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pirateprincessblog · 5 months

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outlaw

𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫.: you wish there would be a time you could call your life boring again. before all the mess, before the town fell apart, before your father disowned you. before jeong yunho. 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: jeong yunho x f!reader 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 11.1k 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: wild west theme, cowboy!yunho, bartender!reader 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: praising, claiming, dacryphilia, marking, size kink, oral, unprotected sex, outdoor sex

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: violence, weapons, alcohol consumption, murder, slight gore, attempted SA 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: django performance might be the reason why i switched from hongjoong to yunho after four years of being loyal. NOT PROOFREAD I AM IMPATIENT I HAD TO POST IT BEFORE GOING TO BED! <3

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫: 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 ��𝐎𝐓 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞��𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐲.

"another one, sweetheart."

i'm not your sweetheart, you wanted to mutter. but you bit your tongue, remembering that your father is somewhere in the room. so you have no other choice but to approach the loud, messy table, and pour the greasy dirty man another glass of whatever alcohol you had in hand. it didn't matter anymore, as long as it filled his stomach.

"that's a good girl," he roars with laughter, heavy hand landing on your bottom and making you jolt.

your eyes seek your father, silently asking for help. but no help comes. instead, he points to a different table that demands attention, and leaves the saloon. you stand still, voices muffling around you. your neatly put bun is now falling apart, strands loose on your face and sticking due to sweat, your clothes are heavy on you, and your hands will soon start shaking if you don't take a break from all the work. from early mornings, to even earlier ones the next day, you are destined to be a servant on your own father's property. you wonder if this will last forever. pouring alcohol, dodging flying chairs and tables, taking the harassment so you can survive for another month.

if this really is your future, then what is the point of living? will he marry you off to one of these men? or will he keep you as his servant until the end of his days? you remember the day everything changed for you. you had just come back from the city, finishing the school day. barely a teen, hand in hand with your best friends. your father sat you in the empty saloon, putting his hands on your shoulders.

"you're quitting school."

just a month after you buried your mother, he told you that. there was nobody to help him, he had to fire his staff, and laid his trust into you. the business was crazy that week. who wouldn't want to come and see the owner's little daughter serving alcohol? those men congratulated your father on your birth, watched you play on the street, went to your mother's funeral and wailed with you, came to the saloon to see you struggle with bottles and glasses, only later to have their filthy hands all over you as soon as you turned eighteen. it doesn't stop, no matter how many times you ask. the pleading only makes them do it more, those sick bastards. and each one of them have a wife waiting at home, and a child comforting her.

"hey, bitch, over here!"

monday was a peaceful day. no work, not at the saloon at least. but a basket full of dirty old clothes awaits by the door, waiting to be washed. it is a cold autumn morning, the sun very low in the sky and not warming at all. you drag your feet across the field, hands red from the weight of the basket and the frost. your dress catches onto various branches and bushes, but you do not look back. you need to be done before noon, so you can make lunch for your father.

reaching the river, you drop the basket on the dying grass. a few flowers are still scattered here and there, fighting their way through the cold morning dew. as you scrub your father's shirt on the washboard, you notice just how old those clothes have gotten. you both need new ones, you cannot be walking around looking like the poorest people in town, while owning a saloon. but your father sees no value in those things. talking to him is like talking to a wall that might hit you if you say something it doesn't like. so you keep your mouth shut.

the used, thin washboard suddenly snaps under your hands, a piece of wood jamming into your skin and making you yelp. your skin being almost frozen from being in cold water, and then getting pierced, makes you finally break down. you hug your knees to your chest, and bury your head into the muddy dress. you're cold, in pain, and you miss your mother. your friends. the life you had, and the life you were supposed to have.

sometimes, you selfishly blamed your mother for dying. if she was still here, you could've had a life just like your friends. finding a job in the big city, a man too, a decent one. not this.

you hide your hands in the ruffles of your worn out dress, seeking warmth. you cannot go back home without washing the rest of the clothes, and the sun is rising faster than you want it to. noon will come by soon, and you will have two tasks unfinished. your father won't be pleased.

a distant neigh and galloping have your attention, your head curiously turning to see who it could be. your heart almost sinks when you see the speed the horses are headed at towards you, but with legs and bum frozen on the ground, you cannot move. all you can do is close your eyes in defeat, hoping for the best.

the gallop stops, now switching to a trot. you open your eyes, and see two shiny horses in front of you. the two men riding them dismount, one of them standing next to his horse and taking the leash from the other one. the taller man adjusts his hat, gaze fixed on the floor, and fastens his holster. you gulp, seeing the shiny revolver resting on his hip. then, he raises his head to finally look at you. you almost forget the potential danger of the situation once you look at his brown eyes. he is tall. very tall. and absolutely gorgeous. you look away, suddenly aware of how you look. heavens, what a perfect timing.

"oh, it's just a doe." he says, voice soft and sweet. he tilts his head, trying to get you to look at him. when you don't, he takes a step closer to you, careful not to scare you away. "came for a morning refreshment?"

you don't respond. instead, you look at the man behind him. he stands still, leashes in his hands. his clothes are a bit more rugged than the ones on the man in front of you, but it fits his image very well. then, your eyes betray you end lay on the man in front of you again. he wears a brown leather jacket with fringes, dark blue jeans, and matching brown boots. his brown hat sits perfectly on his head, giving him a mysterious look. he notices you staring, and only chuckles softly. he reaches into his saddlebag, retrieving something wrapped in a white cloth.

"hungry?"

this time, your stomach is the one that betrays you. it decides to grumble as soon as you shake your head no, making the man chuckle again.

"go on, you can have it. you look like you need it."

he holds it out for you to take, closing the distance further. you step back, remembering your father's words.

"no speaking to other men outside of the saloon. if i see you do that, i will personally declare you a whore. nobody will want to marry you, and you'll be alone for the rest of your life."

charming. the man doesn't give up, as he steps further towards you. you step back again, hunger, fear and curiosity fighting inside of you and making you sick to your stomach.

"it's alright. it's just food, i don't mean you any harm."

but he doesn't know what words ring inside your head. taking another step back, your heart almost stops once again. you have stepped into the shallow river, your body losing balance following. the handsome cowboy drops the item on the floor, and firmly grabs your waist and pulls you back to stand on the grass. you instinctively grab onto his shoulders for support, and he pulls your body into his. you breathe out when your chest collides with his, overwhelmed by the situation.

"clumsy girl," he teases.

you can't make yourself move, not only because you don't want to, but because his grip is firm on your waist. he safely moves you away from the water and removes one hand from your body, only to move the loose strands of hair from your face.

"wyatt," he calls.

the other man steps towards the two of you, not uttering a word.

"you go on. i'll catch up with you."

without protest, he gets on his horse, nods towards his companion, then gallops away. you are left alone with the ridiculously handsome cowboy, now feeling a bit warmer than a few moments ago. the man finally lets go of you, picking up the cloth from the ground. a distant thunder surprises you, and you look over at the scattered clothes. the black clouds over the mountains are covering the blue sky quite fast, and it just seems at this moment that everything is working against you.

you hurriedly collect the remaining dirty clothes, crouching down and brushing it against the half of the washboard as best as you can. your hand is in pain, still dripping red, but your father's consequences are more painful. you'd rather have a hundred more splinters ripping your skin than your father slapping you across the face like he is used to.

the man lets you finish, turning his attention to the horse. in the corner of your eye, you see him caressing the horse's mane. the animal leans into his hand, enjoying the comfort of his warm and caring touch. he looks so tough, yet his actions are a complete opposite.

"if you're done staring, you can join me."

caught red handed, and red cheeked, you turn around to see him sat under the nearby tree, opening the white cloth. he sets it on the ground near him, and folds his arms across his chest. you pick up the now clean clothes, the broken washboard forgotten and floating somewhere further down the field. you sit next to him, the food serving as an imaginary border. he takes his hat off, putting it over his face and rests his head against the tree.

"if you're embarrassed to eat in front of me. now i won't look. eat. please."

and you do. you take a bite of the biscuit, enjoying it like it's your first one ever. you take the chance now that he doesn't see anything to properly look around. his horse is gorgeous, white with brown legs and head. you then look at its owner, still chewing on the biscuit. the more you look at him, the more your stomach feels all fuzzy. is this what it feels like to be attracted to a man? are you finally experiencing a crush?

you should really get home.

thunder grumbles again, causing the horse to become restless.

"shh, you're good." the cowboy says soothingly, not moving from his spot. and the horse listens.

it soothes you too, because you lean against the tree like him, and silently eat. your breathing matches his, and for a moment, you think that he has fallen asleep. until you start feeling drops of rain on your head. you don't say anything. you don't really need to, because the man interrupts his short break by standing up and putting his hand out for you to take. you take it, your hand melting into his as he helps you up. his touch is secure, and gentle. nobody has ever held you this way, and you are afraid you might get used to it. he leads you to his horse, throwing his spare jacket your way.

"i'll take you home."

"no!"

the cowboy scrunches his eyebrows, and abruptly turns towards you. his hand doesn't leave yours, no matter how hard you pull. "she speaks." he says, as if he made an important discovery.

you shake your head frantically, repeating yourself. "no, you can't."

"why?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"because."

"that's not a valid answer, sunshine."

if your stomach wasn't turning from the difficult situation you have found yourself in, it would turn from the simple nickname coming from his mouth. you aren't quite sure whether you're feeling nervous because of your father, or because of the handsome stranger. you remember that he is just a stranger, no matter in how much awe he has you. if you get on his horse, he could take you anywhere. but if you don't get on his horse, he could simply tie you up and take you with him anyway.

fuck.

"i like to walk." you blurt out, grabbing the basket of clothes and holding it in front of you, as if shielding yourself from him.

"lies."

"please, just leave me alone. thank you for the food, and for, well, not letting me fall into the water, but-"

"does he beat you every day?"

he says it with a tone so serious it has your blood going cold in your veins. his gaze becomes stone cold, dark, and it pierces right through you. seeing your distressed face, he steps towards you again, moving your hair away from your neck. the bruise you thought you so cleverly hid now uncovered in front of him. funny how a potentially dangerous stranger shows more interest in it than the town.

"or only when you do something wrong?"

"i don't see how that's any of your business."

"it isn't. however, if you want it to stop, you might have to make it my business."

you wish for nothing more than for it to stop. but exactly how does this man plan to make it his business? talk to your father? teach him a lesson? or the worst?

"i'll tell you what. i'll bring you just to the hill so nobody sees us, and you think about what i said until then."

you nod, defeated. you really need to get home as quick as possible and get started on the lunch. the cowboy helps you up on the horse, then climbs behind you. this is the closest you've ever been to a man, and if you weren't sneakily reading those short romance stories in the back of the discarded newspaper, you would think that you are becoming ill by how hot your cheeks feel. when he grabs the leash, also helping you hold the basket in the process, you take your time to admire his hands. pretty pale fingers, slightly muddy from maybe hours or days of riding. he smells of whiskey, vanilla and a hint of tobacco. you allow yourself a moment of weakness, closing your eyes and inhaling the scent. it doesn't help the way his warm chest and torso are pressed against your back, rubbing against you with each horses gallop.

when you open your eyes, you are disappointed to see the hill. it means that the short little adventure with the mystery cowboy has come to an end, and that you might never see him again. it's all up to you. and you hate that.

he helps you down, then fixes the ruffles of your dress that were slightly turned upwards from riding while you are occupied with the clothes in the basket.

"well?" he finally says, seeing that you have no intention of speaking first.

"i'll be fine." you lie.

you almost miss the way he bites the inside of his cheek from disappointment. almost. he nods, understandingly, and approaches you. for the last time, maybe. he takes your hand in his, thumb rubbing over the place where your splinter is. "take care of that. wouldn't want such pretty hands to be in pain or have a scar."

he kisses the back of it, eyes not once leaving yours. you almost shiver, from the cold and from his touch.

"thank you for your company, dove. we must part ways now, but i do hope i see you again one day. you are too pretty to forget."

he takes his hat off to say his goodbye, then climbs back on his horse. with a sweet smile and a nod, he gallops away. you stand there and watch, heart swelling with sadness. you watch and watch, until he becomes just a small little dot in the distance.

weeks pass, and your life dynamic does not change. you still serve drunk perverts, avoid sexual offers, cook, and freeze yourself by the river. only now, you wake up earlier than usual, and keep looking at your surroundings in hopes of seeing a familiar brown hat. but you never see it. it's been almost two months, and not a single sign from him. maybe for the best. he did look like bad news. very handsome bad news.

you currently sit in a dark corner in the saloon, reading last weeks newspaper for the romance update on the last page. the appearance of the main character morphs into the cowboy in your head. no longer short, blonde haired with blue eyes and bulk figure, but dark haired with a short mullet, with brown eyes and a slender figure. you didn't even catch his name, yet you shamelessly daydream about him.

the doors of the saloon aggressively swing, startling you and breaking your bubble. you turn the newspaper upside down, hiding your little secret. a young man, known as denver, stands at the entrance, face pure horror. your father approaches him, putting his hands on his shoulders to calm him down.

"what's wrong, boy?"

denver barely gets his sentence out, before countless gallops are heard outside, accompanied with various screams. "he's here."

"who is?"

"the stallion."

you have never seen your father scared. and that scared you even more. he took a step back, abandoning the young man. the saloon became a mess, everyone pushing each other on the way to the exit, but suddenly coming to a halt. you stand up, taking your place behind the bar. the people are stepping back, slowly, still facing towards the doors. they separate in two groups, making way for the intruder. and when your eyes land on the intruder, you swear your heart could jump right on the bar in front of you.

your cowboy, your mystery man, the man you prayed you'd see again, stands in your saloon. drenched in blood and dust, sweaty, and with a revolver in his hand. the look on his face when he sees you tells you that you weren't meant to see him in this state. but he doesn't say anything. instead, he approaches the bar, along with his companions. they are all a mess, but not as much as him.

"good day, darling."

your stomach twists again, and you have to fight the urge to smile. you can't smile, not when everyone around you is terrified. you clear your throat, collecting any stray thoughts before speaking. "good day, sir."

"two rooms. and two bottles of whiskey waiting for me tonight." he says, a sweet smile on his lips.

"uh, yes-"

"there are no rooms available for you." your father interrupts, making his way to the bar.

the cowboy raises his eyebrow, then looks at your father. "oh?"

"yes. so i'm afraid you'll have to call it a day here."

the young man chuckles, eyes returning to your face. he throws a roll of money on the counter, then pushes is towards your father with his stained revolver. "don't be afraid, we won't."

you feel caged by his gaze, afraid to even move. why are you here, you wanted to ask. and why do you look like that. his clothes might look different, but the look on his face when he looks at you stays the same. in the corner of your eye, you notice someone trying to exit sneakily. but the cowboy also seems to catch it, because he points his trusted weapon toward the ceiling and-

"argh!" the woman screams, pure fear painted on her face.

"nobody leaves, until i get two fucking rooms and two bottles of whiskey. have i made myself clear?" he slams the revolver on the counter, causing you to jolt and step back. "now, if your pretty little daughter said that i can have them, just why the fuck are you meddling?"

defeated, your father takes the money, then nods your way. "show them."

alone?, you wanted to ask. but your tongue feels swollen, and your jaw heavy. you don't say anything. instead, you look at the fearsome cowboy, then proceed upstairs. the three of them follow, not uttering a word. you reach the rooms, opening the doors for them to see. the cowboy nods towards the room, sending them a signal to go in. when the two finally close the door, the dark haired man wastes no time in softly pinning you against the wall, just between the two doors.

"there, there. are you that scared of me, sunshine?"

you swear your eyes couldn't get any wider, and you hate it. you must look like a freak to him. but if you do, he doesn't show any disgust. he removes your hair from your neck once again, letting it fall down your back. his knuckles caress the now yellow spot on the neck, the bruise slowly healing.

his eyes shift from the bruise to your eyes, his gaze softening. "not excited to see me?"

you gulp, figuring which words to use. you are, and you are not. you don't even know.

"that's okay."

his other hand find its spot on the back of your head, slightly tilting it so that the injured side of the neck is more exposed. you feel his warm breath against your skin, growing hotter and closer. you finally let out a noise, it being a whimper rather than a proper word or sentence. soft lips graze your skin, before his tongue delicately swipes across your bruise. your stomach has never felt fuzzier, and your head is in the clouds. all those butterflies you felt while reading the newspaper have now turned into a volcano, waiting to erupt any second. the cowboy continues giving attention to your now sensitive neck, having you tremble in his arms.

he notices, putting his other hand on your waist and pushing you further into the wall, silently ordering you to stay still. he leans his own body into you, warm sensation enveloping you and causing you to moan into his ear.

realizing your horrible mistake, your hands quickly find their way to his firm chest, in an attempt to push him away. but instead, your fingers grip the fabric of his ruined leather jacket, and your head falls completely in his control. his hand massages your scalp, all while his tongue never leaves you. he switches from tender kisses, to kitten licks, and if he doesn't stop soon, you might just drip all over the floor and his shoes.

as if he heard you, he delivers one final kiss, before he pulls away. "i'll see you downstairs at dinner. thank you for the room, dove. and for the lunch."

hearing the door slam shut, you can finally breathe normally. you are left to tremble against the wall, your neck and underwear wet, all because of him. you rush to one of the empty rooms, at the end of the hallway. you lock it, then toss yourself on the bed. you waste no time in flipping your dress over, your fingers finding the soft folds between your legs. you gasp, more at the state of it than the feeling. you are soaked, your fingers almost slipping from your folds.

you spend a worrying amount of time trying to please yourself somehow, but the buildup is just growing and growing, not giving any signs of erupting soon. no matter how much you picture your handsome cowboy, just a few doors away.

and you don't even know his name.

"did he touch you?"

"what?!"

"i'm serious. did he do anything to you?"

"father-" since when do you care? "he didn't!"

he continues to follow you while you serve the guests, asking questions and demanding to know the truth. "did he say anything?"

"like?"

"anything."

"he asked for a prostitute and i said i'm available tonight."

smack.

nobody turns, already used to your father's free will. you bite the inside of your now stinging hot cheek, wishing for nothing more than to hit him with the bottle of gin you had in your hand.

"fucking slut. just like your mother. give me that." he yanks the tray from your hands, causing two glasses to fall and shatter. "pick that up, and go to the stables."

"but it's dinner time-"

"judith will help me. go. now."

not only do you end up not eating yourself, but you don't see the man whose lips you're still feeling on you. maybe that's why your father told you to leave, just so you don't see him. is it possible that he knows today isn't the first time you see the cowboy?

you search for his horse, the one you thought was the prettiest one you've seen. but it's not in the stable.

"it got shot. he had to put her down." slowly getting used to sudden intrusions, you turn around. one of his companions sit on a block of hay.

"oh." is all you manage to say.

"a shame, really. especially because she was a present from his wife."

"what?" you turn around, the bucket of carrots falling from your hands.

"ah, he didn't tell you? why would he. he wouldn't be able to get into your pants if you knew he was married. haven't you noticed something shiny on his finger?"

no, no you haven't. because you were so mesmerized by his face and behavior you didn't question whether he has someone waiting for him at home. besides, a married man wouldn't... touch you the way he did?

"ah, poor thing. you thought he had a thing for you? you don't compare to his wife. he's an outlaw after all, our yunho. his wife is a perfect match for him, almost a female version of him. did you know that the bounty on her head is higher than his?"

you feel like you could throw up. from multiple reasons. you let a married man touch you. hell, you touched yourself to a married man. not just an ordinary man, but an outlaw? what if his wife finds out? is she really that dangerous? will you be next on her victim list? not able to contain the emotions any longer, you run to the corner, bending over the blocks of hay and puking on the floor.

"ah, there, there. i'm quite surprised, that was the calmest reaction yet. other women tend to jump at his throat immediately."

other women? the ground sways under your feet, threatening to crumble and swallow you.

"since you're not in a state to speak, i'll answer all the questions in your head. have a seat, please."

you finally take a good look at the man once you sit down, seeing him stand up in front of you. he's no less handsome than the cowboy, yunho, and he is older. but the somewhat evil smirk on his face is off putting. you hold the now empty bucket in your lap, carrots laying on the ground for the horses to feast on. just in case you feel sick again.

"see, while yunho does love his dear wife, she can be a bit of a handful for him. too... dominant for him, one could say. so he seeks submissiveness in other women, just like you. women who are the opposite to lori, women who are, well, nothing. much like you."

his words shoot at your heart, and you know he is right. it just feels disappointing to hear it out loud. were you really a nothing?

"he sleeps with them and whatever, and kindly robs them while they sleep from exhaustion. the rest of us do the same with others, not to worry. it's rude to exclude, don't you think? you know, you should really pay more attention to that notice board next to your house. my head is the third one from the left, right under the mighty stallion."

"why would you tell me this? what's in it for you?"

"my, you speak! what's in it for me? nothing, if i'm being honest. i just happen to be aware of the treatment your father gives you, and i guess the years are starting to catch up to me. i think i feel pity."

"you're going to ask for something in return, aren't you?"

"clever girl, you are." he crouches in front of you, cupping your cheek and caressing it with his thumb. "give me what you wanted to give yunho."

"i didn't want to-"

"you think i'm dumb? like you? i know that if he had only asked you, you would've jumped in his bed right away. therefore, i tell you, give me what i ask."

"no."

the older man scoffs, then stands up again. his hand remains on your cheek, but his thumb stops caressing it. he removes it, only to bring it back with a slap. losing balance, you fall on the ground. the man doesn't give you any time to process what just happened, grabbing you by your shoulders and throwing you on the pile of hay. you open your mouth, letting out a scream that gets cut off by his lips on your mouth. they feel greasy, reeking of onion and beef, not remotely close to yunho's.

your hands are trapped above your head, his hand holding it in place while his other one struggles with the layers of your dress and apron. you kick, as fast and hard as you can, but you only manage to piss him off. he pulls away, only to spit in your face.

"i bet you wouldn't give yunho a hard time like this. why do all women have to be so difficult? all i want to do is make you feel good, baby."

tears stream down your face, words stuck in your throat. even though nothing is blocking your mouth anymore, you don't speak.

"you know, if you just let me... i'd get rid of your father for good. i could take you with me, i'd make you feel good any time you ask. i could-"

his words are left hanging in the air, and you feel hot liquid splash over your face. the shooting noise catches up to you right after the man's body falls on you, lifeless. you finally scream, lungs hurting from the amount of it. your hands fly to your face, wiping off the liquid and staring at it. red drips down your hands, onto your neck, pure terror filling your body as you realize you have someone's remains all over you. short and fast breaths leave your mouth, chest compressed under his heavy figure. it is not until another figure pulls him off you, and puts his hand over your mouth with hushing noises.

"it's alright, love." you recognize the voice as wyatt's, who then helps you up. "hey, you're fine."

you're not. you do not know who to trust. then again, when you don't trust your own father, why bother?

"let's get you washed."

after splashing your face with cold water and wiping it with his handkerchief, wyatt helps you to the back entrance of the saloon, then goes back to the stables. probably to finish the business.

you find yourself laying in the guest bed again, only this time, the sheets aren't wet from arousal, but from tears. you spend at least two hours, eyes fixed on the wooden ceiling . you feel dirty, still feeling his dirty hands all over you. your fingers hesitantly touch your face, afraid that you'll stain them red again. your dress and apron still have droplets of now brown liquid. is this what yunho does? is that why he looked the way he did when he entered the saloon? only the blood on his clothes was still red, still very fresh.

if what the dead man said was true, then you best stay out of the cowboy's way. and just like that, your secret little romance story has turned into a horror one.

the next few days, you don't see yunho much. you see the prostitutes coming down from the top floor, sometimes two or three of them at a time. and you are disgusted. you only see him at breakfast, from afar, and he doesn't show much interest in approaching you. his companions surround him, making the frown on his face bigger every day. were they discussing the strategy of robbing the town? was there something in their way?

for a split second, the man catches your gaze. his eyes soften, and you swear you could see a faint smile on his lips. but you couldn't return it. not when you know the intentions behind it. the soft look is replaced by confusion, which grows even bigger when you only spare him an ice cold glance and move on with your work.

saturday evening, the saloon is full. it is foggy, reeks of cigarettes and alcohol, and is loud. you don't see him or his crew yet, and you are thankful for it. at least one evening of peace. so far.

"it's kind of disappointing, you know? i mean, the sex is amazing. well, you know. you had him yesterday. but it's so sad that the town fears him and wants him dead. wouldn't mind having a piece of that every day. my body is burning, and it's been two days, but i still want more."

