position change and the sudden lack of contact but he doesn’t make you wait for long.

“Open,” He smacks your cheek lightly.

Your mouth falls open and he shoves both gloved fingers between your lips. You choke against the suddenness, at the way he presses down on your tongue, blinking to clear the haze from your eyes.

“Suck.”

You shiver, your lips closing over his digits, the sharp taste of leather mixed with your fluids assaulting your senses and you can’t fight the moan, the way your eyes drift shut as you swirl your tongue.

He hums, pleased, “Does it hurt?” He asks.

His question doesn’t make sense, and you blink your eyes back open to look up at the cool passiveness of his ghostly mask.

“Pretending you’re not a whore?” He clarifies and your mouth stills over his fingers. He pulls them out, delivering one more pointed slap to your cheek, and dives back down to plunge them back into your aching cunt, “Moaning like that, your nipples rock hard, and this pussy,”

You choke, a bubble building in your core as he abuses your slick channel again.

“Clenching around my fingers, sucking me in,” He chuckles, “I can feel you, baby,”

“Fuck, fuck,”

“Hold back,” He doubles his efforts between your thighs and you keen, “if you don’t want it, tell me to stop, don’t come,”

“Stop!” You whine, giving him exactly what he wants, “Please, please,”

“No,” His thumb rubs fast, his hand practiced at making you fall apart at the seams, “you come, you keep your eyes open, and you come all over my fucking hand,”

Your breath is fast, heart pounding, and you feel the cord tightening in your belly in a way that makes you want to rub yourself back up into his touch but he has you pinned, stuck, at his mercy just like he wants.

“Come,” His voice is clear, authoritative, and familiar. Like a trained response, your body releases and cracks open into a desperate orgasm, crumbling in his hands as you pitch forward onto his shoulder and grind your hips down to take the last little bit of what you need from his fingers.

When his hand stills, you realize you’re still clinging to him and you jerk back, one hand over your mouth as you try to recover your breath.

He steps back, his hands sliding off you and body slotting out from your thighs. You can’t see Yunho beneath the mask, but you know he’s looking. You can feel his hot gaze sliding over your body and taking in every wet and shaking inch of you. Your body is throbbing with need, but the game isn’t done, he hasn’t even made you touch his cock yet, and you know there’s no way you’re making it out of this basement without that.

“Tell me again how you don’t like it,” He finally says.

You shiver.

“Cat got your slutty little tongue?” He prompts you again, voice hardening.

You swallow hard, finding your words, “I didn’t like it,”

“Mhm,”

“I d-don’t want you to touch me,” You lie.

“Yeah?” He teases, “Well then run,”

“W-what?” Your eyes flick up to the impassive plastic of his mask.

“If you didn’t like it, why are you still sitting there?” He takes a step to the side, clearing your path to the door and you slide off the edge of the sink, your loafers making a click onto the tile floor.

You swallow hard, eyes darting out to the rest of the basement.

“Come on,” He teases, and you can hear the sick smile in his voice, “try to get away,”

You look between him and the room ahead of you again.

He leans forward and you shiver, his gaunt stretched mouth at your ear again, “I can’t fuck you if I can’t catch you,” his gloved fingers yank your top down over your exposed breasts and he chuckles, “better run fast.”

You spring forwards, adrenaline pumping through your body and blood rushing in your ears. Leaping out of the bathroom he gives you a couple steps to get a head start, but he’s so much bigger than you, his stride so much longer, and he closes the distance with ease as you scramble in mock terror to get to the steps.

Yunho’s arms close around you, hauling you up off your feet and against his chest, his touch rough and probing as he drags you up into the air.

“No!” You shriek, “Fuck!”

“You think I’d really let you go?” He laughs, “After that?”

“Fuck you!” The words bubble up out of your mouth.

“That’s the idea,” His hand slides down your belly, closing over your cunt and cupping you tightly.

Your body is reacting before your mind, and you jerk in his hold, kicking back your leg and catching him in the shin with the flat heel of your shoe.

He groans and wrenches you higher in the air, “Keep struggling,” he pants, “I like it,”

You twist again, trying to free one of your arms, but he has them pinned tightly to your body, “Get the fuck off me!”

“Not a fucking chance,” He takes two wide steps to the mattress and then tosses you down.

You collapse onto the bed, the old and rarely used springs creaking under your weight, and your scramble forwards in some kind of an attempt to get your bearings, but he’s on you just as fast. He yanks you back with a hand around your ankle and in a flash he’s on top of you.

He presses one hand firmly between your shoulder blades, keeping you pinned face down to the bed, and then his body weight drops down as he straddles the backs of your thighs. Your hands curl into the bedding beneath you, rough sheets and scratchy camp blankets, nothing soft and soothing to take a moment of comfort in.

His free hand wanders, searching your body slowly. The sound of the party raging upstairs drowns out any competing noise, but you can still hear his heavy breath against the mask and your pounding heart, the sound of anticipation thick in the air around you.

Yunho presses his hips forwards and you feel the thick hard length of his cock through his costume nestled against your backside.

“Look at you,” He palms your ass, “shaking for me,”

A whimper leaves you as his fingers dig into your back.

“Do I scare you, baby?” He delivers a harsh slap to the back of your thighs and you yelp, “Are you fucking terrified?”

Another slap leaves you trembling and you hide your face in the mattress, pressing your eyes shut tight. You love when he touches you like this and he knows it. You bite down hard on your lip to keep from whining, wetness pooling in your core. He wanted you scared, he wanted you fighting, you can’t give in just because his glove on your stinging skin feels like sin.

He groans, his cock pressing down harder to your ass and you feel both his hands slide from your hips up to your back and back down again until he has a grip on your waist.

A whimper slips out from between your lips.

Yunho freezes above you, his thumbs massaging a quick circle into your lower back, “Color?”

“Green!” Your voice is muffled by the bedding but you know he heard it.

He groans, pulsing his hips to rut his cock against you again.

Even between layers of fabric, you can feel the heat of him, throbbing and ready for you. Your mouth waters as you picture it, cockhead leaking precum and Yunho’s familiar hand wrapped around the base as he directs it to your mouth.

“Little slut,” He chuckles and it pulls you straight out of your mental fantasy, “rubbing that ass on a stranger’s cock,”

Your stomach clenches, and you twitch under him.

“That’s fucked up,” He drops his body weight over you, one hand pushing your head to the side as he leans over you, “you’re so fucked up, aren’t you?”

Your breathing is fast, a thready sound in your throat.

“Aren’t you?” His voice is low, a shade away from a growl, and he rocks his hips again to rub his cock against you.

“N-no,” You try to shake your head but his hand tightens against your scalp.

“Liar,” He keeps grinding against you, his free hand snaking underneath your bodies to grope your breast, “I know a needy whore when I see one,”

You moan into the sheets as he tweaks your nipple, tears springing to your eyes as he palms you, taking you apart with every touch.

“Let’s see how you like this,” He pinches your nipple once more and you squeal at the sharp sensation that rockets through your chest, a sharp line down to your clit, and then he slides back and shuffles back to sit up over your thighs.

He pushes the stiff fabric of your mini skirt up over your ass and then you feel the cold metal again.

You jerk underneath him, and he tuts softly, the sharp edge of the weapon gently dragging over the curve of your ass cheek.

“Tell me,” He grips your flesh tightly with one hand, painfully pinching, “do you still like scary movies now that you’re in one?”

You shake your head, a whimper on your lips when the knife slips under the edge of your panties, “P-please, don’t,”

He yanks the knife up and splits one side of your panties with a taut snap of fabric, “Please?” He taunts, “Please?”

You sob softly in response.

“Is ‘please’ all you can say?” He delivers a sharp smack to your exposed ass check and you jerk under him.

“I can’t,” You shake your head into the sheets, “I can’t,”

He sighs, and you feel the knife shred the other side of your underwear and then you hear the sound of the blade clattering to the floor. With both hands free he palms your exposed flesh, squeezing you almost painfully and inspecting your exposed body.

Shivers run through you, and you try to hold yourself still for his touches.

“Which hole should I fuck first, hmm?” His fingers search you, probe you.

Your body locks up tightly, a gasp on your lips. You hadn’t discussed that, and you shake your head.

“Scared?” He ghosts his fingers over your rim.

“Please,” It’s all you can manage.

“Beg me,” He presses down with his thumb, “beg me not to fuck your ass if you’re so scared.”

You scramble in the sheets but he has you stuck, “Please don’t, don’t fuck me like t-that, you’re too big, it’s too,”

He massages one cheek and hums, “What should I do then?”

“What?” You crane to look back at him, at the masked man pinning you down.

“Beg,” He says it like he’s bored, like it’s obvious, “beg me to put it somewhere else, or I will fuck this pretty ass open and make you say thank you.”

Heat floods your belly, your body a sizzling live wire, and you fall right into step with a heady whine, “Please, fuck my pussy,”

“Again,”

“Fuck my pussy, please, I’m begging you,” Your voice sounds needy and strange even to your own ears, “I need it inside me, g-give it to me please, fuck my pussy, please,”

“Better,” His hands disappear into his robed costume and then he pushes forwards, his cock finally free and sliding up and down your slit to find your aching entrance.

“Y-yes,” You drop your head back down to the bed and in one sharp thrust, he pushes his thick length all the way inside you until his hips are flush with your ass.

Yunho groans, bracing himself with one hand on the back of your neck and the other on the bed beside you, the mattress creaking with every shift, “Needy pussy,”

“Fuck,” You moan.

“Greedy,” He punctuates his words with a sharp thrust, starting to pick up the pace now in earnest, “gripping my fucking cock like that,”

All you can do is hold on, bite down on the sheets and let him use you, focus on the sensation of his impossibly hard cock driving in and out and in and out.

“Are you crying for me? Hmm?” He rolls his hips, the fabric of his costume dragging against you as he fucks into you faster.

Your eyes are wet, pleasured tears bubbling up and you nod, a tiny sob passing through your lips.

“Good cocksleeve,” He presses down harder with his hand on your neck, forcing you lower into the mattress.

Your back arches instinctively, and you whine at the angle change. A few more thrusts and you’ll be done for, you know it.

“That’s it,” He pants, voice muffled by the mask, “come for me,”

“C-close,” The words tumble out.

“Come for me,” He stays steady with his thrusts, pushing your orgasm closer and closer, “come for me, come for me,”

“Ah!” You fist the sheets, legs starting to shake, “Ah, fuck, fuck!”

“Come on this stranger’s fucking cock,” He grunts, shuddering above you, his fingers digging into your skin and no doubt leaving a bouquet of bruises behind.

So close to the edge, just a little more will tip you over, and you whine, “Harder,”

He gasps, forcing his pace to clap harder, deeper, and it only takes two pointed thrusts of his cock into the deepest parts of you to send you careening over the edge.

“Coming,” You twist beneath him, moaning into your fist, “oh, god,”

“Fuck,” He curses as your muscles clench and flutter around him, “fuck, oh fuck,”

Your orgasm has your body locked up and shuddering, but when he pulls free suddenly you gasp into the bedding, “N-no, no, please,”

He yanks off any scrap of clothing you have on with frantic hands and then rolls you in the sheets so that you’re lying on your back spread open for him. You try to form a sentence, to ask what’s happening but suddenly he’s tearing off his mask and the world slows to a stop.

Yunho’s sweaty, flushed pink in the cheeks eyes blown wide with need, his plush lips parted and his chest heaving with labored breaths. In a flash he’s stripping off the costume, peeling off his gloves and kicking off his boots.

