#have you already forgotten how annoying it was when they tried to do two things at once (cherubs/dhorks team up AND

[nyxofdemons]

the last SEVERAL sarcastic chorus videos im just gripping my hair with increasing intensity yelling MAN I TRUSTED YOU

[the-froschamethyst4]

Young Gf and Older bf

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Simon Ghost Riley Headcanons

SFW & NSFW

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SFW

Older bf! Simon who didn’t know how he felt about having a younger girlfriend

Older bf! Simon who was getting called “old man” by his girlfriend

Older bf! Simon who learned the hard way that some girls have expensive taste

Older bf! Simon who doesn’t talk much about his girlfriend to his mates, he feels like they’ll get on his ass about dating a young girl

Older bf! Simon who did most of the chores around the house

Older bf! Simon who stopped caring what he wore in front of people because his girlfriend is his little hype-man

“Does this work?” Simon asks coming into his shared bedroom with his girlfriend, she rolls on her side to look at him.

“They don’t match your shoes, Si.”

“What?” He looks down. “I thought they did.”

“Here, go try this on and come back at out.”

Older bf! Simon who told his girlfriend about his time in the military

Older bf! Simon who forget how young his girlfriend is, so when he makes jokes or says a movie reference she doesn’t know what he is talking about

Older bf! Simon who was honestly scared to meet his girlfriend’s family. She told them about Simon being older but not how old he was

“And how old are you, Simon?” Her dad asked leaning forward.

“I’m…40”

“40!!”

“Y/N?!”

“What?! He treats me good, he respects me, guys my age want that trad wife, Simon doesn’t, I can do or say what I want around him and feel good about myself.”

Older bf! Simon who knows everything about you. How you like your coffee, what time you’re suppose to be up for work, and he even knows when you’re about to start your period, you know when he shows up at home with bags full of pads and tampons and her favorite foods and drinks

Older bf! Simon who starts watching shows with you but complains about them but deep down he actually likes to watch them with his girlfriend

NSFW

Older bf! Simon who woke up to you in t-shirts and no shorts or pants, he likes seeing you in a t shirt and panties

Older bf! Simon who has woken up to morning wood before and needed help to get rid of it

“Love,” he kisses the shell of her ear. “Love…wake up,” he coos.

“Hmm~ Simon, not now please.”

“I know, love, you don’t have to do anything,” Simon lines himself up at her entrance and pushes himself into her

Older bf! Simon who like after argument sex

“Fuck you!”

“Oh yeah? Fuck me?” Simon carries a smirk on his face.

“Back up, Simon,” Y/n says putting her hand up on his chest to keep distance.

“Fuck me right? Fuck me?”

“Wait, wait,” your legs didn’t work for a few weeks

Older bf! Simon who tries different things with you, like BDSM you both hated it because it’ll be painful for you and Simon didn’t like you hurt

DDLG, he knows the age gap between you two but he hates the word ‘daddy’ makes him cringe

Mask kink, you both loved it, giving the illusion you were being fucked by someone else and he liked feelings your hands in his face

Voice kink, you liked it because of his deep voice already, he was on the fence, not saying your voice is annoying or anything he just didn’t get it

Knife play, you got scared when he accidentally dropped the knife and it was very close to your hand, it was the same thing with gun play you were afraid something wrong might happen

He tried to be a sub but you could barely take it seriously

Older bf! Simon who has fucked you when you were doing your work, you worked in a private office and all he had to do was shut and lock the door and bend you over your own desk

Older bf! Simon who is handsy when he’s horny

“Simon what do you want?”

“I want nothing,” he says as one of his hands were on your waste and the other snacks up to your breasts giving you a gentle squeeze and you gave him a soft moan.

“Just do it already, Simon,” she moans

Older bf! Simon who has kept a pair of your panties in his pockets and has forgotten about them before, he remembers when he accidentally sticks his hand into his pocket and feels the lace

Older bf! Simon who bought a motorcycle and takes you with him as his backpack, he found a abandoned place were no one comes to and you two had a good fuck on his bike

[yoonguurt]

Pairing: non idol Jihoon x F!reader

Genre: fluff, angst if you squint, smut

Trope: friends to lovers, idiots to lovers

Word Count: 5,088 

Trigger Warnings: none

Summary: Jihoon always joins in when his group of friends makes fun of Mingyu for being a simp for his girlfriend. It isn’t that he thinks that a man shouldn’t go above and beyond for their significant other, it’s just that he hasn’t had a girlfriend that makes him want to go that far. Maybe one day, though.

A/N: This is for @ddeonghwa-s secret cupid event! Surpise @strawberry-skiess I'm your cupid! This honestly was hard to start, but once I started I just couldn't stop. I hope you enjoy it! Happy Valentine's Day (even though I'm a day late) Thanks to @kwanisms for this lovely little banner. I love it so much. This is for adults only, no minors allowed! I will fight you.

Read all of the other wonderful entries here

Smut Warnings: slight nipple play, dom!Jihoon, sub!reader, fingering, oral (f receiving) unprotected sex (do not), maybe two thigh slaps

“Well, if it isn’t the simp of the century.” Jeonghan’s voice floats through Jihoon’s ears and he looks to the door as Mingyu walks in. Over the last couple of months, calling their group giant a simp has become something of a ritual. They don’t mean it, they honestly think it’s adorable how whipped Mingyu is. And he certainly isn’t ashamed of it. He wears the title like a badge of honor. “Still single and bitchy, I see.” Mingyu’s retort is almost immediate, a cheshire grin adorning his face as he watches the rest of the group burst into laughter and Jeonghan’s face turn into a mix between a smirk and a scowl. 

Jihoon retreats into his thoughts while his friends chatter amongst themselves. He does think it’s sweet how much Mingyu loves his girlfriend, he just isn’t sure that he understands. Sure, he’s had a few relationships of his own, and while he cared about them, even loved one or two, he has never known the amount of love Mingyu seems to wield. His friend found his self described love of his life around 4 months ago and he’s been head over heels the entire time. Jihoon has watched Mingyu rush to get to his phone when he gets a text, with a special ringtone for his girlfriend, and smile like an idiot at whatever it is she has said.

He’s lived through Mingyu leaving nights at the bar solely because his girl wanted to cuddle. When her birthday came around, the two men spent hours going through unlimited stores while Mingyu tried to find the perfect present. Every time Jihoon suggested something, Mingyu had a retort on why it wasn’t good enough. The new cd by her favorite band? “I don’t have enough time to get it signed.” The pretty pink purse that screamed something his girlfriend would like? “I already got her that one.” Eventually, the tall man had settled on a necklace that Jihoon was certain cost more than a used car. Mingyu had the money to throw around, he guessed. 

Part of Jihoon wants to know what it’s like to feel like that. Another part thinks that it seems like a burden. He can’t decide where he stands on the topic. Sure, he wants that great love that novels describe, wants to give his heart to someone and know that they’ll always be there. But at the same time, he isn’t sure he’ll find someone that can deal with his finicky moods. There are times when he wants someone to cuddle, only to immediately change his mind. He knows that can be annoying, and he is working on it. One of his other issues is time. He takes his job seriously. 

Working as a producer, he is a busy man. He doesn’t know if there’s a person out there that will understand that sometimes, he loses himself in his work. His phone drifts to the back of his mind, dates forgotten without him meaning to. It’s the main reason his relationships have failed. He genuinely doesn’t mean to, and it’s another thing he has been working on. He’s been getting better at responding to his friends in a timely manner, he’s even taken to setting alarms on his phones so he doesn’t miss the planned hangouts. Sure, he still falls into the music and forgets the world around him, but he’s getting better.

There has always been an exception, though. You. His best friend. The two of you have known each other for years, having met in freshman year of college. Your sunny disposition sometimes clashed with the grumpy facade he puts on, but it’s always worked. A couple of his exes thought there was something going on between the two of you, but that’s never been the case. He just clicks with you. You understand him. You’re a busy woman, too. The journalism world stops for no one. 

“Isn’t that right, Jihoon?” He snaps head up toward the voice. Soonyoung looks at him expectantly, obviously waiting for him to agree with him. “Sorry, what?” The huff of air that comes from Soonyoung’s mouth lets him know how annoyed his friend is. “I said that it’s cute that Mingyu loves his girl so much, isn’t that right?” Honestly, he doesn’t know how to answer this. “Sure, it’s cute, but it seems exhausting.” The sound of a scoff comes from behind him and he turns to the sound. He hadn’t realized that you were here. He suddenly feels like he said something wrong, like when a teacher calls on you to answer in class and you fumble and answer wrong. It’s embarrassing for some reason. “So what I’m hearing is that you would find caring for your partner that much to be an inconvenience?” Everyone’s eyes flit between you and Jihoon, waiting for a debate to start. The two of you have always been like that. You’re able to have a small, argumentative conversation and then go back to joking like it never happened. 

Jihoon sighs deeply, knowing where this is going. “That’s not what I said.” His tone lets you know just how annoyed at having a conversation like this again. “I’m just saying that Mingyu’s level of simpdom sounds like a bit much. I’m happy he has someone that he loves so much, but being at her beck and call constantly sounds tiring.” Mingyu responds before you can even open your mouth. “That isn’t how it is.” His tone isn’t defensive in any way. He just sounds like he’s explaining something to a child. “She doesn’t ask me to do any of that. She actually encourages me to have fun with you guys. I just feel so happy that I have her and I want to make sure she knows that.” 

Jihoon stays silent for a moment, thinking over Mingyu’s words. He thinks to himself, wandering again if he’s ever had something like that. He thinks the closest thing he’s had is you. He’s dropped more things that he can count to be at your side when you need him. He’s even dipped on girlfriends because you were upset. Once, he canceled on his most recent ex just because you secured a front page spot for the local paper. He needed to be the one to celebrate your accomplishment with you, needed to be the first one to congratulate you. He didn’t want to think too deeply about what that meant. Sure, he had had a massive crush on you in college, he thought he might have been in love with you, but that had disappeared a long time ago. 

When you showed no sign of reciprocating his feelings, he decided to let it go, letting you go, at least in the romantic sense. 

Of course, there were still times where he’d look at you and think about how beautiful you were, especially when you’d just woken up and the light was hitting you in a specific way. But, that was just him appreciating your beauty as a best friend. He was sure of it. Realizing he had been quiet for too long, he glanced at Mingyu, nodding his head. “I guess I could see how someone could feel that way.” He chose to ignore the way Soonyoung cut his eyes toward him, knowing what he was thinking. Soonyoung had been the only person who had known about his college crush. He always insisted that you had felt the same, and that Jihoon still held a candle for you. 

“You’ll find it one day, Hoon. Don’t close yourself off to it.” Your voice is strained, though you try to hide it. You’ve always admired Jihoon, even if he was a bit closed off. He’d never really let himself go in a relationship. It was like he never felt comfortable. But you knew him at his core, knew how sweet and thoughtful he was. He had always been there for you when you needed him, which was probably why your love for him had never died. You’d tried to find someone else, dated people, even loved one or two, but not like you loved Jihoon. No one could compare. You’ve seen every side of him and there isn’t a single one of them that you don’t adore. He’s also been growing his hair and God does he look better than you’ve ever seen him. You can tell his confidence has grown a little and that is even more attractive. You know you’re well and truly fucked, but you aren’t sure you want to change that.

The night winds down and everyone gathers their things to leave. Soonyoung takes the time to pull Jihoon aside, making the younger boy look at his friend in confusion. “Look, I know you’re going to deny it like you always do, but watching you two pine after each other is getting hard to do.” Jihoon opens his mouth, only to be silenced by Soonyoung’s hand lifting in the air. “Have you ever stopped to think that there’s a reason that relationships never worked out for either of you? If you haven’t, then think about it, ok?” Soonyoung clapped his friend on the shoulder before he moved to hug you and tell you goodbye. 

“I’ll help clean up.” Jihoon’s words cut into your thoughts, distracting you from what it is you were thinking. You turned to face him, a teasing smirk gracing your features. “Take a look around. There’s nothing to clean up. Go home and actually get some sleep tonight. I know you have to be at the studio early tomorrow, just like I know you haven’t been sleeping. Just listen to me and go sleep.” He was baffled at how you knew that, but then again it was a talent you seemed to have. Knowing everything without him having to tell you. But then again, he guessed he had the same talent. It was like a sixth sense. Some real ‘There’s a disturbance’ shit. He simply nodded at you, saying goodnight and leaving without even stopping to think that you barely had to have any force behind your turn to get him to do exactly what you wanted.

The thinking came when he walked through his door. A lot of it. Soonyoung’s words began to float through his mind. Did they have any weight to them at all? Sure, relationships had really never worked out for the two of you, but that didn’t mean anything. Relationships come and go, that’s what they do. Occasionally, people get lucky and they find who they’re supposed to be with. Sometimes, they don’t. That was just life, it didn’t mean that the two of you were the reason the other’s relationships failed. The more he thought about it, though, the more merit Soonyoung’s words seemed to hold. Any time you needed him, he came running, and the same applied to you. You’ve both left dates and anniversaries because the other needed something. He’s had to assure quite a few exs that there was nothing romantic between the two of you and if he had to guess, he’d say you’ve done the same. Everything hits him at all once and he feels the need to sit down to process. 

You’re going through your own mental roller coaster. You know that Jihoon could find his person if he would just let someone in. It doesn’t have to be you, though you desperately want it to be, you just want him to find someone that will make him happy, someone that will bring out the loving side you know that he has. You sigh deeply as you lock up your apartment, making your way to your bed to get some much needed sleep.

You don’t hear from Jihoon for a few days, but that isn’t totally unusual. Sometimes he gets so lost in the music and you just wait until he’s back in the land of the living. But as a whole week passes, you start to worry. He’s never gone more than 3 days without speaking to you. You try to play through the events of the last time you saw him, thinking about if you had done something out of the norm. The only thing you think of is the conversation everyone had about Mingyu. He must have been offended that he was ganged up on, but then again that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t the first time everyone had had this conversation and he has never reacted like this before. It takes a split second for you to make up your mind and grab your purse and walk out the door.

Jihoon sits at his computer, staring past it like it’s not even there. He can’t focus, hasn’t been able to focus for a week. His thoughts always float back to you and how he feels. Now that he has realized he does in fact have feelings for you still, he can’t seem to bring himself to face you. What if he acts different? What if you realize? He can’t risk it. There are too many years of friendship on the line. Sure, not answering your texts is the coward’s way out, but he doesn’t know what else to do. As he had sat on his couch a week ago, the realization that he was in love with you hit him in the face. Damn Soonyoung. He would have been totally fine if he had kept being ignorant. Now though, he knows that he’d do anything for you. He knows that he already does do anything for you. 

The beeping on the keypad to his studio brings his attention back to reality. There are select few who know the code to his studio and he looks at the door with held breath, hoping it isn’t who he knows it is. You swing the door open, displeasure written all over your face. “What the fuck, Lee Jihoon?” He grimaces, hating that you’ve pulled his full name out of your pocket. If he didn’t before, he knows now that he is in deep trouble. He sits in his chair, slouching like a scolded child as you glare at him. “No text in a week. No reply in a week. Nothing to let me know that you’re even alive. Who the hell do you think you are?” Jihoon almost wants to laugh, thinking you’re adorable even when you’re angry, but he doesn’t dare. He knows that will only make things worse for him. 

Jihoon is hit with a sudden urge to touch you and he can’t hold back. He quickly stands and moves towards you slowly, watching as your demeanor changes. You go from angry to confused as you watch his steps. He stops in front of you, wrapping his arms around you. “I’m sorry.” The words are whispered, but you can still hear them. All of the anger leaves you, almost. You hit his shoulder lightly, making him giggle slightly. “You damn well should be. Had my ass worried sick, asshole.” There’s a playfulness in your tone, one that you can’t help but let out. Your confusion grows as you realize that Jihoon hasn’t stopped hugging you. That is definitely different. Jihoon hates physical touch, he always has. In the entirety of your friendship, he’s only hugged you a handful of times and everyone has been quick, lasting only a few seconds.

“What happened to you in the past week for you to be so affectionate? You hate physical affection.” Your words come out teasing, trying to mask your genuine curiosity as a joke. He doesn’t answer for a moment, seeming content to just continue holding you. When he finally does speak, you choke on air, starting a small coughing fit. “Yeah, but I love you.” There’s no teasing tone. No joking. You can hear the sincerity in his voice. You have no words. No thoughts, head empty. 