"i know, right? what a shame. i wish he'd stick around longer. i don't know about you, but i love that thrill of knowing that he's an outlaw. a wanted man, a gorgeous wanted man, having his way with me? i don't think anything will top that. i mean, did you see his-"

"another drink?" you interrupt, not able to listen anymore.

they giggle among each other before handing you the downed glasses. the saloon quiets down when they hear thuds coming from the stairs. you regret looking up, eyes immediately locking with familiar brown ones. everyone seems to watch their step, ready to get up and free a table if yunho desires it. oh, the amount of power he holds. that isn't supposed to make you feel some type of way. you're supposed to hate him.

but how, when he approaches you so politely, tucking that loose piece of hair that's been bothering you all evening behind your ear. such a simple gesture, which awakes the oceans in you, and probably means nothing to him. just a foreplay, before he finally cages you and fulfills his plans.

slowly, but surely, the music goes on. the people are relaxed once they see yunho doesn't have any thirst for blood tonight.

"gin."

"right away."

the night goes on, with you tending to everyone. and the cowboy follows you with his eyes, so much that the two women at the bar near him start throwing themselves at him just to get his attention.

"say, when are we going to have fun again?"

"yeah, stallion. did you forget us already?"

yunho chuckles, seeing you approach the other side of the bar and mouth their words with a mocking face. you hear him, raising your head enough to look at him. caught red handed, you only awkwardly press your lips in a thin line, continuing to wash the dirty glasses.

"you were never really ones to remember," yunho simply says, bringing the glass to his lips and downing the drink in one go.

he stands up, not sparing the women a glance even after they audibly gasp and start murmuring among each other. he approaches your father, saying something into his ear, then looks at you once again before disappearing upstairs.

"here," a clean washcloth lands on the bar counter by the end of the night.

"what?"

"that cowboy, stallion. he needs a bath."

"so? he can get his own washcloths. why do i need to- oh."

"yeah, oh. we haven't had a single man in a while, so there was no need for edith. now you can go fill her position."

great.

you knock on the door, and use the other hand to fix your hair before you hear him say come in. you do as told, two washcloths secure in your hand as you go deeper in the room. it takes everything in you to stand still not collapse from the sight. his clothes are carelessly dumped on the floor, and he lays still in the wooden basin filled with water. the place is steamy, the fireplace keeping the winter cold away. yunho has his arms hanging from the basin, and his head resting against the edge. the steam has caused his hair to stick to his face, which was shiny. droplets of sweat roll down his neck and into the water, and you think that is the most beautiful sight you've ever seen.

he is so manly, so handsome, and so...

"you gonna stand there and watch while i slowly cook myself into a stew here?"

he is fresh shaven, that is the first thing you notice when you approach him. he lazily opens his eyes, the hot water having relaxed his muscles a bit more than he wanted to. "right, sorry."

you wet one washcloth, then wrap it around a bar of soap. you haven't done this since... ever. yes, you helped wash your sick cousin. but she was sick, and it was different. this? having a whole man naked right in front of you, and you were supposed to touch him?

"go on. i don't bite. not unless you want to."

"i really don't." you murmur, finally pressing the soap against his hot skin.

you exhale, your heart threatening to escape from your chest and jump into the basin with the cowboy. a thin layer of fabric is all that is in the way of you finally feeling him the way you wanted. a fabric that could so easily just slip from your fingers, and you accidentally touch him. and he likes it. and he acts on it. and-

"i see you breaking your back down there. every day. with your father, with all those perverts, with all those jealous women. you deserve better. my offer still stands, you know?"

"i'm fine," you say, just like last time.

"give yourself some time to think."

the next half hour is quiet. peaceful sounds of the wood cracking, water dripping, and yunho's calm breathing. his eyes are locked on you, and you are sweating as much as him, only for different reasons. you fear that he can read your mind, figure out just how naughty the images in your head are getting. but when it gets to a certain point, you are reminded of that night, and you stop. that bastard has stolen your first kiss, and almost stole your first time. if anything, you are thankful that yunho has brought wyatt with him.

"uh... can you sit up straight?"

yunho raises an eyebrow, amused. you clear your throat when he doesn't move, looking around before finally figuring it out.

"could you sit up straight, sir? please?"

"right away, darling."

he does as asked, exposing his back to you. heavens, you want to- you want to- you don't even know what you want. there he sits, a whole meal right in front of you, and all you can do is breathe heavily and act all clumsy. you rub the soap on his back, gently massaging him and feeling every line on his body.

"you missed a spot."

"huh?"

"right here." his warm hand takes your wrist, guiding you towards his chest once again. your hand rests over his beating heart, and if you weren't so foolishly focused on seeing what the missed spot was, you would've seen the look on his face that is yelling to kiss him.

"oh, sorry."

he doesn't get angry. instead, he chuckles fondly. you are so delicate and innocent, it hurts him. too mesmerized by your focused face, he doesn't notice that your hand is traveling to his stomach. he jolts, hand clasping your wrist so tight that it has you whimper. you seem to have found a sensitive spot, not only to the body, but to the mind and heart. the look on his face shifts from a soft to an angry one, and you take it as your cue to step back.

"that's all. you can go." he mutters, looking away from you.

"but-"

"i'll finish up. go."

coming back to the stables, it takes a lot of energy. you first go during the day, with jongho. he knew, wyatt told him. the rest only knew that wyatt and the man got into a fight and wyatt had to shoot him. jongho is understanding, kind, and doesn't seem to share any of the qualities that the dead man had given them. not only is he not interested in doing any harm to the town and its people, but he is rather helpful.

yunho, again, is nowhere to be seen. you hesitate to ask. you don't know what you did wrong, but you pray that the night isn't your last encounter with him.

you stand in front of the stables, memories flooding your brain once you see the hay blocks. they have been rearranged, some destroyed, possibly by jongho or wyatt. the horses are sitting together in the corner, enjoying the warmth of each other during the first snowy day.

"i can't do it."

"that's alright. i won't force you. i just don't want one sick man to keep haunting you even when he's no longer here."

"i need time."

jongho only smiles reassuringly, patting your shoulder. he's nice, why doesn't your stomach toss and turn when you see him the way it does when you see yunho?

"i still wonder what he told you about yunho. your behaviour towards him isn't at all like he described it."

"what, he spoke to you about me?"

wyatt subtly kicks his knee from the side, ordering him to stop. but jongho feels rather mischievous today, and is growing annoyed of his leader. they were supposed to move on days ago, not behave like tourists.

"you first. i want to know why you despise him. well, except obvious reasons." the young man turns around, pointing at their companions scattered in the main street, keeping people away and scared.

you sit on the bench in front of the stable, running your hands through your already messy hair before finding the right words to say. "is he married?"

the two men look at each other, their faces not giving you much of an answer. they are extremely good at masking their emotions. wyatt sighs, sitting down to your right. "yes. and no."

"what do you mean? yes or no?"

"well, it's complicated." jongho says, sitting to your left.

"it's also not our story to tell," wyatt adds, looking over at jongho with a warning look, "yunho is the one that should be telling you."

you scoff, making both men look at you in confusion. "does it matter? he'll just sleep with me, you all will do your part of the job, and then you'll leave. i should do it as soon as possible, for both of our sakes. i imagine you can't wait to leave this town, just like we can't wait for you to leave."

"listen, if yunho wanted to harm you, he would. we never stay in one place longer than three days. we've been here far longer, as you can see. i don't know the reason yet, but i know he doesn't mean any harm. did he have a change of heart? doubt it. will he continue his crimes? i don't doubt that. is there something holding him here? yes, yes there is. i might have a guess, but-"

"jongho. shut the fuck up."

"i wasn't going to tell her, wyatt, relax."

the two men bicker over you, random words and sentences traveling to your ears and overstimulating your brain. you start feeling dizzy, suddenly overwhelmed by everything. you stand up and march down the street, leaving the two men to feel bad on the bench.

the next time you go to the stables, it is night again. and it is because your father throws a glass at you. it hits the wall right next to you, breaking, shards flying into your skin. you have nowhere to go, yunho's companions basically running the town by now. you don't need one of them to get a hold of you again. you sit on the new pile of hay, far in the corner. sobbing, pulling at your hair, cursing yourself.

how wise would it be to actually take his offer? would you be able to survive on your own? or would every single man in town finally be happy that you're all alone, unprotected, and out of someone's cage.

it hurts to even think about it, and it causes you to sob even more. your chest hurts, and after what seems like hours of crying, you aren't sure if it's from physical or emotional pain.

the animals seem to feel sorry for you, because soon enough two horses find their comfort in the hay right next to you, shielding your figure from the outside world. you can't help but laugh at the bigger one, his head pushing into your lap and demanding attention.

"aren't you cute?"

your fingers gently caress its neck, lulling it to sleep. it seems like the whole stable was affected, because soon enough they all start laying down one by one, calling it an early night and pulling you to sleep with them. funny how you got way more peace and affection from animals than your own family.

"moonshine."

click. click. click.

"come on, girl."

the warm surface you were laying on moves, following the mouth clicking noises and leaving your head to rest on the hay. you're still asleep, not aware that someone else has joined you in the stable. but the other person isn't aware that you're there either.

"there's my good girl," the man pets the black stallion, which lives up to its name and stands under the moonlight, in its full glory and shine. "aren't you beautiful?"

your eyes peel open, the voice slowly waking you up. you hear crunching, and a bucket rattling. when you finally open your eyes, you see the outline of the familiar figure at the entrance. it is not yet morning, that you figure out by the darkness that has swallowed the place. the only light being the gas lantern hanging from the saloons entrance, you don't see much. but you recognize that hat and figure anywhere.

"i wish you could speak, my pretty moonshine. you'd tell me why blood was spilled, and why my pretty girl won't lay her eyes on me anymore."

his...? his pretty girl? you don't move a muscle, hoping to hear more. the mare only points its head towards the bucket, demanding more food. yunho chuckles, reaching for another apple.

"do you think i scared her away? i made sure she knows i don't mean any harm to her. did someone fill her pretty head with something?"

the mare lets out a noise, as if wanting to confirm. yunho exhales, then sets the bucket aside. he goes further into the stable, walking just past you and grabs the saddle from the corner. going back, his boot gets caught in your dress, and causes him to halt. you shut your eyes, pretending to still sleep.

"heavens." he exhales.

you feel him get closer to you, and almost betray yourself when you feel his knuckles caress your face.

"darling?"

his voice is usually low and pleasant, but hearing him whisper is just something else. why does he have to be so perfect, yet so dangerous?

you stretch, pretending to not notice him yet. finally opening your eyes, you fake a gasp. you lean back into the hay, trying to keep a distance from him. he crouches in front of you, fixing his hat. you can't get over how well it suits him.

"had a good nap?"

"well, yes. had." you mumble, rubbing your eyes.

"that's no place to sleep, dove."

"it's the only place that gives me comfort right now."

he nods, understandingly. he offers you his hand to take, and you only look at him, puzzled.

"i'll take you to a place that will give you more comfort."

"i'm not sure-"

"that wasn't a question." the tone is serious, but the wink he gives you after it relaxes you.

the cowboy stands up, making his way to his mare. you stand up, dusting off your dress and following him. he puts the saddle on the horse, securing it, then offers you his hand again. this time you take it, not yet sure what he had in mind.

"go on, climb her."

"uh... she's quite... bigger than the last one. or any other one i rode on."

"yeah, moonshine is quite something. she's gentle though, nothing to worry about. go on, don't be shy."

with a bit of struggle, and a little push from yunho, you finally sit comfortably on the tall mare. she indeed shines under the moon, black fur reflecting beautifully in the dark night. yunho climbs behind you, taking the leash in his hands and guiding the mare down the street.

"is she fast?"

"she can be. want to see?"

"i don't know. i might scream."

he chuckles. he maintains the pace, gracefully trotting down the quiet sleepy town. you see some of his companions keeping watch, each nodding their heads your way as you pass them. your gaze falls on his hands, searching for the shiny item that was mentioned that night. but you don't see it. was it really a lie? or did yunho somehow know, and took it off? is the wife even real?

"hold on tight." he whispers into your ear, hot breath brushing your neck and cheek.

you grab onto his thighs, instinctively, right before you pass the last house and yunho whips the leash against the mare. it neighs, puts its two front legs up in the air and almost throws you on the grown. you gasp, but manage to collect yourself once the animal returns to its position and starts galloping. it feels like you're flying, and you're enjoying it more than you're scared of it. your hair flies into his face probably, but he doesn't say anything.

you pass hills, past the river where you first saw the man, and into the mountains. you don't remember the last time you went this far outside of town. not only because you weren't allowed, but you had no time or way. it's not as if you had a horse of your own.

his thighs are firm under your hands, nothing but pure muscle. and it suddenly drives you crazy, the way you feel his torso pressed against your back, arms holding the leash and keeping you from falling off along the way, his breath against your ear.

"you alright?"

"yes!"

"how do you feel? scared?"

"this is so much fun! it's scary and fun!"

his laugh is loud over the wind, chest vibrating behind you. the mare slows its pace when arriving on the steep mountain trails, carefully navigating to the top. once there, it comes to a halt. it is not very high, but high enough too overlook the fields, the river, and the distant town. yunho dismounts, then helps you down.

"cold?" he asks, noticing your trembling frame.

"a bit."

this time, he doesn't throw the spare jacket at you like the first time you met. he takes off his own, helping you put it on. it's warm, smells like him, and it's making you so dizzy you might just fall off the cliff. taking a good look at him, you decide that even if he is dangerous, his handsomeness makes up for it. he wears a brown waistcoat, accentuating his thin waist and broad shoulders. heavens, he is so dashing.

you stand still, waiting for his next plan. he pulls a blanket out of the saddlebag, along with the familiar white cloth, and sets it on the ground. the mare continues it's path further up, taking a spot near a boulder, as if used to the situation already. which brings you back to the questions in your head; did he bring other women here?

"sit down, peach. make yourself comfortable."

and you do, right next to him. you both sit still for a few moments, looking at the faint light in the distance. yunho then fidgets with something in the pocket of his jeans, before holding it out for you to take. in his open palm lays a ring, the very ring you've heard about and had your head spinning for days.

"hmph," he laughs through his nose, "figured that was the issue."

"there is no issue. you have a wife. end of story."

"take it."

"no."

"take it."

"i don't want to."

yunho sighs, then closes his hand again. he sits still for a few moments, as if thinking. and then-

"why would you do that?!"

you stand up, watching the shiny piece of jewelry fall from the cliff.

"if you listened and took it, you would've seen how worthless it is."

"i don't need your wedding ring, yunho."

his eyebrows are knit together, and you suddenly realize your mistake.

"you know my name."

"yeah."

"how?"

and you tell him. every detail of it, including the wife story. he listens carefully, face not giving any emotion. typical. by the time you finish, you are laying down and looking up at the shiny sky, tears streaming down your face. yunho is propped up on his elbow, laying on the side and listening. his fingers catch a fresh tear, brushing your cheek in the process. you are left completely baffled when he puts the very same fingers on his lips, tongue peeking out to lick the salty liquid.

"you poor thing." he coos, bringing his hand back to you. he removes the hair from your neck, then smiles with satisfaction once he sees your healed skin. "that's good. seems my medical techniques worked."

you scoff, putting your hair back over your neck with embarrassment. "so, uh... your wife?"

"a psycho."

"oh."

"she stabbed me. almost bled out to death if it weren't for jongho."

he says it so casually, as if it isn't a big deal. "you're still married though, right? that's why you had the ring."

"not quite. we weren't really married. it was just play pretend, so she could have half of everything i was bringing back. once i stopped, the bitch jumped me with a knife. barely made it out alive."

"then... why did you keep it?"

"to keep women away from me. well, those i didn't want."

"but you sleep with them. you use them anyway."

he frowns at the accusation. "no, no i don't. i only rob. i sleep only with prostitues, sometimes. what my companions do is none of my business. we have a deal, and i do not ask about what they do. just like they don't ask about me or what i do."

so, not all of it is true. but then again, can you really trust him?

"i'm so sorry, dove. if i knew that sick bastard would go behind my back, even after threatening them not to touch you-"

"it's fine. nothing happened." you try, seeing him get angrier with every second he spends imagining the situation you were in.

"he stole your first kiss."

"well, yes. but, what's done is done. it was barely a kiss, really. more like mouth to mouth breathing. it was like inhaling a whole onion." you say with a laugh, trying to lighten the mood. but yunho doesn't laugh. instead, he unbuttons his waistcoat, then his shirt.

"what- what are you doing?"

"well, since you showed me your bruises, and told me your story, it would only be fair that i showed you mine."

you remember the night you washed him, when you went to touch his stomach and he told you to leave. kneeling in front of him, you finally get to see why. a scar decorates his lower torso, just above the jeans and the v-line. you breathe in, ready to do something you would only in your dreams.

you lean in, hands trembling against the blanket and fingers scrunching it from the nervous state you're in. yunho shivers, feeling your lips press against his scar. you don't stop there, inspired by his own actions. you allow your tongue to graze it, and when you get another gasp from him, you take it as a sign to keep going. his hand finds its place under your chin, raising your head to that you can look at him. and he snaps.

he grabs you by your waist, pulling you up so that you sit in his lap. you don't fight back, you're enjoying it. over the layers of the dress, you feel something poking you, and it makes your cheeks heat up.

"stop looking at me like that." he whispers, lips inches away from yours.

"like what?"

"with those big eyes. like you want me to ravish you right here."

"maybe i do."

"you're saying risky things, sugar."

seeing that he doesn't intend on making the first move, you do. you close the distance, pressing your lips against his. you don't know what you're doing, but try your best. luckily, he gives in, humming into your lips and kissing you properly. his hands on your waist scrunch the fabric of your dress as he contains himself from just pushing you below him and having you his way. he needs to take it slow. you're not like others.

"relax your jaw." he mumbles, and when you do, he allows his tongue to touch your lips, as if asking for permission to enter. and you grant it, parting your lips and unsurely letting your tongue join his.

he massages your muscle with his own skilled one, rubbing it just right and making your thighs rub and seek pleasure. he kisses you slow, and deep, each stroke of his tongue more passionate than the previous one. he feels you get annoyed by something, and is forced to stop.

"what is it?"

"as much as i love your hat, it's in the way."

the man chuckles below you, immediately removing the hat and putting it on your head. "there."

"how do i look?" you adjust it, getting used to the new item.

"like a feast."

with a swift move, yunho pulls your body closer to his face, so that it is between your legs. his hands shuffle through the layers of fabric, finally finding the undergarment and pushing it aside. "what are you doing? i'm going to squish you!"

"sit."

"what?!"

"sit."

you hover above him, not yet listening. this time, he is the one to get annoyed, and puts his hands on your bottom. he slams you against his face, tongue immediately licking a stripe up your already slick folds. you gasp, hand flying to his shoulders for support.

"rock your hips, sunshine. make yourself feel good."

you do as told, rocking your hips back and forth on his tongue, soft moans and gasps leaving your mouth. you tremble in his hands, the newfound pleasure too much for you to handle. "i can't- yunho, it's too much-"

the man only sends you a mischievous look, before taking the situation into his own hands. his plush lips close around your clit, sucking it, while the tip of his tongue teases the tip of your clit. you let out a long and loud moan, body shuddering from the surge of intense pleasure.

"fuuuck-" you whine, hips hopelessly grinding against his tongue.

deciding it's enough, yunho flips you underneath him with a swift motion. "do you want to do this?"

"yes, please."

"then, i'll have to prepare you. since you asked so nicely."

he flips your dress over, exposing your wet bottom to the cool air. you shiver again, his jacket not helping much with the cold.

"this is going to hurt a little. i promise i'll be gentle."

you nod, then go back to abusing the poor blanket underneath you. you bite into it, feeling his long digits intrude your tight walls. it is unpleasant, but not that painful.

"that's a good girl. you're so wet for me, look how easily you're taking me."

he starts pumping in and out, squelching noises having you completely lose your mind and almost drool on the blanket. his fingers are long, very long. how will you survive his-?

"this good, darling?"

"yes."

"yes, what?"

"yes, sir." you moan out, hips moving along with his hand in hopes of more pleasure.

he doesn't speed up. being soft and slow seems to be his way of doing it, and it is a pace you are enjoying very much. it's not fast, like you do it. you do it to get rid of it. he does it for actual pleasure. when he removes his fingers, you can't help but whine at the loss of contact. he turns you around so that you lay on your back, facing him. his hair is a mess, much like yours, and he smiles lazily at you.

"my needy girl." he coos, pressing a kiss to your lips. "can i claim you, sweet thing?"

"what?"

"do you wish to be mine?"

do you? or is it just the horny speaking instead of you? either way, you might end up regretting. so you simply say:

"yes, sir."

"say my name, darling." he pulls himself out of his jeans, the tip of his cock running circles on your sensitive clit.

"yunho."

he hums, slipping his tip past your folds. "again."

"yunho," you gasp, feeling him inch by inch splitting you in half.

"again."

"yunho-"

"more."

"yunho," thrust, "yunho," thrust, "yunho!"

he gets lost in the feeling of your tight warm walls, hips snapping deep inside of you and driving you crazy. you get wetter by the second, even more when you see him so dizzy. it's nice to know that you have him in a chokehold as much as he has you.

"does it hurt?"

"no," you reply.

"that's because you're so perfectly made for me. look at you, you fit in the palm of my hand."

that's not true, obviously. but the way he says it makes you really feel that you could fit, and that you could stay protected there. his hips collide with yours, and your eyes roll back.

"such a pretty pussy," he growls, pace getting sloppier and slower. "wish i could do this all night long."

"me too," you moan.

his hands rip your dress apart, exposing your chest. his lips waste no time in attaching to your skin, leaving bite marks all over it, until reaching the tense nipples. he takes one in his mouth, tongue swirling around it, while his other hand plays with the other. your fingers find comfort in pulling his hair, subconsciously pushing his head into you further.

"my sweet peach," he coos, cock sliding in and out so easily, "my pretty girl."

"so sweet"

"even your moans are so beautiful"

"use me for your pleasure, darling"

you find yourself moving your hips along with his, only in a faster pace. you need to finally feel that orgasm. you feel something build up in the bottom of your stomach, and you're not sure what to do.

"yunho..."

"yes, my love?"

"i don't know how to- how to orgasm."

"you'll feel it. don't think about it. just relax, and let your body do it. let me do it."

you feel the buildup, then you lose it. again, and again, until you whine about it. yunho turns you around again, so that you are sitting on his lap. you feel him deep in your stomach, almost pulsating.

"let's try this."

he helps you up and down, rolls your hips, until he finds what works for you. you hover above him, hopelessly biting into his neck to contain your inappropriate noises. his hips snap into yours with a fast pace, finally hitting the spot you didn't know existed. the buildup starts again, this time not stopping. and when pleasure washes you over, you can't help but pull at yunho's hair mercilessly, moaning into his ear and letting yourself completely go. he helps you ride it out, waves of intense pleasure washing over you as yunho helps himself get closer.

"fuck, darling." he growls, pulling out of you.

"wait, what about you?"

"i'll just- i don't know."

his hand wraps around his cock, which is ready to unleash any moment. the man almost audibly gasps when he sees you kneel in front of him, innocently opening your mouth and sticking your tongue out. just how did you know?

"are you sure?"

"positive."

"absolutely sure?"

"yunho?"

"yes?"

"please cum in my mouth."

and it's all it takes. yunho jerks himself on your tongue, or at least tries to. some of it ends up on your face, but you so carefully try to collect every single drop he gives you. you don't miss the way his head falls back, eyes rolling and low moans escaping his pretty lips. coming down from his high with one last pump and moan, he finally looks at you. the texture on your tongue is not the most pleasant one, but you decide to impress him further, and swallow it. he scoffs in disbelief, running a hand through his hair.

"you are just perfect, aren't you?"

in the morning, the ride back is much more comfortable. you still wear his hat, proudly, and his jacket. he can't help but kiss your shoulder as you ride, having it difficult enough to keep his hands off you. if only he could hold you in his pocket all day.

upon entering the town, you notice the people, your people, standing and waiting. would now be the right time to tell yunho you accept his offer?

he helps you dismount, before taking the revolver in his hand.

"what's this? a rebellion?" he says, mockingly.

"does she know?" your father asks, pointing at you.

you scrunch your eyebrows, looking between the two men. something shines in your fathers hand, and you realize he also holds a revolver.

"there is nothing to know." yunho replies, approaching him and standing in front of you. "you keep your mouth shut."

"oh, but there is. see, my little daughter, if you want to whore around, you could've picked anyone from the town. not your own mother's killer."

blood runs cold in your veins. the sun suddenly doesn't shine as bright anymore, and the man in front of you morphs into someone else. he turns around towards you, shaking his head. "no..."

"he shot her."

"you shot my father!"

"he deserved it!"