“Come here,” He spreads your thighs wider and presses down over you, his cock finding your entrance with ease as he sheaths himself again in one thrust.

You moan sharply and wrap your arms around his shoulders as he collapses over you.

“Need you,” He pumps his hips, “have to have you,”

Pleasure crackles up your body, “Yours,” you nod, “I’m yours,”

He presses his mouth to yours, kissing you hot and hard, “Fuck,” he groans.

Yunho gathers you closer, your slick bodies now flush together as he rocks into the warm cradle of your hips, “never heard you moan like that,”

Your walls clench around him.

“You wanted me to do this,” He groans between messy kisses, “you wanted to run,”

You nod, lips pressed together.

“You’re so fucking perfect,” He pumps into you harder, like he’s desperate to get as deep as possible, “my dirty girl,”

“Oh, fuck,” Your head falls back against the bed, a pleasured moan caught in your throat.

“My little fucking slut,” He groans, tipping your hips open wider, his hands tight on your skin, “so desperate to come on stranger cock,”

You whine sharply, nails digging into his back.

“Say it,” He threads a hand through your hair and tugs your head back up roughly, “say it,”

“Yes!” You whine, “Yes, I-I need it,”

His gaze darkens, the cool mask of your dominant returning, and he slaps your cheek sharply, just enough to give you a pointed sting, “Need what?”

Your brain is soft, fuzzy with pleasure, but the slap focuses you and you blink, “Need to come,” you pant as he thrusts into you, “on a stranger’s cock, need you to… fuck, need you to take it,”

He nods, lips parting open in pleasure, “That’s right,”

Your stomach tightens, pressure dropping low in your belly and you can’t stop feeling the way his cock punches into the deepest parts of you over and over again. Your eyes close tight and you hold onto him, one of your hands slipping up to his neck to tangle into his black hair.

“Oh,” You’re so close, almost there, “Y-Yunho, oh, god,”

His hips thrust forward once more, burying his cock impossibly deep and then he stops. That’s when you realize your critical mistake.

“Is my cock so good you forgot your manners?” He says and your eyes fly open.

You don’t know what to say, you don’t know how to recover, your head is too mixed up to know what’s up and what’s down and you’ve never played a scene where he’s a stranger before. You’re used to your rules, you’re used to calling him sir or daddy or master, but now you feel unmoored.

“Now you don’t get to come,” He leans back, taking your wrists in his hands and pushing them down flat to the bed.

You know better than to protest, but you’re sure he can feel you shaking.

He drops closer, pinning you open with the weight of his body, his head nudging yours to the side, “Maybe you’ve forgotten who’s in control here, baby,”

Liquid heat spreads through your body and you shake your head just a little.

“So drunk on cock,” He bites at your ear, “you forgot you don’t want this,”

Your pussy tightens, and you hear him chuckle.

“Filthy,” He maneuvers your arms above your head so that he can close both your wrists together in one of his large hands, “fucked up little fucktoy,”

Your eyes roll back and you fight the urge to move your hips, his words enough to put you on the precipice.

A sharp slap stings over your exposed breast, your nipple hardening even more and Yunho draws his hips back before slamming forwards, driving you deeper into the squeaking mattress. At the painful stretch, the sharp sting inside, you do cry out.

“Does it hurt?” He thrusts again, just as hard.

You struggle under him, a little for play and a little because it does hurt, but you love the way he groans when you please him and you can’t stop, “Y-yes,”

“Too bad,” His hand claps over your mouth and then he starts to fuck you again for real.

Pleasure and pain in equal parts spike through your body, a perfect combination to get you right up to the edge of orgasm, but you know you’re not allowed. You moan into his hot hand, the sound feral and taut, tears gathering in your eyes and slipping down your temples into your hairline.

Yunho slides the hand on your wrists up to clasp your hands together palm to palm, still pinning you to the bed but offering you a line of communication you desperately need in a scene like this. He doesn’t stop, but his eyes find yours in the dim light of the basement and he squeezes your hand once. You squeeze back just once, your silent sign to keep going.

He keeps driving into you, cursing every time you moan and clench around his thick length, the mask of dominance slipping again as he starts to rut into you with artless, needy thrusts. He’s chasing his own pleasure now, with no regard for your own release.

“No one’s coming to help you,” He groans, “you’re mine,”

You can’t hear everything he says, not with your mind spinning so close to a forbidden orgasm and his pants and groans punctuating every few words, but you hear it when he says he’s coming inside you.

Thrusting deep, he spills himself hot in your belly, hips grinding into yours to milk himself dry as he moans into your ear. The bubble of your own pleasure builds with every rock of his body and you whimper into his hand, tears spilling over as you try not to let it take you.

Yunho’s hand pulls away from your mouth and suddenly his fingers are rubbing fast and firm on your swollen clit, his cock still buried deep.

“Ah, n-no, please,” You grip his hand tightly and lock your eyes closed, trying to pull yourself back from the edge, “please,”

“Fuck,” He groans, overstimulated.

You’re going to come, there’s no way to hold back if he’s going to torture you like this and you thrash under him, “I can’t,” you’re sobbing in earnest now, “I can’t hold it,”

“Shit,” He curses sharply, “come, sweetheart, come, I’m so sorry,”

At his permission, your pleasure rips through you, a hot slice of rapture rocketing up your body. Your ears are ringing, black dots over your vision, and your body wrenches up with tight shakes in a way that only a soul shattering orgasm could do. You vaguely hear your own voice, a babbled string of ‘thank-yous’ and sobs, but it feels like someone else. All you know is warmth, and the deliciousness of earned pleasure.

When consciousness starts to creep back in, the first thing you feel is Yunho’s gentle hands on your cheeks. He’s murmuring something, but it takes your mind a second to process, and you blink your eyes open slowly to find his face.

“Hey,” He’s back to soft and warm, your tender lover, “oh, there you are,”

“Mm,” You manage.

He looks you over slowly, warm brown eyes flicking over your skin, “Does anything hurt, sweetheart?”

You shake your head, still boneless and trembling in the scratchy blankets.

“Hmm?” He nudges you, pushing for a verbal response.

“I’m okay,” You respond, but your voice is small.

Yunho, so attuned to you, looks back up and shifts up the bed to meet your eyes, “Feeling floaty?”

“Mm,” You nod, recognizing distantly that the intensity of your play tonight pushed you right into subspace.

“Ah,” He smiles warmly, “come here,”

He gathers you close, arms wrapping around you as he tucks you into his chest and pulls the plaid camp blanket up higher over both of your naked bodies. His skin feels so essential, a necessity like eating or breathing, and you nuzzle into his warm chest.

“You’re okay,” He soothes you, stroking your back, “you’re safe, you’re safe with me,”

A heavy breath releases from your chest.

“That’s it,” He kisses your forehead, “breathe with me, relax with me,”

Your muscles release one by one.

“That was just a fantasy,” He soothes you, easing the knotted up feelings in your body with practiced words, “it was just pretend,”

You nod.

“Just pretend,” He murmurs, lips tender against your forehead, “none of that was real, nothing I said. I love you, and I will always keep you safe, sweetheart,”

Your fingers relax, and you realize how firmly you were gripping his arms.

“There you go,” He murmurs, “I’ve got you,”

“Yunho?” You manage, your body feeling heavy once again as you start to center.

He shifts, cupping your cheek as he leans back to get a good look at you, “Right here,”

“H-hey,” You give him a lazy smile.

He nods, brushing your cheek with his thumb, “Tell me where you are?”

“Basement at the party,” You answer.

“Good,” He nods, “now tell me who you’re with?”

“You, Yunho,” You reply, practiced now at the routine he uses to help ground you out of the scene and bring you back into reality.

“Good,” He continues, “tell me three things you can see,”

You glance around the room, “Old playstation, bicycle,” you look back to him, “your necklace,”

He smiles as you touch the silver chain around his neck, “Good,”

You stretch your stiff limbs in his arms and try to snuggle back into his hold but he’s not done yet, especially after a scene that new and that intense.

“Any pain?” His hands slide over your body.

“No,” You assure him, “a little sore, but I feel good,”

He nods, but keeps looking you over anyway. When he turns your hands in his and finds your scratched palms a little line forms between his brows, “What’s this?”

You look down at the red skin, a few shallow cuts here and there, “I fell,”

“Fell?” His brow goes high with alarm, “when?”

“When I was running, I took the stairs too fast,” You tell him honestly, “but it doesn’t hurt, I promise,”

His fingers trace over the broken skin and he nods, “You promised you’d call the scene if you got hurt,”

For how rough this man can be with you, for how many times he’s bruised you and made you bleed, he never fails to surprise you at just how tender and soft he is outside of the bedroom.

“Baby,” You close your fingers over his, “you promised you’d trust me to know my own limits, I’m not hurt, I got a little scrape,”

His lips close as he considers your words and then he nods, leaning in to kiss each of your palms warmly, “I want to disinfect these at home,”

“Okay,” You murmur.

“Anywhere else?”

“Mm-mm,” You shake your head.

“But sore?” He confirms.

“A bit,”

His fingers find your jaw, massaging the muscle there, “When we get home, we’ll run a warm bath. I’ll take care of all your aches, I know I was rough with you,”

You sigh pleasantly, relaxing into the warmth of his hand and he nods, dipping his face towards yours and capturing your mouth in a soft kiss.

“You did so perfect for me, sweetheart,” he says softly, voice threaded with emotion, “I’m so… is it too lame to say honored? I… you were so amazing, and you trusted me like that and I,”

“Yunho,” You smooth back his hair and pull him closer, “I’m alright,”

His eyes flick over your face, “Yeah?”

“Yes,” You give him the clarity he needs to know he didn’t hurt you, “you made me feel very safe, even though I was kind of terrified,”

He stays quiet, like he’s gauging the honesty of your words.

“Even when I was scared,” You lean in, kissing him quickly, “I knew you wouldn’t take it too far, and you checked in with me. I’m okay, I liked it, I love you,”

“You didn’t push yourself too hard for me?” He always worries about that, the double edged sword of a submissive who’s desperate to please.

“No,” You smooth your hand over his cheek, “I liked it alot,”

He nods and snuggles you closer, his fingertips coasting up and down your back softly. He’s quiet for a few minutes, just letting you both come down as easy as you can with thrumming house music upstairs.

“You liked it?” He finally confirms, carding his fingers through your hair.

You nod, “A lot,”

“What I said,” He kisses the top of your head, “during, about you liking it, that was fantasy too, you know that right?”

You’re quiet, taking in his words.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” He continues softly, “there’s nothing wrong with you for wanting it, all of that was pretend, okay?”

“I know,” You kiss his chest, nodding against his shoulder.

“I love you,” He squeezes you, “you know that too, right?”

You smile, wiggling up in his arms to see his face, “I do,” you kiss him softly, “I love you too,”

He nods and sighs, “I lost my head a little at the end there,” he admits, “I didn’t communicate well when you needed it, I’m sorry about that.”

Your brows knit together in confusion.

“I should have given you permission sooner,” He explains, brushing your cheek with his thumb, “I forgot myself in the scene, I didn’t mean to push you so hard.”

“Oh,” You smile, “Yunho, I’m alright,”

“I know you are,” He dips in for a kiss, “but I’m still sorry,”

“Thank you,” You murmur, pressing your lips back to his, staying warm and still and soft in this moment together, “I know you’ll always take care of me,”

He nods, his broad hand brushing down your hair.