Jihoon pulls back just enough to look at you and you can see the hesitation and worry in his eyes. You need to say something, you want to say something, but nothing is coming out. Your mouth is opening and closing like a fish gasping for air and you’re sure you look ridiculous. When you finally find words, they aren’t what you planned to say. “Are you sure about that?” Jihoon can’t contain his laugh and the sound hits you in your gut. It makes every fiber of your being tingle. Hearing him laugh brings you back to reality and you give him a playful shove, smiling and letting out a huff of laughter of your own. “Shut up.” There’s no real bite to your words and you know that he knows that. “I tell you that I love you and your response is to ask me if I’m sure?” He’s teasing you and loving it and you pout. “Hey! It’s a perfectly valid question!” Looking at him your heart surges with affection. 

“As funny as that was, I’m kind of panicking over here. A response would be nice, even if it’s a rejection.” Jihoon chews his lip as the nerves show on his face. You can’t help but smile at him and reach up and lace your fingers in the hair at the back of his neck. “Have I told you how much I love your hair like this?” Your statement throws him off guard and he looks at you with furrowed brows. “Wha-” You cut him off with a finger to his lips. “Almost as much as I love you.” The smile that comes across his face could light up a room with no lights. He leans down and presses his forehead against yours. “Are you sure?” He giggles against your lips as you give him a pout and a shove. His reaction is to pull you closer to him, pressing you as close to his body as possible. 

His eyes flit down to your lips before trailing back to your eyes, in silent question. You give him a slight nod, knowing that he’ll get the message. You watch as his lips slowly move towards yours, as if he’s teasing you by making you wait. You let out a whine of impatience and he giggles. He can’t help but give you what you want. When he finally presses his mouth to yours, it’s like the world explodes in a rainbow of colors you didn’t even know existed. You feel as if your entire purpose makes sense now that you have tasted his lips. It doesn’t take long before the sweet pecks turn into desperate, open mouthed kisses. His tongue dances with yours, fighting for dominance, which he quickly wins. The way he takes control of the kiss goes straight to your core. You’d thought about this and sure, you thought he’d be more of a dominant lover, but the reality is greater than what you could imagine. And this is only kissing. You can only imagine what it’s going to be like when he’s actually fucking you. The thought alone has your thighs clenching.

Of course, Jihoon notices even though you’re trying to be subtle about it. He pulls back with a smirk. “Oh? Is someone getting needy?” The way his voice drops in octave only causes you to clench tighter and let out a small whimper. Jihoon’s lips make their way to your neck, leaving small nibbles and kisses in their wake. “Aww. My poor baby. Already getting desperate, huh?” All you can do is nod against him as your hands grab at his shirt. He lets out a deep chuckle against the skin of your neck and the vibrations make you shiver. His hand slowly makes its way from your neck down the front of your chest, stopping just above your breast. He lifts his head to look you in the eyes, silent asking for consent. Instead of giving him a verbal answer, you take his hand, completely bypassing your clothed breast and placing it at the hem of your shirt. He takes the hint, leaning back just enough to lift your shirt from your body.

The chilly air in the studio causes your nipples to harden immediately and Jihoon’s eyes fall to your chest and darken with lust. His hands instantly find your bra covered breasts, pulling the cups down just enough to him to see your peaked buds. Taking one in between his thumb and index fingers, he pinches lightly, just enough to see your reaction. When you arch into him, he smirks, knowing he’s found something you like. “Hoon, please.” Your voice is light and airy, the need evident. “Please what, sweetheart? What do you need? You’ve gotta use your words, pretty.” The way you buck your hips and whine tells him all he needs to know. 

He moves his fingers to the button of your pants, making a show of slowly loosening the button. His teasing is both driving you crazy and making you more horny than you have ever been. Your hips are bucking into nothing, desperate for some sort of stimulation. When he finally gets the button undone, he sinks to his knees, pulling your pants down as he lowers himself. “Hands above your head, baby. No moving unless I say.” The softness of his tone does nothing to hide the dominance and it makes you weak. You nod and move your hands above your head against the wall. Jihoon flashes you a smile that makes your heart flutter. “What a good girl I have. You listen so well, my love.” 

When he taps your leg to signal for you to lift your legs to step out of the pants. You obey slowly, trying to tease him a little bit. A quick slap to your thigh makes you gasp, a moan slipping from your lips. “Behave. I’m trying to make our first time sweet. Don’t test me, angel.” His patience wavers slightly when he can’t wait to remove your panties, simply using his strength to rip them so that they fall off of you. It’s the hottest thing you’ve ever seen. “Holy shit, Jihoon.” He smirks like he knows how much his strength affects you, because he does. He doesn’t say anything, simply lifts your right leg and places it over his shoulder. Your breath hitches as you look down at him, making eye contact as he makes a show of sticking his tongue out, flicking it over your clit. The sudden contact makes you jerk forward and your eyes fall closed. Even though the action was nowhere near enough, it made you even more wet. You’re practically dripping at this point and once glance at the man below you lets you know that he enjoys the effect he has on you. 

He spends what feels like forever just slowly giving your clit kitten licks, driving you insane just as slowly. Without warning, his actions speed up. He grips your hips and harshly pulls them forward, shoving his face as far into your pussy as he can get it. The moan you emit is bordering on pornagraphic. Your fingers twitch, wanting so badly to grip him by the hair and ride his face. As if he can sense your thoughts, he pulls back, making you whine. “Don’t even try it. Move those hands and you won’t cum at all.” The slight growl in his voice does things to your insides. “Yes, sir.” Your voice is low and desperate and Jihoon groans, approving of your choice of title. 

He dives back into your cunt, quickly sliding his middle finger inside of you, his ring following a few seconds later. He curls his fingers, searching for the spot that he knows will make you come undone. It doesn’t take him long to find it, pressing the tips of his fingers against it and rubbing. You can’t control the sounds that come from your throat and you’re beyond glad the studio is soundproof. You can feel yourself getting closer to your peak and you do your best to communicate that. “Ji, please. So close.” Your hips are moving without your control, chasing your end on instinct. Jihoon leans back long enough to give you permission to come. “That’s it baby. Let it go. Let me taste you. Give it to me.” His words throw you over the precipice, launching your mind into a different plane, one that is filled with nothing but pleasure and the sound of his voice. Jihoon works you through your orgasm, slowing down gradually to draw it out as long as possible. 

“Breathe, love. In and out.” You don’t even realize how hard you’re panting, but you listen to him regardless. Your eyes are closed and your legs feel like jelly and you’re aware that you’re only standing because he’s holding you up. You aren’t sure when he stood, brushing his fingers across your face and through your hair. When you finally return to reality, he’s looking at you with concern. “Are you ok?” His voice is shaky with hints of worry and his eyes flicker all over your face like he’s looking for some sign of distress. It takes you a moment to respond and when you do, you can only say the first thing that pops into your mind. “Are you fucking kidding me? That was insane and amazing and I need your cock in me right now or I’ll die.” The laugh Jihoon lets out is loud and unrestrained and it makes you smile. 

He places a quick kiss to your lips, letting you taste yourself briefly on his lips. His hands take hold of yours and he slowly moves you toward the couch that sits against the wall behind his computer chair. With another kiss, he steps back, his hands moving to the hem of his shirt. “Lay down on your back, baby.” You don’t even think before doing as he says, keeping your eyes on his as he lifts his shirt over his head. It isn’t the first time you’ve seen Jihoon shirtless, but the fact that you know what’s about to happen makes it all the more erotic. He drops the shirt on the floor, not caring where it lands, moving his hands to the basketball shorts he’s wearing. Your breath hitches in anticipation, and you refuse to even blink as he eases his shorts and boxers down together. When his length comes into view, your mouth goes dry. He’s the perfect amount of length and girth, not too long or short and you just know the stretch will be heavenly. He watches you look at him for a moment before he steps out of his clothes completely and makes his way to the couch where your body lies limp and needy.

His eyes wander your body, simply taking you in, clearly liking the way you’re spread out for him. “You are so fucking beautiful, do you know that?” The way he’s looking at you makes your insides turn to mush and you reach for him, making grabby hands at him. He gives you a soft smile, kneeling in between your legs and linking his fingers with yours. After giving each hand a kiss, he lifts them to fit around his neck, leaning down to give a slow kiss, full of nothing but love. Giving you one last questioning look, he waits for you to smile and nod before he reaches down to align his length with your entrance. When he pushes forward, it feels like the world expands and closes in at the same time. You’re hyper aware of everything while also only focusing on the feel of him. It’s like you’ve finally found a piece of yourself that you didn’t even know you were missing. 

The first thrust steals every bit of oxygen you have, replacing it with love and just Jihoon. The sound he makes causes a groan to erupt from your throat. He sounds wrecked already and you love that you’re the one that is making him that way. His face buries itself in your neck, lips littering kisses along the exposed skin. “Fuck, you feel so good.” You can tell that he’s holding himself back. You lift your head just enough for your lips to be close to his ear, giving it a soft bite. “Jihoon, you can be soft later. Right now, I need you to fuck me.” It seems like that’s all he needed to hear. He pulls his hips back until his cock is almost completely out of you before he slams back in. Hard. The movement jolts your whole body, shoving your head against the arm of the couch. Without missing a beat, Jihoon brings his hand down to place it between your head and the couch, his thrusts still hard and fast. 

With the combination of his speed, depth and roughness, you’re embarrassingly close to coming for the second time. You dig the nails of one hand into the skin of his back, the other making its way to his hair, pulling just enough for him to feel it. The groan he lets out lets you know that he very much enjoys that. Your moans are loud and mixing with the filthy babbles that are coming from him. Praise of how good you feel, how badly he’s wanted this, how you’re his now. Your orgasm hits you full force without you even realizing just how close you were. The squeezing of your pussy around his cock and the look on your face has Jihoon following you immediately, filling your cunt with every bit of cum he has. You look up at him, and his breath hitches. You’re so, so beautiful and so, so his. Looking at you like this, he knows that he would do anything for you. Anything just to see you happy and smiling. He would eat glass if that would cause you joy, even though he knows it wouldn’t. A sudden realization hits him and he lowers his head.

“Shit, I’m a simp, too.”

[thesparkling-diamond27]

Dancing Through Life

Fiyero Tigelaar x Reader

Summary: Y/n Upperland of the Upper Uplands, cousin to Galinda Upand, doesn’t have a problem with Fiyero Tigelaar, but that doesnt’t mean that she wants him around. However, after one simple walk with the Winkie Prince, Y/n discovers that he’s not so bad after all.

A/n: hi hi! I’m back with a Fiyero one shot, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about the second Bridgerton and I. I’ve written two chapters so far over thanksgiving break and I might try to squeeze in one more chapter or at least half of one before I go back to school. I don’t really have enough time to write when I am at school, so the next time I’ll probably get back to writing during Christmas break which is in a couple weeks. Then I’ll finish the Bridgerton and I and I’m thinking about waiting to finish the Bridgerton and I completely before posting any more chapters, so the ff will probably be finished in December. I wrote this one shot because Wicked has been on my mind 24/7 and I can write whatever comes to mind, but for the Bridgerton and I have to sit down and rewatch Bridgerton episodes so that I can make sure I get all the words exactly right. I hope you guys continue to be patient as I try to finish it :).

I have recently seen the movie Wicked and plan to see 10 million more times because it is SO GOOD. Wicked is basically my whole personality at this point. I was already obsessed with Fiyero, but Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero made my obsession worse (but in a good way :)). And with this obsession comes a Jonathan Bailey Fiyero Tigelaar one shot. I hope you enjoy!! I also have a plan to write another one so stay tuned for that!

It was a beautiful day today, so after class I decided to read at my favorite spot: the bench under the oak tree. I loved it here because it was a peaceful place where I never got disturbed. Or so I thought.

I realized he was near when I heard the sound of boots stepping onto grass. It was only when his shadow blocked the words on the page that I finally looked up.

Fiyero looked down on me with curious eyes, but there was still a charming smile plastered on his face. I tried to hide how his smile affected me, but he must have noticed the change in my demeanor because his smile turned into a smirk.

I thought after my cousin Galinda introduced him to my brother and I earlier today would be the last time I saw him for the day. It appears the Winkie prince had other plans.

“Well what is Miss Upland doing under the oak tree?” He asked.

“Reading.” I held up my book for effect before I continued back to where I left off.

I saw him take a seat beside me on the bench in the corner of my eye.

“It’s Friday.” He continued.

I rolled my eyes. “I know. I can read calendars.” Fiyero chuckled at my blunt and snippy responses. He could clearly tell that I was annoyed by his presence, but he continued to talk anyway.

“It’s Friday and you are here reading under an oak tree. You should be out there having fun.” He used his hands to gesture to all the other students hanging out at the courtyard.

“This is fun to me.”

“School work is fun?”

“Well for your information this book is not for school it’s for me.”

“Well I believe you are filling your head with too many things. You’re thinking too much.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Well that’s not surprising coming from a prince like you.”

“A prince like me?” Fiyero gave a feigned pained expression. “I’m hurt that you would think that way about me.”

“Well I believe that you present yourself as self-absorbed and deeply shallow, but I don’t think you are. I think you use that as a front to hide the fact that you actually care and have thoughts.”

“Excuse me there’s no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow.”

“Okay.” I said not believing him. I shut my book and stood from the bench. I finished the book I was reading and decided to go search for another one to read.

“Well I guess it was nice talking to you.”

I began to walk back to my room, but he blocked my path.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to my room to find another book.”

“Oh come on. Drop the book for once and have some fun.”

“No.”

I pushed past him and walked away without looking back. I was hoping he would leave me alone after that, but luck was not on my side today.

“Since you’re going back to your room, maybe I can save you the trouble of carrying your book all the way back.”

He grabbed the book from my hand before I could say anything.

“Hey give that back!”

I tried to grab the book back, but he raised the book above my head, so that I couldn’t reach and jumping up was no use. Fiyero was laughing at me struggling, so I sighed in defeat.

“Fine. You can help me carry my singular book up to my room.”

Fiyero was happy with my response because he was smiling from ear to ear. We were now standing nose to nose and I could feel his breath fan across my face. If I looked down I would have perfect access to his lips. Wait what was I thinking? I quickly backed away from him before I did anything stupid. Fiyero smiled down at me and said, “See now that wasn’t so hard now was it? Lead the way princess.”

I would he lying if I said I didn’t get affected by his words. Butterflies filled my stomach and I probably would have melted if I didn’t catch myself. What is wrong with me?

“Princess?”

“Yes princess. It suits you. Princess of the Upper Upperlands.” He said with a dramatic voice.

I was about to retaliate when a certain blondey came to mind.

“Shouldn’t you be calling Galinda princess?” I asked.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you two are a thing.”

Fiyero chuckled. “I just met her this morning and besides I’m like this with everyone.”

My heart sunk at his words. So he was just treating me like everyone else? But why was I so upset about it? Just a few hours ago I wanted nothing to do with him and now I was disappointed that he’s not treating me differently.

“And if I called her princess then I wouldn’t be able to call you princess. Princess.” He said with a wink.

That definitely lifted my spirits. Sweet Oz! He was making feel a roller coaster of emotions. I could tell there will never be a dull moment with him.

I gave him a small smile but I looked down on the floor to hide it from him. I didn’t want him to notice that I started to warm up to him, but he saw the slight upturn of my lips.

“Well who knew that Miss Upland could smile. It’s a miracle!”

“Oh shut up!” I said, but you could hear the grin in my voice.

“Besides reading, what do you really do for fun?” I looked up at Fiyero and could tell that he truly wanted to know my genuine answer. So it seems that my premonition about him not being self-absorbed and deeply shallow was true.

“Umm…spending time with friends, swimming. Oh there’s a lake in the Upper Upperlands that my family and I go to every summer to cool off and it has such beautiful scenery. Not to mention the nearby ice cream shop…”

I stopped after I realized that I blabbered on. “I’m sorry I sort of got carried away.”

I looked up at Fiyero, but he didn’t seem bothered at all with my tangent. He actually seemed rather interested with what I had to say.

“No continue.” He said with an encouraging smile.

“No I’d rather not.”

I know he wanted to hear more, but he didn’t push me, which I was glad for. I was a little embarrassed with my little outburst.

“Well how about you discover a new way to have fun?” Fiyero said changing the subject.

“How?”

“Come with me to the Ozdust Ballroom tonight. The most swankified place in town.”

“Aren’t we not supposed to be off campus after dark?”