"no, the fuck he didn't!"

you step back, tears burning your eyes. did you really give yourself to the man who took your mother away from you? who also took your father away from you?

"listen-" yunho tries, hands reaching to touch you.

"don't touch me."

"he came here to finish the business. but he didn't count that he would fall for the daughter. what a clash of interests."

he doesn't deny it. and it only infuriates you more. so he did have an evil plan after all.

"you came for me, didn't you?" your father presses further, raising his revolver.

"no, i didn't." yunho replies, face changing from a guilty and sorry one to a neutral. "i came for her."

he grabs you by your shoulders, putting his hand over your mouth. you toss, scream, and whatnot, but what are you compared to his grip?

"i assume you won't care much if i took her away. but it would mean much to me. tit for tat."

"you are to never step foot into this town again. not you, not your companions."

yunho nods. and your father puts his weapon away. and it crashes your heart. you know you don't mean much to him, but to give you to an outlaw so easily?

"i came for what i wanted, not to worry. you won't see me ever again."

and just like that, you find yourself tied up and tossed over the black mare.

why did you ever wish for a life other than the one you had?

"you're all mine now, sunshine."

feedback greatly appreciated! <3

2K notes · View notes

anashins · 7 months

Text

King of the Streets

Pairing: street racer!Jaehyun x journalist!reader

Genre: street racing au, action, drama, romance, slow burn, smut

Word Count: 28k (I just can't write short stories, I'm sorry)

Summary: The moment you find yourself hiding in the backseat of a sports car that's illegally racing through the city, you just know this story will finally catapult you to the top of your journalism career. But there are a few things you haven't reckoned: How personal this story will eventually turn - and the driver's sheer insatiable craving for lollipops. And for you.

A/N: I started this after Jaehyun admitted he would have liked to become an F1 racer if the idol-path wouldn't have worked out for him. I spiraled and this is the outcome - I hope you have fun reading it as much as I had writing it!

“It’s been three years since I’ve started working here, and-”

“Unfortunately, this doesn’t matter, miss.”

For an entire week, you had prepared yourself for this meeting with your editor-in-chief. You had written down all your achievements from when you were an intern to your current position.

And he had the nerve to tell you it all didn’t matter?

It had been three very long years with too many nights spent in the office to meet a deadline you were not responsible for, trips all across the country on your own account for stories that hadn’t even made it into the magazine, and work meetings where no one had bothered listening to your ideas and input.

After all the hard work and sleepless hours you had poured into your dedicated passion, it was unfathomable to you how he didn’t even bother bringing up the slightest interest in what you had to say, and it showed all over face in the form of widened eyes and slightly parted lips.

“Others have started prior to you and they’re in the exact same position,” your chief editor said, swaying in his chair. The city’s skyline spread behind him like a painting as the sun was setting, and more than once had you already imagined yourself in that spot. “What makes you think you’re better than any of them?”

An imaginary note popped up in your head. You got this, you were prepared for this. “I’m one of the firsts to go and one of the last to leave, I wrote the most clicked article on our website - to this day. I offer input to everyone who hasn’t got something going on, my personal and professional network that I’ve built throughout the past years is wide and strong. I’m the first one to take on suggested topics, the number of articles I publish per month is the highest out of all editors, I’m always up-to-date, I live for this job.”

The middle-aged man leaned forward and propped his elbows against the glass table, inspecting you thoroughly while you were bracing yourself to elaborate every bullet point. But he only said,

“No, I don’t think so.”

You were flabbergasted. “Pardon me?”

“I don’t think you actually live for this job,” he explained calmly. “For that, it takes more than research and cranking out as many articles as possible just because your writing is good. It is, trust me, but the stories lack emotion and graspable actions. Right now, you’re only sitting in front of the computer, writing from your imagination. You don’t live the stories, you’re not in them.”

“I take trips across the country to attend events, I participate in every press conference possible, I-”

Again, he interrupted you, “Hara got in contact with a designer and walked for his show as an amateur model. Dal went to the rooftop of the highest building in this city and took pictures that even made it into television.”

“But that is illegal,” you commented. “Hara smuggled herself in when one of the models fell sick and Dal nearly got caught by the police.”

“And we would’ve bailed for all of them.” He sighed deeply as if annoyed by repeating himself. “See, this is what I’m trying to say, miss. The writing that you’re delivering is clean and conformable to law. When I read your articles, I’m well informed, but nothing sticks in my head. We’re a magazine, not a newspaper. Nobody wants to read about the opening of a new restaurant when they can read about things they will never be able to experience themselves. You have to dive in the story, be in the story to make people believe they’re in them too when they read it.”

You were quite taken aback as you noticed he remained polite when all he wanted to say was, “So, my stories are too boring, not sensational.”

The editor-in-chief let out another long sigh and fell back into his chair. “You have a trademark, but you have to get out of your secure shell to actually go somewhere, otherwise you’re going to get stuck.”

You were a goody two-shoes was what he tried to tell you. You were on the top when it was about writing, grammar and quantity, but your stories didn’t attract anyone’s interest, and if that wasn’t the case, then you could write as many perfect articles as you wanted - you would never get a higher position.

You inhaled deeply. “So, what do you suggest I’d do?”

His answer was clear, “Look for a story that will change lives. Write a story that will leave people breathless, and you’re getting the position of a senior editor. Because miss, you’re one of the most capable journalists here, but you don’t only need to be capable, you need to be a storyteller. If you can do this, propose the topic to me next week. If it’s what I expected, it will make headlines in the next issue and secure your new position.”

If only it were so easy.

____

You were sitting in the fast food restaurant with your notebook opened in front of you. Every single page was blank even though you had been there for several hours already, the ballpen in your hand having barely moved ever since.

“Do you want to order something else?”

“I’m good, thank you.”

You could only imagine the eyeroll the waitress let out when she turned away from you after not getting another order for two hours. But you were already short of cash this month and wouldn’t get paid for another week.

Another reason why you needed the senior position: as a regular editor, you could barely get by. Why were journalists underpaid anyway when they were the source of daily news and this connected the world? You had never understood.

Many ideas had flown into your head, from working a day in a job that was notorious to interviewing an infamous inmate, but none of these were exciting or extraordinary enough like it was expected of you. The topics that you came up with didn’t immediately peak interest when you researched about what your fellow editors had ever written about. And what you found left you nearly speechless and doubting yourself.

Yes, you had always been tame, reserved, a goody two-shoes. That was why your mind was also not expanding to the way it was expected of reporters. Perhaps, you were not made for this job as you could also not quite learn how to do it right.

Should you perhaps change to newspapers after all? But the open positions were always so rare and you had wanted to start at your current magazine because it was the most famous in the country…

“Where are you going after this?”

“I’m going to watch the race, Falcon against Antelope!”

“They’re set for tonight? I didn’t know!”

“Pscht, not so loud!”

Since you already lost focus and let other people’s voices into your mind, you could also pack your things and go home. You were already so done for the day.

“Can I come with you? It’s been so long since the last time I went.”

“Sure. They’ll start at midnight, so we have to hurry.”

You zipped up your handbag and threw a few bills on the table, already with one arm up the sleeve of your jacket when you perked up your ears.

“Falcon will make a comeback, so tonight there will be a lot of cash flowing!”

“Wow!”

You cleared up your throat and walked up to the two young women on the nearby table whose conversation you had been partially involuntarily listening to for the last minute. Despite your attention only shifting to them much later, you got the gist of the entire story.

It was about illegal street racing, you had read an article about it a few months ago in which the alias Falcon had also been mentioned along with another animal that you had forgotten.

The Falcon was only stuck in your mind, because there had been an accident caused by him, and ever since then, the police were paying even more attention to these kinds of illegal activities. The fact that there would be a race tonight must be a well hidden secret.

“Excuse me, I overheard you’re also going to watch the race?” you feigned knowledge and quickly made up a story that would get them to talk. “Can you tell me where exactly they’ll start? I was going to meet my friend here who’s got all the info, but she’s not arrived yet and I’m afraid I’m gonna be late.”

They looked at you in wonder, then in amazement. One of them, apparently the better informed one, then nodded eagerly before describing the exact spot to you. “I guess it’s going to be quite full since it’s the first one with Falcon since the… incident. So everyone wants to see him. They’ll start at the industrial park at midnight.”

You nodded. “Thank you. Maybe we’ll see each other there.” You waited a bit until they had left the restaurant and then pondered whether to join or not.

There had already been many articles written about the Falcon and street racing in common, but since the most controversial racer would make a comeback, this race would be a special one, perhaps even kept secret to a point where no other media outlet knew about it. There was a slim chance that you were going to be the only reporter, so regardless of your current struggles, you had to take this opportunity.

Yes, an article about the Falcon’s comeback was good, but that was by far not enough for the story of your lifetime. It was better than nothing though, a beginning. And who knew what could come out of it.

As a journalist, you had learned that you were better off going and had something expected to write about rather than not going and missing on unexpected happenings.

So you headed to the industrial park.

____

When you arrived at the destination, you spotted a crowd that had formed in a wide, clear space between two buildings. There were about fifty spectators that had gathered, divided into different groups of various sizes, lights coming from the street lamps all around the place.

Through the gaps between the cliques that all seemed too engaged with each other to notice how lost you were, you discovered a group of men that marked themselves off everyone else.

It wasn’t particularly the way they were dressed as they all wore black leather, but rather the presence they radiated. But you couldn’t deny the fact that all of them were equally overly handsome, just in a way you wouldn’t be drawn to. You weren’t intimidated, you were scared to the bones, and you immediately wanted to turn on your heels and run right back home.

You weren’t much informed about the topic of illegal street racing aside from the few articles you had read. You only knew that it was one of the most dangerous underground activities that had cost a few lives already, of drivers and passerbyers almost equally. It was macabre that articles like these gained the most attention, clicks and sales.

Although you weren’t quite passionate about this kind of topic let alone approved of it, it was the best that you could come up with for now. You wanted to prove to your editor-in-chief that you were willing to take risks, willing to leave your comfort zone for the job - even if this wasn’t going to be the final story.

But now that you were right in the middle of this happening, you were getting cold feet. This wasn’t right. If you were caught as a spectator, would the police detain you too? And would your boss truly bail you out?

“Place your bet!”

You flinched when a young man popped up right next to you with a tablet in his hand, looking at you with expectant eyes.

“Pardon?”

“Place your bet!” he repeated. “Falcon against Antelope.”

“Oh, I only came to watch,” you waved aside. “But thank you!”

“You’re here for the first time, am I right?” The guy’s eyes narrowed. “Place. Your. Bet. This is how we’re financing this all. No money, no races.”

This wasn’t a question anymore, this was a demand, and you figured that if you were going to remain undercover, you had to play along and pretend to be like everyone else, even though you didn’t know the rules to this game. The guy was scanning you from head to toe, and it took you everything to restrain yourself from shaking when you took the tablet into your hands.

You had changed your mind entirely by now. You just wanted to be out of here as fast as possible, no matter what the editor-in-chief might say about this lost opportunity. It just wasn’t worth all this stress and fear. After all, you were quite attached to your life and a clear criminal report. It wasn’t that bad to be a goody two-shoes.

Still, you had to place a bet before you could vanish so that the guy would stop bothering you, so you scanned the display laying in your palms.

There were two columns, one belonged to the Falcon, the other to the Antelope. Each column was divided into different cells with the name and the amount of money one betted. No one had placed a single bet on the Falcon.

What was there to lose when the money would be gone from you one way or another since you were going to leave right after this anyway? You wouldn’t win a single penny.

So you placed a fake name and 70.000 Won for the Falcon, which was ironically the lowest bid for the Antelope. You noticed that most of the other people had betted much more, making you wonder about the total amount the winner could collect. But 70.000 Won was already very much for you, so you stuck with that.

“The Falcon, huh?” The guy grinned. “Risky, but I like the way you think. We only accept cash. Today it’s 20 million won so far for the winner, and ten percent of it gets split between the right betters depending on their bets. Maybe you’re lucky tonight and win ten percent of the entire amount yourself.”

You were holding yourself back letting out an audible gasp as it truly sounded tempting, and instead reached into your bag and pulled out your purse. 70.000 Won was a small price for your life, and you couldn’t wait to finally leave and never turn back. How high were the chances the Falcon was going to win anyway when nobody believed he would?

The guy grinned when he collected your money. “Interesting. It’s going to be an interesting race today. Good luck!”

He then went on to bother someone else all while you checked your surroundings for a hidden, but secure exit. Since you had used a fake name and only one person had seen your real face up close, it would be easy getting away unnoticed.

And you did.

Sliding along the buildings with your back pressed into the outer walls, nobody paid attention to you since the race was about to begin and a turmoil broke out shortly after your bet. You had been weighing yourself in safety, currently hiding in a blind, dark spot in the entrance of a different building with the street to freedom in sight when you suddenly heard male voices speaking up.

“Ready, Jaehyun?”

“More than you are.”

You froze on the spot when you saw several tall figures coming in your direction, their bodies illuminated by the street lamps, and you recognized the intimidating men dressed all in black leather who had been right in the middle of the crowd shortly before.

You couldn’t go back or forth, because either side was illuminated and would set the spotlight right on you, and flight forward would mean running directly into their arms. You could only push the door to the building behind you open and…

You found yourself standing in some kind of huge factory hall where only two cars were parked, the rest was entirely empty. Who in their right mind would rent a whole factory building for only two cars? Yes, they were expensive sports cars from what you could tell, the kind of ones that would catch everyone’s attention on the streets because of how luxurious and tuned they were… but an entire hall?

You were still processing and connecting all of this new information when the same door through which you had entered got pushed open again, and in walked all men that you had run from shortly before.

Your heart suddenly lept, and you feared that this was what a heart attack might feel like, yet you were very much still alive as you were able to desperately look for a spot to hide again while they hadn’t discovered your presence yet, but lingered by the entrance with the focus on two of them talking.

Out of reflex, as one of them turned into your direction, you fell to your knees and hid behind one of the cars - the matte black one -, suppressing a gasp the moment this exact car unlocked with a sound and flash from afar.

“I’m not afraid of you. I pity you.”

You needed a new spot to remain hidden with footsteps approaching this vehicle. Right now.

“And why would that be, Jaehyun?”

You had to think of something safe, but there was barely time anymore.

“Because you’re going to lose the race today.”

No way in hell.

There was no way in hell these were the racing cars! But of course, now everything made sense as to why those cars were being kept here, you just had been in too much of a panic to have connected the dots.

How you found yourself inside that matte, black car at this moment of realization, you couldn’t tell. Just like you couldn’t tell how you could have hoped to get out of this situation unnoticed all while hiding in a crouching position in the backseat with the only way to escape being visibly passing by these men.

If only you had stayed behind the car or under the car if you were to be discovered anyway, you could have somehow talked yourself out of this situation. But how were you going to explain you had actually sneaked into a racing vehicle? Out of all the dumb things you had ever done, this made it to the top of your list.

You flinched and threw yourself down into the small legroom between the driver’s seat and backseat, when you heard the door in front of you open and a figure seated himself behind the steering wheel.

No way this was your situation now!

Everything was better than ending up inside one of these cars, hearing it start and rolling out of the hall.

This… this situation couldn’t be real.

If you just stayed crouched in the legroom, not giving away a single tone or making a single move, maybe you still had a chance to survive this ride unnoticed. How you would handle this situation when you returned and had to reveal yourself if you didn’t want to be locked inside that car until you died of thirst… that was something you didn’t want to think about yet.

After a few feet, the car came to a stop in the clearing among the spectators, and you made yourself even smaller in case someone might want to get a look inside. By the way the crowd cheered and rejoiced, you hoped that the racer was the Antelope for god knows which reason. They were both racers with the intention to win by all means.

The noise got louder, went from muffled to clear, and you realized the driver had pulled down the window.

“Everything ready?” A male voice.

“I’m ready,” was the driver’s dry answer, a deep voice with a calming, soft undertone.

The engine was raving up, and you were tucked between the passenger’s seat and the backseat in a hole that was too tight, but because of that it was also the safest spot for the ride as there was no room to move anyway. Turning your head against the window at the opposite of you, you only saw light that flooded in and nothing else.

Dear god, you found yourself praying for the first time in your life, please let me live.

“Jaehyun, do you hear me?”

You flinched when you heard another voice.

“Clear and loud.”

“Only ten seconds left.”

“Okay.”

Was he communicating through a two-way radio with someone? You hadn’t expected this race to be so well-planned and coordinated. Was it always like this? This was an interesting and not widely known point. You only hoped your memory would keep all this information saved as you for sure wouldn’t be able to take out your notebook and write everything down now.

This was the journalist inside you taking the upper hand again. If you were already in this situation, you were going to write the hell out of it. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity you would never get again, the exact situation your editor-in-chief had talked about.

This was going to be your headline story. You only hoped what he had promised was true and your company would really bail you out if it came down to this. Or pay for hospital bills. There was no way you would be able to leave unscathed, physically and emotionally.

“Three!” the crowd yelled that you could also hear in the car as though you were standing among them.

“Two!” Your fingers gripped onto leather and something metallic, you couldn’t really tell.

“One!” You closed your eyes.

“GO!”

How equally unlucky and lucky you were to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or right place at the right time, it depended.

____

You were absolutely not safe in your hiding spot as expected. You got tossed and flung into every direction possible, and if it weren’t for the narrow space in which you had tucked yourself in, you believed that you would have been hurled into the seat right next to the driver already.

But you were gripping hard onto the cushions like your life depended on it just to prevent this from happening as the car sped through the streets and took every curve with such a sharp edge, you were amazed the vehicle didn’t drive on one side only by then. In your location, you weren’t quite able to catch the car’s speed, but only guessed by the street lights flashing by in less than a single second, which was, in your non-existent experience, quite much.

While the driver was talking to the person at the other end of the radio who was giving him directions and tips, navigating him away from police controls and crowded locations, you started to feel a bit braver with no more sharp curve having come in miles anymore. Most likely, you were on the highway now.

So you slowly arose and got on your knees. Curiosity eventually had gotten the better of you, and you wondered what the world outside looked like. In the end, no matter how you would come out of this, you had to make sure it must have been all worth it.

You had to come to the conclusion that if you moved a bit higher to look out of the window, he might spot your head from his position if he looked in the rear window. With a muted curse, you crouched back down, but instantly got hit by another idea. Dragging the phone out of your handbag was quite an act when you barely couldn’t move, but once you had managed to do so, you inwardly hyped yourself up.

You turned on the camera and pressed the record button, then imperceptibly motioned the phone over your head and let the upper part peek out of your lair with the camera facing out of the window. If he would look, then he would barely see anything, probably mistake the black edge of your phone for a shadow or a part of the car’s interior.

When suddenly a ringing tone broke through the silence inside the car though, you nearly let your device fall with a gasp. You thought you had the ringtone silenced for the entire day already, how was it possible?!

“Hello,” the driver suddenly greeted, and only then it took a load off your mind. It wasn’t your phone that had rung.

“Jaehyun, when will you come home?” The female voice sounded playful, childish. A kid? Perhaps a teenager even?

“Why are you still awake?” The driver named Jaehyun chided with feigned sternness, of whom you still didn’t know what he looked like and whether he was the Falcon or the Antelope. “It’s past midnight and you have school tomorrow.”

“I was waiting for you to come home.”

“But I won’t be home for another hour. It’s going to be late tonight.” The driver sighed, and he sounded very regretful. “I’m sorry.”

“Jaehyun, are you currently racing?”

Silence followed, and suddenly, you felt like you were going to overhear something no one else was supposed to eavesdrop. Like an intruder - which you technically and obviously were since this was obviously a conversation between two family members.

The driver repeated, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, I won’t tell mom. I’ll tell her you’re studying in the library again.”

A yawn followed on the other side, and suddenly, you heard the driver snicker. Somehow, it didn’t fit his attitude that you had gotten a glimpse at earlier. Even his responses to the person at the other side of the radio had always been short and curt. But to this young person, he was entirely different.

“I will wait for you. Mom said I shouldn’t, but I cannot sleep if I don’t know you’re home.”

“I’ll come home safe.”

“Promise?”

“Promise, sis. I will always come home safe.”

Your arm that was holding the phone quietly slipped back into your lap, and you stayed silent for a very long time after they had hung up. This was so wrong. You had signed up for an adventure, not to listen to an intimate conversation between siblings that somehow also warmed your heart.

If you had learned anything from it, then it was that the driver was indeed a kind person deep within. It didn’t matter what he did, for what he did it and who he was in the end, Antelope or Falcon. They were people with stories, and if you were the journalist you claimed to be, you needed to look at both sides of the coin and bring out everyone’s own perception.

Wasn’t this what your editor-in-chief wanted? A headline that didn’t go “Illegal street racer makes a comeback! We are the first ones to interview him” but rather “He risked it all for his little sister, and now he’s back - read here about the tragic backstory of one of Seoul’s most dangerous men!” or something along these lines.

After you had gathered yourself again, you looked at your phone while the roads started to turn bumpier now. You assumed you had reached the outskirts and were hopefully on the way back to where it had all started. Gosh, you prayed for that, even though you hadn’t come up with a plan to explain your situation at all yet.

The video on your phone showed you exactly what you had expected to see: nothing but a blur of whites and black. Great. It was useless. But what had you even expected?

“We have a problem.”

You perked up your ears as you heard the other familiar voice through the radio.

“What is it?” the driver grumbled. “Not long and we’ll…” He paused, and even with the missing eye contact, you sensed how the mood had suddenly shifted. “I haven’t seen him in a while…”

“Exactly. There is an undercover police car underway, the informants have just told us, and it’ll stop right where you have to pass through. The Antelope apparently knew about this and already took another route.”

Antelope?! You knew you didn’t want to judge, but out of all possibilities which was 50/50, of course you would have ended up in the Falcon’s aka Jaehyun’s car, the very same person you had mindlessly betted on. What were the odds?

The Falcon snorted. “Now, will you tell me he didn’t set this up himself?”

“No accusations now. Let’s think about what’s best to do. We’re currently in Gangdong-Gu, you somehow have to leave the highway.”

“There is no possibility,” he growled back. “It’s a suburb, there is no way I can pass through it on time and unnoticed for me to win the race.”

“I’ll navigate you the best I can.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The streets are so short and narrow, it will take too long and is too complicated.”

“You can’t get caught by the police, Jaehyun. And they’re almost right in front of you. It’s better to-”

“Don’t!” he cut the person on the other end off. “I won’t give up. Not this time again. I need this win and money, you know that. It’s my comeback and reputation that I have to restore.”

“But what your family needs is you, more than money or your reputation.”

Silence. Your front teeth sank deep into your bottom lip as you were quarreling with yourself in silence. You knew what was right and what was wrong, what was legal and what was illegal, and what you were currently doing with the driver was far from being within the law as a matter of fact.

But his little sister wanted him to come home so that she could go to sleep…

“HEY!” you screamed and suddenly appeared from behind his driver’s seat.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

The car swerved to the left, hurling you out of your lair and right into the edge of the backseat with a dull pain that shot from your stomach right into every limb. You gasped for air.

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?” Despite you still not being able to face him, you got a glimpse of his face when you looked at it through the rear window. Clear anger and also shock was written all over it. You couldn’t blame him. “ANSWER TO ME NOW!”

“Don’t… have time,” you breathed and rubbed your back, getting on your knees and slowly rising from your position. “Gangdong-Gu… that’s where I grew up. I know this place inside out. I’ll navigate you.”

“Jaehyun, who is that with you in your car? That’s a rule violation!”

“I don’t fucking know who this is!” he yelled again, but not as loud as before, and before he could react to your actions, you had already crawled over the expensive interior and settled yourself in the passenger’s seat. “Who are you?!”

With a click, you fastened the seatbelt and looked out of the window. You knew exactly where you were now. “Take the second exit from here. We will pass by within the next two minutes. You will have to drive through a part of the neighborhood to change highways, but you’ll be fine at this hour. Once you have changed motorways, you’ll even reach the destination quicker. Is that a rule violation too? Taking a shortcut through the suburbs?”

You tilted your head and met his flabbergasted expression as he was staring at you with equal intensity where also curiosity was mirrored. “Uhm… usually we avoid that to not accidentally hurt any passerbyers. But…”

“It’s not a violation of the rules,” the person on the radio jumped in quickly. “It’s just unethical and something we would not like to risk.”

“Okay, thanks radio-guy.”

“Welcome, uhm… intruder-lady?”

“I did not intrude!”

“Well, how the fuck would you call this?” the Falcon interrupted.

“I don’t have time to explain now.” Your arm shot up and you pointed at a sign. “Take this exit! Right now!”