“How was the party?” You nudge him a little.

He smiles, “Fine,” he shrugs, “I was too focused on looking for you, I think everyone thinks something’s up with me.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” You laugh.

“Mm,” He nods, “and now I disappeared and we made a mess of this basement,”

“Fuck, I can’t believe you cut my underwear off, how am I supposed to get out of here,”

“I brought backups,” He grins wide, proud of himself for thinking that far ahead.

“You’re a genius,”

“There is a back door out of the basement though, right?” He looks up around the room trying to find one.

“Yeah,” You reach out, pointing around the back corner, “why?”

“It’s extremely obvious that you’ve been fucked within an inch of your life,” He presses a quick kiss on your forehead and stretches next to you, so casual about the way he just rearranged your insides, “and I’m not so sure you’re going to walk straight,”

You laugh sharply and shake your head, “Take me home,”

“Scary movies on the couch?” He squeezes your thigh as he rolls away, searching for his clothes.

You shiver, “Maybe, that might be too close to home,”

Nudging your knee he smiles, “Don’t worry, baby, it’s just a movie.”

#ateez smut #ateez #yunho smut #yunho #jeong yunho #yunho x reader #yunho fic #yunho ff #ateez fic #honeyhotteoks fics #honeyhotteoks #HAPPY KINKTOBER

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cup-o-stars · 2 months ago

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Relativity Falls!

Design Concepts (and my unnecessary thoughts):

Excuse the the colors, ig my apps are fighting.

I see Mabel finding success no matter what happens to her, but I really like the thought of her running an insane arts and crafts business in GF. Alternatively, if she fell in the portal, she'd come out acting confident as always, but she probably wouldn't realize how much the constant change and lack of family/stability wore her out until she settled back in. In either case, she's a bit cracked.

Dipper is investigative, but cracks easiest under stress and is not as inherently adventurous as Mabel or Ford- so the portal wouldn't treat him well. If he's not the one in the portal, he'd be into stargazing and real magic to share with people, while also warding tourists away from the dangerous stuff. In general, he'd be an unhappy adult if left to his own devices, lol.

Between Dipper and Mabel, I like Dipper being in the portal more. He's a great protagonist, but as a supporting cast member, he needs to be more insane to match the draw that is 'Mabel taking care of children,' ha. I also love the idea of there being no portal / some other looming threat for these two to struggle with (at least because Hirsche has made it clear that Dipper and Mabel are equally smart, and to me it seems like the portal would reopen way quicker with them), but I didn't plan on posting these and I don't know how my followers feel about me posting lore.

Stanford and Stanley:

Pretty much how they are in canon, but now they're in a setting where they can get over themselves, ha. They aren't quite as mature as Dipper and Mabel were at their age, but after coming to GF, they finally found other people to look out for them. Dipper could be a more emotionally available and level-headed role model (I think having people to take care of is calming for him in turn), and they'd both look up to Mabel as the peak of somebody who knows how to socialize.

Fiddleford:

He's a sweet, southern, farm-raised mechanical engineer just like in canon.

Idk why Fiddleford is in GF (visiting an unnamed grandparent?), but I really like his relationship with Ford in the journal. Following that thought, in this AU, he starts out more of Ford's friend than Stan's, and it's kind of a big deal. Unlike Dipper's arc on learning to be a kid, Stan and Ford clearly struggled a lot with interpersonal relationships / finding security outside of eachother, and that's what I think this AU could be about (it's great they realized they need each other in canon, but the part where they had no one else to turn to is also kinda crazy if you ask me).

Ford gets to meet another smart kid in a weird town, which helps him feel more normal. He has a better idea of what friendship is because of it, but also, since I can't imagine Dipper wanting an apprentice so young/vulnerable/impressionable or Mabel asking only one of the twins to stay- he'd have to come to terms with the fact that he can't live in his dream world forever. (Or maybe the apprenticeship comes from somewhere else, just because the conflict around going back to Glass Shard Beach at all, or sending Stan alone could be pretty good.)

On the flipside, I think Stan's initial jealousy of Ford and Fiddleford's friendship would force him to try finding his own friends / hobbies. I like the idea that he fails at first- and a lot- but Mabel notices his mounting frustration (which he is very keen on hiding), and her consistent and unorthodox support makes him realize he wasn't alone to begin with. He can be more open around her, which makes it easier to open up to others, and then he can make friends without having to pull any tricks. He probably starts with some animals, and then at least gets closer to Fiddleford anyways (I feel like they're both more practical than Ford and value human company more, so they'd bond easier once Stan gets over his personal hurdle).

Anyways- because that was way too much- Mabel's exes are a constant source of antagonists and Dipper is stressed about setting a good example.

(I was more of a Monster Falls fan back in the day, but I can't draw animals, lol)

#fanart #gravity falls #relativity falls #relativity au #mabel pines #dipper pines #stanford pines #stanley pines #fiddleford mcgucket #fiddauthor #(if you wish)#I wasn't planning on doing any AU fanart #but designing mabel was way too fun #damn i didn't even draw bill #oh well #i have mixed feelings and ideas for how he'd fit in anyways

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ugh-yoongi · 2 months ago

Text

ex-conomics | csc

you supported seungcheol through years of being an aspiring athlete, and all you got to show for it was your undergraduate degree and an awkward, stuttered apology when he dumped you to go semi-pro. now he’s back after an injury derailed his career, and there’s only one problem: you’re the only one available to tutor him. you - 0; the universe - 1. talk about no return on investment.

⚽ pairing: choi seungcheol x f. reader ⚽ genre: exes to (lite) enemies to lovers; university au; angst, fluff ⚽ rating: while there is nothing explicit in this fic, there are two brief references to smut. while i can't stop anyone from reading this, i would prefer minors do not interact with this or any of my work. ⚽ warnings: cheol is some degree of famous, reader is a grad student/TA, mentions of an injury and coping with the aftermath of it, lots of economics talk that even i do not understand, swearing, one mention of alcohol, some misplaced jealousy, rom-com tropes, dino is kind of a loser but we love him anyway. probably a lot of other things i missed, but this is actually pretty tame for a fic of this length. ⚽ word count: 13.4k ⚽ thank you: a lot of people looked this over for me in the process and i'm sure i will forget some of them so if i do i'm sorry: @the-boy-meets-evil, @hot-soop, @highvern, and @haologram, who also gave me some wonderful ideas for the vlogs. thank you to MIT for opencourseware existing. i took microeconomics and dropped it, so i couldn't have done this without you. everyone in the discord server for helping me along the way and keeping me motivated. ⚽ author's note: i haven't posted a fic in nearly seven months, so i think it goes without saying that there are parts of this i like and a lot more i'm not 100% happy with. i'd love if this was more fleshed out and 10k longer, but i was able to write anything at all so it's good enough. this was written for the back to school with seventeen collab, hosted by @camandemstudios. thank you both for letting me participate! please make sure to check out the rest of the stories! everyone worked so hard and this collab was a ton of fun to participate in. <3

You look down at the paper. Back up at who handed it to you. Down at the paper again.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

The poor freshman kid laughs, all nerves, and even though the sound is grating, you remember what it’s like to be forced into work study. How far away graduate school seemed; how large your professors loomed over you with all their power and knowledge and credentials; how you constantly felt like the dumbest person in nearly every room you walked into for four straight years.

“Um—”

You sigh, just barely resisting the urge to slam your head onto your desk. “I—it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Your words do little to ease Freshman’s nerves. He’s still hunched over in the doorway of your office, wringing his hands as he shifts his weight back and forth, in for a lifetime of body pain with the way he’s squaring his shoulders. “You’re sure about this, though? Like, I’m really not being set up?”

“I don’t think so?” he offers, slowly starting to turn green right before your eyes. “Dr. Lee ga-gave me the paperwork himself, I don’t think he would’ve messed it up? Oh no, did I mess it up? Should I go back to Student Services and conf—”

Good god, this kid’s anxiety is gonna stink up your office for weeks. “No need!” you interject. “I’ll just…” Sign it, you want to say, but the longer you stare at the sheet of paper the quicker you’re losing your resolve.

TUTORING REQUEST FORM Student Name: Choi Seungcheol Degree: Undergraduate Major: Business Course: ECON04101 Introduction to Microeconomics Instructor: Lee Yeonseok, PhD. Recommended Tutoring: High (3-4 hours per week)

You curse under your breath. Of the two names on the paper, Dr. Lee’s does not come as a surprise. He’s a notorious hard-ass with an infamous attrition rate—most students don’t last more than a week in any of his classes—but he’s also the sole reason you were able to pay for someof your grad school tuition out of pocket with all the tutoring money you made.

That, however, was two years ago.

“Does he know I don’t tutor anymore?” Stupid question. The kid stares blankly back at you, as if to say I don’t know any more than the people in Student Services, let alone Dr. Lee. It is literally my first year here. “I’m Dr. Ahn’s TA this year. I’ve got my hands full with her bullsh… stuff—”

Immediately, you know you’ve said something wrong, because the kid’s eyes light up, all that previous anxiety disappearing like smoke. “Wait, the same Dr. Ahn that teaches the crypto course?”

“No, that one died,” you say quickly. Kid deflates. “Anyway, I don’t really tutor anymore, especially for econ. As you can see”—you gesture vaguely around the cramped four walls of your office—“they’ve upgraded me. They even put my name on a little placard by the door! Go look! They spelled it wrong! If that doesn’t sum up this university I don’t know what does.”

You heave another sigh. Try to school your face and tone into something that exudes professionalism and finality. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I tutored Dr. Lee’s students for, like, three years in undergrad so I’m sure they just… forgot that wasn’t my actual job here. Who’s in charge of tutoring these days? I’ll shoot them an email and explain all this.”

Freshman gives you a name, and it takes less than a second to find them in the employee directory. You expect that to be the end of it, but he’s still taking up space in your doorway. You quirk an eyebrow. “Yes?”

The hand-wringing returns, along with an embarrassed flush that disappears beneath the neckline of his school-branded sweatshirt. “I just—um. Maybe you could, uh. Send that now? Before I get back there?”

You blink. “Don’t you have to go all the way back across campus? How slow do you think I type?” He shrugs, and you give up on the idea of getting rid of him. “Fine. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Lee Chan. I’m a sophomore. Do you know that guy?”

“Oh. I thought for sure you were a freshman, but you’re gonna need to be more specific, Lee Chan, Sophomore.”

“The guy they want you to tutor.” You freeze. The guy they want you to tutor is—“Choi Seungcheol,” Chan tacks on, and, yeah, you know—knew, you correct yourself—someone with that name, once upon a time.

But there are a lot of Chois and a lot of Seungcheols. It’s been years since you’ve spoken to the Seungcheol you knew, and that was when he’d broken up with you to—“I heard he’s a football player? Well, used to be, I guess. The girls in the office were freaking out so I guess he’s pretty famous, but I don’t know anything about sports, do you? They said they have photocards of him. I thought they only did that for idols.”

You think about being kids together in Daegu. Think about the exasperated looks you’d share when your parents would drag the two of you to festivals: Palgongsan in the autumn, Biseulsan in the spring; transformation and rebirth. Think about being eight years old and watching your father cram into the small space of the Chois’ living room, standing around the TV with Seungcheol’s dad, shouting at Park Jonghwan. Daegu FC made the FA Cup quarterfinals that year, and you think, of everything, that’s what you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

You think about falling in love slowly. Sixteen and clueless, the pair of you were. Didn’t really know any different, just that you’d look at him and feel butterflies. That you’d hold hands in secret. Text beneath the dinner table. That you’d watch him on the football pitch and be consumed by pride. That the future felt impossibly far away, that life would never catch up to the two of you.