“Yes, but not being allowed to leave after dark makes it more fun!”

“I’ll pass.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I left her at home.”

Fiyero paused before he burst into laughter.

“My joke wasn’t that funny.” But I couldn’t help but laugh along with Fiyero.

Fiyero paused again.“Your laugh.”

I took a few moments to recompose myself before asking, “What about my laugh?”

“It’s beautiful.”

I stopped walking and choked on air.

“What?” I asked, but Fiyero ignored me.

“Which way is your room?”

I realized that we have reached the dead end which separated into two hallways.

“This way.” I said as I begin to walk to the right. I walked a little faster to make this walk shorter. I have embarrassed myself way too many times in a such a short amount of time and I just wanted to smash my pillow in my face and scream. The rest of the way was silent until we reached my door.

“Well here we are. My humble abode.” I said. “Thank you for the uh…walk.”

“It was my pleasure. I hope to see you tonight at the Ozdust ballroom Miss Upland.

“Y/n.”

Fiyero smiled at my response.

“Y/n. I hope to see you tonight.”

I opened the door and was about to walk in, but I turned around instead.

“I know you like to put on the facade that you are this Winkie prince who doesn’t have a care in the world, but you’re also human. Yes you might be self-absorbed and shallow, but that’s not all of you and you have thoughts that should be shared. If you take away your crowd of admirers you’ll be left with the real you. If you want to continue with this role in front of everyone then that’s fine…,but you don’t have to be that way with me.”

Fiyero’s expression was unreadable, but I could have sworn I saw flickers of fear and appreciation.

“Y/n…I don’t know what to say.”

His hands fell to his sides and I realized that he still had my book. I slowly inched towards his hand and pulled the book from his grasp. But before I pulled away I took his hand in mine and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“You don’t have to say anything.” I said with a smile.

He nodded and with one last squeeze I pulled away and slowly closed the door shut.

—————————

I laid in my bed, for what seemed like hours, contemplating whether I should go to the Ozdust ballroom or not. I turned to my night stand to see that it’s only been a half hour. I groaned in frustration and covered my face with my pillow. Then I heard a knock at the door. I rose from my bed and opened it to see my brother Ezra.

“You. Me. Ozdust. Tonight.” He said as he entered my room.

“You know about that too?” I said as I shut the door.

“How do you know about it?” He asked curiously.

“I was invited.” I said as I plopped onto my bed. Ezra raised an eyebrow at my words and joined me.

“You were invited?! I wasn’t even invited! Who invited you?”

“So how do you know about it?” I asked avoiding what he asked me.

“I overheard some students talking about it, but don’t avoid the question. Who invited you?”

“Fiyero.”

Ezra’s eyebrows shot up to the ceiling.

“Fiyero Tigelaar of Winkie country? But you hate him.”

“I don’t hate him! Where did you get that impression.”

“When Galinda introduced us to him you didn’t seem to be too pleased with him.”

I thought back to the first impression I had of Fiyero when I first met him.

When he first stood in front of me I took a good look at him and he was exactly what I expected from a Winkie prince. He was dressed to the nines from head to toe. You could tell his blue jacket and pants were made to perfection and the gold accents were sewn with precision. His black polished boots were so shiny that you could even see your own reflection in them. And that was just his clothes.

Fiyero had an aura about him. It was as if he believed he always had to be the center of attention. Reminds me of someone that I know, but I know that Galinda has a heart. It was too soon to tell if he genuinely cares, but by the way he acted and the way the students nearby looked at him, I could already tell that his way of life to everyone else was fake.

Then he approached me later on in the day and I got to know him a little more. I soon realized that he wasn’t all so bad by himself. It was only when he was around everyone else where his walls come up and he acts out his facade.

“I guess I had a change of heart.” I finally answered.

“Uh huh. And how did Fiyero even get the chance to talk to you. The only way that can happen is if you two hung out alone.” Ezra said teasingly as he wiggled his eyebrows. I laughed at his antics.

“Fiyero might have interrupted my peaceful reading time earlier today and I got to know him a little more.”

“Oh?!”

“And before you say anything else there was nothing else to it. He offered to walk me back to my room and that’s when he invited me to the Ozdust ballroom. On our walk back I got to know him a little better and he’s not so bad by himself.”

“Hmm hmm.”

“Nothing else happened!”

“Hey I said nothing!” Ezra said as he lifted his hands to the sides of his face in defense. “But this means that you’re coming!”

“I didn’t say yes.”

“Why-“

“But I didn’t say no either. I’m still thinking about my answer.”

Ezra looped his arm with mine.

“Now I’m forcing you to come because I’m coming and I’m not going to have you sit pathetically in your room.”

“I’m not going to—“

“Ah uh. I won’t take no for an answer. And don’t say you don’t have anything to wear. Your wardrobe is almost as grand and big as Galinda’s.”

Ezra did have a point. I worried about my appearance and wardrobe just as much as Galinda, but I didn’t flaunt it as much as my cousin did.

“Come on.” Ezra grabbed my hands and pulled me up from my bed. He led me to one of my luggage’s that turned into a closet with the push of a button. Ezra pushed the button and pushed me towards my array of dresses.

“Well go on.” He prompted.

I stumbled upon the rack and begin to flip through my choices until I came across a dress that brought a smile to my face.

—————————

Ezra and I missed the boat that Galinda and Fiyero went on, so we arrived at the Ozdust ballroom a little later. I peeked over the corner and was in awe with what I saw.

The entrance of the ballroom had a ginormous staircase which led to the dance floor. At the end of the room was where a band of animals were playing the music. On the ceiling schools of fish were dancing in formation to the beat of the music. That’s when I realized that this ballroom was underwater. That was something I’ve never seen before.

Ezra and I began to walk down the staircase and I began to notice a lot of familiar faces from school.

“Do people come here often?” I asked Ezra. He first attended Shiz last year, so he had a whole year of experience before I came along.

“I would say so. It’s where most people go over the weekend, but this is the first time I’ve ever gone.”

I looked at him shocked. “Really?!”

“Yeah. I’ve never been invited and I’ve always wanted to go, but I never knew how to get here until I overheard those two girls talking today.”

“Well today’s your lucky day!” I said with a smile.

“Indeed it is.” He said with a chuckle. “Oh I see some of my friends I invited over there. Will you be okay on your own?”

“Yeah I will. Galinda should be around here somehere.”

“And Fiyero.” Ezra said with a glint of mischievousness.

“Yeah him too.”

Ezra laughed before he walked over to his two friends. Now I was left alone to fend for myself. I noticed a drink table on the side of the dance floor, so I made my way over there.

I had no idea what was in the glass, but it tasted quite good. I sipped quietly off to the side when I noticed a familiar figure approach me.

“Well if it isn’t Miss Upland.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Alright then. Princess.”

“Y/n.” I corrected him

“Princess Y/n.”

I figured it would be pointless so I gave up trying to correct him.

“I was almost starting to think you weren’t going to show up. What made you change your mind? Me?”

“Don’t be so full of yourself Fiyero. My brother forced me to come.”

“Aww so I can’t go around telling people that you’re my date tonight?”

I nearly choked on my drink, but I managed to regain my composure.

“Not a chance.”

“What a shame and to think I was going to ask you to dance.”

“I didn’t say no to that.” I said with a teasing smile. Fiyero looked shocked and glad that I was finally playing his game.

“Since you say so, I’ll just take this.”

Fiyero grabbed the drink from my hand and downed the rest of it before setting it on the table.

“Shall we?” He extended out his hand for me to take. I didn’t say anything, but I accepted his hand and he led me to the dance floor.

He began to twirl and whirl me around to the beat of the music and I found a couple laughs slip from my mouth. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time and I couldn’t believe that Fiyero of all people was making that happen.

One by one Galinda, Ezra, and his friends joined us as well. It was great to not care about the trivial things in life and simply dance through life as Fiyero likes to put it.

At one point the band slowed down the tempo of the music to a slower one and Fiyero gave me a knowing look. I looked back at Ezra and he winked at me before walking off the dance floor with his friends. I turned back to Fiyero and grabbed his hand. He gave me a beaming smiling, put his hands on my hips and began to move me across the ballroom floor.

“You know I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier today.” He said.

“About?” But I had an inkling about what he was talking about.

“About me pretending in front of everyone else.” I simply nodded and waited for him to continue.

“I guess I started doing it in order to hide my true depth of character. It was a way for me navigate the superficial social circles and get the chance to meet powerful people. I’ve done it for so long that I forgot what it’s like to just be me, but you were the first person to ever see through that.”

I took a moment to take in his words. It must have been exhausting to keep up that facade for so long. I felt bad for Fiyero. The fact that he felt the need to live like that.

“Well like I said you don’t have to pretend with me. I want to know the real Fiyero Tigelaar. Do you think you can manage to do that?”

“I can for you.”

Under normal circumstances I would have collapsed right then and there there, but that would do either of us no good. Fiyero had just finished telling me something he’s never spoken out loud before and I have to be the support he needs.

He twirled me around once more before pulling me right back into his arms. Then he brought his mouth up to my ear and whispered changing the subject.

“You look beautiful princess. I couldn’t take my eyes off of you tonight. I must say that blue is definitely your color. You are hands down the most beautiful one here.”

“I don’t think so.” I said as I looked down at the floor bashfully.

Fiyero grabbed my chin with his finger and brought my face up to look up at him.

“I beg to differ.” He grabbed a strand of my hair and pulled it back behind my ear. I felt his breath against my ear and shivers traveled down my spine. No boy has ever gave me as much attention as Fiyero has and I was at a loss with what to do. But in a strange way I knew exactly what to do, which is why I was bold enough to try something.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I whispered in his ear.

Fiyero looked confused, but he nodded anyway. I stood up on my tiptoes and went up to his ear, but at the very last second I grabbed his face and connected his lips with mine.

At first he didn’t responded, and I got so scared I got the message wrong, so I almost pulled away. However, he soon reciprocated the kiss and placed one hand firmly on my waist and the other framing my face. The kiss started simple, but then it became more intense. I would have kept on going, but then I remembered where we were.

I pulled away and looked around to see my brother looking at me with a knowing look as if he was saying I told you so. He mouthed, “And you said there was nothing else to it.”

“Shut up.” I mouthed back.

“Do you want to take this somewhere else? Away from the public eye.” Fiyero asked.

I looked up at his blue eyes and thought about being alone with Fiyero. Being able to hold him and kiss him to my hearts desire. I nodded with a smile.

Fiyero smiled back and interlocked our hands. Together the both of us walked out of the Ozdust ballroom without a care in the world and we simply danced through life.

[gyusrose]

➵ you’re so vain -> l.hs

⚠︎ smut (mdni)

✎ jock!heeseung x reader, enemies to ?????, heeseung is rlly annoying, hate sex ;), hair pulling, dirty talk, unprotected sex, degradation, backshots lmao. i think that’s it?

summary: attending a new school was supposed to be a fresh start for you, trying to be nice to everyone and have new friends, yet coming across lee heeseung threw all of that out the window.

(heeseung x fem.reader)

wc: 3.2k

your sweaty hands could not be gripping the steering wheel any harder. you wouldn’t call yourself “super shy” but when it comes to a whole new community of people, teenagers, hell yeah you are.

you had to move exactly at the middle of the year due to your mom’s work. they offered her double the salary at the other side of the city, who was she to say no to that? although you were going to miss your friends and the overall environment of your old home, you couldn’t just tell your mom ‘no’, either way her decisions are final.

you just got here two days ago, and to be honest, it wasn’t that bad. the worst thing so far is the fact that the nearest shopping center was 30 minutes away but you’ll live.

you didn’t except your first day of school to be so nerve-wracking. surely you’ll make some friends but who knows what people are like here. eventually, you saw the big navy blue sign with your school’s name on it. it was an averagely big school, bigger than your old one, which also meant more people.

the parking space alone was scary. it was huge yet already full even though it was still fairly early. you went around in circles around the parking lot, trying to find a vacant spot. fortunately you did at the second-to-last line.

as you tried to park, the limited space you had made it difficult to, having to back up and drive in constantly. as you reversed your car, you must have completely forgotten that you aren’t the only one there, feeling a small crash at the bumper of your car.

your eyes widened in panic. you looked back to see what you hit, and with your luck, it revealed at very nice black car, to which you’ve just hit. you tried to quickly get into your parking spot, hoping it was nothing serious, but then someone came walking up to you.

‘shit, that must be the owner’ you saw his red, rather handsome, fuming face.

you got out of your car to confront the first person interaction.

“hey look im so-“

“CANT YOU FUCKING DRIVE RIGHT? YOU HIT MY VERY EXPENSIVE CAR WITH YOUR THING, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?”

oh he was an asshole. you almost scoffed in his face. who does he think he is.

“it was accident that’s all, it was barely a scratch calm down man.”

“IT WAS DEFINITELY A SCRATCH LOOK AT IT! JUST BECAUSE YOU KEEP YOUR CAR LOOKING ALL MISERABLE DOESNT MEAN I WILL, DO YOU EVEN HAVE A LICENSE?”

lord take me back. you were so close to just leaving him there arguing with himself. but you didn’t want to make him even angrier.

“look im sorry! i can pay for the fix up if that’s what you want, i dont know what else to do?”

the boy scoffed and rolled his eyes at your statement.

“you think i don’t have the money for it? please, it shows you’re a newbie around here.”

“i didn’t mean it like that-“

“yo heeseung!! come on bro!” another blonde boy called from afar, hopefully ending the argument y’all were having.

“ watch your back new girl.” with one last glare, he left to join his group of friends.

you rolled your eyes. shiver my fucking timbers, you thought.

you took a deep breath before grabbing your backpack and making your way into school , hoping to never see his face ever again.

>>

you thought that was going to be the end of it all. but oh boy were you wrong. soon you found out that heeseung is the captain of the football team, and pretty much the most popular boy in school. as cliche as it sounds, every girl would drop their panties if he asked them to.

people know he’s not the nicest person ( an asshole) yet they still look up to him. that’s angered you. how are all these people so dumb? just because he’s kinda good-looking? seriously?

over the course of a few weeks, you’ve managed to make some friends, your closest taehyun and Isa. although you tried to block the negativity, heeseung made it really hard. always giving you snarky comments when he saw you around, ridiculing you in front of other people. somehow always finding a way to run into you despite not having any classes together. except gym.

“ bro open your eyes, catch the damn ball!” he yelled from across from you.

you hated sports. even less could you play one, but you gotta do it for the grade.

“the ball was too high up dummy!” you retorted, rolling your eyes for maybe the 100th time in the class period.

if you hated gym before, you definitely hated it more now.

as the period ended, you decided to take a quick shower in the locker rooms since you couldn’t handle being all sweaty and gross throughout the day.

heeseung finished changing and was outside the locker room with his friends, chatting, waiting for the bell to ring. that’s when he may have accidentally eavesdropped the conversation between your two friends, he could barely the names of.

“where’s _____?” taehyun asked isa, noticing how you weren’t with her.

“she’s taking a shower right now, she told us to not wait for her.” Isa shrugged before taehyun nodded.

a beautiful idea popped in heeseung’s brain. it was too good.

he excused himself and sneakily waited by the girl’s locker room, waiting for everyone to come out. once he only heard the shower you were using running, he quietly entered the room. the bell had rang about a minute ago, so the gym was empty, only you and him. the gym teacher god knows where.

he saw his target and rapidly grabbed the pile of clothes sitting on the bench, a smirk evident in his face.

suddenly the shower stopped running, making heeseung hurry and exit the locker room.

the shower felt too good, you think you spent more time that you anticipated to. as you exited the shower tiles, you looked around for your clothes, which you remember clearly leaving them in the bench closest to the shower. you looked around the whole locker room, hoping you were wrong and placed them elsewhere. unfortunately, you couldn’t even find your damn socks.

your biggest fear has come true. you’re now naked, nothing but a towel covering you, this was more than just humiliating. you felt sad, mad, angry, embarrassed all at once. they’ve been stolen for sure, and you were more than sure on who did it.

grabbing your phone you called Isa, to see if she could help you somehow. and she indeed did. bringing you some spare clothes she had. thankfully, you always bring extra underwear since situations like these could happen. you just had to wait for isa for the clothes, yet the five minutes she took felt like five hours. unfortunately, passing period is over, meaning some students are coming in the locker room to change.

many of them just straight up stared at you. giving you weird looks as to why you were pretty much naked in the middle of the locker room, but none had the guts to ask you.

you wished the ground would just swallow you whole. lee heeseung won’t hear the end of it.