From the corner of your eyes, you clearly saw him struggling whether to trust you or not. Fair enough. You were a stranger that had hidden in his car and were now only popping up when it was about winning or losing. If anything, you could have been smuggled in by the Antelope’s team as well. No wonder he was doubting whether he could trust you.

“Screw it.”

You got thrown to the left when he suddenly swerved and left the highway according to your instruction. With your right hand, you grabbed the handle under the window for stability, once again questioning all your life choices. But you had thought long and clear about this. Having decided on helping him would result in the best outcome for your situation.

“Three rules,” he suddenly said when he drove into the neighborhood.

You shook off all your fears, speaking confidently, “I’m listening.”

“First. No word to anyone about what’s happening and what you’re doing right now. Nobody can know you’re in here.”

Why did he sound so intimidating? “Got it.”

“Second, you will lead me through this neighborhood without any incidents. Slow, steady and clear, you’ll be the navigator, the guy at the other side helps you from afar. One wrong turn, one accident or even the danger of one, and one late instruction, and I’ll kick you out of the car right there and then.”

No pressure, no pressure at all, you thought ironically to yourself. “Got it.”

“And third,” a voice on the radio chirped, “Don’t forget to have fun!”

“Shut up, Taeyong.”

“Third,” the Falcon repeated, “when we’re back at the venue, you’ll stay hidden inside here until someone comes and gets you.”

What would happen after, you didn’t dare to ask. Surely, they wouldn’t get rid of you… right? Either way, your fate had been sealed the moment you decided to come watch the race, so you gulped silently and gave a final nod.

The car came to a halt in front of a very familiar street. Everything was dark, empty and quiet. You took a deep breather and the Falcon’s head snapped in your direction. When you faced each other the next moment, you took a spare second to study his face.

If he weren’t in a racing car, you could imagine him very well sitting in a café, sipping coffee and typing something into his laptop, maybe even wearing glasses and ordinary street clothes, possibly even joggers.

He was just a normal dude under all these leather clothes that made him appear very tough, emphasized by this constant scowl on his face that was - admittedly - very handsome. After years in your field of expertise, you could read people very well and only seldomly were you wrong.

“Ready?” he asked, not breaking eye contact.

Neither did you. “Ready.”

The adrenaline flushed through your veins the moment he hit the gas pedal.

____

“Didn’t you sleep much last night?” your co-worker asked when you yawned for the nth time that morning.

What were you supposed to answer?

“I only got home at 4am last night, because I was street racing?”

So instead, you said, “I just couldn’t fall asleep, don’t worry.”

Nobody would believe you. And yet, these were the stories that everyone sought after. But only one ride was not resourceful enough and didn't contain enough substance for a decent plot. You needed the people behind it, the backgrounds and the experiences.

But after you had gotten out of the car, these people have made it very clear to you that you shouldn’t appear in a race ever again, not even as a spectator, and that your lips needed to be sealed for eternity. The fact that they had let you go without any consequences was only out of mercy because you had contributed to the victory - with a violation of rules though.

You had learned pretty quickly though that most of the time, they ignored these rules as long as nobody got hurt as physical incidents that included innocents were the highest breach of violation - just like the Antelope who had apparently cheated like the Falcon had assumed. But since nobody got proof, there hadn’t been more consequences than a few verbal attacks. As long as nobody had seen you inside the car and could prove it somehow, you were fine.

The only person that had thanked and had been nice to you was the Falcon’s navigator, Taeyong. He had even looked very sorry for what you had been through when he had opened the door to the car and you stepped out of the hideout between the backseat and passenger’s seat with shaking legs.

The Falcon hadn’t even looked at you twice when you walked out of the building - with all the money. Yes, surprisingly, they had still given you ten percent of the prize money. It was all rightfully yours since you had been the only one betting on the Falcon. Your bet had been officially registered and you had won, so it was fair and according to the rules that you would get what you earned, Taeyong had explained.

Deep down, you sensed that he only didn’t want to admit they wouldn’t have won without you, and this was them paying off their debt. After all, you hadn’t given out your real name, so they could have just said the betting person vanished. But you didn’t push the topic and saw it as hush money that you luckily needed anyway, and accepted it. Racers had a very high sense of ethics, you had learned by now. A thank you from the Falcon wouldn’t have hurt though. But instead, he had said you should never appear in front of his eyes ever again. What a rude man.

“Okay,” your co-worker said, “shall we go through the index for the next issue and compare the page numbers? Two pairs of eyes work better than just one.”

“Sure! Let me get the notes about what the editor-in-chief said. There were some important points he mentioned that had changed…”

You reached into your handbag to look for your notebook when at that moment, the telephone on your desk rang and showed the lobby’s shortcut number.

“There is someone waiting here for you, miss.”

“Alright, I’ll come downstairs.”

You wondered whether you had actually missed a meeting or an interview that you had set up for a story, but nothing actually came into your mind when you took the elevator and rode downstairs to the lobby.

At the front desk, you asked the lady where your visitor was waiting since you hadn’t spotted a familiar face as you passed by the waiting area. When she pointed at a figure sitting on the couch, slumped on the cushion, you needed to blink twice to match the face with your memories.

“You?!” you then called out when you stood in front of the young man.

He wore a snapback, glasses, joggers and a loose long sleeve. Between his lips, he carried a white stick, and you already wanted to call him out that smoking was not allowed in here when you realized that the stick was too thin to be a cigarette. It turned out to actually be a lollipop. When your gaze fell to his feet, you were able to count every single naked toe as he wore slippers. You were right. He normally didn’t look like this nighttime-self at all. During the daytime, he was just a normal guy who appeared to have just gotten out of bed.

When the Falcon arose from his seat, he didn’t even greet you. Instead, he took the lollipop out of his mouth, round and red, and just thrusted a notebook into your hands. Your notebook - the one you had wanted to fetch from your handbag earlier and which you needed for the meeting with your editor-in-chief later. You had been so sure that it was in your handbag this entire time!

“This was still in the backseat of my car. Take better care of your belongings. And don’t put your business cards everywhere. It’s not everyone’s business where you work or what your contact information is.” He then shrugged, made the lollipop disappear between his lips again and turned aside to walk past you, but you held him back by his arm.

“Wait!”

Slowly, he shifted his head back to you and asked lazily, but clearly despite the sweet in his mouth, “What is it now?”

He shook your grip off, but you just bluntly asked the question that had been on your mind this entire morning, “Let me ride with you one more time, please?”

He drew his brows together as if you had just asked the dumbest thing a woman your age could ask a man. And apparently, judging by his answer, you had done exactly that.

“Are you nuts?”

“You see, I’m a journa-”

“You people really think you’re superior,” he scowled, and you were taken aback. “Making money off of people’s personal stories, aren’t you guys embarrassed? I shouldn’t have returned your notebook at all. You’re all just selfish bastards.”

With a lowly look at you, the Falcon put more distance between you two, and although you were frozen on the spot and dumbfounded at first, you didn’t want to let him leave like this. Clearly, he had a prejudice about you journalists that you had to resolve.

“I’m not one of those journalists that make money off other people!” you told him when you had caught up with him, but by then you were already outside on the streets. “I tell real, verified stories, and only what people allow me to write! Only the truth!” He didn’t reply, but just continued walking, and you decided to follow him. “I’ve never lied or done anything without consent to write my stories. And that is what my editor-in-chief is always criticizing since this apparently holds me back from getting a promotion. In his eyes, I’m a goody two-shoes who doesn’t take any risks. But the truth is… I can’t do that, I’m fine that way! I want to tell the stories with people, I don’t want to tell stories against people! And I think you guys’ story is one very worth telling!”

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and you nearly ran into him from behind. One a few inches separated you from each other when he turned around to you and dropped his head to lock gazes with you. “I don’t think what happened yesterday with you breaking into my car was something a goody two-shoes would actually do, but a ruthless journalist.”

You let out a desperate cry. “I told you over and over again, I just wanted to watch the race, then changed my mind and wanted to go home when you guys appeared, and then I panicked! That wasn’t planned, and regarding how close I was to dying, I would choose to not do that again. Which is why I’m asking you formally for permission.”

The Falcon remained silent and inwardly, you raised your hopes up. If you could tell a great story in cooperation with him under an alias and his other friends, that would definitely secure your promotion.

“No.”

Then, he continued his way.

“But why?” You quickly caught up to him again. “I wouldn’t tell you guys’ real names and only write what you want to have written.”

“I don’t have a story to tell except that we like racing.”

“But there must already be a story to that, right?” you tried again, keeping up with his steps this time. “Why did you start? How did you start? How did you learn all this, how do you feel when you’re in the car, how does this whole teamwork function, do your other friends and family know and what do they think about it… I have so many questions!”

“No word about my family,” he interrupted you, the candy now in his hand to speak more insistently, and it didn’t sound like a warning at this point, it sounded more like a threat. “Whatever you heard in the car, you better forget about it.”

A soft spot - you had already discovered that. It was none of your business if he didn’t want to let you in as a stranger, but you also couldn’t stop wondering. “I already got that memo yesterday. But-”

Again, he cut you off. “Great. And if I still catch you publishing an article on what happened yesterday or what you eavesdropped… well, I know where you work and live thanks to your negligence. Goodbye.”

He put the lollipop back into his mouth and disappeared in the crowd. You were tired of chasing after him again, and truth to be told, you could understand his point. Taking a deep breath in, you settled with the fact that you had to change your topic, the promotion gone from your sight again.

Of course you could have written the article without any additional info or the reveal that you were in the car yourself, but then it would only be that, an article. But you wanted a story.

_____

You were scrolling through the internet, looking for new jobs.

You figured that if you were to stick with your old position, you could as well try your luck somewhere else. Perhaps, there were open positions on the same level as your missed promotion for which you could prove that you were qualified or that didn’t require you to do illegal and unethical things.

There were only two days left until you had to hand in your proposal for the story that would cover the next issue, and you still hadn’t come up with something else.

By now, you could also pack your things and leave the city since living in the countryside didn’t sound so bad after all. Sitting by the window all day, watching nature? A dream. But you had chosen to return and to stay in the capital on purpose, a quiet, secluded life didn’t suit your current ideals. You were a writer after all, always seeking for new stories to tell, and you believed Seoul told endless ones.

The ringing doorbell had you spin around on your chair. Your room was small, but it offered enough space for all necessities that only one person needed, which was why you rarely had visitors. And as far as you remembered, you hadn’t invited anyone over.

“Who is there?” you asked carefully as you approached the door.

“It’s me.”

You furrowed. “Who?”

“Me.” Pause. “Jaehyun.”

The Falcon. Lollipop-dude. What could he possibly want after your last argument?

You opened the door, and there he stood in front of you, hair slicked back and donned all in black leather - a stark contrast to a few days ago, safe from the lollipop spinning in his mouth.

He peeked through the halfway opened door. “It’s tiny in here.”

You snapped, “Well, nobody asked you to come.”

“Can I come in anyway? We need to talk.”

“I didn’t write anything!”

He rolled his eyes as you opened the door. “I know, that’s not why I came here.”

You closed the entrance door behind you and watched him standing in your room, a bit too big for your furniture, and also a bit lost in this environment. You struggled biting down a snicker, because this picture was just so surreal.

“What is it?” he grumbled.

You folded your arms in front of your chest and shrugged. “Nothing. So tell me, what do you want from me that even made you come to my home?”

The Falcon turned around to your desk and stretched out his arm, taking something into his hand that must be your notebook he had returned to you. Holding it up, he showed it to you with his back still facing you and asked, “You still want to write this story of yours?”

Perplexed, you could only nod, but as you realized he couldn’t witness your confirmation, you quickly agreed vocally, “Yes! Yes, of course!”

“Three rules,” he then started before slowly shifting back into your sight, the lollipop still in his mouth, and you noted that everything for him came with terms and conditions. How exhausting, three rules again. “You won’t use anyone’s real names. You will only write what I allow you to write. You won’t mention my family or my background. I am allowed to read the entire thing before you publish it.”

“Those are four rules tho,” you remarked, and his eyes narrowed.

The lollipop stopped spinning in his mouth. “I’m outta here.”

“I agree, I agree!” you corrected yourself. “I agree with all the rules!”

“Fine.” He handed you over your notebook. “Now get dressed, we’re going racing. I hope you have black clothes and a leather jacket, because this…” He pointed at your light pink pajamas in which you had changed into as soon as you came home, “is not it.”

Your eyes widened. “Now?”

“Now,” he repeated.

You hesitated.

“Your last chance,” he pushed.

“I’ll get changed.”

____

“I thought I was going to be in the car.”

“Didn’t Jaehyun tell you?” Taeyong asked with a cocked brow.

“Tell me what?”

“That guy…” He touched his forehead and pointed at the seat next to him, urging you to sit down in front of the three monitors standing on the desk. “We need you to navigate.”

“Navigate what?”

“What did you two talk about on your ride here?”

You heaved up your shoulders and let them down again. “Actually nothing.”

The ride in the Falcon’s car to this suburb had been quiet with him focusing on driving and you concentrating on what you could make this story revolve around. No, you had barely talked and had each lived in their own mind.

“You’re going to navigate the race. Basically be his co-driver, but from here, not from inside the car like last time,” Taeyong explained thoughtfully with a smile. “Basically, you’ll do my job, I’ll only be your co-navigator and the team’s manager fully again.”

“Navigator? Eh? I thought I was only going to stay here, writing. Maybe even get the chance to be inside the car again, but since it’s against the official rules, I didn’t even think of that.”

“Wait, he really didn’t tell you anything?” You were both equally confused.

“So I’m not just… observing?”

“Absolutely not.” Taeyong determinedly shook his head. “To be part of the team means to contribute something, and for you to write this story about us, you will also have to do your part. Actually, no outsider is allowed to be with the team during the race, because the risk of cheating and manipulation is too high, so this was the only option. Jaehyun has already fallen out of grace, we cannot allow something negative to be associated with him again when his reputation is just getting repaired.”

You wanted to know why the Falcon had fallen out of grace in the first place, but you came to the conclusion that it was not your time to ask just yet.

“And why me then? Aren’t you guys enough?” You tried to conceal your rising panic. “I can just sit here and write if I’m not allowed inside the car. Maybe do some cleaning of the vehicle before you start or do some promotion work. Something I can actually do. Nobody will notice I don’t have a fixed role in the team. Besides, I don’t even know how to navigate.”

Taeyong tilted his head, his smile growing wider. “But you’ve done an exceptionally good job last time. It doesn’t matter who navigates, the person just has to be good.”

You felt your cheeks getting warm by this compliment. “I barely did anything…”

“And yet, it was enough for him to win after such a long time and have people start betting on him again. He really needs the money, so you better help him win as many races as possible in return for getting a good story.”

Why did it sound like a threat despite his sweet smile?

You sighed. “What do I have to do?”

“Take this.”

Taeyong handed you a headset and instructed you to wear it which would connect your voice to the radio in Jaehyun’s car. Through the first monitor, you had the dashcam’s point of view, which gave you the feeling of being directly in the passenger’s seat, that was not bad. The second monitor showed the car’s location in the city with all streets and buildings through a GPS while the third showed another map but with different red dots spread across the screen.

“Those are police stations and control points.” Taeyong let the tip of his index finger glide over the screen. “... of the ones we know. Spotting cars following Jaehyun as well as unplanned control points popping up will be another challenge. And these devices are police scanners. As you can guess from the name alone…”

At first, you had been excited, but as you got everything explained and shown, it dawned on you how close the driver and the navigator actually had to work, and that the driver had to trust the navigator literally with his life. You didn’t feel very comfortable with that much responsibility weighing on your shoulders. What if something went wrong and he got caught by the police? Would you land in jail then too?

“Today, it’s going to be a cannonball run with two others, meaning Jaehyun will start here, but finish at the other side of the city where most of the spectators are waiting. That’s why there is barely anyone here right now. Of course they want to see the winner. As opposed to last time’s run, this is about time rather than bringing as much distance between the cars as possible. And you know how much the sum is that you can win?” Taeyong’s sweet smile got replaced by a wicked grin. “40 million won.”

“I can’t do this, I’m sorry!”

You jumped out of your seat and ran towards the door, opening it up. The starting point was somewhere in the suburbs where you had never been before, but you didn’t care as you pulled out your phone once you inhaled fresh air that filled your heated lungs, ready to call a taxi.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

A huge figure blocked your way, and it only took you one look to first smell his lollipop, then recognize him. Damn, did he ever finish that sweet or did he have an entire stash in his pockets?

“I’m going home!”

“And why would you do that?”

“Because you lied to me! I can’t do this!”

Instead of talking you out of it, the Falcon raised his brows, then laughed, revealing his teeth between the red lollipop. “I knew it. Once a chickenshit, always a chickenshit.”

“A what?!” Your mouth stood agape, wondering whether you had heard right. “How can you say that?”

“I’m only speaking the truth. The first time, you also wanted to escape had it not been for us coming in your direction and forcing you to get into the car, right?”

You faltered. “Hm… okay, yes… but…”

He tilted his head and shrugged. “You dream about big stories, but this is what they will always stay for you: a dream. And you know why?” The Falcon leaned in, and you felt the sudden urge to withdraw, but you were completely petrified. “Because you don’t have the courage and the will to actually make your dreams come true. You're a big talker, a dreamer to put it nicely, but you’re not a doer, someone who gets shit done. I, in comparison, get shit done. And this is why I'm doing what I’m doing and you’re only watching from the sidelines, not being able to type down this story of yours like the goody two-shoes you are. Ever thought about the fact that you won’t get this promotion because you don’t deserve it?”

You weren’t aware that you had been holding your breath the entire time. Only when he approached you further and whispered in your ear, “Now go home, we don’t need someone like you here, we can do it without you”, you were able to exhale again, blood irregularly pumping through your veins while you clenched your fists.

With a fierce gaze thrown at him, you spun around on your heel, opened the door to the hall and yelled, “Taeyong, give me the headset and tell me what to do. For this round, I feel more comfortable with you next to me.” You threw one last look behind you at Jaehyun before you continued, “And next time, I’ll do it all myself.”

The door fell shut behind you, but you could have sworn that you saw the Falcon smiling.

This time though, genuinely. And perhaps partly relieved.

____

You were still shaking when you found yourself sitting in the Falcon’s car again, heading home in the middle of the night after your first race as a co-navigator. The other team members had brought you to the finish line in their car with them to celebrate, but there was not much reason for you to do so as of now. The shock was still sitting deeply with you.

“Everything okay?” the Falcon asked, but it still sounded like coming from another planet as your ears were ringing. “What are you even upset about? We won.”

“What I’m upset about?” you called out. “There could have been so many instances that could have gone totally wrong!”

“But nothing went wrong. Why are you always such a scaredy cat?” You didn’t look at him but straight out of the window. His eye roll was very visible in front of you though. “Just calm down, it’s irritating me.”

“I know everything ended well, but just imagine if a police car had suddenly pulled up. Or if someone had crossed the streets. Inside the car, it was exciting, but as an official navigator, you have so much responsibility…”

“Just enjoy the victory and the amount of money we’re going to share with you. Isn’t that what you wanted?” He murmured something about goody two-shoes again, but by now you were good at ignoring that. “Geez, did you ever have one single day in your life that you could freely enjoy without having a stick so far up your ass? Your poor boyfriend.”

It was the most nonchalant way in which you had ever witnessed the Falcon talk, even though he had mostly said nonsense.

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, I wonder why.”

You gasped. “Excu-”

The next moment, you tasted something sweet on your tongue. “Close your mouth and suck.”

Instinctively, you did as you had been told as you didn’t know how else to react. The Falcon kept driving the car through the city with his eyes fixated on the road in front of him as though he hadn’t just pulled the lollipop out of his mouth and nearly shoved it straight down your throat.

“Sugar helps me calm down and the motions I need to make distract me from unwanted thoughts,” he admitted, and his voice suddenly sounded so vulnerable that you didn’t dare to respond. “I think you need that now too.”

You slumped back into your seat, suddenly very quiet. You tried not to think much about the fact that his saliva was now in your mouth too, and that you didn’t feel repulsed at the thought at all. He had been right after all. Your hands were not shaking anymore.

“The fact that I participate in those races is because I need the money,” he continued and you somehow sensed that he was currently glad that you weren’t able to look him straight in the face in case you caught his true emotions mirrored there. “And I wanted you to be my navigator, because you had done a very good job the first time around. During the races, you appear to be panicked and disheveled, but you are actually calm and collected, always knowing what you’re doing and never doubting yourself. From the first moment on, I saw much potential in you, and I needed someone like that to strengthen my team.”

“... to win the races,” you finished what he probably thought to himself in silence.

“Exactly.”

“So to you, it’s all about winning?” Your mouth tasted sweet with each syllable, and only now you recognized which flavor that was: cherry. “You wanted me in your team, because you assumed I could contribute to your series of wins?”

“That’s my only life goal. Winning as many games as possible for the money.”

You didn’t know why his answer bothered you. Weren’t you also only on board because you needed to write about this experience to ensure you climb the ladder of success which would eventually also result in money and fame? You weren’t much different from each other. He probably was only a bit more reckless in money making than you.

“I understand,” you agreed when it eventually clicked. He was trying to fool you again, so you corrected yourself, “No, I don’t understand. The way you spoke to your sister… it’s not only about money for you.”

The Falcon scoffed. “Why do you feel the need to peg me as some kind of deep character? Because I don’t fit the narrative of your story?”

This stung. Most likely because he was right. People wanted to read about deep characters, if not about a hero, then about an antagonist who told them how he had become an antagonist. But nobody wanted to read about a greedy, selfish person.

“So the main character of my story is only after money,” you concluded dryly.

“Yes, this is something you can mention in your story. The person you write about is a selfish jerk who only thinks about money.” He let out a laugh, but it rather sounded rather bitter than genuine. “I know it’s not that very deep of a story, but never told you that what you would get was interesting.”

The lollipop clicked against your teeth as you replied, “No worries. I’m a professional.”

He wanted to make himself fit his very own narrative, and you needed him to fit your own narrative. Right now, there was no character to your story.

At home, despite the ungodly hour and your clash of interests, you typed down a summary of your story and handed it in the very next day, even before the deadline. This would be your story, one way or another. You were going to make the best out of it, with the Falcon’s cooperation or without.

____

“He is very popular,” you remarked.

“Oh, he sure is.” Taeyong thrusted a drink into your hand. “He just doesn’t like this attention at all.”

You watched the Falcon getting approached by both men and women who were desperate to talk to him while you watched with your new team from the sidelines. After another race together that the Falcon had won, Taeyong had invited you to something like an after party in some other team member’s big house. You had to work the next morning and didn’t want to stay long, but you supposed you had to do it for the experience and more substance for your article. The more you had to write about, the better.

“Can you imagine that only a few months ago, it was entirely different? Everybody hated him.”

“Hm?” You snapped your head to Taeyong. “Because of the accident he was involved in?”

The look in his eyes was impenetrable, but it softened when he watched his friend. “Yes, but the details to that… I’m sure he’ll tell you himself when he feels the time is right.”

Admittedly, you knew quite a bit already by just going around and talking to people, you were just keeping it a secret since you didn’t want to come off to the team as too nosy or pushy. But none of the spectators you had come to have a short conversation with knew exactly what kind of accident that had been. You had tried really hard to gather all the information, but they just differed too much from each other.

When one assumed the Falcon had hit someone with his car and drove away, the second guessed he had run into someone, but brought them to the hospital. And the third option, and that was the worst, those people believed he had killed someone in that accident. The newspapers that had reported on this case hadn’t mentioned anything more. Just the fact that the Falcon had caused an accident in a suburb that involved an innocent passerby. And that was still enough to fall out of grace in this community, that was how high their ethical standards were.

You wondered why, with such an incident happening that involved all kinds of trope that would make people drawn to it, there hadn’t been any follow-up reports by newspapers and magazines.

Taeyong had once let slip that Jaehyun had only been able to make a comeback after this incident because he had challenged the Cheetah. Apparently, nobody ever did that. And now you were even more curious about the Cheetah, the Falcon’s biggest opponent.

From what you had heard, officially and unofficially, he won all the races and was nearly untouchable. He only challenged someone just to show off how remarkable he was, but nobody ever challenged him. That was an unspoken rule - except for when you wanted to set yourself up for humiliation. And the Falcon had done exactly that.

You looked at your team which was already top notch with a driver who was nearly impeccable. You couldn’t imagine a team that was better. Apart from the one you worked the closest with, Taeyong, there was Johnny, the mechanic, and the one which they call the investigator, though you just believed that he was a hacker in reality - Yuta.