You think about all the football jargon you didn’t understand—the academies, the teams, the implications. You think about, I’m thinking about trying out for the FC Seoul U-18, I just don’t think there’s much more I can do here in Daegu. You think about replying, Oh, I applied to university there.

You remember thinking it must’ve been fate, how easy that had worked out. How easy that first hurdle had been overcome.

You think about how fast everything happened. The try-out, the acceptance, the explosion. Remember being unable to go anywhere those first few months without seeing Seungcheol’s face, touted as the next big thing. Think about applying for scholarships when he was applying for international visas. Think about studying for midterms when Seungcheol was studying English for interviews.

You think about the last few weeks of your relationship, when it felt like you were desperately trying to cling to ghosts. Think about how Seoul had once felt endlessly big, both in opportunity and size, and how it now felt suffocating. You think about, So you’re just giving up? Is that what you’re saying? Think about, I don’t know what else to do. It doesn’t feel fair to you.

You think about all the places you’ve watched him. On countless football pitches; shy glances in school hallways; in the passenger seat, wracked with nerves on the drive to Seoul; poised above you in bed, hairline dotted with sweat as he rolled his hips, telling you how much he loved you.

You think about watching him walk out the door, and how you never watched him again.

So you fire off your email, concise and to the point about why you can’t tutor Choi Seungcheol in Introduction to Microeconomics, and turn to Lee Chan, Sophomore.

“No,” you finally answer. “Never heard of him.”

For all intents and purposes, your rejection should’ve been the end of it.

A few days go by. You hold office hours, attend lectures, work on your thesis when you have both the time and the energy. Try to ignore the feeling of bees beneath your skin, anxiety needling each time you check your email. You were well within your right to decline the tutoring request, but you can’t help but feel like you’ve done something wrong. That someone somehow knows who Seungcheol was to you and will pull you up on it. That those girls who’d gushed about him to Chan are somewhere laughing at your expense.

But you don’t hear anything at all about it… until you do.

Sunday evening. You haven’t moved from your couch in hours, some variety show playing in the background, barely audible over your keyboard clacking. Much to your detriment, you don’t write many papers these days, so you’re out of practice. Feels like you haven’t done anything besides formulas in years, all of your academic knowledge reduced to fucking math, so you’re about ready to toss your laptop out the window long before the email even comes through.

You see, From: Lee Yeonseok. You see, Subject: Choi Seungcheol - Tutoring.

Your stomach plummets to the floor.

You scan the body quickly. You see the words personal favor… friend of his father… urgent matter… and your hands start shaking. Whether it’s from the sheer audacity of this man or anxiety, you aren’t sure, but it’s not like it matters. There aren’t a whole lot of people on campus brave or dumb enough to go up against him twice.

“Motherfucker,” you spit, bitter the only taste in your mouth.

Where did you go wrong to wind up here? You’d followed the script: got the grades, passed the exams, received half of the required education for the Respectable Career, helped a few others along the way chase dreams that may or may not have been their own. You’d fallen in love. Only had a broken heart to show for it, but that’d been in the script, too: The First Love, followed by The First Heartbreak.

The split from Seungcheol was supposed to have been the end of that chapter. You’d planned on never seeing him again, and you never would have, had it been up to you. Apparently the universe has other plans, participation required.

“Did you spill onion dip on the rug again?” You startle, sending your laptop flying. Kaori, your roommate, is perched halfway in between the living room and the kitchen like a cryptid, clearly not expecting your reaction. “Oh. Were you watching porn?”

Face burning, you fetch your laptop from the floor. “In a common area? Kaori, please, I have far more decorum than that.”

She snorts, resuming her trek to the fridge. “See, that’s what I thought, but then I walked out here and you threw your laptop so fast it was like watching my ex get caught watching furry porn all over again.” She pries the lid off a large container of yogurt. “You think this is still good?”

“Dunno. What’s it smell like?”

She sniffs it and pulls it back to check the label. “Vanilla, I think, which is concerning because it’s supposed to be strawberry.”

You shrug. “What’s the worst that can happen, you get extra”—you pause, trying to remember the correct order of things, before giving up entirely—“...biotics?”

“Mm, so close. Care if I just eat this with a spoon?”

Nose scrunched, you wave her off. “Couldn’t pay me to eat yogurt on a good day, let alone if it’s expired. All yours, babe.”

Spoon in hand and a pleased smile on her face, Kaori collapses onto the couch beside you. You try to return your attention to your paper, try to find your momentum again, and it works for all of ten minutes before you’re groaning and slamming the top closed.

You don’t even need to look over to know Kaori’s staring. “What’s up with you?” she asks. Before she can answer: “Wait, is this serious? Because I can’t have a serious conversation in this t-shirt.” You steal a glance sideways. Ask Me About My Hemorrhoid! it says, and you exhale loudly. “Don’t breathe at me, I lost a bet.”

“And continued wearing it?”

She jokingly rolls her eyes. “God forbid a girl has hobbies.” Nudges you with her foot. “C’mon, spill.”

Kaori doesn’t know about you and Seungcheol. Most people don’t, aside from a few old classmates from Daegu who found you on social media and tried befriending you once he started making a name for himself in Seoul. After that, it was just easier to keep things private while you were together. New friends knew you were seeing someone but not their name or how long you’d been together. Any curiosity surrounding why the Choi Seungcheol was following you on Insta had been waved away easily. Our parents are friends, we grew up together. Then you broke up, and there wasn’t any evidence to delete, and he wasn’t following you on Instagram anymore, and it was easier that way.

So, yeah—even though you hadn’t met her until years later, Kaori knows you have an ex. She knows you’ve had a few flings and situationships in the time since, too, and it’s why she’s none the wiser when you ask, “It’s nothing, really. Just—do you follow football at all?”

“Nah, not really. The new guy’s pretty into it and keeps trying to get me to watch the games with him, but it’s so fucking boring? I dunno, I can’t get into it. Not in real life, anyway—I binged all of Captain Tsubasa in an embarrassingly short amount of time, though. Why?”

“Student Services asked me to tutor someone the other day and I had to turn it down. I just don’t have the time, you know? This semester’s already killer, and Dr. Ahn’s been riding my ass nonstop about grades. Turns out it’s some football player, so Dr. Lee emailed me asking me to do it as a personal favor, which means, on top of all the other shit I have to do, I’m now tutoring some football player four hours a week in Microeconomics.”

Her face distorts. “God, that guy’s such a prick. Like wow, you’re good at the economy! Good for you! Who cares! Why don’t you go balance the national debt or something instead of torturing university freshmen!”

You also wrongly assume that’s the last you’ll hear of it from Kaori.

Two days later, after Student Services replies to your email with the days and times you’ll be tutoring Seungcheol, she materializes in the living room to harass you.

“You didn’t tell me your football player was Choi Seungcheol.”

The panic is instant. You know how she means it, but it’s not how your body interprets it. All of a sudden it feels like an interrogation, an accusation, and a whopping serving of guilt takes up residence in the middle of your chest for not being entirely honest.

“Explains this weird text Ken sent me.”

She slides her phone over to you, open to her text thread with her current flavor of the week. Beneath an article about Seungcheol enrolling in classes at your school:

doesn’t ur roomie TA there Why are you calling her “ur roomie” like you don’t know her name?? Rude. Also yes. ask her to get me an autograph No babe pls he was my fav player before he got injured No 🙄 fine. can i come over later? Starting to think you’re using me for my roommate. Get your own job 🙄

You hand her phone back. “I didn’t think you’d know who Choi Seungcheol even is.” It’s the best you can do, even though it just digs you a deeper grave. “You said you’re not into football.”

“I’m not, but unfortunately I am into that stupid man.” She sighs, wistful and longing. “Babe, you have to understand. His dick is so big.”

You hadn’t wanted to stay in Seoul for your graduate degree, let alone the same university you’d gone to for undergrad.

You’d applied to schools all over—Japan, Europe, even a few in the States. Romanticized the hell out of NYU, went window shopping for an overpriced apartment, picked a favorite pizzeria based on nothing but vibes and online reviews. In those few months after graduation, there wasn’t a whole lot tying you to Seoul. Your and Seungcheol’s relationship had been old history by then, your parents split. Your dad stayed in your childhood home and your mother moved a few hours closer to her sister. They’d waited until your brother was old enough to be out of the house.

And it’d just been… a lot. Overwhelming. Some days you could barely shower or feed yourself, let alone move halfway across the world, so you’d stayed in the familiar and tried not to let it feel like failure.

But the good thing about familiarity is you learn its tricks, figure out the hiding spots. Early on, your first or second week of grad school, you laid claim to a study room on a floor of the library everyone else ignored. You write notes on the whiteboard with faded blue markers that are still there days later. The chair on the opposite side of the table is always exactly where you left it, the space between it and the table enough to only accommodate you. Sometimes you leave books—old paperbacks littered with notes in your writing—or papers, just to see if they move.

They never do.

And all of this is why it feels like a punch to the gut when that sanctity is tainted. When you’re halfway through a stack of Dr. Ahn’s exams and the doorknob rattles behind you. When you don’t even need to turn around to know who it is, because he still sounds the same, still has that overwhelming presence. You’ve always sensed him before you felt him.

“There you are,” Dr. Lee says, ambling into the room before you can protest. He, too, is overwhelming, just in different ways. Immaculate posture that anchors his slight frame that’s always dressed impeccably and expensively. Wears a watch that’s triple your tuition. Shoes polished so bright they’re nearly blinding. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

This time it is an accusation.

Well, you found me, you want to say, but just knowing Seungcheol is behind him, lingering in that half-study room, half-hallway space, is enough to keep you quiet. Like if you speak you’ll summon him closer and you’ll no longer be able to pretend this is nothing more than a nightmare.

You plaster on a polite smile. Say, “Ah, here I am, kyosu-nim,” and put all your energy into trying to glue Seungcheol to the floor with your mind.

Which is fruitless, because Dr. Lee moves further into the room. Gestures for Seungcheol to follow him with an impatient huff, and the study room is small, sure, and with three people it feels cramped, but that’s not the reason it feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the room.

Seungcheol looks… different. He looks as anxious as you feel, and he sticks close to the wall like he’s trying to disappear. Dr. Lee introduces him with grave importance, unaware of your history, and the forced smile he offers you almost looks embarrassed.

You know Dr. Lee is still hammering away, probably giving you a stern talking-to for rejecting his request the first time, but you can’t tear your eyes away from Seungcheol. Feels like the world around you has reduced to a pinhead, all hyperfocus; feels like your lungs are sucking in stale air one at a time.

“...his father is a very good friend of mine, so I expect…”

You expected to feel nothing. Seungcheol had left to chase his dream—one you’d always been so supportive of that it sometimes felt like your dream, too—and, perhaps naively, you thought the distance and the years would’ve been enough. You expected your heart to have hardened. You expected all those nights you spent crying to hit you at full force. You expected anger, hurt—indifference, at the very least.

“...as many hours per week as you both can manage…”

But you should’ve known better. Should’ve expected the butterflies, the way your palms grow clammy, the way your heart rate spikes. Should’ve expected everything to feel upside-down. You should’ve expected to look at Seungcheol and feel sixteen and in love all over again.