“LEE HEESEUNG!” you yelled across the field. he and his friends were siting down eating lunch outside when you spotted him after trying to find him after the stunt he just pulled.

heeseung knew it was coming, giggling with his friends as they heard you yell his name once again. “ oh she’s about to scold me now .” heeseung scoffed but still got up and went over to you.

“yes ma’am?” he said with a smile, you wish you could slap off but you’re better than that.

“YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID DO YOU KNOW HOW EMBARRASSING THAT WAS?”

“i have no idea what you’re talking about..” heeseung tried acting innocent but failed as he just burst out laughing. you groaned, how on earth is that funny?

“cute panties by the way” he continued to laugh, not sparing a glance at your mad expression on your face.

“you’re such an ass, i hate your guts.” you said leaving him alone, laughing to himself.

“yo bro i think she actually got mad this time.” his friend, jake came over.

heeseung shrugged. “she’s so sensitive, it wasn’t even that bad.”

“i can’t believe he did that…” taehyun said as you told them both what had happened. Isa knew a little bit but not who did it.

“that’s fucked up, what’s he got against you so much?”

you shrugged. “i guess because i gave his car a little scratch, but i guess he took it to heart since he hasn’t stopped bothering me since. he’s a jerk.”

“finally someone who thinks the same as me!” taehyun said making you chuckle.

“then get back at him! you know the one thing that makes him who he is is that damn football.” Isa said.

you tried to be the bigger person this whole time, not paying much mind to his little remarks or pranks he pulls, biting back a little wouldn’t hurt right?

“you know what, you’re right.”

“lee heeseung, mrs. park wants to speak to you.” mr.jung said calling heeseung.

heeseung who was barely paying attention heard his name. his frowned at this. what on earth could she want to talk about with him? either way, he went to her classroom.

he entered the empty classroom to find his coach and mrs.park, waiting for him. what the fuck? heeseung was more confused now. maybe they were going to congratulate him for the good work this semester? his coach’s face said otherwise though.

“there you are, you may be wondering why you’re here..” mrs.park started. heeseung nodded, feeling uneasy.

“a student came forward, showing how you copied word for word her whole assignment, the one i assigned a week ago. i didn’t notice it at first but it’s very clear now, you may know how cheating is unacceptable in my class, i’ve decided to fail you in this assignment, plus you’ll be serving detention this whole week..” she turned to the coach.

heeseung’s heart started beating at a rapid pace, he’s never been caught cheating, and being failed on the assignment that was a big part of his grade, it means he’s most likely failing the class now. the rules for football stated that all players should be passing all of their classes if not, they’ll be dropped….

no no no, the lee heeseung can’t be dropped. he’s the captain! the star player!

“since you’re failing this class heeseung, i think you know what’s about to happe-“

“please coach! don’t kick me out, i’m the captain! what would the team do without me? i’ll get my grade up as soon as possible im-“

“calm down calm down, i’m not going to kick you out, it’s the middle of the season, but unfortunately you won’t be playing the next three games. if your grade is not up by then, then i will drop you. understood?” his coach stated earning a sharp nod by heeseung.

he’s glad he’s still on the team but what’s the point if he can’t play? he’s going to become a joke. the captain that’s a bench warmer. how stupid.

he left the classroom enraged. he knows exactly who did this.

“bro what? what do you mean you ain’t gonna play ?” riki said in disbelief at what his captain just said.

“some snitch told mrs.park that i cheated on the last assignment and coach suspended me for the next three games, and i got detention all week!” sunghoon unknowingly chuckled. heeseung looked at him with a glare.

“what? she got you good, what did you expect hee?” sunghoon kept laughing, making some of the others also laugh silently.

heeseung had nothing to say back, he just rolled his eyes. “tch, whatever.”

nevertheless, you were overjoyed seeing heeseung slouching on the bench. you couldn’t miss this once in a lifetime scenario. obviously you were the cause for it. heeseung asks Isa almost all the time for her notes or to straight up copy her. she willingly let you rat him out after what he did to you.

he can sense how all eyes were on him, but he just tried to block everyone out a focus on the game. he had a poker face on, but deep inside he was irritated . he saw how you were smirking and laughing with your two little friends. you knew what you were doing.

>>

“ahh look who it is, the benchwarmer! “ you said chuckling as you made your way to heeseung.

after the team (barely) won, jake threw an ‘after party’ at his house. even though you don’t normally go to these parties, especially from those boys, you felt like a party would do good with your marvellous mood. something about seeing heeseung’s frowny face made feel over the moon.

“seems like cat got your tongue now huh? dont have anything to say-“

in a blink of an eye you were pulled into a room, heeseung’s fingers wrapped around your neck, pulling your face closer to his.

“what the fuck? heeseung-“

“shut the fuck up.” his hoarse voice caught you off guard. he was actually really mad.

“you think what you did it’s fucking funny? huh? almost getting me kicked out ? “ you’ve never seen him this enraged before. making you almost scared, yet….kinda turned on? no, you hate him, snap out of it! you told yourself yet the wetness in between your legs became hard to ignore.

you didn’t respond. “fuck, you’re so annoying, i can’t fucking stand you. i hate you.” he saw lowly. fuck that was hot.

you spoke before thinking. “then show me.”

not needing to tell him twice, heeseung pulled you completely in. your lips met in a kiss that was anything but gentle, a fierce and consuming clash that spoke longing and raw need.

The kiss deepened, fueled by an unspoken urgency, their mouths exploring each other with a fervor that left y’all breathless. his grip on your neck becoming tighter.

“shit im gonna show you to fucking behave.” he said before pushing you into the bed forcefully. you may have discovered a new kink of yours. watching as he undressed himself and yourself rapidly. feeling his anger through every touch he gave you.

he rubbed through your folds before inserting two fingers aggressively. your body jolted at the sudden move.

“holy shit go softer dumbass.”

“aw you think i give a fuck? suck it up and take it since you think you’re all that.” his fingers pumped faster and faster making it hard for you to answer back to his stupid remarks.

“oh my god..” you tried to pull his hand away before you cum. not wanting to see you orgasm so easily yet.

“just fuck me already heeseung, or is your dick as tiny as your brain?”

heeseung looked darkly at you. that stupid mouth of yours can’t shut up will it?

he retracted his fingers put of you and took his boxers off. wanting nothing more than to prove you wrong.

shit. your eyes went wide at what stood in front of you. saying he was big was an understatement. it was like a zipper for your mouth. how was that thing going to fit inside of you?

“can’t say anything now, can you slut?” he pulled your legs down the mattress to have you at the perfect angle to ram into you.

heeseung ran his til over your folds, teasing his way in. making you aggrevated.

“just put it in for fucks sake!”

“tell me how bad you want it.” you shook your head, no way were you going to beg. no way.

“alright then, i guess im gonna go.” he said letting go of your waist, acting as if he was going to leave.

“okay okay! please fuck me, i want it so bad, i want your big cock so bad heeseung.” heeseung moaned at your words. he didn’t wait any longer and thrusted all of him in you.

you both moaned yet it was more painful for you. you’ve never had something so big inside you before.

“fuck yeah..” he said then grabbing your neck, slightly choking you. your hands went to his biceps, trying to find something to hold on to as the speed he was thrusting in became more hostile.

“fuck me harder, like the asshole you are.” you said in between breaths. heeseung took the challenge and thrusted violently. the skin slapping and wetness of your core could probably be heard in the party outside.

“of course a whore like you would like to be fucked like this.”

before you could respond he pulled out of you earning a desperate groan from you, but then your were flipped, now on all fours and before you knew it he was back in you again. gripping your hip with one hand while he pulled your hair on the other.

“such a tight pussy, you probably fantasized about this am i right?” he said in your ear. you shook your head through your moan.

“in your dreams lee, in your fucking dreams. fuck you.”

“i’m quite literally doing that.” chuckling, he let go of your hair and instead gripped your other hip, going in deeper, nudging your cervix literally driving you to an edge.

“fuck i’m cumming.” you cried out. never has an orgasm felt like this. heeseung was on edge as well, feeling you clench around his dick did it for him.

your climax rose over you, making you fall into the pillow while heeseung kept thrusting until his own organs came over him, pulling out and releasing his white ropes all over your back.

tiredly, he laid besides you in the strangers bed, not knowing what to say now.

you turned to him, smirking. “i think i may hate you even more now.”

[juliettejwnewinesa]

Can you do a Seongje fic about prioties. Established relationship, but he doesn't prioritize the reader as much as he prioritizes the Union. He's always late or missing things and her breaking point comes when he misses another date where she was waiting outside for hours. He comes home after another fight, still not remembering the date HE promised and she just loses it. Like, this soft spoken gf gets so pissed even Seongje doesn't even know what to say, especially when she tells him she feels single in the relationship. She kicks him out and he realizes how much of a jerk he's been when he tries to think of any time they've gone out and then you can think of how he can try make it up to her

I really love your stories and the way you write. Also, have you considered creating a masterlist? I think you should create one so it's easier to find your writings (just a suggestion)🫶

Title: "Second Place" Pairing: Seongje x Reader Genre: Angst | Hurt/Comfort | Established Relationship Warnings: Emotional neglect, hurtful arguments, crying, swearing (mild), eventual reconciliation

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You always told yourself you could handle it.

Dating someone like Seongje — a man who had the weight of the Union on his back, who carried loyalty like a second skin — meant understanding he’d always be a little… distracted. You weren’t naïve. You knew what you signed up for.

But you didn’t sign up to feel like an afterthought.

Not after months of missed dinners. Half-hearted texts. Cancelled dates. Cold food waiting on the table only to be wrapped back up and shoved into the fridge. You understood emergencies — you did. But Seongje didn’t even try anymore.

And tonight… tonight was supposed to be different.

It was the anniversary of the first time he asked you out. A tiny, quiet day, maybe not important to most — but you were sentimental, and he used to be too. He promised this time. "I'll be there. I swear."

You believed him.

So you stood outside the café, wearing the coat he liked, holding the small homemade gift you’d spent hours on — a sketchbook with dumb little doodles of your memories together. You waited in the fading light, your fingers numbing with the cold.

One hour.

Two.

Three.

You stayed even after the café turned off its sign. Watching couples pass by, laughing, touching, living lives that didn’t involve waiting on someone who’d forgotten them.

Eventually, you stopped feeling disappointed. It turned into something colder. Something hollow.

You went home alone.

The door creaked open at midnight. Seongje walked in like he always did — tired, annoyed, muttering something under his breath about another brawl. He tossed his jacket onto the back of the couch and didn’t notice the cold plate on the counter or the dimmed lights or the empty wine glass sitting opposite yours.

He didn’t notice you sitting silently on the armchair, staring at him.

Not until you spoke.

"You forgot again."

He blinked. Paused. "What?"

"Our date."

A beat. Then a shrug. "Shit, I was busy, you know how it is. Things with the Union are—"

"More important," you said flatly. "Always more important."

He finally looked at you. Really looked. Your eyes were red, makeup smudged, your voice shaking even though you were trying so hard to stay calm.

"You’re blowing this out of proportion."

Wrong answer.

You stood up so fast the chair scraped backward. "Out of proportion? I waited outside for three fucking hours, Seongje. THREE. HOURS. In the cold. Like a goddamn idiot!"

He flinched. You rarely raised your voice.

"Why didn’t you call?" you demanded. "Why didn’t you text? You made the plan! You picked the time! You told me you’d be there!"

He rubbed the back of his neck, already looking guilty. "I forgot, okay? I was—"

"Exactly." Your voice cracked. "You forgot. You always forget."

Silence. He opened his mouth, closed it again.

You stepped closer, and this time your voice was quiet, but razor sharp.

"I feel single in this relationship, Seongje."

That landed like a slap.

"I cook for no one. I talk to walls. I show up to things you promise to be at, and I end up sitting alone like I’m some delusional girl chasing after a guy who’s not even interested."

His face twisted. "That’s not fair."

"Isn’t it?" you whispered. "Because tell me the last time we went out. The last time we talked about anything that wasn’t the Union. Tell me the last time I came first in your day."

He hesitated.

"You can’t, can you?"

He couldn’t.

You backed up toward the door, grabbing his coat from the hook.

"You need to leave."

He stared at you like you’d slapped him. "Wait, what?"

"Go sleep at one of your Union friends' places. You obviously care more about them than me anyway."

"You don’t mean that."

You threw the coat at his chest. "I do. Because I’ve been patient, and understanding, and supportive, and all I ever get in return is cold dinners and broken promises. I don’t even remember what it’s like to be someone’s priority anymore."

Seongje didn’t move. Didn’t say anything.

He just looked… stunned.

You turned your back before he could see the tears fall again.

"Please. Just go."

And for once — he listened.

The next day.

The silence in the apartment was too loud. No clattering pans. No soft hum of your voice in the other room. Just emptiness.

Seongje sat in a shitty motel lobby at 3 a.m. staring at the wall, running his hands through his hair.

The worst part wasn’t the fight.

It was realizing you were right.

He tried to remember the last time you two went out. A real date. A moment where he looked at you without checking his phone every five minutes or being interrupted by a Union call. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d complimented you.

Everything had become routine. Wake up. Kiss your forehead. Go fight. Come home. Eat cold food. Fall asleep. Repeat.

He’d taken you for granted.

You’d always been there. Always soft, patient, smiling even when he barely gave you scraps of his attention. He thought you'd always be there.

Until you weren’t.

He stared at his phone. No new messages.

His thumb hovered over your contact.

But he didn’t call.

Not yet.

Two days later.

Your apartment stayed quiet. Clean. Undisturbed.

You cried the first night, then went numb the next.

You missed him. God, you did.

But you weren’t going to be the only one fighting for this anymore.

If he wanted you — really wanted you — he had to show it.

One week later.

You opened your door to a strange smell — something warm. Buttery. Sweet.

On your counter sat a paper bag. Still warm. Inside: pastries from your favorite bakery — the one two districts over. The one he’d always grumbled about being “too far.”

A note rested on top.

“Didn’t forget this time.” —S

You stared at it.

The next day, flowers appeared. Then your favorite book — annotated with his handwriting in the margins.

The day after that: a flash drive. With a slideshow.

Each photo labeled. "First smile." "First trip." "First time I realized I was in love with you."

Your vision blurred.

The last image was a selfie — Seongje, holding a whiteboard.

“I want a second chance. Tell me when and where — I’ll be there first.”

Two nights later.

You agreed to meet him.

A quiet restaurant. Nothing flashy. You walked in 5 minutes early — expecting to wait.

But he was already there.

Hair styled. Dressed in that jacket you liked. Sitting up straight, nervous fingers drumming on the table.

He stood the second he saw you.

You sat down without a word. Let him speak first.

"I was wrong," he said. No excuses. No deflection. Just… guilt. "I forgot what it means to be someone’s boyfriend. I thought just being around was enough, but I wasn’t with you. Not really."

You said nothing.

"I kept choosing the Union over you because I thought I had time. I thought you'd always be there waiting. I didn't realize I was already losing you piece by piece."

Still, you didn’t speak.

"I want to fix this. I don’t just want to say sorry — I want to show you. I set every reminder. I cleared my weekend schedule. I even told the Union I’d take a step back."

That made you blink. "You… what?"

He nodded. "They didn’t like it. But I told them I have something more important."

Silence. Then—

"I don’t want to feel single anymore either," he added quietly. "I want to feel like I have you. And I want you to feel like you have me. Fully. No more ‘second place.’"

Your throat tightened.

"One date," he said. "One night where it’s just us. No distractions. No phone. Just you and me. And if I screw it up — I’ll never bother you again."

You looked at him.

For the first time in weeks — he looked like your Seongje again.

"...Okay."

And when you said that, the smile he gave you was small. Shy. Hopeful.

Like someone who finally realized what he almost lost.

And was ready to earn it back.

author's note: i tried doing a masterlist not that long ago but i stopped updating it i will start doing it again dont worry:)

[chlix]

baby, it's cold outside (no seriously it's crazy out there)

bf! chan x gn! reader: your car breaks down in a snowstorm and you have to walk home. chan is there to comfort you and warm you back up

pairing: chan x reader

genre: hurt/comfort, fluff

word count: 4.1k

warnings/tags: snowstorms, car trouble, sickness, a long series of unfortunate events that leave the reader miserable for most of the fic

a/n: this is a request from @caticorn61 who wanted chan being apologetic for not answering his phone after reader's car broke down. this is perhaps more than what u asked for 😅 but i hope you enjoy it anyway!