You had seen and worked with them before all the time, but getting to know them privately in peace made you realize one thing: These were all just normal guys who knew each other from university with a not so legal side hustle. They were splitting the winner’s entire sum equally among all of them, and even if they didn’t want that much as the Falcon was the one driving and inheriting the most dangerous part, the latter always insisted on it, claiming they weren’t a work environment, but friends.

The fact that you were now a part of this close knit group, made you feel a bit awkward as you didn’t know them that well yet, but the other fact that they had welcomed you with open arms, safe from the Falcon so far though, and already saw you as one of them, warmed your heart.

Even though the money had sounded very tempting as well and you surely always got your fair share of the work that paid more than a few bills, you were surprised how little it meant to you in the end. You couldn’t really pinpoint it. The races with the team… the preparation, the process, the talks in between, the shared laughter, the banter… you enjoyed this way much more than holding the money in your hands by the next day. It meant so less when everything else hoarded a much bigger feeling that was still so unfamiliar to you, but very overwhelming.

“Ah, there he is,” Johnny whispered to you and pointed at a tall guy, surrounded by other young men and a woman. “The Cheetah and his team.”

“That’s the Cheetah?” you asked. “The one he’s challenged?”

“The best racer out there and someone Jaehyun could never beat, someone no one usually challenges and beats.” There it was. Now, you didn’t need to feign lack of knowledge anymore. “Hopefully, until now. It’s about a lot of money and the people are already anticipating it. It’s gonna be the race of the year. Maybe, Jaehyun will take his crown.”

You hadn’t known it was going to be this big and anticipated. Now, you also understood why people had welcomed the Falcon back despite whatever everyone imagined the accident to have involved. The best and most popular racer against the underdog who had fallen deep, wanting to rise again? That surely made a headline.

“The woman in that team, is she also a navigator?”

“Yes.” Taeyong nodded. “Women are mostly navigators, there rarely are female racers. As of today, I only know of two who are still active. But it’s really hard to recruit women for your team, no matter which position.”

“Because the job is illegal and hard?”

He nodded again. “Women usually don’t want to be involved in illegal activities.”

“... I can relate.”

All eyes now landed on you and you shrugged. “I just really need this promotion, you know that, guys. Just once in life, I want to be fortunate and successful.”

You were glad you could be totally open with them and not get judged, because you all were here for the same reason. This illegal sport benefitted all of you in some way.

“Just like I need money to finance my studies,” Taeyong said.

And Yuta added, “I really want to found my own company in the future.”

“And one day, I really want to move back to the US,” Johnny finished.

You were only people with dreams and ambitions. If you did things like these with all the precautions and didn’t hurt anyone, no matter how selfish or selfless, then was it really wrong to chase after your longings? You still gave the Falcon the benefit of doubt over the incident. Your team was fair and good, you wanted to believe so hard in every single one of them.

Knowing his friends and what they did for each other, you now were a hundred percent sure that there was a deep reason the Falcon always put his life on line too, and that he wasn’t as reckless and as money-hungry as he had first made himself out to be. None of them were.

Taeyong studied to help out his family, because his father couldn’t work anymore. Yuta wanted to open up a company, because his family got robbed of theirs. Johnny wanted to go back to the US to take care of his mom.

“I first thought it all boiled down to money, that glued you together,” you thought out loud. “But I was so wrong.”

It was way more than about money. It was about friendship, family and dreams. Of some things, you had only ever heard of and never experienced yourself - and most likely never would. And as this thought settled, you realized that you were the one doing all this solely for fame. You were the selfish, money-fixated person in this group. You were the one wrong here.

“It all comes down to trust in the end,” Johnny complemented. “Without a tight-knit team that doesn’t trust each other, you cannot make it.”

“But why me?” You frowned. “I didn’t do anything to earn your trust. I’m just here, because you caught me.”

“Oh, but you did win our trust!” Taeyong then objected and Johnny and Yuta nodded along. “With the way you helped Jaehyun when you were stuck in his car, that was the first race he had won after a long while and which has restored his reputation. You didn’t help him because of the money, I heard the entire thing.”

They trusted you? Why was your chest grabbed by a feeling so overwhelming like it was going to explode at any moment? Perhaps, at this point, you could imagine being friends with them too eventually… if they wanted to still have someone as selfish as you around.

“I didn’t want to see him lose,” you reluctantly answered. “At that moment, I didn’t think about a story. I just cared for his sister… and for him.”

Because you never had had the experience of being in a real family, you wanted to protect everyone that still had one. You remembered the phone call the Falcon had made, that he had promised to always come back to her. Basically, you still knew nothing about him, but what you knew was that he was way more than he made himself out to be.

You didn’t need to invent a story about him to fit your narrative. He had fitted it all along. You saw it clearly now.

“Okay, enough with the long faces, guys!”

Johnny threw his arms around all of you and huddled you all together.

“You’re suffocating me,” Yuta complained, though the playfulness clearly stood out in his voice.

“People are looking,” Taeyong worried, but you couldn’t help but to chuckle.

“So what?” Johnny let you all go again and shrugged. “How about a round of drinks for us? I think we all need it now.”

“I’ll get the drinks.”

You all shifted your head in unison and saw the Falcon having moved to your group, no sign of other people anymore, although you could have sworn he was swarmed by them only a few minutes ago.

“What about your fans?” you wanted to know from him and joked, “They all got an autograph already?”

His reply was dry with a gaze just as similar, “I told them to leave me alone.”

“Jeez, Jaehyun,” Taeyong complained, “with a behavior like this, no one is going to bet on you in the future.”

“They shouldn’t bet on who’s the nicest anyway.”

Yes, the Falcon wouldn’t be the winner of a be-nice-award. But when he volunteered to get the drinks and naturally included you, you figured that he didn’t need to voice his kindness. He rather showed it.

____

“Why will you drive me home? Didn’t you drink?”

“Because it’s late and dark, and I need to go home too. And of course I didn’t drink alcoholic beverages this entire time, are you nuts? Now, get in.”

You looked out of the passenger’s seat’s window when the car started rolling, lights flashing by in a blur as you drove through the streets at a normal speed, and yawned. “The party was just getting to be fun, you didn’t have to leave with me.”

“Just take this free ride, will you?”

“Okay.”

You listened to the Falcon’s lollipop clicking against his teeth when he moved it in his mouth and you yawned again.

“I spotted the Cheetah earlier tonight,” you said. “What’s the deal with this big race that’s coming up?”

“So the guys told you, hm.” The movements of the lollipop stick stopped. “Our history runs deep. To sum it up quickly: I can win against anyone, but never against him. I need to break this curse.”

“I get it,” you declared and leaned back in your seat. “You never beat him, so the rage waves just get stacked on top of each other, and the more races you lose, the more you want to win. Just like we journalists fight to have our stories be headliners every month and there is always this one person who snatches them the majority of the time.”

The Falcon sighed. “A weird and out of place comparison, but I guess you’re not entirely wrong.”

You seamlessly continued, “When was your first race against him?”

“I guess when I turned 21. That’s when I started racing.”

“Wow, so many years and no win against him? It must be frustrating.”

“Yeah, just rub more salt into the wound,” he muttered, a bit offended, “but as I said, this is going to end in a few weeks. He won’t be Kind of the Streets anymore. It will be me who will take the crown.”

“King of the Streets?” You asked. “Is that the official title?”

“Just a label we throw around in the community every now and then, but nobody gets literally crowned, if you know what I mean. He’s just been inheriting this title forever, and I’m sick of it.”

“Did you only start because you wanted to win the title?”

“What? Of course not! I started because my fa-” He stopped. “Hey, I know what you’re doing!”

You giggled. “Don’t worry. I didn’t ask you as a journalist, I ask you as your teammate, your navigator. We have made rules and I will stick to them. Is it too much to ask for, getting to know you? We spend so much time with each other, we trust each other, don’t we?”

He became silent. You got him. “I guess so.”

This reply surprised you very much as you hadn’t expected it. But you regained your composure very quickly despite the feeling still lingering in your chest. “How many siblings do you have... Jaehyun?”

It was the first time that you vocally said and thought about his real name. You had been avoiding it, but you couldn’t keep calling him the Falcon. He was human too, although he would remain anonymous in your story.

Jeahyun paused, but eventually replied, “You already know of my younger sister. She’s the only one. I live with her and my mom.”

“How old is your sister?”

“She’s fourteen.”

“So, in middle school.”

“Exactly.”

Where was his father that he had nearly mentioned? You wanted to ask this and much more, but the way his voice had changed by the end, you knew that this was it for today. And it was okay. He should only share what he felt like sharing. Instead, you decided to tell him more about yourself.

“I live alone. My parents divorced when I was a little child, and since my mom moved abroad with a new man directly after, I stayed with my dad. But he was addicted to booze. I had to grow up fast, because whatever role a parent usually played, he wasn’t in the position to take over it. One day, when I was the same age as your sister, he didn’t come home.”

Jaehyun breathed in deeply, and you sensed that he was about to drop a comment, but held himself back from doing so at the last second. You were unsure whether this was a sign to continue or not, but you did anyway.

“He got caught in a hit and run accident. He was the driver. Despite me telling him every day to cut out on the booze or at least never get into the car with alcohol in his system, he always did. And on that fateful day, he took an entire family with him.”

Having this story sealed in your heart for such a long time, you didn’t expect the syllables to fall from your lips so smoothly as though you were retelling someone else’s past and not your personal one. After all these years, you felt nothing anymore.

“Your question from before we got into the car…” Jaehyun started, but refrained himself from ending the sentence.

“If you had drunk something, I wouldn’t have gotten in the car with you. And If you had drunk something during a race, I would have quit right away.” You smiled mildly. “I’m relieved your addiction is lollipops.”

“Why had you agreed on being my navigator?” was Jaehyun’s next question. “You should resent people like me.”

“I can’t resent the world just because I resent my father. I want you to always come home to your sister like you promised her.”

He fell into silence. Perhaps, you had crossed a line, perhaps not. But you wanted him to know that you cared. You collected stories every day from different people and they all affected you, every single fate, more or less. But for him, you didn't care like a journalist for a subject. You cared like a friend.

“I want that too,” Jaehyun eventually responded. “Always coming back home to her.”

You smiled. “Then let’s work together well.”

____

With every race, you got calmer and more professional, and even though you had lost two races so far - as constant wins were an exception anyway except for when you were called the Cheetah - Jaehyun won with you, his team, almost all races, and he rose to the top again, shining as the Falcon in all his glory.

You still weren’t able to shake off your nervousness and slight panic entirely, but you got better in managing those feelings and most importantly, you didn't let it seep through the headset for Jaehyun to feel.

Through the next races, your connection only got stronger as you figured out a way to work silently and peacefully with each other. You even bonded over unfunny jokes and small conversations you held in the car when he drove you home, which he always insisted on - most likely because you were a woman and it was usually the middle of the night.

Jaehyun’s car was his safe space, because he knew whatever you talked about, even though most of the time it wasn’t even something important, it would never leave his vehicle without his permission.

“I never drink alcohol,” he suddenly told you on one of these rides home when you both got out of the car as you had decided to make a short stopover. “I never know when my sister or mom will need me since my father is not here anymore.”

It was the first time in a long while you talked about something other than the races, teams, your job and other trivial things. You had rarely talked about his personal topics ever since that one time. You were happy to hear that you finally reached this point again, and the conversation was even opened up by him.

Jaehyun seated himself on the car’s hood and you carefully crawled up to him. He made space for you and reached out his hand when you teetered, securing you while you settled right next to him. After having taken your place, you followed his gaze and encountered a view that you hadn’t seen before.

He had wanted to drive out of the city after this race just to clear his head, and you had complied despite this late hour. Now, you were watching the sunrise from the top of a hill on an early summer morning, wondering how a moment like this, that you had never dreamed of before, was suddenly making you so happy.

“Where is your father?” you finally dared to ask, because the moment felt right.

“In prison for fraud,” Jaehyun deadpanned. “He committed a huge tax evasion crime with his own company, not only taking the business down, but all of our savings as well along with the family’s reputation.”

You were shocked. “I don’t know what to say… I’m so sorry, that’s horrible.”

“He consciously did that, knowing exactly the outcome of his actions, what it’d cause us, what it would make of us.” His blood was boiling, it was palpable. “And now, my mother is working two jobs just to make the ends meet and pay off the debt because of this selfish, money-hungry bastard.”

Jaehyun… was he racing to support his family too, just like his friends? Because a son who described his father as a selfish, money-hungry bastard couldn’t be one himself.

“I guess we both grew up with father figures we couldn’t really rely on.”

On top of the car were sitting two people with inner children that had been abandoned by their parents at some point. But you both had learned to make it through life without them. Screw them, you were going to make it better than your parents.

“I don’t want my sister to grow up thinking all men are like our father. I’m not the perfect example for an older brother, but I would do everything to give her the life she wants, such as illegal car racing just to open up the possibility to her of enrolling into her preferred university.”

So that was why and always, it was about winning races for him. Even though he had claimed otherwise in the beginning, he was not someone superficial who only cared about fame, you had always known. He cared about his family, and friends. And, as someone who hadn’t grown up with the first, it was pretty touching that a brother would do that for his sister. Nobody had ever done that for you and you didn’t have someone who would even consider doing this for you, too.

“You sister must be really proud of you.” You smiled. “You’re a good person, Jaehyun.”

Suddenly, he turned cold. “Easy for you to say, knowing only this side of me.”

These words hurt you after spending quite a lot of time with each other.

You had gotten to know his friends and now some of his backstory. You knew you were in no position to feel this way considering that he didn’t see you as his friend yet apparently. Still, it stung somehow.

“When I was your sister’s age, I would have loved to have an older brother by my side who cares so much about me. I was all alone, but your sister has you. Whether you see yourself as a good person or not, Jaehyun, it doesn’t matter to your sister at all. You’re good in her book, that’s enough.”

“I appreciate you saying that.” He was being sincere, judging by his voice. “My sister doesn’t endorse my… side hustle. But she accepts it without a complaint, because she knows that’s what gets us through. My mom on the other hand… You know how moms are. So we keep it a secret from .”

No, you actually didn’t. And Jaehyun only realized that when he saw how your face fell. “I shouldn’t h-”

Yet, you tried to overplay it with a shrug and a wave. “It’s okay. It slips off most people’s mind, because having a family is something we suggest everyone has. I don’t blame anyone for thinking the same about me.”

“It’s not okay, I’m sorry for speaking so nonchalantly,” Jaehyun replied determinedly, taking you aback. “I will pay more attention to what I’m saying from now on.”

Nobody had ever reacted that way to such a sand trap. You were really surprised how understanding he actually was. “It’s not like I grew up not knowing what a family should be like,” you continued. “I saw it in the foster family that took me in until I left high school. I saw it in my friend’s family who I spent most days with. I saw it walking through the mall passing by parents with their happy children. I know exactly what it should be like having a family, I just never had one of my own.” You dropped your head, tilting the corners of your lips slightly upwards. “But one day, I dream of having one and do it all better.”

The silence that followed made you realize how bright outside it had already gotten, and also that you had just confessed your deepest wish to someone who didn’t even consider you his friend. It had something slightly embarrassing, but also comforting, because you knew he would understand you nonetheless.

But Jaehyun didn’t say anything back directly, and you felt a bit lost. It wasn’t like you didn’t feel validated or overlooked, the gaze in his eyes reflected nothing but understanding after all. Perhaps, he just wasn’t as good at expressing his thoughts as you. And that was fine as you were a writer after all. As long as you could comprehend what seemed to go on his head, you were fine with the way you communicated. It was this fine bond between the racer and the navigator.

“Get up, we’re getting breakfast,” Jaehyun eventually prompted.

It sounded great after a good race so you didn’t complain. “Okay!”

Jaehyun was already back on the ground while you still struggled getting off the hood without slipping. That was until you felt two strong hands gripping onto your sides and heaving you up as though you were as light as a feather. You could have sworn when you got inside the car, his hand lingered on your waist a bit longer than it needed to. But it could all have been in your tired mind as well.

____

You hadn’t known breakfast would be taken in Jaehyun’s house.

“Please come in and eat, dear, we have enough!”

His mother was a cordial person whose smile brightened up the entire home upon entering. You instantly felt welcomed by her cheerful personality.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” you greeted her back and kind of awkwardly followed her into the kitchen where she had already set up the entire breakfast table for four people after Jaehyun had called her from the car to inform them they would have a guest over.

Different main and side dishes were presented, and you didn’t know where to look let alone what to eat first. You could tell Jaehyun’s mother had gone beyond and above to prepare this breakfast as he had given you a heads up that she usually left very early and came home late just to sleep the little time she had remaining. Yet, she never failed to eat breakfast with her children or at least make food for them every single day. That was motherly love.

You suddenly felt a wave of warmth spreading through your body. She wasn’t your own mother, but right now, you felt very much like part of a family you had never gotten to experience yourself. And Jaehyun had wanted to show you.

Tears welled up behind your eyes as you took a seat at the opposite of him, and you tried to hide your sentiment, yet still sneaked a look at him. His soft gaze, he hid behind his long fringe. His caring demeanor, he hid behind his rough words. His apparent worries, he hid behind a long scowl. But this was all a facade for what he truly was: a loving son and brother and so much more than a money-hungry, selfish racer.

“Did you guys study hard for the exams the entire night?” Jaehyun’s mom asked and you tilted your head in confusion.

“Yes, mom,” Jaehyun replied. “But she’s not a student anymore, I just picked her up on her way to work.”

She turned to you. “Really? What occupation do you inherit, dear?”

You looked into Jaehyun’s direction for approval, but he remained silent and nodded, so you told the truth, “I’m a journalist.”

“Really?” She clapped into her hands and laughed. “Jiyeong wants to become a journalist too!”

Before you could ask who Jiyeong was, a female voice already asked, “What’s with me?”

She didn’t look much like her brother. In fact, from the moment you saw her, you thought she was the spitting image of her mother, both very beautiful.

“Jaehyun’s friend here is a journalist, Jiyeong. Isn’t that amazing?”

“Really?” Jiyeong’s eyes started to sparkle and she approached you, seating herself right next to you. “I’m editor-in-chief at our school’s newspaper! Where do you work? I read almost all newspapers and magazines on a daily basis.”

While you were explaining to Jiyoung what articles were written by you of which she indeed remembered one or two, their mother placed rice in each of your bowls along with Jaehyun’s help.

You now knew why he had wanted specifically you and came back to recruit you not only once, but twice. The first time, he had most likely not thought about involving you yet. With his sister being into journalism, he knew how important your notebook was to you and genuinely only wanted to return it. The second time, he actually came around and wondered why not combine your talent for navigation with your occupation and get at least something out of your deal, not only for you, but for him - and his little sister - too.

“My dream is to attend Ehwa Woman’s university,” Jiyoung told you when you all started eating. “Where did you study?”

You smiled. It had been your dream to go to Ehwa too. But you didn't have money or relatives who could have supported you, so you attended a university far away from Seoul that was cheap in comparison. “I went to Chonnam University in Gwangju.”

“And you came back here and made it so far! I really look up to you!”

You flushed as you had always felt inferior to your colleagues who had attended the big and popular universities in Seoul, but Jaehyun’s sister not judging you by that but complimenting your actual skills touched you very much.

“Now, let her eat, Jiyeong! She hasn’t even come to touch her food yet! Please dig in, dear before it gets cold!”

It was your first breakfast together with loving people in many, many years.

When you stood outside with Jaehyun, waiting for his sister to get her backpack for school so that he could drive her there, you told him, “Thank you for introducing me to your mom and sister. I know why you did that.”

Because he wanted to show you what it felt like to have an actual, loving family. Because he wanted to show you that your work was never for vain. He had eventually become your friend, and you his. Yes, friend. But you didn’t speak it out.

“When I found out that you were a journalist, I immediately thought great, I need to introduce you to my sister!... But journalists also destroyed my life by writing articles not only about my dad’s crimes, but also about me,” Jaehyun explained, and you nodded, knowing it was about the mystery incident he had yet to tell you. “My sister never lost focus of her dream though. She told me she wanted to be one of the good ones, no defamation, always after the truth. So when you told me you were one of these people too, I thought that maybe, I can trust you after all, even with my life.”

“And you can!” You touched his arm in a gesture of comfort, and although his eyes widened, he didn’t pull away. “I stand by what we’ve promised to each other. I won’t publish anything without your consent. And if there is anything in the past that I have to clear up for you and your family, I will do so too.”

“Mhmm.” You saw him struggling through his mien, but he didn’t respond, apparently still needing to make his mind up. If so, you let him.

“So, what do you study? You never told me.”

“Nothing.” He heaved his shoulders and slowly dropped them again.

You frowned. “But didn’t you-”

“I dropped out last semester right after the incident.”

“But your mo-”

“- doesn’t know. Neither does my sister.”

You didn’t want to judge, that was not your job, as a journalist and as a friend. So you asked, “Why?” although you could most likely already make out the answer.

“We can’t afford it as of right now, so I’m postponing my graduation. I definitely want to return, but as always, it boils down to money,” Jaehyun clarified. “I want to do it better than my father. I want to found my own company too and provide to my family the life they deserve. Even if the path to this aim might not be all legal, I promised to myself to leave this part of me behind once I’m there.”

“...And I will do everything in my might to win every race for as long as we’re working together, Jaehyun.”

“For my sister? Or for your story?”

“Not only for me, but also for your sister,” you repeated, “for your mom and for y-”

You swallowed the last part, but the way his features softened suddenly, he might have understood nonetheless, and it made your heart flutter. Perhaps, in his eyes, you were now friends as well.

____

“There is nothing personal in this story.”

You felt defeated. You had hoped, with handing in your first draft, your editor-in-chief would be totally invested in the story as well, encouraging you to continue and maybe even compliment you on the premise. Instead, while reading through all the pages with you sitting anxiously in front of him, his facial expression had fallen more and more.

“What do you mean?”

“The beginning is very intriguing with you sitting in the car, racing with him. It’s perfect, the reader gets thrown right into the story. But after that?” He shrugged and threw the papers back on his desk. “Nothing. No feelings, no emotions, just scenery description and a lot of theoretical stuff. Nobody cares about how the navigation system works or how the cars are tuned.”

“Oh, I thought it might be interesting to read how the team stays connected and what makes the cars so special.”

“Nobody cares,” he retorted dryly. “That’s not the stories people like to read. They can google all that stuff.”

Although it hurt your feelings, you had to silently admit that he was right. You hadn't given much away in the article about how Yuta worked behind the scenes or what the navigation system was really capable of according to Taeyong, but had to google a lot of things yourself too. You had wanted to give as little personal details away as possible, but apparently, it was too less. Your article was just boring.

“There is no common thread,” he criticized sharply. “Do you want to write about yourself being involved, about the sports in common or about the Falcon? Because right now, it’s all of this and nothing at the same time. If you’re that involved, write about what you do, how you learned it, about your feelings during the races. If you write about the sports, interview other teams, the spectators, dive into the history. If you center the plot around the Falcon, what’s his background, what does he race for, what’s his aim?”

You exactly sensed which direction he wanted to push you. “I’ll write abo-”

“I think,” he cut you off, “if you want to make it a headliner, you have to focus on the Falcon.” There it was. “Why did the Falcon really pause for so long? Is it true that he had caused an accident during a race? What really happened back then? How did he regain his fame? What made people change their minds? And most importantly, is he going to win and what will he do with the prize money? These are the questions that intrigues the reader. They want emotions, passion, they need to feel something while reason. Right now, everything I’m feeling is my hunger since it’s almost lunchtime.”

You purposely overheard his subtle taunt. “Those are very personal questions that he doesn’t want to talk about.”

“Well, then make him.”

You kept it to yourself that you already knew most answers. “As journalists, we also have to respect the people’s privacy and opinions.”

“Then make the entire story anonymous with all the personal information gathered,” he proposed. “It’s not less personal, but no names are given away.”

“I already plan on doing that.”

“So what’s the problem?”

”People will still know, that’s how known he is. I cannot reveal things he doesn’t want me to reveal.”

Either way, anonymous, with his alias or even real name written in the article - it would hurt him all the same. It was his personal story, his family, his friends. It made him beautifully human, but also painfully fragile. It was his story to tell when the time was right, when he decided to do so, not you.

“Very well.” Your boss got up from his seat and took his jacket. “You can publish it like this if you want. I guess for a nice closing story at the end of the magazine, it's enough.”

For the first time in your life, you were having a clash of interest. There it was in front of you, your dream job position, so close if you were only selfish enough. And behind you stood the man whose trust you had just gained, begging you to respect his past wounds. What would you do?

____

It wasn’t easy, balancing racing by night and working by day. Oftentimes, you didn’t get more than four hours of sleep, spending time at home after work just to shower, change and then leave for a race again. You didn’t complain. You never did, because you enjoyed it very much. The newly formed friendship between you and Jaehyun’s team was something that brightened up your day as you had never experienced this kind of bond before. But you also didn’t leave your aim out of sight.