“...you are responsible for his academic progress…”

And that simply will not do. You’ve spent the last few years pulling yourself out of that hole, clawing your way back to something resembling normal. You’ve purged the thought of him from your mind—let his scent fade from your sheets, an old sweatshirt he’d left behind; forgot the way his lips felt against every inch of your skin; forgot the way his entire being lit up when he laughed; forgot the safety he encompassed, the way he whispered all those sweet nothings.

You cannot go there again.

So you roll your shoulders back, smile politely. Say, “Ah, kyosu-nim, Choi Seungcheol-ssi seems very intelligent, I’m sure he is capable of being responsible for his own academic standing, don’t you think?”

Dr. Lee cannot disagree without all but calling Seungcheol an idiot, so he hovers before you in shocked silence. Makes a show of huffing and checking his watch, like he’s all of a sudden remembered he’s late for something and being inconvenienced by this conversation he started, and then he’s halfway out of the library with a terse, “Discuss and figure this out amongst yourselves,” thrown over his shoulder.

You have an entire dramatic exit planned in your head. Gather your things, fake a phone call that makes you sound authoritative and important, and brush past Seungcheol wearing your nicest perfume as if all of this is so far beneath you you can’t even bring yourself to care about it.

Of course, you actually have to brush by him for any of that to happen, and since you’ve already decided you will not go there again, you quickly scribble your email address onto a piece of paper and slide it across the table at Seungcheol, who has steadfastly remained planted just outside the door. “Here’s my email. I don’t have time to discuss this right now.” Seungcheol cocks an eyebrow. You start throwing things into your bag haphazardly. You know you look frantic and affected, but there’s not much you can do about that. “What? Send me a copy of your syllabus and what you want to prioritize. It’ll be easier to get through this if we have a plan instead of winging it.”

He seems to catch on to your distaste because he mirrors it. Scoffs as he rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah, no use spending more time together than we have to,” and if you hadn’t gone years without speaking, you would’ve seen right through it.

But you did, so it stings all the same.

As it typically does, the planet keeps spinning after your run-in with Seungcheol.

You grade Dr. Ahn’s coursework. Try running off your anxiety at the gym, even though it’s pretty good at keeping pace with you these days. You meet Kaori’s maybe-boyfriend sneaking out of your apartment early in the morning and he has the good sense not to mention your ex, but you chalk that up to the mess of hickeys covering his neck and not any sense of social decorum.

Other people’s embarrassment saves you a ton of your own, you’ve come to learn.

Throughout all of this, Seungcheol only emails you once to send you his course syllabus. Doesn’t mention tutoring or provide you with his schedule or ask for yours, so when you’re sitting in a bar with your friends, three or four drinks deep and feeling a little petty, you forward him the original tutoring request and make sure to bold, underline, and highlight the “Recommended Tutoring: High” part for good measure.

He doesn’t take your bait—electronically, at least—but he does show up to your office hours the following Tuesday.

Bag tossed onto the floor, he flops unceremoniously into the chair across from you and says, in lieu of a greeting, “They spelled your name wrong. On the door thing.”

“I know,” you reply, your smile polite and terse. Incredible how he has the ability to raise your blood pressure in milliseconds. “What can I help you with?”

“Depends. How long do you have?”

“Well, considering you’ve shown up to my office hours on time, I’m assuming you already know I’m here every Tuesday and Thursday from four to six. So”—you glance at the clock above the door—“assuming no one comes by who needs my help more than you do, you have approximately one hour and fifty-eight minutes.”

Seungcheol is quiet for a moment as he takes you in. His stare is weighted; it makes you feel a little green around the edges. Clinical and sharp, so far removed from the way he used to look at you. You clear your throat. “I looked over your syllabus. The good news is there’s only a midterm and a final and the rest is problem sets. The bad news is there’s only a midterm and a final so they’re weighted quite heavily. You really need to know this stuff inside-out to have any hope of passing.”

“That’s why you’re here, right? Dr. Lee specifically requested you.”

You huff a breath through your nose. “I’m here as supplemental help. I can’t take your exams or do your readings for you. What else are you taking this semester?”

He sighs, sinking further into the chair, very much playing the part of the heir who has no interest in any of this. Which… is unlike him, you think, if you’re even allowed to. The Seungcheol you knew years ago took everything so seriously. Never clipped corners or took shortcuts. Anyone else would think him a spoiled, petulant child. “Business Accounting and International Trade.”

“Could be worse,” you note. “At least those three courses are tangentially related.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t taken a fucking math class in years.”

You return it. “You remember how to add and subtract, don’t you?”

“I ruptured my ACL, not my…” He trails off, looking a little embarrassed that he can’t name a part of the—“Brain.”

Whatever you were going to quip back with dies on your tongue. It's the first time Seungcheol has broached the topic of his injury—the first you’re hearing of it at all, actually—and he says it like it’s a joke, like it’s not a thing at all, but the pain is all over his face. The bitterness of the situation he’s found himself in. The unfairness of it all.

And there are so many questions you want to ask that aren’t your place: if it’s fixable, if he’ll ever play again, how he’s coping. But you don’t really need to—you can’t imagine how you’d feel if someone suddenly pulled the rug out from under you. If everything contained within the four walls of your office suddenly disappeared.

Not that the man sitting across from you hadn’t already done that, but.

“Right,” you continue, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. You know Seungcheol—know he wouldn’t want you prodding, sticking your fingers in that particular wound. “I want you to take a look at this,” you say, handing over a printout you have saved from your undergrad tutoring days. “Tell me what looks familiar, what doesn’t; what does and doesn’t make sense.”

He looks down at the paper. Back up at you. Down at the paper again. “What the fuck is this?”

“I—what? Cheol, it’s my old notes on recitation. Surely you’ve already covered this—the syllabus says this is week one stuff.” He looks down at the paper again, and it’s so familiar, watching the life drain entirely from someone’s eyes.

You barely resist the urge to slam your face onto your desk a second time.

You meet Seungcheol at the sports center for your next tutoring session.

He likes the humidity and the smell of the chlorine by the pool. He also likes that it’s not the football pitch, so the two of you sit in the bleachers there and go over his lecture notes. Much to your surprise, Seungcheol talks a mile a minute. Has stars in his eyes when he says he finally understands elastic demand curves, supply shock; tells you he spent a whole hour making flashcards.

It’s the first time you’ve seen him so excited since your tutoring began—the first glimmer of hope you’ve felt since Dr. Lee cornered you in your library hideaway. None of this surprises you. Seungcheol has always been smart, even when football was his primary (and sometimes only) focus. He has more determination and grit than anyone you’ve ever met, so you’re not surprised he’s doing well, excelling, but you are surprised—

“Can I ask you something?” Seungcheol shrugs, shoves half a protein bar in his mouth and swallows without chewing. “Why are you… uh. Here?”

“At this university?”

“Not exactly. I mean, I am wondering about that, but I guess… why business?”

Seungcheol hums. Tucks his good knee to his chest and stares down at the pool. No one’s using it, and truthfully the two of you probably aren’t even allowed to be here, but you understand why he likes it. It’s nowhere near as secluded as the library and definitely not as air conditioned, but it is peaceful. Calm. The water laps against the coping in quiet, small waves.

“Ah, I don’t know. You know how it goes.”

You quirk an eyebrow. Never, in all the years you’ve known him, has Seungcheol done anything he didn’t want to do. All that grit and determination. “What about your father, then? Dr. Lee mentioned this was a favor to him. He’s a pretty important person to have in your Rolodex of favors.”

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what this is: Seungcheol’s father has new money; worked from the bottom up, made some smart investment decisions that finally panned out after Seungcheol left for Seoul. Started doing his own thing, made a name for himself. Last you’d heard from your mother, Seungcheol’s brother was second-in-command. Hell, even your own brother did an internship there.

So you know what this is: a father helping his son after his dream was shattered, life turned upside-down. You can’t blame him, even if you’ve heard the whispers from all the way across campus. That Seungcheol is washed up now, trying to nepo his way into his father’s company because of it; that all he knows is sports and he should’ve stuck to that, what does he know about business, why is he the one Dr. Lee went out of his way to help.

Doesn’t stop any of them from smiling at him, though; doesn’t stop them from asking for autographs or selfies.

But you also know this isn’t something Seungcheol seems willing to discuss, so you crack a joke—“I mean, business. God, who’d wanna go into that?”—and go back to what he was willing to talk about.

You’ve never hated elastic demand curves so much in your life.

Deep in the throes of tutoring—when you can’t tell if it’s week two or week twelve—you make it back to your apartment just before ten, head pounding.

The door flies open just as you’re about to punch in the code, and there stands Ken, looking far more put-off than you’ve ever seen him. Looks defeated, if you’re being honest, like someone mopped up all his emotions and wrung them out like dirty dishwater.

“Oh, hi,” you say hesitantly. The man in front of you seems too much like a caged animal to let your guard down. “Everything okay?”

He aborts a nod halfway. Mutters an apology as he brushes by you and stalks down the hall, disappearing around the corner to the elevators. Usually he’s a talker—you haven’t been able to avoid a Seungcheol-related conversation in weeks—so you’re a little stunned. Stand there stupidly for a while, and that’s where Kaori finds you a moment later.

“You gonna stand out here all night, or…?”

“Oh—yeah, right.”

You follow her inside. Toe off your shoes and put them in the rack. Focus on the sound of the kettle whistling instead of the overbearing tension in the room. Drop your bag off in your room, throw on a sweatshirt three sizes too big and a comfy pair of socks. Rummage through the fridge for leftovers, contemplate what mindless show you’ll watch as you eat, and you do not, under any circumstances, ask Kaori what happened.

You don’t have to. You knew what this was going to be the first time Ken spent the night—the way he looked mortified to be meeting you in the shared kitchen at seven a.m., wearing a look that begged you not to tell your roommate he was sneaking out.

I, uh, have an early class, he’d said. You know how it is.

Maybe you should’ve called him on it then. Issued a warning-but-not-really. She’ll get attached if you don’t tell her. She should know it’s different for you, if it is.

But you’d convinced yourself it wasn’t your place. Kaori wouldn’t want you in her business like that, so you stayed quiet, just nodded before watching him slip his shoes on and close the door behind him so quietly you wouldn’t have known he left at all if you hadn’t been looking. Gone, just like a ghost.

So, yeah, you know exactly why your roommate looks haunted.

“I’m a few episodes behind on this if you want to watch with me,” you offer, pointing at the television with the remote. It’s a lie—you’ve never watched this show a day in your life, which Kaori seems to know—but she contemplates it nonetheless. “Also, my mom mailed us some cookies. I think they’re in the fridge.”

“Why are there cookies in the fridge?”

You huff a laugh. “They were outside the door this morning before I left for campus. I don’t know—just saw who the package was from and was like, oh, this must go in the fridge.”

She nods. Grabs the container and joins you on the couch. Sticks her feet beneath your butt and doesn’t mention a thing.

The closest she comes is a few days later. Catches you right before you head out to campus and asks how tutoring is going.

“Not bad, actually.”

Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes when she says, “That’s good. I’m glad things are going well for you two.”

Lee Chan, Sophomore makes his unexpected return at your office hours on an unsuspecting Tuesday.

“Can I help you?”