You are on a historic run of bad days.

You've never considered yourself to be particularly unlucky, but this past week has had you rethinking that orientation. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. On Monday your alarm didn't go off, making you late for work. Even worse, there was a meeting you'd forgotten about, so you had to slide awkwardly into the back of the room and pretend you didn't feel everyone's annoyed gazes. Tuesday was grocery shopping day, but you found out they discontinued your favorite brand of chips, and raised the price of an alternative, so you were forced to go home chip-less. Then, when you tried to take the groceries out of the car, one of the bags split open and sent your eggs, cheese, and blueberries crashing to the ground, buried in slush and snow. A total waste. Wednesday you woke up to find your heating had shut off in the night, and you were now shaking fit to break apart. Although maintenance promptly fixed your radiator, you developed an itch in your throat that only grew throughout the day and had developed into a full-blown cough by the next morning.

Which is where you are now on a subzero Thursday morning, ill and irritated and crawling your way towards the end of the week.

Your boyfriend, Chan, talks to you on the phone in soothing tones.

"I'm sorry your week has been so rough, baby," he says, and you can hear the dripping sympathy through the phone. "I know how it feels when little things pile up like that."

"I just don't know if I can take it anymore," you tell him. "It's like I've been cursed. I'm afraid if I walk outside a piano will fall on me and crush me."

You're half-joking when you say that, but Chan can hear that the other half is vaguely on hysterical.

"I don't think anyone is moving pianos in this weather," he says very reasonably. "Just stay away from luxury apartments if you're worried."

You set your bag down and put your face in your hands, taking slow, deep breaths. Your phone is on speaker, and you can hear Chan hum, trying to comfort you even though he's in his own dorm across the city.

"It'll all be okay, Y/n. And I'll see you this weekend, yeah? I'll come over Friday night and you'll have me all to yourself. Just stay strong."

You exhale, long and loud. "You promise?"

"I promise. Be strong for me, babygirl."

You blink the dampness out of your eyes and straighten up. "Okay. I can do that."

"And drink some tea. Your voice sounds kind of rough."

"Don't get me started again, please."

By the time you hang up, you don't feel understood, but you do feel seen. You fill up a thermos with tea, put on your coat, and mentally prepare yourself to leave the apartment.

It's only two more days, you remind yourself. The weekend will fix me. It'll break this curse that's been placed upon me. You force yourself to have a positive outlook. You will not have another bad day. You will be strong.

All day, you force yourself to react to every potentially meltdown-inducing incident with grace and poise. You realize you forgot your lunch and have to eat cheap candy from the vending machine for lunch? That's totally fine. Your boss adds another item to your to list, forcing you to stay later to finish everything and close up? You really don't mind. Your best friend texts you that she's been stalking her ex on Instagram again and you won't believe it but he already has a new girlfriend, y/n, can you fucking believe it, we've only been broken up for like two weeks and he's buying her fucking jewelry, and you respond what an asshole. he has a new gf and he didn't block his ex? while your eye twitches.

By the time you finish all your tasks and close up, your face hurts from holding a smile you don't feel. You're the last one out, so you make sure the building is locked and make your way across the empty parking lot to your car. The forecast predicted snow tonight, and already the ground is littered with white. The flakes are fat and sticky- they're already building up on the undisturbed portions of pavement. You have to quickly brush off your windows and mirrors before you can get into your car, slamming the door behind you.

You made it. You survived. It was a godawful Thursday but you conquered it.

"One more day," you whisper to yourself. "Just one more day."

You lock the door and put the key in the ignition. The dashboard lights up and the engine turns.....and turns....and turns.....

A rock forms in your stomach.

"No," you say. "No no no no no." You twist the key again, but the engine whirs and whirs and whirs...and does not turn over. Your car does not start.

It's not news to you that your car is a piece of shit. You and Chan discuss this almost every night- what to do about this fuckass car. You've been resistant to letting him help you pay for a new one, partially because that's a lot of money and partly because you're sentimentally attached to the old rustbucket. You inherited it from a family member as a birthday gift, and so despite it being less than reliable you're hesitant to seek solutions. It's your first car, after all. It's a part of you now.

In this moment, however, you want to throw all that sentimentally down the drain along with the keys to this absolutely useless fucking rustbucket of a vehicle.

Not to worry, you tell yourself. I'll just call Chan to come get me. We can deal with my car in the morning.

You take out your phone and call him. The call rings out.

You stare at your phone, confused. It's not like him to ignore your calls, especially not at this hour. It's pitch black with winter but it's still arguably early in the night. Chan is likely to still be awake, but it's unlikely he's doing any kind of official task. And it's so late that he would know to answer; you would never call him for something frivolous at this time of night. You call again.

No answer.

Your patience is running thin now. You consider calling your best friend, but she's out of town visiting family. Your other friend, Seohyeon, doesn't have a car, and her boyfriend's car is currently being repaired. The bus you sometimes take is about a fifteen minute walk down the street, but it'll have stopped running this far out by now, so you'd have to walk to a further bus stop and then go to the transportation terminal and connect, which would take over an hour. You could walk to the subway, you think, but you lost your subway card weeks ago and never got around to replacing it, and honestly it just seems like a whole ordeal you can't bring yourself to stomach right now. Chills go down your spine, and you can't tell if it's from the cold or from the increasing precarity of your situation.

You try the engine again. No dice.

You call Chan again. Voicemail again.

You lean your head on the steering wheel and take long, deep breaths. Outside your window, the wind is picking up, making the snow fall at a diagonal instead of straight down. It would be terrible to walk in, especially because the direction you need to go to get home would cause the snow to blow right in your face. Your throat is killing you, but your thermos of tea is long since empty. Maybe you should just go back into the work building and hunker down for the night. Maybe you should sit in the car and turn into an icicle. Your head is a foggy mess, thoughts twisting all around. You're getting hysterical again. You can feel yourself cracking to pieces.

Think, y/n. Who else can you call?

You're all out of people you know personally, but you could call an Uber. It's pricey and arguably unsafe, and you normally wouldn't, but these are extenuating circumstances. It solves the problem of being stranded, and again, you can deal with your car at a later point. And at least when Chan finally calls you back, you'll be safe at home, so he won't have to feel guilty about missing your calls three times.

You lean back in your seat and open the Uber app. Thankfully you still have it installed, and it still has all your info in it from the last time you called someone to take you home. Just as you're about to finish the transaction, your phone freezes. The screen flashes, then goes dark. You press the power button once, then again, frantically.

Your phone is dead.

Immediately, you scramble for your console, searching for a power cable to connect the phone to the car battery. Your cable is gone. You remember, horrified, that you took the cable out of your car because the one in your living room at home had started fraying. You meant to replace it but you never did. You're normally pretty good at leaving the house in the morning with it mostly charged.

But it's nighttime now, and your battery is dead. You have no charging cables, which means you can't call an Uber. You can't call anybody. And you can't even go to the subway now because your debit card is on your phone, so you can't refill your subway card.

A terrible despair fills you.

You have to walk home in a snowstorm.

As soon as the thought materializes, tears start to well in your eyes. This is too much for you to take, would be too much for you even if you'd had a perfectly good day today. This isn't fait. How can this be happening to you? Why is the universe punishing you like this? And when is it going to stop? Again you wish you could just sit in your car and turn into an icicle, let someone else defrost you in the morning. You think having a piano fall on your head would be better than this.

Eventually you manage to get yourself to calm down. Sitting in this car freezing isn't gonna do you any good. It'll only get colder by the hour. You need to walk to the far bus stop and catch another bus before they actually stop running, and you really are stranded instead of just doomed to walk forty minutes in a blizzard.

As if there's a difference, you think bitterly as you put your useless phone into your bag and bundle everything up. You put your gloves back on, and your hat. You step out of your car, slamming the door behind you, and zip up your jacket. Of course, you hadn't thought to wear a scarf today, so your face will just have to freeze. After only 30 seconds you feel your lips cracking.

"Okay," you whisper. "Okay okay okay okay."

You set off in the direction of the bus.

-/-

The journey is long and cold. It's not so much the temperature as the fact that you never have the chance to get used to it because it just keeps getting holder as the night wears on. It takes a ridiculously long time to walk to the bus stop, because you're fighting headwind every step of the way. You want to close your eyes against the snow, but if you do that you'll veer off course or fall into the road or trip on an ice slick and die, so you brave the stinging and push forward. Then you wait at the bus stop so long that your already sore feet start to scream with pain. Your phone is dead, so there's no way for you to track the bus, but you conclude you must have just missed the previous one as it takes a full thirty minutes for it to come again. By the time the bus pulls up in front of you, your feet are almost buried, and when you take your seat, every part of you squelches and slides as the snow melts, drenching your clothes.

The bus is at least warm, and so is the transport center, but the second bus drops you off another twenty-five minute walk from your apartment and you're forced to walk- you guessed it!- uphill. Your calves are screaming from the exertion, and from cold, and from keeping your balance as you trudge through the piling snow. You have a death grip on your keys- if they were to fall out somewhere between work and home you would simply lie down on the ground and let the snow bury you. It would be more than you could take. But your keys stay in your tightly clenched fists, and soon your apartment building becomes visible through the dark and haze. You want to cry tears of relief but your tear ducts are frozen shut.

By the time you traipse up the steps of your apartment, you feel more popsicle than person. You are so cold. Your hands shake so much it takes you a few tries to get the keys from your pocket and stick them in the lock. You step inside, sagging as the heat blasts you in the face. All you want to do is collapse into bed and curl under your blankets where the world can't see you, to get a little bit of sleep before your torture begins anew tomorrow. The thought of going to work on Friday strikes a physical pain in you. You've barely survived today, and yet tomorrow looms terrible just out of reach.

You go to turn on the lights only to realize that the lights are already on. Your heart skips a beat. Did someone break into your apartment? Should you turn around and flee? But you don't have a car, and you certainly aren't walking back to the bus stop. You have nowhere to go.

A figure turns the corner and you flinch back, hands half-raised in some pathetic attempt to defend yourself-

It's Chan. He turns the corner and it's your boyfriend, standing on your tile floor in sweats and a big sweater, eyes bright and twinkling with how excited he is to see you.

"Hey, sweetheart," Chan says. "You're finally back. I saw you called earlier and got worried something was wrong."

You burst into tears. You're crying before you even know it, violent sobs that shake you and make water droplets roll off your soaked hair. Salt burns your frozen tear ducts, and snow is slipping down your collar, but all these small discomforts are overshadowed by the pure and all-consuming relief that your boyfriend is here in the flesh, asking after you and taking care of you, and you can finally stop fighting to keep it together. You can rest.

Chan makes a sound of alarm and rushes forward to grab you as you start to list.

"Baby? Hey, hey, what's wrong? Christ, you look terrible. Are you sick?" He tries to put his hand against your forehead but pulls it away just as fast. "You're cold as ice, y/n."

"I w-walked home," you try to explain. Your tongue is thick in your mouth, and it's hard to get enough air to speak through your sobs. "Car broke down, phone died, b-bus was late."

"Fuck, sweetheart. I'm so fucking sorry. That sounds terrible."

His validation of your misery just makes you cry harder. Chan pulls you into a fierce hug and you bury your face in his shoulder and absolutely lose it. All the stress of the last week crashes down on you at once, your misery overwhelming you. You grab at his clothes with gloved hands, and there's about four layers of clothes between you, and it's not enough, you want to be closer. But at the same time you can't make yourself pull away from Chan's embrace. He whispers soothing words in your ear, rocks you back and forth, presses closed mouth kisses to any part of you he can reach. He doesn't shush you, or try to calm you down. He just lets you have the emotional release he knows you sorely need.

When your cries start to slow, he gives you one final squeeze to catch your attention, and whispers, "We need to get you out of these clothes, hmm? Does that sound okay?"

You swallow the last of your sobs and nod morosely.

"Okay then. Let's take your jacket off. It's soaking wet by now."

You step back from Chan, still holding on to his arm as you stumble and sway. You're so tired. Standing up for even a second longer is too big of an ask.

"Just lean on me. It's okay, I won't let you fall."

Together, you unfasten and take off your heavy winter coat, letting it fall to the floor with the slush you dragged in. Chan is the one who crouches down to untie your shoes, and you lean on him for support as you remove one foot, then the other.

"Good job," he praises, pressing a kiss to your snow-soaked hair. "Let's get you warmed up now."

He leads you to the bathroom and starts the water running in the tub. You listlessly undress, leaning on the counter for support when you need it. While the tub is filling, Chan tries to leave, but you catch him by the shoulder on his way past you, stopping him in his tracks.

"Stay?"

"Of course I'll stay," he says. "I just want to get you a change of clothes."

You hesitantly let go of him, and he flashes you a reassuring smile before he slips out. You sit down on the toilet and wait patiently for his return, watching the water fill the tub slowly and feeling your thoughts move sluggishly in your brain.

The sound of the water stopping jolts you back to the present. Chan is back, in a regular t-shirt this time, leaning over the bathtub to make sure the water is the right temperature. Deeming it good enough, he turns back to you and stretches out a hand to you.

As soon as you sit down in the warm water, you feel about ten times better. The warmth unties some of the tension that coils your muscles, and it quells the shivering that had started up as you were sitting on the toilet waiting to be told what to do. Chan urges you to slide down so you're almost submerged, making sure almost all your body is enveloped in warmth, and starts dumping warm water over your head, soaking your hair and washing out the remnants of grime and slush. He's quiet as he does it, humming a low tune, and you close your eyes and let him do as he wants. When he's done, he taps your shoulder, and you sit up, mourning the loss of warmth as your back and chest are exposed to the bathroom air.

"Do you mind?" he asks. You shake his head, uncaring of what he's referring to. You'd let him do anything to you in this state. It turns out "anything" means washing your back, so you again sit still and let him do as he pleases. The pressure of his hands and the sound of his voice, still humming, gradually soothe your mind and body. You stop shivering and tune back into your surroundings.

He's subtly watching your face, so he sees when you come back to yourself and drops his neutral expression. "Back with me?"

You nod. The floaty feelings from being cold and hysterical are gone, but that just means the exhaustion of your day is hitting you full force. You hold out your hand for the washcloth so you can clean the rest of yourself, and he hands it over, but doesn't move to leave, which you appreciate. Now that you're calmer, you think you might be a little more embarrassed asking him to stay.

"I know you said this morning you were cursed, but I didn't think you meant literally," he tries to joke.

You let out a long breath. "I didn't think I meant literally either."

"Wanna talk about it?"

You shrug as you rub the washcloth along your legs, wincing when you remove your still-freezing toes from the water. "What can I say? It was a shit day at work with a shit ending."

"You said your car broke down."

You squeeze your eyes shut. You are not in the mood for this argument. "It just wouldn't start. I don't know what's wrong with it."

"Y/n..." He doesn't say anything more. He knows as well as you do that you'll get nowhere. It's enough to set you off though, now that your exhaustion is making you irritatble.

"It wouldn't have mattered either way if you'd picked up the phone when I called you," you snap. It's unfair and you know it, but before you can begin to feel remorse, Chan's face turns to one of guilt.

"I know, I'm sorry. I still had it silenced from work and didn't realize. When I saw that you called me I tried to call back but the calls didn't go through."

"My phone died. That's why I didn't call an Uber."

Chan shakes his head. "I would call this comical if it wasn't so clearly stressing you out."

"You can still call it comical. Just not within earshot."

"Surely you think better of me than that."

"I do," you say, completely serious. "Sorry. I'm not mad you didn't answer. It's just been a shitty day."

Chan squeezes your shoulder in understanding. "It's alright. I get it."

"I'm really grateful you're here," you say, and you're getting choked up again, emotions all out of whack. "I've never been so happy to see anyone."

"You called three times. Since I couldn't get a hold of you, I hoped you'd still come home and we could talk here."

"You're too good to me."

"I'm exactly as good as you deserve." He leans down to kiss you, long and loving and warm, and the last of the chill in your bones slides away.

-/-

The next morning, Chan calls you in sick before you even wake up. He has to leave for the morning, but comes back around noon with ingredients to make you soup and tea, and rouses you for lunch with all the care and gentleness in the world.  He curls next to you in bed despite your protests that you'll get him sick, but then, it's not like you protest that hard. You're still feverish and needy, and maybe it's not the most ridiculous thing in the world to want to lie in your boyfriend's arms as you recover from what you're pretty sure is mild hypothermia mixed with the flu.