With Jaehyun’s rising popularity though also came people who voiced out their doubts about him even louder. You had just finished this night’s race and were waiting for Jaehyun to take you home, already looking forward to a bit of alone time with him, when you overheard a group of young men passing by.

“I don’t care what others think or whether he’s popular,” one of them said. “As long as he’s staying silent, he’s guilty in my book.”

“In mine too,” the second chimed in. “Why has he never said anything on that topic? And now, only because he’s winning so often and challenged the Cheetah, everybody seems to have forgotten about it? Bullshit.”

Your fingers clenched by the time the third one commented, “Don’t worry guys, he’ll fall out of grace as far as he has fallen. It’s always like this.”

“Hey!” Now, you couldn’t listen to this conversation any longer and stepped out of your dark corner. “Do you feel proud, talking like this about a person you don’t know?”

They stopped in their tracks and turned around to you. “And who are you?”

“Oh, I think she’s their navigator!”

One of them stepped in front of you and grinned. “Then, you must know the truth if you’re in the team and fight for him so desperately, right?”

The other two followed suit and laughed in unison. “Or are you in love with him and would defend him even though he’s guilty?”

You realized that you actually didn’t care about the truth anymore. You didn’t care when or whether Jaehyun would tell you one day at all. But that didn’t withhold you from defending him like your life depended on it. Someone who loved his family and friends so dearly, who always paid much attention to the street and passerbyers, who had to talk you into taking a detour just because there was a crowd of people he had to race by… you would always defend your racer.

“The truth is none of your business,” you said confidently. “Do I ask about what mistakes you’ve made? A person I do not know personally? What has this got anything to do with his performance anyway? Either you bet on him or you don’t, but nobody forces you. He doesn’t need your dumbass opinions to win, he doesn’t even know who you are.”

“Hey…”

You couldn’t tell who had spoken up, but you didn’t care much as you just hit your stride. “How about you get in the car and try to do the things these racers do? I bet you wouldn’t even last a few minutes on these streets. It must be so peaceful, watching from the sidelines with your big mouths as long as you’re not the ones in action, am I right?”

“Hey!”

Little did you know that the voice had come from behind you. Only when you felt an arm around your shoulder, pulling you close to a chest whose scent smelled very familiar, it dawned on you that no one in the group had tried to speak up, but it had been Jaehyun who was standing behind you, most likely all this time already.

But he wasn’t mad, even though your cheeks were burning. “Listen to my girl. If you dare to raise your voice against her again, you’ll be the ones the newspapers will be writing about the next day. Understood? Now, good riddance.” One opened their mouth to retort, but Jaehyun didn’t let him. “I SAID GOOD RIDDANCE!”

They were out of your sight quicker than you could process, and Jaehyun let go of your shoulder the same moment.

“Come,” he urged you, and you silently followed him to the car. “I have to show you something.”

After you were driving for a little while all in awkward silence, you finally dared to ask, “Where are we going?”

“I’ll show you the truth.”

From the way his lollipop clicked against his teeth, you could only sense Jaehyun’s anxiety, and you wondered what got him so worked up even though he had won the race. You could only think of one reason. Perhaps, today was the day.

“Does it have something to do with what happened back then?”

“Yes.”

“Did I say something wrong earlier?”

Immediately, the clicking noises stopped, but he gripped the steering wheel even tighter. “You’ve gotten everything wrong.”

Your stomach dropped and you suddenly felt so nauseous. “Jaehyun… what was wrong about it?”

He was visibly upset now. “How can you say all these things about me?”

“These.. things? What did I say that was wrong? I don’t understand. I meant every word and I don’t care whether you heard them or not, because they are the truth.”

“You don’t know the truth.” He added, “Yet.”

“Even if… There was nothing wrong with what I said. You don’t need them to win, you don’t need spectators and betters. You only need yourself and your team. Everything else doesn’t matter.”

He didn’t reply, but kept his eyes fixated on the street in front of him. Not much talking, but many kilometers later, you suddenly came to a halt in a narrow street under a light post in a quiet neighborhood in the suburbs. To your left and right were single family houses and nobody was in your field of vision at this ungodly hour.

“Is this…?”

He took the lollipop out of his mouth and inhaled deeply. “This is where it happened.”

“Oh. Jaehyun…” You had been prepared to be taken here, but now that you were actually at the location, you didn’t know what to say.

“This is the spot where I collided with a pedestrian.” Even though he didn’t stutter or pause, you still realized how much mental strength it had taken him to not only bring you here, but to also speak about the incident - probably for the first time ever since it had happened. “He didn’t die on the spot. He survived, actually. That much, I know after I asked around in the hospital. I don’t know who he was, where he was going, whether he had family or other people who cared. I just called for an ambulance, drove my car away and remained hidden until they arrived. Then, I fled. This is the truth.”

You couldn’t deny that you were relieved he didn’t do a hit and run. You were also relieved that nobody had died and that the truth behind the accident was something that wouldn’t shake your friendship to the core. Of course it was bad, and he knew it himself. He’d always known and deeply regretted it, every single day. You saw it clearly now.

“I believe you.”

In moments of panic, humans were indeed most likely to do things they were not proud of, things totally wrong they wished to change later if only they could travel back in time. Things, they would have handled differently if they hadn’t panicked or were too scared. Jaehyun wasn’t an exception, although the baggage he had to carry was heavier than most else’s.

Humans were not perfect. For him, it all started with his not so perfect father and the not so perfect life he was living, leading him to do not so perfect things to save what was still salvageable.

“For one hot minute,” Jaehyun continued, “I really thought about leaving him there and fleeing as fast as possible. I couldn’t go to jail like my father and leave my mom and sister all to themselves, dropping them entirely too. I couldn’t get caught, so I did my best to prevent this.” He laughed, bitterly. “After all, I am what people think of me. So your words mean nothing.”

“My words mean nothing?” It hurt. “It’s easy to tell someone how to behave when the incident has already taken place. But at the end of the day, we can never be sure how we, ourselves, would have reacted or what we would have thought at that moment. You thought about your mom and sister, but you thought about the accident victim too. You wanted to do the best for both. So you reacted accordingly to what was best in your mind.”

“Still, I’m not the person you painted me to be. I nearly killed someone in a race. And you know why? Because I thought taking a shortcut through a neighborhood would make me win the race back then. It’s not forbidden, but this is the reason we racers usually never do that.”

That was why he had been so reluctant to go through your neighborhood at your very first accidental race together. And he still wouldn’t, no matter how much he trusted you. What had happened back then was still sitting deep within him - justifiably.

“I am running illegal races with you,” you started. “I have always known that you wouldn’t work with the law. And I am neither! So what does that make us?”

He sank his head and placed his hands on his lap. “You speak so highly of me, but in reality, I am a very bad person.”

“You’ve introduced me to your sister and mother, Jaehyun. If this is where a bad person grows up, then the entire world is rotten and beyond the point of saving. But people like you give me hope.”

“Why would a person like me give you hope?”

“Because, despite your situation, you still have so much love inside of you that expresses itself in so many forms. That’s why you’re loved too, by many people.”

Silence engulfed you, and you thought that Jaehyun would drive away after sometime again, but he didn’t, so you accompanied him in this quietness as long as it helped him process the past.

“You know why I wanted to take this shortcut?” he eventually spoke up quietly, and you shook your head. “Because I wanted to end the race abruptly and rush home… That night, my sister got very sick and my mom wasn’t home. I already announced that I would drop out before it happened.”

That was something the newspapers and no one else had ever mentioned. Of course, people always focus on sensational facts. It was easier to tell a story and transfer emotions when the main feeling an article would lure out was hate against someone.

It still had been a crime, this was a fact. And he could still go to jail for that. But you believed that the man who cared about his family so much and who was able to care about strangers too, was still very much haunted by his past, far more than he wanted to let slip through his facade.

If he hadn’t had a family to take care of, things would be entirely different. But he trusted you enough now to tell you all this and not fear that you would go behind his back.

My girl… you remembered. Had he truly meant it? Had you proven to him your undeniable loyalty just earlier?

“Jaehyun…”

Slowly, your hand wandered to his lap on top of his. Against your expectations, he grabbed yours and squeezed it tightly.

____

When Jaehyun wanted to drop you off at your building much later, the tension between you was still palpable, and you didn’t know how to make it vanish.

Perhaps, only time was needed - for him to believe that nothing had changed between you, and for you to settle with the fact that the guy who caused your heart to jump, just only a little bit, had done something grave in the past that you had to work through as well. After all, it still had been a crime.

“Jaehyun…” You wanted to end the night on a positive note, but he didn’t let you finish the sentence.

“Our ways will part here and now.”

You thought you had misheard. “Pardon?”

“I can’t demand a goody two-shoes like you to help a criminal like me,” he said coldly and stiffened in his seat. “And I surely won’t help a goody two-shoes like you write about my criminal record anymore now that the truth was inevitable to come forward with. So it ends here. Now.”

You knew where this rooted from: doubt and guilt. But during your entire career path, you had dealt with a lot of people who suddenly changed their minds on a topic or got cold feet.

“That won’t happen, Jaehyun,” you claimed. “You don’t have another navigator as good as me, no one and nothing can come close to the connection that you and I have.”

“It’ll be fine,” he obliged. “Now, go.”

“No,” you refused. “I will stay.”

“I SAID GO!”

“AND I SAID I WILL STAY!”

“Gosh!” he yelled. “Why can’t you be obedient for once towards me and leave before I hurt you too?!”

You both froze when it dawned on you what he had just said. You almost didn’t dare, yet you had to make sure that what he had said was indeed real.

“You’re afraid to hurt me?”

“I deceive my mom when it comes down to my activities and my studies. If she ever finds out, she’ll be hurt. I hurt my sister by not always being there for her whenever she needs me. I hurt my team for expecting them to be there for me although they have their own struggles. And I hurt you, because I cannot be the person you expect me to be. I only hurt the people I love.”

You took a deep breather and waited a few heartbeats in case Jaehyun wanted to chase you away again. But he didn’t. He just sat there in the driver’s seat, shoulders slumped, bangs messily falling into his eyes and the lollipop stick not moving a bit.

“You want to protect your overworked mom from more worries, you want to provide a good future for your sister, and you split the win evenly among the team for them to help their families too. If I don’t expect a friend to be exactly like this, then what else?” you confessed.

But Jaehyun didn’t like this answer, it was written all over his face. You were scared that you had said something wrong.

“Friends?” he suddenly croaked.

“Yeah, friends,” you repeated slowly. “Aren’t we… friends?”

You had seen him as your friend all along, though one who made your cheeks warm when he called you “my girl” and your heart swell when he touched you. But now, it hurt you that he had never felt even the slightest of the same connection. Fair enough, everyone needed their own space, and with Jaehyun’s past, it was his own right to decide whether to ever make friends again.

You had just hoped…

Cherry.

That was the taste of Jaehyun’s lollipop, he never chose another flavor.

Though, it tasted different from his own lips than from the candy directly.

You were asking yourself how this sweet taste could calm him down when all it did to you at this moment was making your heart race and nearly jump out of your chest. Perhaps, because this time, you tasted the lollipop’s sweetness on his tongue rather than in your own mouth, and he made sure that you experienced every taste bud this flavor had to offer.

Lollipops were very sweet already, and although Jaehyun was a fast and restless street racer, his kisses were much sweeter than candy. Admittedly, you hadn’t expected him to possess this side, but now that you thought about it, the signs had already been there whenever you observed him eating the candy.

Jaehyun’s fingers curled on your back when you motioned forward, away from your seat and more into his welcoming hug. The dashboard between you hindered you from embracing fully, causing you both to giggle at some point, but you continued kissing with your arms slung around his neck, for very long even after the cherry taste had vanished.

You weren’t hurt anymore over the fact that Jaehyun didn’t see you as his friend. You had never been friends. You had always been more than that.

____

Jaehyun’s victim had been a 45-year-old party chairman - that much you had found out through your connection to different journalists and a few demanding calls. The fact that after the incident, only silence followed and no details were revealed, not even about the gender and the age of the victim, had gotten your alarm bells ringing. And now you knew why.

A famous politician involved in a street racing accident, but no one had mentioned his name? Something was not right with this story, you didn’t need to be a professional to recognize this.

“I need his record,” you then said at the hospital’s reception.

Your editor-in-chief had given you this employee’s contact, assuring you she was more lenient in data protection when she saw the right amount of money. And your boss had been very happy to pay her the requested amount the moment you told him what you were after.

“This is exactly the kind of story I was looking for,” he had complimented you. “Good job. Now, go after it.”

You had left the building right away, making your way to the hospital the chairman had been admitted to after the accident.

“Here is a copy of his record,” the woman at the reception whispered to you. “All is well, he got out after two weeks. There is one interesting thing though… but look for yourself.”

“Thank you.”

You took the papers, and too excited to drive all the way back to the office, you looked through them right then and there after having found a quiet spot in the waiting room.

There was nothing abnormal at first for a car accident. It had left him with deep grazes, a dislocated arm, two broken ribs and a concussion. It sounded quite bad, but very mild for the fact that a car had hit him, and not at all life-threatening. So the accident had not been that severe as Jaehyun had made out to be in his panic.

Perhaps, that was the reason the party chairman had never been named in the news. But on the other hand… newspapers got to write articles about important politicians all the time, and just this once, his name had been left out? This didn’t sound like something a newspaper would do under these circumstances.

The more important the name, the more clicks and sales the news generated. They must have been bribed to keep his name entirely out of all news revolving around this incident. You were wondering yourself why. Given all facts, no matter how macabre it sounded, this kind of accident would even play into the party’s hands.

A very important politician who got hit by a street racer and admitted to the hospital with fractures? It would even be a headliner with the conclusion to go harder after such illegal activities.

Everything just doesn’t sound right. Something was being kept buried that no one should know about and could possibly threaten the party’s reputation. That much, you were already sure of.

… but what could it be?

You gasped when your eyes passed the passage that gave you a single answer to all your questions.

Patient was heavily intoxicated.

Whether it were drugs or alcohol, you didn’t know. But you were going to find out soon as you returned back to the office and made a call to the police.

____

“How high is the possibility that this program is actually a virus?” you asked and looked over Yuta’s shoulder who was currently typing something into his laptop.

“Very low, but it’s still new, so we never know what will happen anyway,” Taeyong answered on his friend’s behalf and stretched out on Yuta’s bed in whose home you had all gathered today. “Can’t you detect it if it’s one?”

“What do you think I’m currently trying to do here?” Yuta rolled his eyes. “I’m a programming student, not a wizard.”

“Okay, sorry? Jeez.”

“Doyoung said that with this program, you will also get the coordinates of all cars in your ten kilometer radius that use a GPS, so you can plan the route and the car’s speed even more predictively,” Yuta explained instead. “I’m still trying to figure out how.”

“The race is in two weeks. You should hurry.”

“I know, Taeyong. You think these last weeks I’ve only been sitting around?” Yuta gave his friend a scowl. “If it’s a new program, even used before its beta phase, it’s not so easy.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Okay, enough guys!” you interrupted their bickering. “Taeyong let Yuta work and peace and rather go through the city's plan for next week with me to mark all new construction sites, okay?”

In unison, they both said, “Fine.”

Taeyong turned to you while you started your own laptop to leave Yuta alone, and Jaehyun and Johnny were currently outside to maintain his car. You felt so included like never before in your life.

You’ve always said you didn’t grow up with a family. But sometimes, a family wasn’t something that you necessarily grew up with. Family also didn’t need to be bonded by blood. Sometimes, you lost family along the way, sometimes you gained one. And everyone would always welcome you into their family.

In your case, you gained a family in the form of a strong friendship that you had never experienced before in your life. Sitting here, analyzing maps with Taeyong while Yuta was silently typing away and Johnny and Jaehyun would soon come upstairs to talk about the next race after which you would all order food and then watch a movie together…

This was your own definition of family. This feeling of being cared for, trusted and loved without expecting anything in return, so much that it almost felt like your heart was going to burst. Your team was your family.

“I want to show you a place,” Jaehyun said when you were sitting in his car when all the work was done later that evening.

“Don’t you need to go home as usual?”

“My sister is having a sleepover at a friend’s house.” He smiled. “So I think my mom will enjoy a little more alone time to rest better.”

“Okay, then let’s go!”

Jaehyun stopped the car only much later after you had driven up a mound with a path so narrow, you feared the vehicle wouldn’t make it despite all its tuning. But against your expectations, you arrived at the top in that very same car, and the view over the entire city was splendid.

“I didn’t know such a place existed!” you called out and ran around the viewing place. “Jaehyun, I can see the entire city, and we’re not even on a mountain!”

“Do you like it?” he asked, following suit.

“I love it!”

“And I-”

“Hm?” You turned around to him with the biggest smile on your face. “What is it?”

He shook his head with a soft look on his face. “Nothing.” Then, he stepped close to you and hugged you from behind. “I’m happy you love it. It’s my favorite place. After the incident with my father happened, my sister and I came here a lot, because it made us forget reality for quite a while.”

“Thank you for sharing this special place with me.” You felt him kissing the nape of your neck and you shuddered pleasantly. “It really means a lot.”

The true meaning of it was revealed to you by him right after, “I spent most of the time here before my comeback. I wanted to give up on racing entirely. One night, I didn’t come home and my sister went to look for me which took her all night. I lost track of time, and I probably felt so ashamed returning to my family. When My sister found me here at the early hours of dawn, looking like a ghost and having cried all the way to this place, I knew that I had to do everything to protect my family. That’s when I dropped out of university and decided to race again. One day, I don’t want to do this anymore. One day, I’ll be free.”

You loosened yourself from his hug, shifted around and embraced him now from the front, body to body. “You’ll be one day, Jaehyun.” He gently brushed his fingers through your hair. “One day, you can provide your family the life they deserve and can finally live the one you have dreamed about as well.”

“But do I deserve it after everything that I’ve done?” He sounded full of doubts. “I’m not sure.”

You responded, quite confidently, “You do.”

“Actually,” Jaehyun changed the topic, “This car was my dad’s. He owned two, a big, elegant one to show off at work, and this one for his free time. It’s the only thing that was left, because it was registered to my mom’s name before I changed it to mine.”

You were curious about one topic. “Why did you never sell it? You only started racing after his arrest, right? Why have you never exchanged it for money?”

“I thought about it, a lot, in fact,” he clarified. “Maintaining a car is a very expensive hobby, after all. Apart from the fact that races became my source of income as it makes money fast and much, I think a part of me can’t also fully let go of my father.” He chuckled, but rather bitter and full of regret. “Isn’t it ironic? I think of it like my father repaying the debts he caused. It's satisfying.”

A wicked thought, but you liked the way he thought about it.

“Hey,” you then said, grinning, “do you want to get back at him once more?”

____

“Close your mouth and suck.”

This time, Jaehyun didn’t mean the lollipop he had put into your mouth, but something entirely else.

Luckily, the front seats of his car were able to be raised back all the way, so he was now lying almost flat on his back, his hands gently but determinedly having guided your head to his loin while you were sitting between his angled legs. You did as you had been told and sucked him off like a lollipop.

Your arms were propped up against the edges of the seat with your head bobbing up and down in a regular rhythm, but your tongue did the most work whenever you paused your neck movements just to indulge him with your proficiency.

“Jesus Christ,” Jaehyun cursed and put his forearm over his face so that his facial expressions would be hidden from you. It was like he didn’t want you to know how much control you had over him, but this was for no avail anyway as his swearing gave it all away, “No fucking way…”

It was certainly not your first time sucking him off, so it wasn’t like you didn’t know what he looked like enjoying this kind of pleasure. You found it rather cute how he still thought he could hide this side of him from you.

Your tongue rolled over the tip of his dick, leaving a trace of saliva where it passed. Making sure you covered every angle with your motions, you halted them when you opened your mouth entirely and slowly took in the majority of his length until you felt like you couldn’t do more.

Jaehyun let out a groan that made you smile inwardly, and it only got louder when you let him pass by your lips, but didn’t let him slip out entirely. Instead, you sucked on the tip like the cherry lollipop he often offered you.

You made sure to alternate between sucking and taking him into your mouth almost entirely, and when your left hand wandered to his warm thigh, you felt how tense he had become due to the arousal you made him feel. Instead of letting your hand go back though, Jaehyun stretched out his own to grab your fingers and intertwined them.

His nails dug into your skin and his thighs became very tense, closing around the sides of your face when his release was near. He came in a long spur directly into your mouth, and you swallowed it all down, including cleaning him up - with your tongue of course.

Jaehyun reached out to your face while you were licking over your lips, and you smiled at each other before his own gradually grew more wicked.

“You know what?”

“What?” You wiped with the back of your hand over your lips.

“I also never had sex in this car. Wanna change that?”

He didn’t need to ask twice.

Although it was still very narrow in the vehicle, Jaehyun had swiftly managed to change your positions so that you were now lying underneath him and he was kneeling in front of you in a crouched position. You giggled amusedly when you watched him taking off his shirt as he tried to do so without bumping into anything, but this had been an impossible task from the very beginning. Luckily, you had undressed yourself before already, so that he didn’t need to take care of that part too.

You assumed Jaehyun still needed a bit of time until he could go in fully again, but what would come before that, you had never expected. Your fingers were desperately gripping onto the door handle while your other hand was holding onto the seat belt that slowly dug into your flesh. But this slight pain passed by you almost unnoticeably when another feeling had taken control over your entire body and mind already.

You had already experienced how skillful Jaehyun was with his tongue whenever you kissed, which was long before indicated by the way he played with lollipops in his mouth. Of course he would put this skill into use elsewhere too.

But that he would be this good… You shuddered again when you came the second time in the span of a few minutes after Jaehyun had draped his hot, wet tongue all along your folds, causing your back to lift off from the seat and moaning his name over and over again.

And even then, he didn’t stop. He came to face you after cleaning off his mouth, and kissed you for a long time until you had entirely calmed down before he crawled back to his original position and squeezed his fingers into your bum again to bring it closer to his face.

With the tip of his tongue, he searched for the sensitive bundle of nerves, and you indicated that he had found it when you let out a light squeal. His lips enclosed the bud and you felt all your blood vanishing from your face when he started sucking on it. Oh god, you thought to yourself, you were surely going to pass out.

But he didn’t let you cum this time. Before you released, Jaehyun stopped and flipped you onto your stomach as swiftly as the narrow space allowed him to. Instinctively, you had already brought your bum up to give him better access, and you bit down into the flesh of your arm on which you had your chin rested when you felt him sliding into you from behind in one long motion.

The sound of his groin slapping against your cheeks mixed with your moans filled the car, and luckily, you had been the only ones on this view point at such a later hour. You had only had sex with Jaehyun once in your home, and you had never defined what that was between you. Maybe, you were too dense to speak it out and too naive to actually believe it, but you loved him.

Ironically, you only realized that when you decided to change positions and Jaehyun was constantly bumping his head on the ceiling and you got on top. You were settled on his hips, his length buried deep inside you, but you didn’t move yet.

You let your fingertips wander over his chest, taking your time, and he suddenly grabbed them, led them to his mouth and kissed the tips. When you gazes locked, you were sure.

Yes, you loved him. With all his flaws, his burdens and his past. Perhaps, you had never experienced this kind of love, which was why you had always been reluctant and unsure, but if this wasn’t love, you didn’t know what was. You just hoped that at one point, he would come to feel this way about you too.

“What is it?” he asked with worry when you made no intention of continuing. “Is something wrong? You want to stop?”

But you shook your head. “It’s just… I don’t want this moment to pass.”

Even in the semi-darkness, you encountered Jaehyun’s smile. “I feel the same way.”

Slowly, you raised your hips and slowly came back down to his groin. Jaehyun tried very hard to remain in eye contact with you, but when you did that several times more, he lost his composure again. You propped your hands up against his hard chest and picked up your pace, slamming onto him over and over again in a fast pace.

When you ran out of breath, you alternated the fast motions with sitting on his lap and just letting your hips rotate in different directions and forms, which very much pleased Jaehyun as well by the way he didn’t stop moaning at this part as well.

With time though, your stamina gave in, you slumped over him, eventually let yourself fall onto his chest, because you were too exhausted to go on anymore.

“Want me to finish?” he asked and stroked your shoulder to which you could only give a slight nod.

He kept you locked to his hips with his hands holding onto your sides very tightly and started thrusting upwards. You felt like he had knocked all the air out of your lungs, that was much much power he still possessed. Luckily, for you, you didn’t need to do anything anymore.