He doesn’t answer right away, just helps himself to the seat across from you. “Maybe,” comes his cryptic retort. “I was thinking about signing up for that crypto course next semester.”

You narrow your eyes. “No, you weren’t.”

He sighs. Looks a little panicked, like he can’t believe that didn’t work. “You’re right, you’re right. I, um—I wanted to come say thank you.” He pauses. “You know, for that… email you sent.”

You blink. “No, you didn’t.”

Lee Chan, Sophomore cracks immediately. Thunks his head on your desk and lets loose a pained sound. It nearly sounds like he’s wailing when he says, “I’m sorry! They put me up to it!”

What you’re able to piece together is this: Lee Chan, Sophomore has become a bit of a celebrity in the Student Services department ever since he met you, Choi Seungcheol’s tutor. And, like any smart, previously unpopular university student would do, he took advantage of it. Might’ve stretched the truth a little to make it sound like he knew more than he did, so now here he is, angling for information the girls with the photocards may or may not have paid him to get.

“They want to know about his girlfriend.”

“His what?”

What you’re able to piece together is also this: the Photocard Girls are certain Seungcheol is dating someone, based on little more than vibes. You suspect these vibes are their three degrees of separation, considering there was an abnormal amount of Change of Major files formed after his enrollment, but you tell Lee Chan that you don’t know anything and, even if you did, you wouldn’t put his business out there like that.

But some part of you still has this inexplicable urge to protect Seungcheol, so you match their offer with interest and tell him to say there’s nothing to report—not that you didn’t know, not that he couldn’t get anything out of you. Seungcheol isn’t dating anyone.

You don’t know if it’s true, but you figure that if it isn’t, he still deserves privacy.

Which is a notion you have trouble explaining a few hours later, when Seungcheol strolls into your office with a grease-stained paper bag full of cheese coin bread, offering one to you with a proud smile that drops slowly when you just stare in return.

“What’s wrong?”

Your mouth opens, closes, opens again. Nothing comes out, even though it should be simple. Some sophomore kid was just in here angling for information or the Student Services department is taking bets on whether or not you have a girlfriend would both suffice, but you cannot bring yourself to say the words.

What you settle on is, “Sorry, I just… had an interesting meeting before you got here.”

“Oh. Are you okay?”

You sigh. Tilt your head back to stare up at the ceiling. “It was about you, actually.”

Seungcheol chokes, starts stuttering over words you can’t make sense of. Says, “Me? Why? I passed my last exam—I mean, barely, but I still passed. And that wasn’t your fault! I didn’t study enough! I’ve been losing my mind over my International Trade class, that shit sucks—”

“It wasn’t about your grades, Cheol.”

“Oh.” Then, slowly, a lopsided, pleased smile overtakes his face. “Haven’t heard you call me Cheol in a while.”

“Seungcheol,” you correct.

He seems to forget all about the meeting. Tries again to offer you a coin bread before he threatens to eat them all himself, so you acquiesce mostly to shut him up, say you’ll bring the extras to Kaori. For some reason, you tell him about how much she’d loved the cookies your mom sent, and the nostalgia sets him off, gets him talking again, asking if they were the yakgwa she used to make when you two were kids.

They were, but you can’t seem to tell him that, either.

Seungcheol: sorry it’s last minute - running late. can you meet me at my place instead?

Seungcheol shared a location with you

You’re halfway to replying—I don’t think that’s appropriate—before you sigh and delete it. Midterms are only a few days away and you don’t have time to argue over where your tutoring sessions will be, so if Seungcheol wants to meet at his apartment that’s where you’ll meet him.

You read over the midterm notes on the train. Once, twice, and then a hundred more times until they’re nearly memorized, all so you can ignore the voice in the back of your head saying what a bad idea this is. That you have no business being on your way to your ex’s swanky part of town or integrating yourself into his life beyond tutoring at all. You shouldn’t know where he lives. Maybe you shouldn’t even have his phone number or answer his texts.

Not that there’s much you can do about it now, two stops away.

Seungcheol greets you warmly, if not a little rushed. Apologizes for the mess once you step inside, although it’s less “mess” and more “haven’t finished unpacking,” but there’s enough clear space to study at the dining table, so that’s where you set up, determined to keep things professional.

“Sorry again about this,” Seungcheol says, placing a can of cola in front of you as he takes the seat across. “I had to meet with my father and lost track of time, I guess.”

“Oh. How’s he doing?”

Seungcheol sighs, leans further back in the chair as runs a hand through his hair. A light brown, now. “Same as he always was, I guess. Talked about the business, about my brother. Can’t get him to shut up about that stuff most of the time.”

“The business is doing good, though.” You cough, clear your throat. “My, uh. My brother interned there during undergrad. I don’t know if your father told you that.”

You don’t know why you say it, because it’s clear from the brief flicker of pain on Seungcheol’s face that he hadn’t known, that no one had told him. And it hurts you too that they felt the need to keep it a secret, to protect Seungcheol from you even in tangential ways.

“He didn’t,” he admits, “but I’m sure he was happy to see him. He was, uh—he was glad to hear you’re my tutor. Said you were always smarter than all of us boys combined.”

You laugh. Hope it sounds casual instead of strained. “Well, no need to prove him right. Come on,” you say, tossing a study guide in his direction, “let’s get to work.”

Everything is alright for a while—nearly an hour at least. He has the formulas memorized and attributed to the correct equations. He can explain supply and demand, preference and utility, but things start to fall apart around budget constraints and constrained choice.

The formulas get mixed up. He grows frustrated when he doesn’t know the answers to your questions right away. Rolls his eyes and gets a little snappy when you correct him, try to explain things differently in a way he understands. At first he’s able to temper it, collect himself before things truly start spiraling out of control, but the longer the two of you sit there the more it all unravels.

He snaps, you snap back, and you can’t figure out why. You’ve survived this long in Seungcheol’s orbit even though you never thought you’d be around him again, and perhaps it was bound to explode eventually, but…

It’s the familiarity, you realize.

You and Seungcheol aren’t friends, though you’ve been playing at it for weeks now: meeting outside of the library or your office, the personal conversations bordering on reminiscing, being in his personal space. You don’t belong here. You don’t want to be his friend—you can’t be, not for real or pretend.

“That’s not what I’m say—”

“Then explain it better,” Seungcheol fires at you, eyebrows creasing. “You’re the tutor here.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m trying, okay? All I meant was—your answer isn’t wrong, but I know Dr. Lee and he’s going to want more than that in a response.”

“Right—not good enough, like I said.”

“I’m just asking you to expand on your answer—”

“And I’m telling you that’s all I’ve got. I’m not like you, all right? I don’t have all this shit just floating around in my head all the time. I’m not smart, I barely have any idea what’s going on half the time, and you sitting here being condescending about it is doing fuck-all to help.”

You inhale sharply, taken aback at the hostility in his voice. Suggest calling it for the night, say neither of you will be productive if you keep going like this, and neither of you bother to apologize.

So much of your relationship with Seungcheol was marred by clichés.

The two of you passing notes back and forth during class. You in the bleachers of all his games, screaming along to the team chants, waving a sign around with his name on it. Not realizing you had a crush on him at all until he liked someone else and it made your stomach hurt. Childhood friends turned lovers.

Another cliché: that it’s starting to feel like that all over again.

Seungcheol sits across from you in the library, econ textbook cracked in half in front of him as he pays no attention. Keeps grabbing his phone each time it vibrates across the table. Can’t fight the smile that forces its way onto his face when he reads whatever’s there.

Stupid, you think—both to do this and to think it’d play out any other way. Seungcheol left years ago. Probably lived ten lifetimes while he was away while you were here in this exact spot doing this exact thing. Barely lived half a life, just stuck your nose in textbooks and forced your way through.

“Cheol,” you say, trying to drag his attention back to the study guide. No use. He’s typing away, presses his tongue into the fat of his cheek as he responds. “Seungcheol,” you try again.

Also fruitless.

You have no claim here, you remind yourself—not to his time, not to him. He’s only here because someone else mandated it. You’re only here because someone else mandated it, but it stings all the same. Another reminder of what used to be, of what ended regardless of what you wanted. Another reminder that the role you used to play in his life is not the role you play now. That the space you used to take up created a vacancy, and eventually it was going to be filled.

And if this was anyone other than Seungcheol, if you were more emotionally evolved when it came to him, it wouldn’t gnaw at you as much. All of this would roll off your shoulders.

But it isn’t, and you’re not.

“If you’re not going to listen, then—”

“I am listening,” he interjects, but he’s not looking at you. Not looking at his textbook or his study guide. Keeps laughing and smiling at his phone, and it’s sick how bothered you are by it. That it feels like your stomach’s been turned inside-out with jealousy; with annoyance, because you don’t want to be here anyway, don’t want to do this anymore, and you’re wasting your time on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.

Perhaps he never did.

“What are we discussing, then?”

Still not looking up: “Consumer theory.”

You laugh—more a huff of air than anything, grin sardonically out of one corner of your mouth. Seungcheol sees none of it. “Wrong,” you answer, already expecting the way he shrugs it off. “I’m gonna skip ahead a few chapters, though. Consider it a freebie for your business class.”

It must be your tone that finally grabs his attention. Cutting, precise, purposeful. Seungcheol lowers his phone, quirks an eyebrow, wonders where this is going to go. It’s clear he’s pissed you off, that you’re itching for a fight. It’s clear the years of silence are finally coming to a head.

“Let’s talk about ROI. You know what that is?” You barely give him a second. “Return on investment. A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of several investments. So, let’s say I make one-hundred-thousand won on a ten-thousand won investment: my ROI is 90%. Are you following?”

He nods.

“Great, now let’s try something a bit more hypothetical.” You suck in a breath. “Let’s say I invest years of my adolescence into someone. A friend at first and then something more. Let’s say I played cheerleader, supported every hope and dream he had—went to every game, cheered him on, helped him practice his English. Held his hand and talked him down when the pressure felt overwhelming, when the only thing that felt inevitable was failure. Now, let’s say all I got in return was a stuttered, awkward apology as he dumped me and walked out the door. Let’s say that guy showed up again after years of silence just to once again waste my fucking time.”

The thing about pain is it’s not linear. What hurt five, ten years ago might not hurt today, but it might tomorrow; what hurt yesterday may never hurt again. The thing about pain is it lets you stick your head in the sand until it can’t anymore, and that’s where you are now: that window of time between Seungcheol walking out the door on the assumption you’d never see him again before he bulldozed his way back into your life has been slammed closed, locked up tight.

So you don’t even notice you’re crying until the room goes deathly silent and you can hear the drip drip drip of tears on paper. Until you watch Seungcheol’s hands flex and unflex in mid-air, stuck in that liminal space, wanting to reach out but knowing he has no right to. Until your chest aches so bad you’re sure you’re either about to break into stardust or cease to exist.

Until you say, “What, Choi Seungcheol, would you say my fucking return on investment was?” and he has nothing to say at all.

Kaori invites you to a party.

Just something small to celebrate the end of midterms and a classmate’s birthday. Nothing out of control or raucous, not even the kind of thing that’d earn a second glance from campus security. I won’t even make fun of you if you leave before eleven, is how she sold it to you, in addition to a small amount of begging and bargaining and a powerful set of puppy-dog eyes.

After everything the two of you have been through, you find it hard to say no.