"We were gonna hang out this weekend," you say morosely. "Now I'm trapped in this bed and you're stuck taking care of me."

"Taking care of you is my favorite form of hanging out," he informs you, cleaning away the mug and bowl to bring back to the kitchen. "And hanging up the phone on your boss is my favorite passtime."

"You did not hang up on them," you gasp, hand over your mouth.

Chan shrugs, unbothered. "They seemed a little too annoyed about my request to not tow your car out of the parking lot. I made it very clear that it better be there when you get back on Monday or else."

"So selfless. You could've let them tow it and finally been victorious."

He turns from the kitchen and sits back down on the bed. "You like that car. I'm not going to keep insisting you get rid of it when it means so much to you. Even if I do blame it for the events of yesterday." You glare and he puts his hands up defensively. "If it's not my fault or your fault then I have to blame the car. Sorry not sorry."

"Blame the cursed spirit following me around," you say, sinking miserably into the blankets. "It possessed the engine of my car just to torment me."

"Even more reason to get rid of it."

You're feverish and tired, but the conversation makes you smile nonetheless. "Ask me again when my fever breaks if you still think I should keep it. Maybe it'll burn away the sentimental attachment."

"Don't get my hopes up."

You close your eyes as Chan kisses your forehead, and you slide easily into pleasant dreams.

[darkwitchoferie]

Train Ride - Chapter 2, Jeongin

A/N: Apologies, this is later than originally intended. During my proofreading, I realized I kept flipping tenses, which – annoying. But that meant I had to do a little more heavy editing than I intended. Do you ever just look at a word while proofreading and think ‘that’s not a real word’, but it totally is and is in fact the correct word you meant to use? Yeah, happened a few times. Please lmk if you want to be added to the taglist.

To my new followers – hello, welcome. My fic ideas are few and, sometimes, far between. But I hope you continue to enjoy this one. Oh, that said, don’t think I won’t finish this one. This one is already more than half finished and the half that isn’t written is outlined.

Cw/tw for this chapter: vaginal fingering, nipple play unprotected vaginal sex, oral sex (m & f receiving), “accidental” exhibitionism, threesome

wc: 2.7k

Master list

Over the next week, the pair of you discussed your boundaries. Mostly they vary based on what the other individual guys might like or want, but there were hard lines for both of you. Mostly for you, and mostly centered on things you just didn’t like to do sexually. Though you did include things like allowing them all to have you with no additional protection since you had an IUD. As long as they were comfortable with it, you already knew they were all clean. The one hard rule was that if, at any time, you or Chan realized this type of sexually-opened, hopefully fully polyamorous, relationship was no longer working for you as a couple or as individuals, you’d say something. You two would keep talking about it, and include the others when and if they decided to fully be in a relationship with either of you, to keep making sure it was still a healthy relationship for all involved.

Then the conversation turned to how to invite the other seven members. You suggested posting a pic or short video of yourself masturbating into the group chat and inviting anyone who wanted to to come over and play.

Chan groaned, then laughed. “I think you’d give more than one of them a heart attack if you tried that. But definitely hold onto that idea for later.”

You then agree that they should be approached one-on-one, with each method to be different, depending on who you’re approaching. You suggested Jeongin first, seeing as he’s Chan’s roommate. You figure, and Chan agrees, that’ll make him the easiest target.

You specifically chose a day he has a schedule without the others, a photo shoot that was just him. Chan invited you over after he’d already left, letting you know that, as long as nothing went wrong, I.N would be back to their apartment by 3:30. You tried to keep yourselves distracted, not wanting to get started too soon. After all, it wouldn’t look like you’d accidentally forgotten what time he’d be back if he walked in after you were finished. Still, the anticipation and desire was making you both squirmy.

Finally, Chan’s reminder alarm goes off. You couldn’t help it, the second he looked at you after silencing it, you started giggling.

“Baby?”

“Sorry. Just, ya know, us – scheduling sex.” You laughed harder and he joined in this time. Your giggles continued, even as he gripped your hips and pulled you against him, dipping his head down to press open mouthed kisses to your neck. Chan makes quick work of your clothes, leaving you completely naked in no time.

“Already so wet, baby girl,” he muttered against the skin over your sternum as he runs a finger up and down your slit.

“Like you haven’t been hard for the last hour,” you countered. He only hummed, not denying it. That caused another gush of arousal from you – knowing he wanted this as much as you.

He laid you back on the couch, steadily kissing, licking, and sucking his way down your body until he got where he wanted to be. The flat of his tongue pressing against your clit had you arching your hips toward him and reaching down to grip his hair.

Despite inviting Jeongin to join you being the whole point, neither of you noticed right away when he walked in. It was when you heard his bag drop to the floor that you looked up and caught sight of him, flushed and staring at you. You were facing the front door and Chan had his back to it so, if not for your boyfriend blocking his view, he’d have a perfect view of your wet cunt.

“Innie,” you whimpered, reaching out toward him and digging a heel into Chan’s side. Chan pulled away, the bottom of his face coated in your arousal.

“Shit, sorry, Iyen-ah. Didn’t realize you’d be back already.” When he didn’t respond, but his eyes drifted down and locked on your pussy, the pair of you grinned at each other. “Iyen-ah?” Chan worked to hide his amusement as he waved a hand in front of the other’s man’s face.

That seemed enough to jolt him back to what was going on. He dropped his face, cheeks flushing deeper with the embarrassment of being caught. “Shit. Sorry, hyung. Sorry, noona. I’ll just, uh…. Go, yeah, I….”

“Innie, do you want a taste?”

His head snapped up and gaze locked on Chan’s face so fast, it almost gave you whiplash just from seeing it. “What?”

“I know how good she looks, spread out like this. And I can see you like what you see,” Chan nodded at the noticeable bulge in his pants. “Do you. Want. A taste?” He repeated his question, just a little slower.

“I… uh…. I mean –”

“Innie, please,” you pleaded, holding out your hand to him again. Slowly, nervously, Jeongin made his way over to you, eyes fixed on your face with a look that said he was waiting for someone to say you were just teasing him or you’d changed your mind. When he got close, you popped up just enough to grab his shirt and pull him in toward you. He stumbled a bit, but caught himself by bracing one hand on the back of the couch and the other landed just barely under you. “Do you wanna kiss me?” You asked softly, lips already close to his where he hovered over you.

“Yes,” he whispered, nodding. You grinned and pulled him fully into you. The small moan that escaped him as your lips connected had you clenching around nothing in anticipation. Chan, from his new vantage point sitting on the floor beside the couch, had a perfect view of it and reached out to squeeze your calf.

You weren’t sure if he realized then that you weren’t joking with him, or if he’d just decided to take advantage for as long as he could, but Jeongin quickly took control of the kiss. He tugged his hand out from under you, cupping your cheek and tilting your head for a better angle to deepen the kiss. One knee came down between your spread thighs to better hold himself up. His hand came off the back of the couch, fingertips grazing down your side, from shoulder to hip.

“Tease,” you muttered, pulling away just enough to speak, but your lips still touched his as you spoke. This time, as that same hand travelled down your side, his thumb brushed over your nipple causing you to gasp against his lips. This seemed to be all the encouragement he needed as his touches became a lot firmer and more deliberate after that. He shifted so that the hand that had been cupping your cheek was now holding your hip, thumb gently rubbing against the skin there. Starting at your jaw line, he began pressing open mouthed kisses across your jaw, under your ear, down your neck, and over your collar bone. You tangled the fingers of one hand in his hair, not letting him move too far away from your skin.

The hand on your hip slid over and two of his fingers gently pressed into you at the same time he wrapped his lips around one of your nipples. You moaned, arching into him and feeling him smirk against your nipple at your reaction. You whimpered, moaned, and writhed on the couch under Jeongin as he played your body as if he’d been taking lessons for years. He alternated sucking and licking your nipple, while his free hand pinched and rolled the other, then he switched sides. Meanwhile his fingers in your cunt were moving at the perfect speed to get you to and keep you on the edge of an orgasm without tipping over. Occasionally, his thumb would press on and gently rub circles against your clit. Again, just enough to not let you cum. It was maddening, but you loved it.

On the floor, Chan unzipped his pants with one hand to relieve the pressure while his other hand smoothed up and down the back of your calf, grounding himself and making sure you knew he was still there. He pressed a kiss to the top of your knee, causing you to jolt a little at the unexpected feeling.

“Forget I was here, baby girl?” Chan chuckled. You felt Jeongin twitch at Chan’s voice. “Clearly not the only one who forgot. Oh no, Iyen-ah,” Chan said as he started to back away. “Don’t stop now. She hasn’t cum yet, and you haven’t even had a real taste of her.”

Jeongin groaned, dropping his forehead to your chest. But his fingers didn’t stop. Instead, after a moment, his mouth started traveling down again, pressing open mouthed kisses to your tummy, licking or nibbling on the soft, smooth skin. He looked up at you, lips hovering over your cunt.

“Please, Innie.” Gently, you tugged at the hair you still had your fingers tangled in. He dropped a chaste kiss against your clit then wrapped his lips around it, flicking his tongue against the bundle of nerves, pulling matching moans from the pair of you. Chan’s grip on your calf tightened as he watched his friend finger you and suck on your clit. There was something about hearing the oh-so-familiar sounds you made when he wasn’t the one causing them that was driving him crazy in the best way.

You felt Jeongin’s tongue slip down to join his fingers, pushing into your cunt and thrusting a few times, before flicking up again to press against your clit. Your legs, that had been just spread on either side of him, came up to rest over his shoulders and hold his body against you as you grew closer to your orgasm. Finally, with a crook of his fingers and a particularly harsh suck of your clit, the coil in your belly snapped.

You arched up with a moan closer to a scream as you finally came. Jeongin kept working his fingers in you, letting you ride out your high on his digits. His fingers slowed to a stop as you came down from your high.

“Innie?” You asked, still trying to catch you breath.

“Hm?”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course, noona.”

“We didn’t forget when you were coming back home.”

“What?” He looked from you face to Chan’s, sitting up and pulling his fingers out of you as he did, causing you to whimper at the loss.

“When I said we didn’t realize you’d be back already, I lied,” Chan elaborated. “We planned for you to be home.”

“I don…. I don’t understand.”

You sat up beside him, tossing one of your legs over his, but let Chan explain. “Baby girl here has a fantasy.” He explained the whole situation.

“Hang on, is this why you were distracted last week?” Chan nodded.

“Listen,” you started off, starting to feel a little guilty about lying, or at the least misleading, your friend. “If you don’t want –”

“Oh no, I want. You’re not backing out, are you Y/nnie?” he asked with a sly smile.

“Not a chance,” you grinned, tugging up his shirt then pulling him to you by the back of his neck after he’d pulled the shirt all they way off. He kept moving forward until you were lying back on the couch again and he could slot his body back between your legs. You let your hands wander his torso, tracing the ridges of muscle as he reclaimed your lips in a hungry kiss.

His lips trailed down your neck again, this time biting and sucking a mark into the skin of your neck and another just below your collar bone. You scratched your nails over his abs, delighted when they twitched under your fingers. Then you reached down, gripping the waist band of his jeans with one hand and popping the button on them with the other. You felt him smirk against your skin, even as he helped you get him out of his pants and briefs.

You reached down, wrapping your hand his cock and stroking a couple times before shifting so you could press his tip to your entrance.

“Impatient, are you?” he teased.

“She usually is,” Chan agreed. “Even though she’s already cum twice.”

“Twice?”

“Mm. Once just before you walked in.”

“Enough talk, fuck me now,” you demanded, rolling your hips up. Jeongin laughed but didn’t deny you. Instead, he gripped under your knee, bending your leg up and slightly out to open you up to him better. As he slid into your warmth, his free hand groped for yours in an effort to keep himself grounded. When he bottomed out inside you, he held still, both of you breathing heavy.

You vaguely recognized the look on his face as similar to the look Chan got when he was doing his best to hold back and not come too soon. Instead of saying anything, you brought your hand that was holding his up to your mouth and wrapped first your tongue then your mouth around one of his fingers. With a groan, he flexed his hand, allowing you to trap two of his fingers between your lips. As he finally started rolling his hips, he copied the movement with his fingers in your mouth. You moaned around his fingers, sucking them as he went.

There was something soft in his eyes, just for a moment, as he looked down at you sucking on his fingers. Then it was gone and he’s pulling his hand out of yours and away from your face as he sat up on his knees. Using both hands on your hips to hold you in place, he pulled nearly all the way out then thrust back in, setting a fast, but not too rough, pace and pulling little ahs and moans from you every time he thrusts back in.

Over his shoulder, you catch sight of Chan, standing up and having rid himself of his pants and boxers. Reaching out to your boyfriend, you shift a bit so your head is hanging just slightly off the side of the couch. At Chan’s raised eyebrow, you just open your mouth while holding eye contact.

You lose yourself in the absolute pleasure of being fucked in your mouth and pussy at the same time. There’s something indescribably wonderful for you about the familiar sensation of Chan in your mouth and the new sensation of Jeongin in your cunt that makes it so, even if you tried, you’re not sure you could keep track of anything. You’re pretty sure it’s Chan whose mouth is wrapped around your nipple now, but you couldn’t say for sure, lost in the haze of your building orgasm. Someone’s fingers find your clit and apply just the perfect pressure to have you arching off the couch, scream muffled by Chan’s cock. Seconds later, you feel warmth flood your cunt as Jeongin comes, followed by a grunted warning from Chan before he’s coming down your throat.

Chan collapses to the floor, head on the couch beside you. Jeongin tries to stay sitting up for a second, but gives that up and lays down with his head on your chest, his own chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. You reach out to both of them, toying with their hair as your breathing slowly returns to normal.

“Okay baby girl?” Chan asks.

“So okay,” you reply in a raspy voice.

“Shower or tea first?” It was one thing he always insisted on when he used your throat like that – soothing tea after.

“Sleep.”

“Nu-uh, that’s not one of the choices.”

“Ugh,” you groaned.

“Why don’t you take her up to the shower and I’ll bring tea?” Jeongin suggested.

You both agree, but it still takes a few minutes before anyone moves. A while later, you’re curled up with your head on Chan’s chest and Jeongin’s arm around your waist as you drift off to sleep.

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Taglist: @skzficpriv @strayk1ds143 @vegetablesarefuntables

[nightscythe]

I've been loving your primarch posts! In your opinion, what would make each primarch jealous, and how would they express that jealousy?