He was holding you as you laid on top of him, biting into his shoulder as he thrusted in and out of you with much force, which you really liked. Your thighs tensed around his sides and you whimpered gibberish into his ear, so close to cumming again.

Jaehyun let you release yourself first with a suppressed scream that partly still found a way to escape your lips, and your entire body shook as you felt your high flooding to every fiber of your body. He himself didn’t take much longer and you held him while he experienced his own orgasm, pressing you so close to him as though he was afraid of being parted from you ever again.

When you were getting dressed, he suddenly dropped, “I could get used to it.”

“Doing nasty things in your dad’s old car?” you joked.

But his expression remained serious. “No.”

You didn’t know what he meant.

____

You had written two different versions of Jaehyun’s story.

The first was the one he had read himself and approved of. There were only a few details and personal information sprinkled in here and there about the Falcon while you were trying to fill the emotional gaps with anecdotes and quotes from the other team members under an alias that they were willing to share. You were even successful in interviewing a few spectators and it would include the outcome of the race.

Overall, the less personal and official version gave a good overview over this illegal sport, and you were truly satisfied with this tame version. It was sufficient enough, intriguing enough and informative as well as emotional enough. At other magazines, the story would have made the headlines, you were sure of that. But for the magazine you worked for, enough was only good enough. You had to be better than enough, you had to exceed.

With this version of the Falcon’s story, you certainly weren’t. It wasn’t headline-material like your editor-in-chief expected after all the work you had put into it.

So you had written another version of this story.

One in which you talked about the Falcon’s past, his family, what had really happened back then before his career arose again and the relationships between you all. Yes, even between the two of you. And you had even come forward with the truth about the politician after hard research. This version of the story was personal and vulnerable, and it was the truth.

Jaehyun had gotten to read it as the first and only one.

“It wasn’t.. entirely my fault?” he had asked in disbelief when you gave him the story to read.

You had wanted to wait until you had gotten your facts straight, had enough proof, and then came over to his house to lay it out all in front of him. First, you were unsure whether he would like it, to have had you dig deep into his past.

But if he came to hate you and started to hate himself less instead, then it would have been worth it nonetheless. From one moment to the other though, you clearly saw in his eyes how much of a burden got lifted off his shoulder. Sure, the fact that the politician had been intoxicated didn’t change the fact that Jaehyun was way over the tempo limit, but he hadn’t been the only one at fault.

The politician had been intoxicated with drugs to the point of not being able to walk properly and had remained in the middle of the street, too far gone to think and speak straightly when Jaehyun had passed by.

“No, it wasn’t entirely your fault,” you assured him.

And with that certainty, you both decided to move past this as this case - to both parties luck, fortunately - had long been decided to be buried under the rug anyway.

Jaehyun didn’t come to hate you, you felt it in the way he hugged you close and never seemed to let you go after this revelation. He was, in fact, utterly grateful that you had never let go of this topic.

It was a step closer to him being free. From the very beginning, you knew which version you would publish after the race against the Cheetah. You had begged your boss to postpone the release for another month for you to include this race, and he had happily agreed - even to hold off the senior editor position.

____

“Are you nervous?”

You looked at Taeyong who took the seat next to you. Somehow, you weren’t nervous at all, even though tonight was Jaehyun’s big race against the Cheetah with so much money involved unlike ever before.

Later, you would also finish up the story with the outcome of the race and send it over still this night for the entire country to read. Perhaps, you were more nervous about this than the competition itself since you fully trusted your gained skills and Jaehyun himself. You wouldn’t treat this other than all the races before.

“I’m cool so far,” you said. “I just don’t know if it’s good or bad.”

“I hope it’s good. Jaehyun is probably more nervous than he lets slip.”

“I can hear you.” It was Jaehyun’s voice through your headsets.

“Good!” Taeyong exclaimed. “This wasn’t supposed to be a secret.”

You giggled just in the moment Yuta came over to you and put a usb on your desk. Just a few days before, you both had figured out how the new navigation system worked.

“Just plug it in and do as I told you.”

You nodded and reached for the stick. There were only ten minutes remaining. You had never seen this many people wanting to watch a race before and the tension was sizzling, not only between the teams, but between the spectators too. As far as you had heard, the bets were almost equally split as though no one could decide who would win in their eyes. The Cheetah’s team was in another building, and you wondered whether they were still nervous with the amount of times they had already won so war.

“Hey,” you suddenly heard Jaehyun through the headphones.

“Yes?”

Apparently, he had muted himself for Taeyong since he didn’t respond, but typed something into the computer and then turned around to talk to Johnny and Yuta.

“If something happens,” Jaehyun spoke, “no matter what, will you be with me until the end?”

“Of course.”

“No, I mean it.”

You frowned. “Mean what?”

He sighed deeply as if he was struggling inwardly trying to find the right words. “Will you be with me… until the end?”

“Of course!” you replied happily.

“No! I mean... shit.”

What did he want? “I don’t get it.”

“I love you.”

You were stunned.

It was the first time he had said this to you. The first time someone had said this to you. For how long had he been feeling this way already? Was there a chance he’d been in love with you for as long as you loved him too? You were long lost for words and before you could even inhale to say something back, Taeyong was by your side again.

“You guys ready?”

“Yes,” Jaehyun answered quickly as though nothing had ever happened.

“Then get ready.”

____

The moment the race started, you got to witness with your own eyes why the Cheetah was called the Cheetah. Jaehyun was already a remarkable racer, but his rival was immaculate.

You wouldn’t be Jaehyun’s navigator though if you hadn’t grown together throughout the past weeks. You were his additional eyes, ears and mind. Whatever he lacked or hadn't perfected, you carried out together, making him even stronger so that as of right now, he could easily take it on the Cheetah. You were going to win, that was how much trust you had in you both.

Midway through the race though, which was a real head-to-head contest that had eventually shaken off a part of your tranquility and replaced it with a bit of nervousness because of a few instances from which you quickly recovered nonetheless, Jaehyun started to panic.

“Shit, we didn’t see this coming!”

He complained about a construction site that had not been on your screen, but only popped up now. As of this instance, he was in advance, being in front of the Cheetah. Now, it was on you for how long he could hold that position.

“Don’t worry,” you tried to calm Jaehyun down while your heart raced almost as fast as the car itself right now. “I got you.”

“Why didn’t the new navigation system that Yuta gave you see it coming?” It sounded almost like an accusation and Taeyong shot a meaningful look at you from the side. “There are construction vehicles all around it!”

“Hey.” You didn’t raise your voice, you just wanted Jaehyun to snap out of his mental deadlock since he was too into it. “Stay calm.”

Sometimes, this happened. And if he was too panicked, he’d lose focus and make mistakes. That was why you were here. By now, you knew how to handle them and not let him irritate you or vice versa.

“I’m sorry.” Jaehyun had instant regrets. “I just want to win, I need to win.”

“I know. But to win, you have to trust me.”

You could only imagine his fingers gripping onto the steering wheel like his life depended on it, the knuckles first turning red, then white.

“I can’t lose,” he breathed and repeated like a mantra, “I can’t lose.”

On the screen, you perceived that he wasn’t as fast and sharp with his driving anymore, the Cheetah drawing closer to erase the remaining meters between the two cars. The vehicles appeared on the screen as dots on a map, the two that represented the racing cars now almost melting into one. Your entire team had gathered around you and were listening to you speak, only you and Taeyong knowing the details of your driver’s panic so far.

“You won’t lose, because I’m here with you, Jaehyun,” you assured him slowly, aware that in such kind of situations, you had to pretend to be calm to keep the driver at peace, even though you were tense as hell too. “It’s me, okay? I love you too, and I will be with you until the end. I know the meaning of this now, and of course I will.”

Silence - not only on the other side of the headset, but also in the hall among your team.

“Please say something,” you addressed to Jaehyun while ignoring all the other members’ grins. “This is kind of really embarrassing now.”

“I-I… I can’t,” he stuttered. “I’m… too happy.”

You smiled. Even though you were only connected via voice and there were other people standing behind you, you felt more connected to Jaehyun like never before.

“Are you ready to win this game with me now?” you asked him.

You felt his confident grin in every fiber of your body, it had given him the boost he needed. "Absolutely."

“Hey, we’re here too!” Johnny interrupted you. “What about us?”

“Get lost.” Jaehyun returned back to his grumble, but everyone knew that he didn’t mean it this way.

When you all broke out into a laughter together that lifted off the tension, even just a little bit, you finally felt like you had long reached the finish line. Not in terms of the race, but in terms of other things.

Trust, friendship and even love.

Because even if you had been among them only for a few weeks, you couldn’t imagine a better feeling than the warmth they caused you to experience right now with Johnny putting his hand on your shoulder in a comforting gesture, Taeyong smiling at you as he pointed at something on the screen, and Yuta rolling his eyes, seemingly not minding, but silently enjoying the entire situation.

This was it. This was your family. There was no deeper connection than you had with your team. You were going to win.

____

And you did.

Jaehyun crossed the finish line first.

Jaehyun won against the Cheetah.

Jaehyun was crowned King of the Streets.

…

But he didn’t last on the throne for long.

Only eight hours.

____

“King of the Streets”

… was the headline of your story that you finished late at night and sent over to your editor-in-chief so that it could still be printed for next month’s issue with the intention to be published the morning after.

____

“Congratulations.”

“Pardon?”

You were sitting in your boss’ office, the same chair, the same desk, the same window and the same view in sight. A few weeks ago, this had meant everything to you. You had wanted this, so badly, and you would have done everything for it. Now, it meant nothing anymore.

You hadn’t seen the new issue yet, that was not why you had come here. In your hands, you were holding a notice, but it had got nothing to do with what you had handed in the night before.

“‘King of the Streets’? I couldn’t have thought of a better title.” Your boss the issue in front of your eyes, but you rarely paid attention to it. “It’s great that you went with the way of leaving out the guy’s real name and even the politician’s name. Honestly, if I didn’t know who it was myself, I wouldn’t be able to guess. Now, people will get invested and do some digging. Congratulations on your promotion to senior editor!”

“Pardon?” you repeated.

You hadn’t written about the politician as agreed on. In fact, you had left out the entire storyline about the incident. That was why you had been so sure the story wouldn’t make headlines, and in your hands you were actually holding your resignation notice. You didn’t want to become senior editor. You wanted to quit.

With trembling hands, you reached out to the newest issue and looked at the headline. Indeed, this was your title “King of the Streets” with a stock photo that showed cars by night in front of a skyline. Your breath shortened when you searched for the right page and you felt like the air was being cut in your lungs when you stumbled over the story and started reading.

This was not your article. At least not the one that had been supposed to get published. It was the one only Jaehyun had gotten to read earlier, his very own, personal version. You felt sick in your stomach. How was this possible? Had you been hacked? Had someone secretly gotten access to your laptop?

“I… I sent you this?” Your voice shook with each syllable.

The editor-in-chief nodded. “Only a few minutes before the boring, second one. Of course I went with the first one. Who wouldn’t?”

“I didn’t send you this!” you nearly screamed. “How could you have published this?!”’

“Please calm down, Miss. This was sent from your very own email.”

“Show me,” you demanded and smacked the issue back on the desk. “Show me the mail!”

He sighed deeply and murmured something about short term memory, but you didn’t care much about his shenanigans anymore. Either way, today was the last day you’d ever interact. You’d just leave, what could he possibly do about it?

When your ex-boss shifted the desktop into your direction, you directly noticed, “This is not my work mail.”

It was your usual mailing name from a random provider, but neither your work mail address or your private one. Everything was similar except for the domain, indicating that someone had made this up on purpose.

“Yes, but I figured you might be using another mail, because you weren’t at home or didn’t have access. It was the big competition, so it was possible, right? Aside from that, this is your topic and writing style, even signed with your name. How could I have doubted it? I mean… this is your story after all, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

There was nothing you could say to defend yourself in front of him. You had written this all yourself, and the fact that it had gotten leaked wasn’t his problem. But someone else’s…

“I have to go,” you said.

“Well, when will you come back? We have to talk about your new position’s details.”

You laughed bitterly and didn’t forget to drop the letter on his desk. “I won’t come back.”

You didn’t care about your belongings. You just grabbed your bag, jacket and laptop and left the office without saying goodbye to anyone. The only thing on your mind right now was that you had to talk to Jaehyun and explain everything to him.

The more surprised you were to find him already sitting in the lobby. You were stunned, but as you continued your movements towards him, Jaehyun looked up, and your blood froze. He wore the biggest scowl on his face, and hidden behind it was the one emotion that hurt you the most: disappointment.

“Jaeh-”

“How could you?!” he yelled and arose from the coach, but he didn’t approach you. “I trusted you!”

You were assured it wasn’t because he was afraid he'd lose himself. He just couldn’t look you in the eyes as disappointment came forward more and more, revealing his true feelings. He couldn’t keep the angry facade up for much longer upon meeting you, the person he loved. But you still saw. Jaehyun was utterly hurt, and it was caused by this very same person.

You didn’t need to explain yourself, it wouldn’t change anything. You had betrayed and disappointed him like his father had, and there was no excuse for it. His entire past and deepest conflits had just been revealed to the country, and even though it wasn’t you who had published the story, you were the one who had written it.

Telling Jaehyun that it hadn’t been sent in by you wouldn’t change a single thing. The deed had already been done and there was no going back. You were just another person he had entirely lost faith and trust in, and there was no way for it to be restored. At least not right now, not immediately.

Jaehyun clenched his fists and pressed through gritted teeth, “You promised to me, I trusted you.”

Every syllable he directed at you pierced directly through your heart. You shouldn’t have written anything in the first place, it should have just stayed between the two of you. What had you thought while writing all of this? That you were doing him a favor? For what? No, it wouldn’t change anything, and it wouldn’t make him less sad and disappointed if he knew that you weren’t the person who had published it.

So you simply said, “I’m sorry, I should have never written this story.”

“I’ve always known you journalists were selfish bastards after all,” he hissed.

No heartbreak that you had ever experienced before came close to what you were feeling right now. At this point, you thought that you had been left by so many people in your life that you would need to entirely shut down.

Jaehyun didn’t speak it out, but you certainly sensed that he was going to leave you now, too. This was what you got for always being so nosy, for wanting so much and giving everything for it. In the end, when you reached your aim, everything didn’t matter when you lost every person that meant the world to you along the way.

“Get lost! Keep out of my sight and don’t ever dare talking to me again!”

When Jaehyun turned around without looking at you one more time, it felt like you were dying. So many people had walked out of your life already, and the man you loved the most being one of them hadn’t been in your book before. But now, it was very much real. It felt hurtfully real.

“Miss, are you okay?” the receptionist asked when she was approaching you.

You hadn’t noticed how your notebook had fallen on the floor, paper flying around everywhere. You were still looking after Jaehyun, petrified, while the young woman started to collect the sheets by your feet, but you barely noticed her. How was one to function, when they had lost what they loved the most?

Not much later, the receptionist was holding your arm after you had broken down crying in the middle of all your belongings. There was no one else anymore who could have emotionally supported you anyway, so who did it now was irrelevant to you.It didn’t help one bit though.

____

“Jiyeong?”

“Can I come in?”

It had been two weeks since Jaehyun had walked out of your life and you quit your job. Every minute of the day, you were hoping that he would come by to talk it all out. Not once had you hoped that his sister would do so instead of him.

“Sure.”

When she took off her shoes, walked past your small entrance and into your room, her eyes widened. “Why the many moving boxes? Are you…”

“I’ll be going away.”

“Where to?”

You smiled, but remained quiet, and Jiyeong immediately understood.

You didn’t want her to know and no one else either. Not because you were afraid that she or someone else would tell anyone, but because telling anyone at all would open the possibility of getting haunted by your past again. And this time, you just really wanted a clean cut.

“When are you leaving?” she asked instead, not even mildly offended to your relief.

“Next week.”

“I wish you all the best.”

“Thank you, Jiyeong. I really appreciate that.”

“Please don’t say this so easily.” Her expression changed into a pained one. “You’ll hate me from now on.”

“Why would I possibly hate you?”

She didn’t reply immediately, but nervously stepped from one foot on the other. She barely dared to look into your eyes, kneading her fingers nervously. “Because it was me.”

You were confused. “What?”

Even a bit quieter, she confessed, “It was me who sent the story to your boss.”

You were lost for words and still in hope you had heard wrong. “You sent the published story to my magazine that night?”

Slowly, Jiyeong nodded. “Yes. I found the story still open on my brother’s laptop when I went into his room to look for a charger. I couldn’t look past it, I really needed to read it. And it was so beautiful. My brother is just so deeply misunderstood, I was so relieved someone else saw it. So I wanted the entire country to know too.”

It was a lot for you to take in, and you still couldn’t believe this was real. “Did you create a fake mail account in my name and send it to my boss this way?”

“Yes. The mail from you with the article was still open, so it was easy to secure a similar address. I just acted on my personal intentions and disregarded your and my family’s feelings. I didn’t know what I would cause by doing that. I didn’t know I would not only get our mother worried, but hurt my brother and you too. I deeply apologize.”

“Jiyeong…”

“I thought,” she interrupted you, “I thought everyone would finally see my brother the way my mom, I, his friends and you see him. That he’s more than all that people paint him to be, and that the incident back then was different from everyone’s make up story. Never have I thought that I would not only ruin the lives of the people involved too, the least his or yours. I tried to change it up and make it as anonymous as possible, but I’m only writing in school, I don't have any real life experience, I’m still a child. I didn’t want all that, that was not supposed to happen! What was I thinking?!”

Her voice gradually grew louder and more upset, and when she hit the last sentence, she was close to tears.

You remembered the time when you were a teenager. There had been some grave mistakes you had made and many words you had said that you would want to have taken back immediately, but the deed had already been done and feelings had been hurt, including yours. Sometimes, the guilt gnawed on you like a parasite that never stopped being hungry.

You had never wanted to become a person who made someone else live with that feeling forever. In front of you just stood a teenage girl who had wanted to do the right thing and who just didn’t know what the right thing was. So you stretched out your arms and pulled her into an embrace. Jiyeon begged you over and over again to not hate her or her brother. You loved both of them dearly, how could you?

When she left after sharing a bottle of ice cream with you to soothe your both shaken up feelings, you also learned that Jaehyun had been informed about Jiyeong’s misconduct directly after he had come home the day the story was published - so two weeks ago.

This entire time, he knew. He had known all along and he never contacted you.

You hoped so badly that Jaehyun would still come. You were even still holding onto the slightest sliver of hope the day you moved away from Seoul, until the moment you closed your empty apartment door behind you.

But he never came.

It was just as you thought: It didn’t change anything, whether you or anyone else had sent in the story. The outcome would have always been the same.

So, if Jaehyun had decided to move on, then you would too.

Even though you had lived one of the best times of your life in that city, now it bearded nothing but a sorrowful past and broken dreams.

You wanted to move on, too.

____

2 years later

Moving out of a city didn’t simultaneously mean continuing on.

You had first needed to learn how to start life all over again.

It hadn’t been easy to begin again in Daejeon. It had taken quite a bit of time to find an affordable apartment, although the city was much less populated than the capital. It had even taken you much longer to find a job that fitted you more than the last one, and only recently had you settled with a new friend group.

Overall, life was going pretty well for you now.

Were it not for the fact that you still missed Jaehyun with every fiber of your heart.

After your published story, many newspapers had made follow up articles, even leaking the party chairman’s name. Of course he had then been fired from his position and the party would not make it to be one of those with the highest votes anymore.

Not a word was lost about the Falcon though. It was like he had never existed.

But you knew better.

Jaehyun had stopped street racing entirely and had enrolled back into university for his last year. He had taken the last race’s prize money to pay off the family’s debt - his entire team had left their amount to help him out this time, including you. This had allowed him to sell his car and start working part time in an electric shop.

It hadn’t been by far as much as he had earned as a racer, but they had made ends meet with honest work.

You were wholeheartedly happy for him when Taeyong had told you all this one day when you had met in Daejong a year ago.

“He misses you very much too,” he had said, and you had smiled lightly.

“I thought he hated me.”

“Did you forget what he said during his last race?”

That he loved you.

“I will never forget.”

Jaehyun had won the biggest race in his whole career, but he still wasn’t entirely free. Being crowned King of the Streets, having won a lot of money and becoming popular as well as getting your love - all that hadn’t set him free from his past.

“But now, it doesn’t matter anymore,” you had added, speaking to Taeyong.

He had wanted more time not only for, but also with his mom and sister. Being a good son and brother like his father could have never been.

Jaehyun couldn't put his life on hold to leave his family eventually, too. You had understood, so you had quietly accepted all this, letting him go and focus on the things he saw as important now. Where it had been racing and winning before, his priorities had entirely shifted.

If your love wasn’t part of this anymore but had made him realize this, then what more could you ask for?

By now, another year later, Jaehyun must have graduated from university already and his sister must be a sophomore in high school. Every now and then, you thought about them and prayed for their safety, but your life wasn’t on hold anymore.

“Miss, your interview partner is waiting in the lobby.”

“Okay, thank you.”

You took your notebook from your desk and walked out of your office. The room wasn’t as big as the one in your old company and the view was not as splendid, but you were editor-in-chief for the city's biggest magazine. You could write about things you really cared about like politics and things going on in town, nobody pressured you to cover topics that required you to do criminal things.

The company fitted your personality, your morals. It was perfect for you.

A week ago, you had gotten a request from someone who claimed to have a really good story for you. Even after telling the person via mail that your magazine didn’t take on this kind of sensational story, the person was being persistent, so you gave in and were open to hear what they had to say.

“Good morning, I-”

The last words got stuck in your throat and your breath caught simultaneously. You let your notebook nearly slip from your hands upon encountering your today’s interview partner.

“Good morning.”

He smiled the smile you had lured out of him only after a few weeks of knowing each other. In these two years, he hadn’t changed one bit. He looked more mature and admittedly also more relaxed, the scowl entirely gone. His clothes had changed into more sophisticated ones as he wore black dress pants and a white button up.

“Life’s been treating you well,” he added. “I’m happy for you.”

His deep, soft voice let you nearly melt again, but you were a professional, so you regained your composure real quick.

“I heard you have a really good story for me Mr. Jeong,” you smiled. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

____

Jaehyun wanted you to publish a story.

This time, with him and with his name written all over it.

“I don’t want to hide anymore, I don’t want to have secrets. I want to come clear, not only with myself, my family and friends, but also with everyone involved. I’ve already gathered permission from everyone, and even though it admittedly took me very long to reach this conclusion, I’m a hundred percent sure I want to do it. And most importantly, I want you to do it.”

It would be his personal story, from his own point of view where he would talk about his past, his father’s wrongdoings, his struggles and what he had been up to since his final race. He asked you to sell this story to your old company for a wider audience and for a follow up.

Legally, he weighed himself secure since he had talked to a few layers before making this decision. It was all for his conscience. If this helped Jaehyun finally move on entirely, then you would happily do it for him.

“Back then, during my last race, my navigator had never used the new system. I only found out much later.”

You paused your writing and looked up. You had settled yourselves in a conference room to work on this story without any interruptions. “Why did she never use it, Mr. Jeong?”

“She had so much faith and trust in our connection, she was sure she could do it without, that was how much she believed in me.”

You lowered your head and pretended to write, but out came only gibberish. Your heart was racing. You always fondly thought back to that time. “She must have been a real baddie,” you joked.

“She was.” The corners of Jaehyun’s lips curled upwards. “I don’t regret anything except for one thing.”

“Which is…?”

“Letting her go.”

You were asking yourself why you suddenly couldn’t see anymore as your vision was very blurry. When you wiped the back of your hand over your eyes, you realized that you had started crying, and the tears had stained the writing on your paper.

“I have one more question for you,” you only brought out.

“Yes?”

“Have you married yet, Mr. Jeong?”

The pause that followed almost tore you apart as you closed your eyes and prayed inwardly.

“I’ve been waiting for a special person to return to Seoul,” he nearly whispered. “When she didn’t, I went to search for her.”

You looked up to him, tears still burning on the brim, but somehow, you didn’t feel sad anymore. You felt more overwhelmed with this entire revelation that caused your heart to finally flutter again.

You had never stopped loving Jaehyun.

“And… what if that person doesn’t want to go back to Seoul?”

Jaehyun stretched out his hand and laid his palm against your cheek, wiping away your tears. It felt so familiar and warm, a feeling you had deeply missed. Even though there was still a respectful distance between you that had built up in the past two years, the connection was as deep and intense as ever.

It was at this moment that you realized Jaehyun had never stopped loving you too.

“Then, I’ll go wherever she goes.”