So here you are, nearly eleven o’clock on a Friday, a cup of cheap beer in hand. A friend of a friend of a friend is wailing into a karaoke machine and although your ears are bleeding, it does feel nice for that to be your greatest worry. You aren’t thinking about your classes or how you’ve been prioritizing everyone else’s academic success. You aren’t thinking about whatever’s going on between Kaori and Ken. You aren’t thinking about Seungcheol.

At least you aren’t, until he walks through the door.

You’re going to continue not thinking about him at all—not about the fact he’s alone or how good he looks in a simple black T-shirt that’s a little taut in the shoulders. You’re not going to think about the way the air shifts, like the universe knows he’s important and is willing to accommodate. You’re not going to think about how Kaori catches your eye across the room, recognizes him from all her internet searches, and the way she mouths oh my god he’s so beefy at you.

You’re not going to think about how guilty you feel that she doesn’t know, because if you do you’re certain it’ll take over.

You watch Seungcheol work the room; watch as he floats between conversations, as strangers fall over themselves at the sight of him. How eager everyone is to give him something and how reluctant he is to take them. You watch as he winds up in the same circle as Kaori and how she must mention you, oh, your tutor is my roommate, because there’s a question in return before he turns and meets your gaze.

You wonder why the distance between you feels more insurmountable now than ever before.

Seungcheol finds you in your office.

It’s not a Tuesday or a Thursday, far later than four to six in the evening, but he doesn’t even bother knocking before he’s barreling in, stifling your space with his bad energy.

You haven’t seen him in nearly two weeks. Not since the party, if that even counts. Hasn’t bothered to reply to any of your texts or emails, and that was just fine by you, if that’s how he wanted to act, but it isn’t until he’s brooding on the other side of your desk that you realize you’re still aggrieved, too. Feels a little too familiar, him leaving you behind and in the dark.

So you don’t mean to—typically have much more professionalism than this—but when he tosses a stapled stack of papers with a barely-passing grade on your desk and says, “This is your fault,” the words come automatically and without forethought.

“Fuck off, Seungcheol.” It’s not your words that take him by surprise; more so the roll of your eyes, the accompanying huff. The impression that all of this is beneath you and nothing more than a mere annoyance. That however affected you were two weeks ago is not how affected you are anymore. “That’s what happens when you blow off your tutoring for two weeks because you’re a coward.”

He laughs, incredulous; unable to help the sound the tumbles out of his mouth. “I’m a—I’m a coward?”

“Yes,” you reply, tone giving away nothing. All he sees is feigned nonchalance despite the hurricane you feel brewing beneath the surface. “This,” you continue, pinching the corner of the paper between your fingertips and disposing of it in the trashcan beneath your desk, “is all on you, but do please let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to blame me for. I’m all ears.”

You don’t miss it: the way Seungcheol’s eyes grow wide at your ‘I’m all.’ The way he thinks you’re going to punctuate that sentence with yours, and it nearly has bile rising in your throat. Makes you want to scream, rip at your hair. If the last few months have taught you anything, it’s that you are still hopelessly in love with the man across from you—the man that continues to leave before he’s left, always at your expense.

So, yeah—Seungcheol is a coward, but only when it comes to you.

But he doesn’t look much like one now, gripping so hard at the edge of your desk that his knuckles have gone white, baseball cap pulled down low enough his eyes are barely visible. He’s always been overwhelming, always carried himself with an exaggerated arrogance even when it wasn’t warranted, always took everything so seriously, and maybe that’s why you’d thought he’d treat you the same way. Take you seriously. Wouldn’t just throw it all away on a maybe thing, and that’s why it's been years and you still aren’t over it.

Maybe Seungcheol is a coward, and maybe so are you.

Because not once since he’s been back have you been able to say what you mean. Can’t seem to tell him about the anger, the hurt, the heartbreak. Played it all off as petty nonchalance because you foolishly thought that would hurt him, that you’ve been reduced to simmering ash, no hope left for a fire.

“I could never blame you for a goddamn thing,” he says, voice so deep you could drown in it.

You so desperately want to know. You don’t want to know anything at all. You want Seungcheol to explain everything to you in detail and spoil the ending, but only if it’s guaranteed to be happy. Enduring another loss like the first time—you’re not sure you can take it. Not after you two have crossed paths like this, because you’ve never quite believed in fate but you think that has to mean something. That so much time and life had transpired and you two came back together.

Today, though, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get any answers.

Seungcheol straightens, looms at full height. Digs into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out a thumb drive. Wordlessly, he hands it over, and then he’s gone just as abruptly as he’d arrived.

Again.

Kaori wants to spend the weekend moping, and you can’t come up with a good reason not to join her.

She doesn’t mention Ken once. Not when she’s sobbing over A Silent Voice and Toradora! after that. Not when she keeps glancing at her phone every couple minutes to see if she has any texts. Not when you—only halfway paying attention between grading and your own assignments—suggest ordering something for delivery, maybe that new burger place down the street you heard was good, and Kaori shuts it down so vehemently you can only assume it was Ken’s favorite place.

Kaori just cries over the man with the big dick she never expected to take so seriously, and not even your stonewalling makes her feel ashamed of it.

And there’s respectability in that kind of openness and vulnerability. At least whatever she’s feeling is honest; at least she can admit she’s sad. You think watching Kaori process her breakup might help you process yours too, years too late, so you suck in a breath and ask, “Can I tell you something or is now not a good time?”

Kaori looks over at you. Dabs a soggy tissue at her eyes. “Well, I guess it depends,” is her answer, and she doesn’t shy away from how waterlogged her voice sounds. “If you’re going to tell me you’re a Takasu and Kawashima shipper, maybe, but if it’s anything worse I’m not sure I could take it.”

“I—what? Who even are they?” She gives you a half-hearted thumbs up. You sigh in response, sink further into the couch. “It’s, uh.” Clear your throat. “Do you remember when we met sophomore year? At that party? And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything and you said, and I quote, why not, I have a sixth sense for this kind of thing and I know that guy will have a huge—”

She hides her face behind her hands. “Ew, god, yes I remember that. My dick whisperer era. How embarrassing.”

“Right. And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything because I’d just gotten out of something.”

“Not really by choice, if I remember correctly. I told you if it was quiet it should’ve been loud, and then you never talked about it again.”

You nod. “I—yeah, that sounds like something I would’ve said.” You suck in a deep breath. “Listen, this is probably gonna sound bad considering I did never talk about it again, but—”

“Hey,” Kaori says, nudging you with her foot. Meant to be comforting, somehow. “It’s okay. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, too… most of which I’m not sure you should, actually.”

A laugh forces its way out, gives you a nice reprieve from the anxiety of the conversation you’re about to have. The need to explain it all, the need for advice. Maybe it’s not her—or anyone else’s—business, but you think you’ve kept this to yourself long enough. You and Seungcheol loved each other, once, and it seems foolish that no one knows.

Maybe Kaori had been right. Maybe love should be shouted from the rooftops; exist out in the open. Maybe something hidden in the shadows can never thrive in the light, and you knew it back then, deep down, but now it seems so obvious.

You think back to a few days before the library. Think about how things didn’t feel good but they felt okay. Think about the frustrated crease between Seungcheol’s eyebrows as he stared down at his textbook and how all you’d wanted to do was smooth it. Think about how you’d rolled your lips and tried not to laugh; how you thought it’d take a miracle to help Seungcheol pass this class.

Think about: What is the difference between the short-run and the long-run from the perspective of production theory?

Think about the short-run of your and Seungcheol’s relationship—that you’d burned bright and fast, even though it’d felt like a million years. Hadn’t dared to consider the long-run because anything beyond that bubble felt impossible.

Think about: Which of the following is not a property of isoquants?

Think about the way Seungcheol’s eyes lit up when he knew the answer. That they’re always linear, he said, and you smiled at his enthusiasm, raised your hand to high-five him and dropped it when he hadn’t noticed.

You think about the explanation—isoquants can be linear when inputs are perfectly substitutable—and what those graphs look like. Downward sloping, left to right. Think about how the graphs change when the isoquants are perfect complements.

L-shaped. Less straight as the inputs become poorer substitutes.

You know what your and Seungcheol’s graph would’ve looked like back then.

So it’s easy, almost, to tell Kaori everything. You tell her about growing up in Daegu, about the smell of the azaleas at Biseulsan in the spring. You tell her about how your parents had befriended the neighbors, how they had a kid your age, that that kid was Seungcheol—yes, that Seungcheol.

She’s able to anticipate the rest from there, but you fill in the blanks of what she can’t: being sixteen and falling in love, holding hands, the clandestine notes. All those football matches and how your throat would be hoarse from cheering. How nauseous you’d felt applying to university in Seoul, how excited you were when Seungcheol said he was coming with you. That, after you arrived, it felt like you were living in fast-forward. Barely any time to breathe or adjust; no time to just be you and Seungcheol. You had to be a student, someone responsible; Seungcheol had to be a phenom.

“Could you feel it was going to happen?” Kaori asks, now sat ramrod straight, all her attention on you. “Like, did you know?”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “Maybe I did? It’s hard to say now, all this time later. I know things definitely felt different, like life was pulling us in opposite directions.” You laugh, bitterness coloring the edges. “You couldn’t go two blocks without seeing him on some billboard, and I was just… normal, you know? I wasn’t some rising star athlete like he was, I just went to my classes. How was I supposed to compete with something like that?”

Your roommate hums, leans back into the pillows as she stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t think you were. Maybe that’s why Seungcheol was worried—maybe he felt like you were losing your own identity feeling like you had to keep up.”

You want to push back, argue that you weren’t, that you didn’t, but the truth is that it’s possible. That the shadows created by Seungcheol’s dreams were so massive you wouldn’t be surprised if they unintentionally swallowed you up. “It still wasn’t his choice to make,” you say, voice barely above a whisper.

And Kaori already knows all about your hurt, listened as you explained it all and laid everything bare. So when she says, “Sometimes that’s just how it goes, though, babe,” it doesn’t feel condescending. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time. You can say now it wasn’t Seungcheol’s choice to make, because it’s been almost five years and you’ve made a life for yourself separate from him. But the—god, this is gonna sound so patronizing, I am so sorry—but you guys were so young. No one has it all figured out at that age.”

She snorts, runs a hand through her messy hair. “Shit, I’m nearly halfway to thirty and I still don’t know anything.” Adopts a frown. “What do you want now? Do you want closure? Want to try to fix things and become friends?”

“I don’t know,” you admit, biting at a hangnail. “He actually, um. The other day when he stopped by my office, he left me a USB drive? And before you ask, no I did not already look at it.”

“A USB drive? Who does this guy think he is, James Bond?” A pause. “Are you gonna look at it, though?”

You do.

Not until the silver, midnight light creeps in through your bedroom curtains and you’ve stared at the ceiling long enough; waited long enough for texts that never came, for divine intervention to, well, intervene. It never did—fair enough—so you decide to take fate by the reins. Grab your laptop, instant headache from the screen, stick the drive into the port.

It takes a second for it to load, but when it does: dozens of videos, organized by date. Vlogs, by the look of them—some from before your breakup but the majority of them from after.

You’re not sure what you expected, but it wasn’t this.

You click on the first one: a month and a half before both of you moved to Seoul. A fresh-faced Seungcheol appears on your screen, cheeks still round with adolescence. He’s in his room back in Daegu, can’t get the camera angle right. Nostalgia hits you like a ton of bricks as it pans to the side, to the wall behind his bed, and you see all his old posters. Mostly football players you couldn’t name, some girl group he used to love, a few movies. Just below them are some of the notes you’d written him in school, and they’re all you can focus on as he talks about how excited he is for the move.