(Feel free to get as nsfw as you like.)

i was really stupid and cause i got two asks about jealousy in together, i kinda mixed them. this is pathetic, insecure jealousy. next post will be seething, lust filled nsfw jealousy. thank you btw! ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶

pre-heresy // the large space men do tend to suffer from human emotions.

lion: his authority was very rarely questioned, but ironically, the first time someone has doubts over his leadership and decision-making skills, it’s in front of, and concerning, you. he’s not fazed by it at first, until he realises the intentions behind it. when he’s quiet and calm, that’s when he’s most dangerous. i’m supposed to be polite, he’d tell the man, an authority under his father’s name, as his eyes narrow, but all of that can be forgotten in a second. when you’re alone later, he doesn’t bring it up to you, but the weight is lingers in his chest. he knew what he was doing, he remarks. you can tell him it meant nothing, that it had nothing to do with you, but he knows better than that. he’d nod anyway, not wanting to drag you into anything. that’s the only reason that man is still alive. 

fulgrim: always hypervigilant, it wouldn’t take long for fulgrim to realise the cuff around your arm wasn’t something he’d given to you. he’d keep quiet about it at first, brooding in a corner until he’s either figured out where to get you a better one or how to deal with his feelings. he’d find you later, wrapping his arms around you from behind, burying his face in your shoulder and peppering your skin with short kisses. i worry that someone will mean more to you than i do, he confesses, holding you just that bit tighter. i know it’s foolish, but i worry. i always worry i’m not enough. that someone will do better for you than me. when you look back at him, his eyes are wide, his lips a deeper red. i love you, maybe too much, and my love makes me feel so powerless with you. but i wouldn’t change it. i can’t help it.

perty: it wasn’t often that he’d care what other people thought, but your opinion had always mattered so much to him. a dinner, nothing special, but he’d spent most of the evening watching your eyes light up at a story someone told. it shouldn’t affect him, yet after the conversation ends, he’s silent. he doesn’t look your way, or anyway, for that matter, barely speaking any more words as he buries himself in the darkness of his own mind. later that evening, you corner him, but he tells you sternly that nothing is wrong. yet he can’t stop thinking of how you laughed and gasped in awe. eventually, in the quiet of the night, he voices his thoughts. it made me feel inadequate. you could tell him over and over that he never was, but he’d detached himself from reality already, lost in imagined inadequacies. you haven’t done anything. but the way you looked? i only want that for me. you are for me. 

khan: infatuation wasn’t even close to describing his feelings for you, and the result was him learning every part of your life before him. it annoys him in some way to know that you had a life without him and makes him irrepressibly jealously to know people existed with you before him. he tries to bear with it, supports you in every way he can, but when he sees someone that he can obviously recognise as having some kind of affection for you, he can’t just ignore it. if i stay, i’ll make things hard for you, he tells you, excusing himself to leave, so uncharacteristically. i don’t want to leave you, but i need space. i may just burn everything i touch if i remain. being away from you knowing you were near to someone like that drives him even more insane though, so he returns later, hand curling around yours as he gets close, breath hot on your ear, i don’t like the thought of sharing you, even in the past. you’re mine. only mine. 

leman: he’d let most things go, but if anyone dared to touch what was his, he’d never let them get away with it. even just another human, someone who shouldn’t matter to him, could have him growling if they were too close to you in his eyes. this guy had told a joke, doubling over and resting their hand on your lower arm without any intention behind it. leman had spotted it across the room, because he’s always watching you when you’re not beside him (just out of admiration, nothing weird), so within seconds, he’s at your side. must think you’re real funny, he comments, eyes burning holes into the guy, we’re not laughing, though. you apologise as the guy moves on, slightly terrified by the man now standing beside you. leman doesn’t leave your side the rest of the evening, always by your side or a step behind. if you try to walk away, he’d pull you straight back. think i have the tolerance to deal with anyone else taking your attention tonight?

dorn: he’d have wrote a book on things to know about you, if he could. so when someone across from you comments on your favourite colour, he confidently tells them what he believed to be your favourite. cue them correcting him with their belief, and you shyly telling him you liked both, but the other person was technically right. it shouldn’t make him spiral, but it does. he finds himself annoyed that someone could know you better, and if they knew you better, that must mean you love them more. he hates that thought. so he’s quiet. spares a passing thought later when the moment has passed you. you looked happy when they answered a question about you. he’s not upset, not angry, but he pain in his voice that’s hard to ignore. he sits beside you, running his fingers up the length of your arm gently. do i make you feel like that, too? he asks, never meeting your eyes. his voice drops to a whisper as his fingers reach your palm. do i make you happy?  

curze: years after knowing him, he almost expects you to become immune to his behaviour. the truth is, he’s intimidating when he wants to be, and sometimes makes it hard to be around him. he didn’t mean to stumble across you in a spare room, beside a lady who carried books in her hands. you smiled so easily, laughed like it was second nature, not afraid to show your emotions without safeguard. he listens for a while, but hearing how comfortable you are sends a fit of silent rage through him. he isolates himself until you seek him out later. his throat is tight, his hands still balled into fists at his side. i’m fine, he declares. he tenses his jaw, balls his fists. i’m fine. he’s trying to convince himself. says it another few times until he final looks at you. am i enough for you? before you can answer, he scoffs. have i ever made you feel truly loved? again, you can’t answer. i’m not fine, he mutters, why do i feel like i’m always losing you? 

sanguinius: you could never do anything wrong in his eyes. he knew your kindness, he knew your inner beauty as much as your outer. others, though? so many are rotting inside. he could see it. perhaps he’s harshest on the people who look at you like he does. he loves you, he knows how someone who wants you looks. he’s still got the sweetest smile on his lips as he muses beside you, they’re lucky i have to be so forgiving. when you ask him what he meant, he hums. you don’t even notice, do you? such a precious thing. unfortunately, the feeling simmers and he finds himself thinking a bit too hard about the thought of someone else wanting you. that night, he’d shield you with his wings as he laid beside you, making sure it was only the two of you. i wish i could hide you from everyone, he’d whisper to you as you slept, stroking your cheeks, what if you see me clearly one day, and decide i’m not enough for you?

ferrus: he’d admired your human nature for so long that he didn’t realise just how much he hated it. you were kind, to everyone, and he often felt others didn’t deserve it. especially others who looked at you in a more than friendly way which you always seemed so oblivious to. the feeling is mostly overlooked by veneration, but sometimes he can’t push it down far enough to be overshadowed. he won’t look at you, constantly messing with his armour and distracting himself from the reality presented in front of him. when you ask him, though, he admits everything. i didn’t like how you spoke with him, he remarks, eyes watching the person he’s referring to the in the distance, seeing you with others… i don’t know what the feeling is. he’d look to you for a moment before sighing. i didn’t like it. he’s hesitant to touch you after that, waiting for you to take the first step. i know you didn’t mean anything by it, but it… hurt. 

angron: your laugh had echoed through the hall. he’d followed it, obviously, seeking out your usual comforting presence and wishing to be nearby. he stopped himself, though, when he neared the door and heard you laugh again. he watches from a distance for a moment, fingers gripping the doorframe hard enough to leave a dent. he shouldn’t hate it so much, but he thinks you’d never laugh like that with him. he brings you pain, and all you ever do is comfort him. he hates that he can’t provide the same feeling in return (even though he does – he will never accept that), but someone else can. he pushes his way into the conversation, immovable at your side. funny, huh? he asks, smiling, voice scratching the edges of the walls. should i take notes? the other person would leave, sensing his annoying too, leaving him to reach his hands around you and smile, pull you into his warmth and whisper loud enough you’re sure the other person hears. i’d kill anyone who came between us. he would, really, but maybe the wrong time to carry that energy. 

rob: he doesn’t get jealous, not often. but when he’d specifically thought he had some time to spend with you and you so unkindly tell him you actually are meeting a friend, it’s like a shot straight to the chest – even though it’s technically his fault for not telling you he intended to spend that time with you – that he cleared his schedule for you. it’s fine. they’re better company. he’d look away, feigning his disinterest, but his eyes flicker back to you when you don’t answer, craving the confirmation that you still needed him around. when you laugh and promise him that when return, in less than an hour, you’ll be by his side for the rest of the day, he tries to hide the blush on his cheeks. later, he’d pull you into his lap and hold you close – genuinely wishing he never had to let go. the intended consequence of loving you is that i’m scared you’ll love someone else.  

morty: other people made you happy. obviously. but he struggled to accept it. he wanted to be the reason you smiled every time, he wanted to be the reason you found life worth living – because that’s what you were to him. one afternoon, he sees the way you smile when talking to someone else, and it’s the final crack in the foundation. he doesn’t shout, not often, but his voice is raised when he confronts you about it later. how could i not feel jealous? he’d challenge, meters away from you yet his presence overwhelming. they make you happy. they do what i can’t. he stops for a moment, not to process how his words were untrue, but instead for his mind begins to fray at the seams. i wish i could make you feel that way. he looks away. he doesn’t want to yell, but it comes out like a command to one of his men. leave. go. you don’t, knowing that would never have been an option for you. when he notices, his body stiffens. please don’t ever go. please. 

magnus: he doesn’t mean to intrude on your dreams, but sometimes he’s so busy thinking about you it just happens. but his whole body freezes when he sees you sat with someone who isn’t him in your dream, someone that should be him. he knows it’s your unconscious mind, you’ve dreamt about him a thousand times before, but it devastates him. he pulls you into his chest, arms tight around you as he stutters. you… are mine, aren’t you? the uncertainty runs deep through his voice. please don’t ever leave me. not for anyone else. when you start to stir in your sleep, he can’t meet your eyes, opting to rest his head against your shoulder. tell me you love me, please, he pleads, holding you closer. when you ask him what’s wrong, why he’s asking you for that, groggy and unsure from sleep, he grips your clothes and skin like its all that keeps him grounded. just…remind me, please. tell me you love me. 

horus: ironically, his brothers make him the most jealous. nothing and no one else (except maybe his father, but that bridge can be crossed when he finally gets to it). even breathing the same air as you is enough to piss him off. when sanguinius had come to greet you, as any normal person would, horus notices. he shouldn’t want to deck his brother for making you smile (he just said the flowers looked nice), but he certainly takes that as his cue to approach you both. you two having a moment? he asks, jealously disguised behind humour. he looks directly to you like you’d done something wrong. i get it, he’s a pretty guy. so are you. shall i leave you to it? he grins like he’s joking, but never leaves. he locks his arm around you for the rest of the evening. when you try to ask him about it, he laughs. he’s my brother, why would i care? he conveniently avoids the question. lets the thoughts stew in his mind that maybe he wasn’t enough for you. need to prove it to you, horus mentions to you later, that he’d never be better for you than i am. he could be made warmaster in a each universe and still feel second-best to them.  

lorgar: he’s a busy man. never expected you to just sit beside him in quiet obedience so he’d never be without you. of course, if you could do that… he wouldn’t say no, but he’s not unreasonable. but he can smell others on you when you return to him before he’s even finished what he’s doing, wanting to be around when he finally has time to be with you. he hates it, he hates knowing you were with others, that they had their hands on you for whatever reason. if you try to leave his side, even for a second, he pulls you straight back to him, not letting you leave. you’ve only just returned to me. let me feel the blessing of your presence for as long as i can. he’d think about it more, the not knowing aching more than anything. he trusted you, but felt he’d never give you everything you needed. do you go to other people to talk about things? he’d ask, his question not specific on purpose. why don’t you just talk to me, instead? i’m right here. he hates that he sounds desperate, like he wants to isolate you, like he’s truly possessive. i’m yours. that’s what i’m here for. 

vulkan: you’d returned to him with a smile, but your wrist was bandaged. he’s worried beyond anything, but as you tell him the story of the person who stopped to help you, bandaged you up, helped you when you really needed it, his worry turns to relief, then to… envy. he was meant to be there in your time of need, and he wasn’t. he’s grateful to your good samaritan. but… he was right here. you could have gone to him. i could have helped, he voices, i would have done anything you needed me to do. you can reassure him a thousand times, but it doesn’t help how he feels at all. he feels like he’s let you down and he’s, by accident, overthinking the additional person’s role in all of this. it makes me feel like you don’t need me. he avoids your gaze as you crawl into his lap and try to remind him otherwise. he never lets you speak. let me feel like this. even if its wrong. just for a moment. he knows deep down there’s nothing to be jealous over, but it still happens. 

corvus: he shouldn’t care, but he does. he holds your feelings like they’re sacred, and the thought of someone else knowing something he considers an intimate part of your relationship frustrates him to no end. and he knows you mean nothing by it when you tell the person beside you how you’d had a rough couple of weeks, its just a simple response to a kind of simple question. he doesn’t interrupt to pull you away, he just… listens. watching the space around you like it might shatter if he stopped. takes a breath that’s far too long and wonders what makes it so easy to tell them you had a rough couple of weeks. overthinking, and more overthinking, until he’s somehow come to the conclusion they must be important to you, maybe more than him. so, he walks away. you follow, you always do, and when you ask where he’s going, he doesn’t answer. when you ask if he’s okay, he pauses. you’re busy. he meets your eyes finally and realises the weight of his thoughts, and just how untrue they are. you don’t need me. he doesn’t mean it, but in that moment, no truth has ever been clearer. 

alpharius: you look to him for guidance in everything, you let him shape the world around you and don’t spare a second thought to it – it’s natural, and he likes it that way. but on the occasion that you listen to someone else, even about something trivial in his eyes (you know, human feelings and emotions that he doesn’t really comprehend but wants you to trust him on anyway), he becomes aggravated. exasperated. do you think anyone could understand you as i do? he questions, standing across from, presence truly suffocating, you think anyone knows you the way i do? he laughs. too normal to be innocent. like he’s had this conversation a thousand times over in his head. like you weren’t just asking someone for advice on dealing with a sore throat or some stupid shit. every part of you belongs to me, he assures you. anyone who tries to get close to you… he doesn’t finish his thought, you’re too pure in his eyes. not until you’re asleep beside him and it’s all forgotten. anyone who gets between us… dies. simple. 

i'm itching to write smut btw. like little scarabs are taking over me. until next time - have a good bank holiday weekend (if you're awarded such pleasures)

[crowsofdarkness]

Bucky is tired of being "just neighbors".

18+ cw's below the cut(unprotected p in v, creampie, clit play)

It started off innocent. You asking Bucky for some sugar or coffee. His cat Alpine would find her way into your apartment which would have you bringing her back to Bucky. 

Then he would help you bring your groceries up the stairs into your apartment. One time a light bulb needed to be replaced in the bathroom but you couldn’t reach it so of course Bucky helped you. 

One night, it all changed when you awoke to find a spider crawling across your bed. You despised spiders so it had you running over to Bucky's apartment to ask for his help in disposing of it. There always was this undeniable pull between the two of you. No matter how much either of you tried to ignore it, it was as if the universe wanted you two together. 

So when Bucky opened the door, you felt your body flush with heat when you noticed that he was only wearing a pair of red checkered boxers that were hanging dangerously low on his hips. The dark hairs that line from his belly button down to the edge of the boxers made your mouth water. It led to one thing. 

Salvation. 

His hair was a mess due to sleep and his vibranium arm seemed to glisten underneath the light that spilled in from the hallway. 

Bucky’s eyes darkened when he drank in the sight of you wearing nothing but a flimsy tank top and a pair of green panties. 

His favorite color. 

That undeniable pull was too strong now, vibrating and damn near stealing the breath out of you. The spider in your bedroom long forgotten when Bucky crashed his lips to yours, dragging you inside of his apartment. Your tank top and his boxers were strewn about as he laid the top half of your body over the back of his couch so your head hung just above the cushions. 

“I’ve been wanting this for so long, dot,” he groaned, slipping two flesh fingers over your panties. 

Your very wet panties. 

“Seems like you feel the same way,” Bucky chuckled with a slight edge that made your spine ignite. 

As much as Bucky wanted to spread you open with his vibranium fingers, he held back. He knew it would take you some time to get used to them, especially the vibrating function. You two had the rest of the night together. 

Maybe even lives if you wanted it. 

You begged him to do something, his name sounding so weak on your lips. Pushing your panties to the side, Bucky spat down on your cunt before dragging the head of his cock up and down, spreading the saliva all over. You pressed your ass closer to his cock, silently begging him to enter your eager pussy. 

“Take all of it, you hear me?” He ordered on a choke breath when he finally pressed inside of you. 

You nodded, already gone from the pleasure that consumed you. All at once, he filled you completely and both let out a shared moan that sounded sinful even to the devil. 

“I’m not going to last long,” Bucky panted, his pace anything but slow. 

You didn’t have to tell him to go slow, he could feel the way your cunt clenched around his thick cock that you liked it fast and hard. The sound of skin slapping on skin echoed throughout the apartment. The couch began to slowly move with each hard thrust and it seemed to annoy Bucky because he held onto the back edge of the couch with his vibranium hand to keep it in place. 

Your mewls of pleasure got louder when he pressed two flesh fingers to your clit, drawing quick circles. The only warning you gave him before you came apart was his name falling from your lips like a prayer. 

“Son of a bitch,” Bucky moaned, his cock thickening inside of you. 

Not wanting to cum inside of you, he pulled out his cock to stroke it a few times before painting your cunt. 

“Mine,” he said, body falling limp against yours. 

You agreed with a lazily nod. 

[ak319]

Lovesick Rich Gf x Fem gp reader

(Headcanon #2)

II Scenarios based, contains implied sexual themes and fluff II

"Where you off to, baby?" Roxi's voice rang out as she watched you shut the fridge door, a choco bar already halfway to your mouth. She eyed you suspiciously as you took a bite, clearly enjoying the sweet treat.

"Nothing, just Teddy called me, for a hangout," you mumbled around a mouthful of chocolate.

"And?" Her tone had an edge to it now, and you could feel her eyes boring into you.

You stopped chewing and flopped down beside her on the sofa, trying to seem casual. "And what?" You forced a grin, glancing past her at the perfect view of the beach outside the window, hoping to change the subject. Maybe she wouldn’t notice.

Roxi’s brows furrowed, and her expression turned from suspicious to outright annoyed. "Are you serious? We have a dinner with Mommy and Daddy."

Oh.

Shit.

You.

Had.

Forgotten.

"Um--"

"And they invited us a week ago!" Her voice grew louder, her frustration bubbling over as she leaned closer, her finger jabbing your chest lightly with each word.