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pirateprincessblog · 11 months

Text

player 9

𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫.: finally reuniting with your family after years of working abroad, your six year old nephew doesn't leave your side. he wants you to take him to school, he wants to do his homework with you, he wants to sit on your lap during meals, and he wants you to watch his football practice. how convenient that you're almost always alone on that stadium, and that his coach is just the most gorgeous man you've ever seen in your life. 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: jeong yunho x reader 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 5k 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: footballplayer!yunho, coach!yunho, whippedforhernephew'scoach!reader 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: gagging, semi-public sex, oral (m!receiving), creampie, unprotected sex

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: swearing 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: is it soccer or football? football or rugby? either way, i'd let yunho demolish me in the locker room (or in the middle of the football field). :)

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫: 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐲.

"it's called soccer, dumbass."

"no, it's called football, dumbass."

"you don't know what you're talking about." your brother rolls his eyes, then stuffs his mouth with the hotdog you had made for game night.

"there's a ball, and you kick it with your foot. what part of that seems to be the issue?"

"football is an entirely different sport-"

"oh give me a break-"

"god, it's like you both are sixteen again. is that just a natural thing? no matter how old you get you'll bicker like this all your life?" your mother complains, sipping her cucumber water and judging the calories on the table with a single eyebrow raise.

your brother's son, your nephew, laughs in your lap. you laugh with him, seeing the ketchup mess on his face and his sticky little fingers.

"and what are you laughing at, you little rascal? come here!"

the young man grabs the child from your lap, tickling the life out of him as a punishment for mocking his father. he playfully reaches towards you for help, and you do, tickling your own brother to make him stop.

"oh god, my white couch!"

"stop that, our daughter came back after many years apart and you care about the couch?" your father scolds his wife.

"it's not like that-"

"hush! is it 2:1? is it?! yes it is!" he jumps, spilling the beer all over the just mentioned couch.

"oh, heavens." her voice is light, and she looks like she is about to faint.

the four of you snicker, and silently cheer with another hot dog.

you forgot just how boring your town is. you do nothing but lay in your bed watching tv shows, walk to the local bakery, and drive your nephew to school. he is almost glued to you twenty four hours a day, and you don't mind. he is the squishiest thing ever, always listens to you, and helps you piss off your brother.

he doesn't have much of a mother figure in his life. your brother works a lot, and your parents are raising him. his mother died during birth, and even though they begged to save her and not the child, it was too late. your brother didn't want the baby at first. pushed it away, yelled at it, saying it took away his wife and his will to live. then, he started therapy. he started getting better, and started spending time with his child. your nephew has all the love he could possibly get, but your arrival changed him. he has become very attached to you; sneaking out of his room in the middle of the night just to sleep in your bed, making his kindergarten teacher call you mid playing just to tell you that he built a rocket out of clay, to only eating when he sits on your lap and you feed him.

much like this morning.

"auntie?" he mumbles between the waffle bites.

"yes, pumpkin?"

"will you watch me play soccer today?"

"it's football!" your brother calls from the living room. "you broke my kid."

"i didn't break him, i just passed him some of my IQ."

the man sticks his tongue out towards you, making his son giggle.

"don't you want grandpa to take you?" your father makes a disappointed face, teasing his grandchild.

"i want auntie to take me! and then you can meet my coach! and then you can see how cool our new jerseys are! we are only allowed to wear them at the stadium and not take them home because they are new. i really wanted to show it to you but coach wouldn't let me. he says i'd make it rip it as soon as i enter the house!"

"oh, how dare he!" you say, noticing your father's wink as a sign to support him.

"and sometimes he yells at me! but grandpa told me that he just means well, and that he only wants to teach me so i can be a great player like him! did you know that he is going to play the- the- oh no, what's it called again, grandpa?"

"the derby?"

"yes! that! he is going to play in a few weeks! he is so cool!"

he may not be able to feed himself, but instead of that, he can talk. all day long. and just sometimes, your ears become irritated. so you agree to drive him. you blast the music, muting his babbling from the back as he sits in his car seat. can anyone blame you? it's a two hour drive. you don't have the energy for it today.

you finally arrive, and after making sure you've locked your car and rolled the windows up, you finally let him lead you inside. you can barely keep up with him, he is too excited to see his friends. you see other women standing near the group of children, and you let go of your nephew's hand so you can greet them. after all, you'll be coming here quite often it seems.

"hi, just wanted to introduce myself."

"oh, the new stepmom?"

"what? no- i- what?" you're just as confused as them, and you look over to your nephew.

"oh, i'm so sorry! he keeps talking about his new mom and we just thought-"

his new mom? your confusion disappears when you see the little boy pointing his finger towards you, excitedly showing you off to his friends.

"no, no. i'm his aunt." you inform them.

before they get to say anything, the doors on the side of the stadium open, revealing a tall male wearing a jersey. you hear whispering behind you, maybe even a particularly long exhale, and you have to say that you agree with them.

the coach is stunning. he is drop dead gorgeous, and the more you look, the more self conscious you feel about your lazily picked outfit today. he is so tall and lean, his waist probably smaller than yours. his lips are plump and a pretty pink colour, and his hair a dirty blonde, almost a mullet. no wonder all the moms were dipped in makeup and dresses. you wore your brother's hoodie with his favorite football team logo on it, short leggings and zero makeup.

"hi, ladies." he greets, smiling at the group. he surely knows his impact.

his gaze stops on you, catching you red handed. you must've been staring at him weirdly, because he smiles wider your way, then finally lets the kids inside to change and get ready for the practice. all except...

"coach jeong! can my mom please come and watch me?"

"mom?" the coach is caught off guard, glancing your way.

"oh, no no, honey-" you try explaining. that man needs to know you're single.

"please?" the boy puts his palms together, and does his best puppy eyes to convince the man in front of him to let you in.

"well i- i guess. come in then." he holds the door open for you.

other women do not seem to take interest in going in and watching their children. instead, they greet the coach, then head over to the nearby café. your nephew tugs at your hand, smile so wide his eyes turn into half moons and he doesn't even see you.

"you little rascal." you scold him, ruffling his hair.

he runs off to the locker room, and you watch him drag the backpack that is almost bigger than him across the floor.

"well, this is an odd surprise. i didn't know he had a mother. not to be rude, of course."

"oh, i am not. i am his aunt." you finally explain.

"ah, so that's the case. i was wondering. you look so young."

he smells of freshly cut grass and a hint of manly sweat, mixed with some type of cologne. his face is clean shaven, giving you a chance to notice his sharp jawline as you walk together towards the football field.

"he is a gem, really. but, god, can he talk."

"i know. he got that one from me." you joke, knowing your nephew has outbursts of energy often.

yunho laughs, then opens another door for you. you finally step into the green field, nostrils immediately filling up with the pleasant smell of freshly mowed grass. you were never one for sports, but you gladly watched a game or two with your friends and now family. you wouldn't do it willingly on your own, you have more interesting things to do. but you don't hate it.

you also don't hate it when yunho places his hand on your lower back, guiding you towards the chairs where you've seen coaches and other member's of the team sit during matches. you thank heavens for the early winter sun and long sleeves, otherwise he would've seen the goosebumps from an innocent touch like that.

"have a seat. if they kick a ball in your direction, i'm sorry on their behalf."

"real comforting for my first live match, thanks."

the children run out on the field after changing, taking their positions on a white line in front of their coach. you study his moves, and needless to say, you find yourself squirming in the plastic chair quite soon. he is stern. he gives orders, guides them, and cares for them. you are turned on by something as simple as his yelling over the field. you never knew you could be so turned on by someone doing their job.

he starts the warmup, doing the squats and pushups with them. his arms aren't that big, but they are still muscular and decorated with bulging veins.

"coach, remember when you made us do pushups with your backpack on our back?" one of the older kids says.

"yeah, so? want another session?"

"no, no! i was just wondering if you could do the same." the rest of them start smirking, especially your nephew, and yunho scoffs.

"of course i can."

"but not with the backpack! with her on your back!" he points his little finger towards you, and you scoff.

"i don't think that's approp-"

"he can't do it," you accidentally interrupt, trying to save him.

he looks at you, one eyebrow cocked. you swear you could slip off the chair from the sudden rush of arousal.

"oh, really?" he asks, a smirk dancing on his lips.

"really." you decide to tease back, to see just how far it gets you.

"well why don't we try?"

he gets into the position, not even allowing you to decline. the team starts cheering, your nephew the loudest of them all.

"come on, now. sit on me."

you choke on your saliva. he smirks to himself, and you are ready to wipe it off. he likes teasing, doesn't he. little narcissist.

you walk over to him, purposely sitting on his back with force. but he holds, his wide back a comfortable seat. his arms start working his body. and your jaw drops at how easily he is doing the push ups with you on his back. the cheers get louder, seeing their coach effortlessly carry a person like that. he does a few more, just to show off, until you get off of him. your nephew runs over, hugging your leg and cheering for the handsome coach. yunho winks at you, then proceeds to train the boys.

your stops to the stadium become your new hobby. you sit on the same chair, watching the man teach the young ones, occasionally catching a glance or two from him, then arriving home and falling asleep mid day to the thoughts of his arms and voice. some days you fall asleep from simple thoughts, and some days you need a locked door and a buzzing device.

with each practice, he finds a way to somehow touch you. last time, he asked you to help him set up a new net on the goal frame. he couldn't "reach it", so he held you by your waist in the air while you secured it. if he can carry you around so easily, could he also carry you as he thrusts into you back in his office? or in the back of the-?

"guests! get up!" your mother knocks on the door, and you are quick to throw your gadget under your pillow, stopping the fantasies in your brain.

poor thing has been working non stop for the past few weeks, and still doesn't do a good enough job. sure, it gets you over the edge, but seeing yunho's slender fingers spin that ball so effortlessly when he is busy watching the kids play is just making it more complicated. not sure if on purpose, but lots of times he toys with the little hole on the ball that is there for inflating it. he circles it, slowly and carefully, eyes not leaving the green field. your eyes are locked on the ball and the middle finger rotating on the ball, mouth going dry as you almost feel that same finger circling your own hole.

"see? told you he's a gem." he interrupts your drooling one day.

"huh? oh, yes. absolutely." you catch a glimpse of your nephew celebrating victory.

you miss the way yunho bites his lip, hiding another smirk forming. he knows he has you wrapped around his finger, and he can almost smell the arousal off you. at first, he enjoyed teasing you for fun. but now? seeing that you've started showing up in short knitted winter dresses and knee high boots? it gets him going too. especially when you put those sunglasses on when you get in the car and help your nephew in his car seat, looking like a really hot young mom.

a mom he'd like to fuck all day every day in the back of the car after she drops her kids off at school.

"guests? who the hell is it?" you ask more yourself than your mother.

you throw on a sweater and the first pair of jeans you find, then check if you've put the vibrator away just in case a certain child decides to come in the room and snoop. it is securely locked in your drawer, along with a local newspaper cutout with yunho's figure on it, the jersey proudly stating his last name and his player number: nine. he looks dashing, so why not? you're not doing anything weird with it. just masturbating to it. no biggie. everyone does that.

it is a random wednesday and middle of the day. nobody familiar is coming to your mind when it comes to guests. but when you go downstairs and join your mother in the kitchen, you freeze. the big glass door to the patio is open, revealing the very coach you were just touching yourself to sitting on your favorite chair near the pool. your father hands him over a beer, like they do this every day.

"what is the coach doing here?"

"your brother invited him to wish him luck for the game next week." the woman simply explains, lining up the various cheese bites on toothpicks on the oval plate. "here, take this to your father while i grab a few more beers for them. for an athlete, you'd think he drinks less."

"mom!" you scold, in case he might have super hearing.

you carry the plate in one hand, while you use the other one to fix your hair. yunho is quick to notice you coming towards them, a smile forming on his lips as he examines you head to toe. you look cute in maroon and black, that oversized sweater hiding your waist from him. ever since he lifted you in the air that day to fix the net, he has been dreaming about holding that waist again. he wants to bite into it, leave purple marks all over it, kiss it and whatnot. you are just that addictive, and you didn't do anything but exist.

"hi, coach."

something about you calling him coach is setting his body on fire. it has the same effect on him as the word "daddy" or "sir" would have on someone else. he decides he enjoys hearing it from your lips. he hopes he'll get to hear it in a shape of a moan or gasp too.

"hi, my lovely assistant. did you know that your sister actually knows a thing or two about football?"

"soccer. and no, this dumbass right here?"

all three of you roll your eyes at his correction. yunho snickers, taking a sip of his beer.

"yes. she helps me set up the training ground and comes up with very interesting and actually beneficial stuff. the other day she even managed to score against our thirteen year old goalkeeper!"

you squint your eyes at the man, holding grudge for mocking you. he is half right, you did set up the training grounds for the kids. and you did score against the thirteen year old goalkeeper. go you!

"cheese?" you offer, stopping their little bullying session.

"why, thank you." he takes one, then continues his conversation about the upcoming game.

you run back to the kitchen, helping your mother with more drinks. you hear your nephew somewhere, and his quick and heavy footsteps.

"careful, i'm holding liquid!" you warn before he can bump into you.

you make your way towards the patio again, ready to secretly start flirting with his coach. you don't know how. you'll figure it out. only this time, he doesn't notice you coming, and stands up while still talking to your family. he doesn't hear you warn him over your nephew's loud and bad cover of the teenage mutant ninja turtles theme song, and walks straight into you, spilling the beverages all over his white t-shirt and your maroon sweater. you almost slip on the wet tiles, but his hands are quick to grab your waist and steady you. your body is pushed against his, soft breasts pressed against his own firm chest, your heart almost breaking through your ribcage and hitting his.

"shit, i'm so sorry." he finally lets go, then bends over to pick up the half empty cans of beer.

"oh, just leave it! i'll clean it up!" your voice is squeaky, hands still trembling from the interaction you just had.

his grasp is so firm, you want him to pick you up again just so you can feel that rush of lust one more time. the way his slender fingers pick up the pieces of glass from the floor shoots arrows to your core. a task so simple that it has you wondering if your brain is healthy for getting turned on by it.

"sweetie, will you go get coach yunho a new t-shirt so he can change? yunho, go with her, she will clean that up for you." your father offers, completely oblivious of your death glares.

the young man gladly accepts. he follows you quietly through the house, not yet speaking. you unlock your room, then let him in.

"ah, so this is what this door is? your nerdy little room. always wonder every time i come over."

you rummage through the pile of unironed clothes on the ironing desk in the corner of your room, trying to tell the difference from your brother's and father's plain white t-shirts.

"so you come here often?"

"not that often," he walks over to your nightstand, looking through the window above it, "they sometimes invite me for dinner or lunch as a thank you for training their grandson. say, why do you keep your room locked?"

you plug the iron into the socket, then wait for it to warm up as you turn to face him. his fingers are tracing the corner of the nightstand, somehow seductively.

"to keep my nephew from snooping." you laugh nervously, seeing how close his hand is to the forbidden drawer.

"right," he hums, nodding his head.

the iron makes a sound, notifying you that it is ready for use. you turn your back towards him, ironing the creases in the soft fabric. you hear him walk around the room, probably admiring your poor taste of room decorating when you were seventeen. you didn't manage to redecorate much, only bring in some things from your old home. like the very toy that is buzzing in his hand right now.

"interesting."

"god, give me that." your cheeks are flaming hot.

you hid today's pink pleasure, but forgot about the yesterday's one, also from an interrupted session. he holds the silver bullet vibrator in his hand, playing with the settings on it.

"give it back! it's dirty, how can you even touch it?"

"oh, so it's recently been to places? i don't know, looks pretty clean to me."

you reach for the shiny item, but he is quick to throw it in his other hand. he smiles, amused by your poor attempts at getting the gadget back.

"we can do this all day, or..." he points it towards you, like a magic wand, "you can show me the proper use of it."

your heart drops, and your stomach feels like a centipede is walking all over it. your mouth goes dry, and your eyes feel like they're going to jump out of the sockets.

"what?" you manage to say.

"show me how you use it." he simply says.

"you're crazy. here's your t-shirt." you grab it from the desk, avoiding eye contact with him.

you hear his wet one drop on the floor, and he reaches for the one in your hand. instead of grabbing the clothing item, he grabs your wrist, pulling your body into his bare one. you gasp, eyes looking up into his as his other hand snakes around your waist, vibrator still secure between his fingers.

"those jeans are driving me crazy." he admits in a whisper. "and looking at that bed, i can't stop imagining you using this on your dripping little cunt after coming back from my practice."

you hate that he is right, but you won't tell him that. ever.

"i have more attractive things to masturbate about." you whisper too, eyes dropping down on his pink lips.

"like what?"

"like that substitute coach from monday morning?"

"ah, so your little hole only clenches for song mingi? got it."

he lets go of you, throwing the vibrator on the bed. you gulp as you watch him wear the freshly ironed warm t-shirt, eyes running down to his v-line and defined abs. he is so damn hot.

"i should get back there. wouldn't want anyone to know how desperate you are for me." he winks.

"i'm not desperate!" you reach for a pillow, ready to aim it at that smirking face.

the next few days, you ask your father to take the boy to the practice. he is sad, but if you look at yunho one more time after a good training session, after his jersey starts sticking to his skin and reveals all his curves and hollows, after his sun kissed skin starts shining from sweat, and after his veins start bulging even more, you might drop on your knees at his feet and just take him in your mouth right there in the middle of the field. with nobody around, of course.

the derby is getting closer and closer, and you go to the practice one more time before it accompanying your father. you sit quietly as you watch him fidget in his usual spot. he doesn't yell today. he doesn't instruct. he doesn't do a warmup. he lets the kids play whatever they want, just shushing them when they start cussing and punishing them with burpees. he is nervous about the game, that you know.

"hey," you call after practice.

your father is busy helping his grandson change his footwear, while you busy yourself with comforting the coach.

"it'll be good. you'll win, i know it."

"our goalkeeper is kinda shit. he has been alcoholizing himself the past few days, too nervous about the derby. i'm afraid he is going to get some kind of poisoning, or that he'll show up drunk. or hung over. i don't care about the win at that point, our image will be destroyed."

you hum, looking over at the dark clouds approaching in the distance.

"get some sleep tonight. if you want, call me. i am known to put people to sleep with my talking."

he laughs, sincerely. nothing flirty this time. "will do, darling."

"i'll see you tomorrow then, coach. hopefully with a trophy in your hand."

the game went fabulously. they destroyed the other team, despite the goal keeper being a little hung over just how yunho predicted. they all cheer, your nephew is going crazy in the front row, and so are you. shiny confetti is flying everywhere, some of it landing on yunho's head. he is holding the trophy above his head, pure happiness on his face. he is cute.

the celebration continues in the decorated basketball hall, drinks and food already served and music already blasting. the audience is slowly leaving to join the team in proper celebration, and it takes almost half an hour for the place to properly empty before you can move. a few families stay behind, cleaning after everyone and collecting lost items to hand them over to the doorkeeper later. you and your mother stay to help, collecting all the confetti and food remains.

"miss! miss!"

you turn around, almost bumping into a woman. she holds a backpack in her hand, and hands it over to you.

"would you be a sugar and go give this to player nine in the locker room? their coach had to go and didn't have time to give this to him."

"but-"

"thank you so much! i've gotta run."

and indeed, she does run. your mother nudges you with her elbow, rushing you towards the stairs and to the entrance under the bleachers.

you do not know where you are going. the hallway is empty, and there are no signs on any doors. you almost reach the end, hopelessly dragging the heavy backpack with you. a door to a locker room is half opened, and you decide to knock. receiving no response, you carefully enter, the strong smell of body spray pinching your nose.

"coach?" you call.

he doesn't answer. you set the backpack on one of the benches, then make your way towards the other side of the room. a jersey is discarded on it, the number nine proudly facing up from the bench. you reach for it, feeling the fabric in your hand. he smells so good. not a strong scent, like the rest of them have. he is more of a soft vanilla mixed with slight sandalwood. you bury your nose in the fabric, surprised that even after sweating so much after the game, the jersey isn't smelly and wet.

two hands creep onto your waist, startling you and making you jump.

"i snooped through your things, so now you have to snoop through mine?" he teases.

you feel his naked wet chest press against your thin blouse, and a slight bulge in the back of your pants. he turns you around swiftly, allowing you to take a good look at him. he is fresh out of the shower, smelling absolutely heavenly. his hair is not yet dry, waterbeads sliding down his neck and collarbones and disappearing down his v-line into the towel he has so carefully wrapped around him. it hangs low on his hips, probably on purpose.

"aren't you going to congratulate me?"

"congratulations?"

"i was thinking about a different kind of congratulations. something like..." his finger pulls at the belt hoop of your pants, then lets it snap against your skin, "this."

"you have to play another match to get to that point," you tease.

"do i now?"

truth is, you wish for nothing more than to get down on your knees and have him twitch in your mouth. you so desperately need it. so you let your hand reach for his towel, easily undoing it and letting it fall on the floor. you don't look down just yet, eyes locked with his. yunho finally grabs your face by your jaw, pulling you in for a hot kiss. his tongue is quick to find yours, circling it and rubbing it all the right ways. your blouse doesn't get unbuttoned. ripping it open seems faster to yunho, firm hands shredding the fabric and letting buttons fly to the floor. you gasp at the action, and he is quick to place his hands on your breasts. you're thankful for wearing a decent bra today, not one of those you had as a teen.

"i'll have to see you wearing my jersey and bouncing on my cock one day after practice. think you could do that?"

"i think i very much could," you say, excitement running in your veins.

yunho sits on the bench, trying to pull you into his lap. you stop him, dropping down on your knees. a proper congratulations.

you take a moment to admire his length. he isn't thick, but he is very long. he feels hot under your fingers, eager to be taken cared of. your tongue gets a first taste of him, and soon after, you're struggling to take him in. he is too big for you, but the pleasure is too good for him to back away. he grabs your hair, pushing your head down to make you swallow as much of him as you can.

"yunho?"

you freeze around his cock, eyes going wide. you are hidden by a row of lockers, but only a few steps in and the whole situation would be visible to the poor intruder.

"keep going," yunho mumbles, caressing your cheek.

you slowly start swallowing him again, working your tongue around him.

"yes?" he says, masking his pleasure well.

"everyone is waiting for you, man. they already finished off that fruit tart you were waiting for!"

"let me just take a quick shower and i'll be right there."

"if you say so."

the door shuts, and yunho spares no time in ramming his cock into your mouth a few more times before pulling you off and picking you up. he slams you against the lockers, hands firm on your thighs. he manages to take off your pants, not bothering with the panties. he only pushes them aside, and not even bothering to stretch you out beforehand, carefully inserts his hot muscle inside of you. it is no use biting your hand down to hide the noises, his pace continiously ramming into the soft spot inside of you, making your eyes roll back.

"you'll have to be a bit more quiet, baby." he says, voice low and raspy.

you look at him, your body completely relaxed in his hands as you take every pump he has to offer. yunho looks at you as if he is trying to hypnotize you, with eyes so focused on your face, examining every single reaction you have to his moves.

"we wouldn't want anyone to interrupt again, would we?"

you shake your head, unable to speak. you can only moan, louder and louder, as your fingers desperately tug on his still damp hair. having had enough of your loud noises, yunho carries you to the bench, cock still buried deep inside of you. he lays you on the bench, then reaches over your head to grab something.

"open up for me," he instructs.

you do, and he gently places his jersey between your lips so it muffles your moans.

"good girl," he praises, then continues his moves.

the fabric in your mouth proves itself useful, successfully muffling the noises you make. not long after, you feel the pleasure building up in the bottom of your stomach.

"fuck, you're clenching so much, i'm going to cum soon," he hisses, hands desperately gripping your waist.

you look at him with pleading eyes, hoping he would take the message and make you cum too. he recognizes it, and brings his hand to his mouth, wetting his fingers. he then places them on your clit, rubbing the tense bud in ways that have your back arching from the bench, mentally begging him for release already.

"fuck-" he groans, speeding up.

you bite down on the fabric, focusing on reaching the sweet release, clenching your walls to help him reach his too. he moans, for the first time, throwing his head back as he fucks his seed into you, filling you up until you can't take it anymore and let it spill on the bench. the new warm sensation inside of you triggers your own orgasm, your hands reaching for his as you twitch, orgasm washing over your body in multiple ways.

yunho holds your hands above your head, pressing kisses along your exposed collarbones and neck, calming you as you get down from the high. it takes you a while to come back to your senses, feeling yunho's hair tickling your bare skin as he still peppers your skin with kisses.

he laughs fondly, seeing what a mess he made out of you. removing the jersey from your mouth, he wastes no time in kissing you properly, this time a bit softer than before.

you pull away, the cold air from the air conditioner finally hitting your bare skin and sweat, making you shiver.

"so..." you breathe out.

"so..." he repeats.

"when is your next match again?"

feedback greatly appreciated! 💕

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