The next: a few weeks after you’d started classes. By then, Seungcheol was well into the swing of things with Seoul FC. Already a big fish in a small pond, tryout offers from European teams starting to roll in. You can hear yourself in the background stressing over your first exam, wishing a generational curse upon your calculus professor. In the video, Seungcheol laughs, whispers like he’s telling the camera a secret as he talks about how nervous he is for his future. I don’t know why, he says, but it just feels like everything is about to change.

There’s a long pause between that one and the next. You understand why when you look at the date: three months after your breakup. Your hands hover uselessly above your keyboard. Whatever answers you’ve been looking for the last few years are probably in this video, but you can’t bring yourself to open it. Not right away, at least.

You click on a different one at random. Seungcheol’s somewhere in Europe, judging from the language on the signs behind him. Snow falls quietly—whenever he filmed this, it must’ve been early. No one else is around, and he cracks a joke that it’s a good thing, people would probably think he was crazy if they saw him. He doesn’t tell you where he’s going but he narrates the entire walk: points out a cafe he’s grown to love. The way to get to his practice stadium from where he’s standing. Pauses near a restaurant and laughs ruefully, shakes his head, says, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but one of my teammates set me up on a blind date here and I got stood up. You’d probably think that was funny.

(You do. It also makes your chest ache.)

One from two years ago: Seungcheol in a hotel room, clearly nervous. He raises his hand to wave at the camera and you can see the corners of his nails bitten raw. Dark circles beneath his eyes; cheekbones more pronounced than you’ve ever seen them. On the screen, Seungcheol sighs, rakes a hand through freshly-bleached hair. Sucks in a deep breath as he says, I’m so nervous. I’m so—so fucking nervous and I don’t. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. I want to call you because you always knew what to say but that’s so fucking selfish. God, we haven’t spoken in years, and it’s my—that’s my fault, I know, so I brought this all on myself. I just want to hear your voice.

Another from a week after that: the color’s returned to his face, and he’s recording from what looks like a penthouse apartment. Sleek, modern; a small white dog napping on the bed beside him. He smiles, looks like he got his teeth fixed, looks like he’s no longer carrying around the weight of the world. Talks endlessly and excitedly about some tournament. Talks so fast you can barely keep up. Talks around words tinged with languages you don’t understand.

Seungcheol wins a championship. Records a drunk vlog from the same night, hair soaked through with god-knows-what—water, champagne, you don’t know. But he looks radiant. Looks like the culmination of two decades of dreaming. He looks happy, free, at peace. He looks like the reason he let you go, why he had to go away.

You scroll to the bottom of the files. Pause at the last video, dated seven months before the term started.

“Hi,” he says, and you can immediately tell everything is all wrong. Seungcheol’s in the dark, face only visible enough to see the tears tracking on his cheeks. “This is going to be the last one of these I make. I don’t know if you, uh—I’m sure you aren’t paying attention to me—my career—anymore, but. I, um. I got hurt. Ruptured my ACL. They’re not sure I’ll…” A sob escapes him. Has you wanting to climb through the screen to hold him, thumb away his tears, tell him everything is going to be okay. “They don’t know if I’ll ever play again.”

Seungcheol no longer looks happy, free, at peace. “Maybe you’ll be happy to hear that,” he continues. “Maybe it’ll help you to know I threw away our relationship for nothing.”

Cut to black.

The sudden silence is deafening. Has you desperately clicking back to the video you’d skipped, the one from just after your breakup. Seungcheol looks the same in that one, too, like the life has been drained out of him.

I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I’ll ever show these to you now, since I…

I’m sure I owe you an explanation. To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing, I just—things have been so hard, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I feel like my life went from zero to a hundred before I could even blink and now I’m scrambling. I didn’t think it was fair to—to drag you through that. Me being away, moving to an entirely different continent. I have faith we could do it, I just. I don’t know, baby, I don’t…

You deserve to have your own life. Be your own person. I’m so scared that the world will never see you for who you are—so beautiful and intelligent and kind. You don’t deserve to be reduced to my partner. And if you ever see this, I know you’re gonna roll your eyes. Probably call me a mean name because I took the choice away from you, because you think I’m trying to be selfless and heroic, and you’d be right. It’s not fair, and I wish I could tell you I’m sorry.

I wish I could just… pluck out my brain and give it to you, because even if it killed me to do it, at least it makes sense to me. And I don’t—I don’t want you to think I’m not hurting. I’ve been sick to my stomach since I left. I know I’m making a mistake, I know I am, I just—how do I do what I think is right in the long-run when it’s not what I want right now, or ever?

I don’t want to get over you. I don’t want you to get over me, and that’s how you know I’m not acting selflessly, because you should. I want you to always be happy, I just… wish it was with me.

So, I’m going to keep making these. I’m going to take you along for the ride, wherever it takes us, because you should be here but I can only hope you can one day understand why you’re not. I’m so—I’m so sorry, I don’t…

I’m sorry.

I love you.

You fall asleep and dream that you were the one meant to meet him at that restaurant.

The first thing you do is make a call to your mother.

“Could you send another container of yakgwa?”

On the other end of the line, your mother tuts, motherly intuition audibly kicking into overdrive. Is probably wearing that all-knowing, sly grin she always does when you try to be coy and evasive. “What happened to the last container I sent?”

“Ah, you know Kaori loves those. They barely lasted an hour after I told her what was in there.”

She hums an acknowledgement. Sounds like she takes a sip of tea. “I remember someone else being quite fond of those cookies, too.”

“Well, they are the most popular cookies in the country, so.”

After haranguing you into admitting they’re for Seungcheol and not your roommate, your mother promises to send them quickly. A few days at most, which buys you enough time to figure out how you’re going to approach the man in question.

The vlogs have turned your entire world upside-down. Answered questions you hadn’t even known you had. Took all that anger and resentment you’d been holding onto and set it free, and now you’re just left with… a void. Want to mend things, and it makes you wonder if such a thing is even possible, if it’s too late, but you don’t let those thoughts get very far.

Instead, you let them spur you into action. Have you sitting in front of your laptop at your desk, office hours long since over, silence creeping in the more the department empties. The thrum of the airconditioning and the tick-tick-tick of the clock are all the only company you have.

You worry if it’ll show on camera, how out of sorts you feel: sweating from the nerves, dabbing at your hairline; cheeks warm to the touch. But you suck in a breath anyway, steel yourself. Look at your webcam and the daunting red circle…

And start recording.

He hadn’t gotten it at first. Not really.

There’d been a container of yakgwa outside his door with his USB drive taped to the top of it. No note—not that he needed one to know who it was from, but he wasn’t sure what it was. A goodbye? A please fuck off forever and never contact me again?

He’d just taken them inside. Ate too many of the cookies while feeling sorry for himself. Maybe had a glass or two of wine to compound the issue, and never, ever considered contacting you. Didn’t think he could bear it if you never wanted to see him again, but he just…

Well, he was drunk and alone and he missed you, and he’d rewatched all those videos he recorded a million times before when he was like this, so what was a million and one?

It’d been the same as every time before: he smiled at the happy parts, cried at all his old wounds. Wanted to reach through the screen and strangle his past self for including that part about the blind date, because he never wanted to date anyone who wasn’t you, why would he say that, felt mortified at the thought of you watching that—

And then there it was.

All the way at the bottom. A new video. One that hadn’t been recorded by him—

Hi, Cheol, you say, and that’s all it takes to reduce him to a sobbing, yearning mess. I’m not sure what to say here. I don’t really record much—sometimes for lectures when the professors are too busy, but never anything personal like this, but I watched every single one you made for me and I thought I should return the favor.

I wanted to tell you everything I’ve been up to since you left, but it hasn’t been much. I got my degree. Tutored a lot in undergrad—the same thing I’m tutoring you in now, actually. I was good at it and it felt good to have something that was mine, you know? I almost moved for grad school. Thought for a while I was going to wind up in New York, but then my parents divorced and it felt like too much, too scary, so I stayed. Kaori also stayed, so we got an apartment together. It’s not much, definitely not as nice as your place, but it’s good enough.

I don’t think I ever told you, but she was seeing a guy for a bit and he was… obsessed with you, to say the least. Thought you were the coolest person in the world. They aren’t seeing each other anymore. Ended pretty badly, but—speaking of which, maybe steer clear of Student Services for a while, too.

Sometimes it felt like failure that I wound up staying here. That I had scholarships from all these far-away, prestigious places and didn’t take advantage of them. That I gave into my fear. And now… I don’t know. Maybe there’s a reason I stayed behind. Maybe there’s a reason you ended up back here, too.

Whatever happens—I don’t want you to think I still blame you. Kaori says we do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time, and I understand now that’s what you did. Even though it hurt me, you were trying to protect me. I get it now. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that alone. I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to go to all these places you didn’t know. To have to deal with your injury, the loss of a dream.

You said in one of your videos that you just want me to be happy, and that’s all I want for you, too, whatever that looks like.

Here’s my address if you ever want to come by to talk.

I love you, too.

—and then he’d been up and out the door, feeling stone cold sober, running to the front of his building to wait for his ride.

Felt like the drive took hours. Must’ve hit every red light between his apartment and yours. Took the steps two at a time just to get to your door faster.

There’s a man already standing outside your door when he gets there. One that looks shocked to see him, stars in his eyes, and when Seungcheol says, “Oh, you must be Kaori’s ex,” he looks more like he wants the earth to swallow him whole. Embarrassed in front of his idol.

He knocks on your door and gets no response. Knocks again, harder this time, and he has to try really hard to stifle his laughter when your voice yells from the inside, “Fuck off, Kenji, I already told you she’s not here!”

“It’s me,” Seungcheol yells back.

There’s quiet again. Just enough time for it to feel like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest and follow Kaori’s ex down the hall.

Then you’re yanking the door open—slowly, so slowly, like you’re scared it’s not actually him. Your eyes are brimming with tears when they meet his own, and he doesn’t let himself think, just goes on instinct, when he grabs for you, hands on your cheeks, and presses his lips to yours.

Somehow you taste the same.

Somehow you taste like redemption.

You taste like home.

Seungcheol kisses you until the tears slow. Kisses you until the universe realigns, until he could map your mouth in the dark. Kisses you until all you’re all he knows again.

When he pulls away, you’re gripping at his sweatshirt, don’t want to let him go. He presses his forehead to yours, offers up a million more apologies, starts talking nonsense. Says he’s going to drop microeconomics, what the hell does he know, he barely has a passing grade anyway, what does it matter, he’s such an idiot—

And then you say, “You came back,” and nothing else matters.

“I always will.”

(Later on, as you’re trying to steady your breathing, slick with sweat, your thigh thrown over Seungcheol’s hip as he stares down at you, dopey smile on his face, you say, “Choi Seungcheol, don’t you dare drop that class. I have worked my ass off to get you to barely-passing.”)

if you’ve made it this far thank you so much for reading! i am still very new at writing for seventeen, so i hope this was acceptable. i'm now going to throw myself into the warped tour vernon fic and will hopefully not go another 7+ months without posting anything. 😭

i would love to hear your thoughts! <3

#seungcheol x reader #scoups x reader #seungcheol angst #seungcheol au #scoups angst #seungcheol imagines #scoups imagines #seventeen fanfic #seventeen imagines #seventeen x reader #jewel writes

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