You gulped, adjusting your hoodie as if that might shield you from the heat of her glare. "I know, I know. I just--forgot, alright?"

Roxi's eyes narrowed, her tone growing sharper and almost mocking. "Really? You are bullshitting right now. We talked about it yesterday!"

Right, after that long session when you were too tired to even reply. Of course, that's when she chose to bring up the most important stuff. Always.

You winced at the accusation, knowing she had a point. “Look, I swear, it just slipped my mind! Teddy called last minute, and I thought-”

She cut you off, her lips curling into a dangerously sweet smile as she leaned even closer, practically nose-to-nose with you now. “You thought what, exactly? That I wouldn’t notice if you ditched our dinner for some bro time?”

You tried to keep your cool, offering a weak smile. "Roxi, come on. You know I’d rather be with you. Look, I'm sorry, but I’ll be back before that. Like at 6. It's literally 2 right now."

She let out a sigh, a sure sign she was agreeing, but the hint of a pout on her lips told you she was still upset.

"C'mon, darling. Don’t be like that." You leaned in closer, flashing a playful smile. "Now be a good girl and send me off with a kiss."

She huffed and got up, moving toward the balcony. This was going to be tough.

You followed her, wrapping your arms around her from behind. This time, she spoke, but her words weren’t directed at you, they were for the life growing inside her.

"Your mom has clearly shown where her priorities lie."

"Roxi--how can you even say that?! Look at me." You spun her around, but she refused to meet your eyes.

"Roxi. I’m dead serious. Look. At. Me."

She met your gaze, her expression blank. "You know that’s not true. I work hard for you, for our future, and for our baby-"

"Work isn't the only way to show you care, y'know. There's attention, there's time, there's..." Her voice cracked as she started to sniffle, and your hold on her arms loosened.

"God, Roxi, I am---trying my best here...and I know sometimes I'm just not-"

She cut you off with a small nod. "No, I know. You’re doing so much, and of course, Daddy keeps you busy. I know it's tough and you know how he is but... I just sometimes miss the old you..."

She trailed off, her voice barely a whisper. She missed the time when you served only her before everything became so complicated. And deep down, you missed it too, your simple ass job. You felt like you were caught between two worlds, one where her father demanded the best from you, and one where you were her girlfriend. And now, the unexpected addition to your lives only made things more complicated.

It’s not like you regret any of it. You love her with all your heart, but sometimes you just need a break from all of this. Because she isn’t the only one who misses the way things used to be, you do too. Being rich and being with the rich is not as easy as it seems. There’s so much you have to be careful of, both professionally and personally. And then there’s your own family, who needs your time too. But spending time with her parents will always be a challenge to you, especially her father. God, he loved to give you a hard time.

"I love you, baby, I always will." You held her hand, pressing a kiss to the spot where the ring rested, letting your lips linger against her skin. She melted into you, immediately wrapping her arms around your neck, bringing her forehead to rest against yours.

"I love you too, my baby. Forever."

Without breaking the moment, you scooped her up in a bridal style and carried her over to the couch. The phone buzzed on the coffee table, Teddy’s name flashed on the screen. But right now, that didn't matter. You couldn't leave her like this, still in the haze of emotions from your conversation.

"Imma cuddle you to death for, I would say, 30 minutes, if that's alright, madame."

She let out a soft giggle as you laid her down on the spacious, cozy couch, settling beside her. "When has that ever been wrong?"

You grinned, nestling against her warmth. "By the way, Ava called, and she wants to meet up too, a couple’s date, y'know."

"Ava... as in Arlo's girlfriend?" Your eyes flickered with curiosity, and she nodded, knowing the memories those names stirred. Arlo and Ava are her old friends from high school. Arlo, now an F1 driver, and Ava, his lively partner, quickly took to you when you were introduced at Arlo's race.

"Yeah, yeah. Are you free next weekend?" she asked, her fingers tracing patterns on your chest. You considered it, then shrugged subtly.

"Maybe... I can't say for sure as of now, but-"

"No ifs or buts." She interrupted you, sliding herself closer, her lips just a breath away from yours. "Now you will be. Sunday’s cool." Her fingers brushed along the back of your neck, sending a shiver down your spine.

You felt a smirk tug at your lips as you leaned in, your voice low against her ear. "But what if I had other plans?"

Her gaze sharpened, and she arched a brow. "Cancel them. You can’t seriously think I’d let you spend your Sunday anywhere else when I’m right here." She punctuated her words with a teasing kiss on your jawline, her lips warm against your skin.

"Even if I had plans with Teddy?" You teased, watching the way her eyes narrowed slightly, her possessiveness slipping through.

She huffed, her hands sliding down your chest with just enough pressure to make your breath catch. "Oh, Teddy can wait. Tell him you’re busy... and I’m sure I can convince you to stay." Her lips grazed yours, teasingly slow, sending heat flooding through you.

You couldn't resist her--never could. Not when she was like this, a mix of playful and demanding, a glint of mischief in her eyes. And damn right, Roxi is well aware of this. With one swift movement, you reached over and silenced your phone, tossing it aside. "Teddy who?" you murmured against her lips, pulling her closer, your hands slipping under the hem of her shirt.

She laughed softly, her voice dropping to a whisper as her lips brushed yours again. "That’s what I thought, babe. Now, you’re all mine."

And as your mouth met hers, you both knew there was nowhere else you'd rather be.

・❥・

The evening starts with a romantic drive. You’ve convinced her that it’s just a regular date night, but as you drive her to your destination, she notices you’re taking a different route towards the beach. Roxi, ever curious, raises an eyebrow.

“Babe, where are we going?” she asks, looking out at the setting sun turning the sky shades of orange and pink.

You flash her a sly smile, keeping your gaze on the road. “You’ll see. Just trust me.”

You pull up to a secluded area by the beach, where the waves crash gently against the shore. Roxi steps out, and as she takes in the scene, she spots a path lined with lanterns and rose petals leading down to a private section of the beach. She glances back at you, her expression softening with a mix of curiosity and affection.

Guiding her by the hand, you lead her down the lit path. At the end, there’s a beautifully set-up picnic blanket, surrounded by flickering candles. It’s simple, yet filled with little details she loves, her favourite chocolate, the soft music of her favourite band playing from a hidden speaker, and a cosy setup with pillows to lounge on.

She sinks down onto the blanket, giggling as she sees her favourite flowers on display. “You really went all out, didn’t you?”

You sit beside her, your heart racing as you pour her a glass of a drink. “Only the best for you, Roxi.”

The two of you spend the next hour talking, laughing, and enjoying the sunset together, the conversation flowing effortlessly like always. But as twilight descends, your nerves kick in. You take a deep breath, glancing at her with a tender smile.

“I have one more surprise,” you say, your voice a little shaky. You stand up, and she tilts her head in confusion as you reach into your jacket pocket. Her eyes widen when she sees the small velvet box in your hand.

You drop to one knee, taking her hand in yours. For a moment, the world seems to slow, the sound of the ocean fading into the background.

“Roxi,” you begin, your voice steady but filled with emotion, “I’ve loved every single moment with you. From our lazy weekends to our spontaneous adventures, to those little fights about nothing that make us laugh five minutes later. You make every day better more beautiful, more vibrant, just like you are.”

Her eyes glisten, a soft smile playing at her lips, but she’s holding her breath, waiting for what’s next. What she had been dying to hear from you the moment she met you has finally come true!

“You’ve shown me what it means to love and be loved, and I want to spend the rest of my life making you as happy as you make me. And now, you’re giving me the greatest gift, our little one, a part of you and me, our little baby. I know in my heart that they’re going to be so lucky, so blessed, to have you as their mother. They’ll grow up with your strength, your warmth, and that beautiful heart of yours. And I can’t wait to see the way your eyes light up when you hold them, the same way they do whenever you look at me. I want to build this future with you, with our little family. Roxi, will you marry me?”

She’s already tearing up, her hand covering her mouth, and for a second, you feel the world hanging in the balance. Then she laughs a sweet, joyful sound and nods, her eyes sparkling.

“Yes! Yes, of course, I will!” she says, practically launching herself into your arms, almost knocking you over. You catch her, both of you falling into the sand as you hold each other tightly, her lips meeting yours in a deep, breathless kiss.

When you pull back, still holding her close, you slip the ring onto her finger. It glimmers in the candlelight, but not nearly as much as her smile as she admires it. “You did good, babe,” she whispers against your lips, giving you a teasing smile.

"Anything for you, darling."

[cherie-doll]

"scary? my god you're divine"

mr. crawling x reader fluff hcs !!1

⪩⪨

he cares about others, maybe a little too much for his own good

his affections have no limits, he doesn’t know how to measure so he can only rely on observing and understanding

which is why even though you hit him with the crowbar the first time you met he didn’t get upset he understood he scared you and backed away

until he knew you’d need his help so he followed you

even if you choose to leave without him or roam the halls with someone else he can only hope he'll run into you again sometime in the future

his hair is so soft and silky you get the urge to just aggressively pat him, you tangle your fingers in his hair and give it a good rub, he enjoys it sm with a wide smile on his face as his head moves this way and that

if you brought him back to your world then you'd know how much he loves headbands, bows, clips and any hair accessory, you think he looks so huggable in them, so every time you go out to the mall you make sure to go to miniso to buy him new things for him to try out at home

yk those bean sprout hair clips? you impulsively bought a 100+ pack of them and you love clipping a bunch on top of his head

he's curious about everything, it may be annoying at times but he's always asking what you're doing, why you're doing it, what are you holding, what is it for?

the good thing is that he never holds prejudices or shows a negative demeanor towards things he hasn't tried yet, which is very good for introducing him to new things, it's what you love about him!!

if anything seeing his open disposition makes you less hesitant to things you might have been holding back on

you wonder if he ever misses the halls he used to endlessly roam before, and when you ask him it seems almost as if he's already forgotten about those days! he barely thinks about it anymore

you've got a pretty messed up sleep schedule, i mean you're a serial killer and you take care of your loveable ghost fulltime! your hands are full trying to maintain a sense of order, so mr.crawling waits up for you, he could stay up all night and he knows as soon as you walk through the door you'll drag your feet to your room and knock out on the bed

he'll crawl in after you and hold your body close to his, caressing your hair the same way you do to his in slow, calming ways that immediately make your tense body relax and get a more restful sleep

you two love rainy days, it means getting to stay home and enjoy each other's presence, crawling especially loves basking in your presence no matter what you decide to do, but he enjoys watching the rain through the window as he waits for you to return with his meal

and you'd do anything to hear his giggles arghhh-

[sh1-n0bu]

𝔫𝔬𝔟𝔲’𝔰 𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔣 2023!

day 3: toys with xiao from genshin impact

warnings: usage of toys, dacryphillia, sensitive xiao, overstimulation, praise and degrading, multiple orgasm

notes: aiyaaaaa someone send me horni ideas to turn into my kinktober ones or ones that i could brainrot and eventually turn into a fic one

xiao has always put his duties as a yaksha beforehand everything else. even his own needs and desires that rarely tend to show in the form of a small, barely noticeable bulge forming in his pants.

however, that problem had became more frequent lately and it’s all because of you, his one hell of a tease lover.

xiao had never thought of himself to ever be able to become turned on or horny as you put it. or even count himself as one to frequently palm his hardened cock through his pants where a small wet patch was growing slowly but steadily as he remembers how you fucked him so good the night before. or just recalling the words you muttered to him were enough to make his small cock stand up again as if begging for you.

the yaksha had also never thought of himself as the person to fall in love with an absolute pervert.

“darling~ guess what i bought today from that store?!”

ah yes. speak of the devil and they shall appear. never would have xiao thought of calling his lover the devil yet here you were, proudly holding up a bag of another sexual toys you’ve wanted to try on your inexperienced lover. you weren’t that much experienced either but you just loved to see the cruel and calculated yaksha turn into a common brothel whore.

two bullet vibrators taped to his hardened nipples, already on and turned to the lowest degree and yet he can already feel his chest feeling heavy as if about to lactate. xiao never tried such sexual activities before, he’s not used to such feelings or desires!

clenching his teeth again, xiao comes over the wand vibrator held over the drooling slit of his cock again for the nth time that night. gods, he felt so overstimulated. there were tears running down his cheeks, legs struggling to stay open the more you coo soft words of comfort and degrading nicknames as your hand twirls the vibrator around his cockhead, stimulating him more and more.

“guuhnn—! [na-name]!! slow—! unngya♡︎! slower!” the little yaksha in your hold arms squeals loudly like a girl, voice coming out all high-pitched and embarrassed. he said he wants the vibrator’s setting to be on the lower, but any lower and it would just turn off. and when you do comply to his wishes and turn it off, the immortal would keen loudly and buck his hips in your grasp with a fussy whine.

how unpredictable and… you would daresay, annoying.

“xiao-xiao… you need to be a good slut for me and keep it together! you can take a few more rounds. you’ve done it before” he can briefly hear your words in his mush of a brain. struggling to comprehend your words but when he does, he ends up cumming all over the vibrator again with a loud shrill moan.

“o-oohmp! okay!! okay♡︎ okayhhh—! i’ll… i’ll be a good slu-ungh! ungh! gcckk♡︎♡︎!!” nodding eagerly with a dumb slurred speech, xiao agrees to keep up with your sexual torture for longer.

he can do it. xiao can be your good slut. yours and no one else’s. he’s done it before, he had taken your many hours of vibrator torture before, he can do it now too!

by now, the yaksha had forgotten about everything except the feeling of the vibrators buzzing away on his sensitive places. duties of cleansing the land, hunting down remnants of old gods, his usually stoic nature. all of it were thrown out the window the moment the two small vibrators were taped to his chest, buzzing away and stimulating him.

poor xiao, unable to think. just moaning and squealing in delight as he comes over and over again. so many times to the point that now he was starting to shoot blanks on your hand.

such a sweet thing. not knowing that your little perverted games are only beginning.

[devoutekuna]

Stupid things their child does

Includes- Toji, Sukuna, Nanami, Gojo, Geto

Sukuna-

Sukuna slept whenever he was bored, even if it meant in the middle of the vacant room. Soon his daughter would take advantage of his large body by playing on him. "Would you like more tea?" Nodding as she poured the tea into the cup. You and your daughter were having a tea party on her father as he slept, taking advantage of how still he always was and how broad his body was. Laying down next to your husband as you checked if he was actually asleep, poking at his cheek before sitting back up. He was a heavy sleeper most days. Feeling the traces of your clothes getting wet as you realize that it was your daughter's doing, spilling the cup of tea all over the blanket which rested on him. "Oh no" rushing out of the room to find some tissues, whilst you sat all the cutlery up properly.

Coming back with a roll of paper towels, starting to dab them on his clothes. "Hurry before he wakes up" giggling to yourself. Only to stop as soon as you heard your husband starting to shuffle about, rolling over onto his back as he saw his two loved ones sat beside him. A cheeky grin plastered on both of your faces.

Nanami-

His daughter had a thing for art, always drawing something or glueing something down. So when she wandered into her father's office whilst he was working, she realized that he had two copies of most books, some of them having a really pretty front cover. Taking into consideration that he was still reading them, she only took one off each shelf that she could reach which was about 4 in total. Bringing them towards the living room as she already started with her art. Placing her painted hand on the first page as she carried it on, marks of her fingerprints adorning the pages.

"I'm home" it had been a few hours since she had found the books and started her massacre of them, walking into the living room to find the copies laying on the floor with stickers, drawings or paint all over them, fortunately only 2 had been touched whilst the others were kept in their original condition. "Do you like it daddy?" Holding the book up to his face.

Geto-

Leaving his daughter alone with paint would be one of the worst mistakes, most of the time she never acted on her curiosity after learning that the hard way. But when she gets left alone with a set of paint, she can't hold back. Sticking her hand onto the plate as she placed it on the table, unfortunately it was acrylic paint too, so it would be nearly impossible to get off. Placing her hand all along the table, a mixture of colours like pink, purple, blue and red, decorating the table with her small hand. Only stopping when she hears the footsteps of her father, unfortunately for her he was quicker and saw all the mess before she could put the paper back on. "Oh.." realising that she may actually get in trouble. Only sighing in defeat, he wanted to get annoyed at her but he knew it was his fault for leaving her alone.

Gojo-

It was his son's birthday and they had a bunch of balloons out, making sure they were filled with helium for his plan. Attaching a few strings onto his son's clothing. "Don't tell your mother about this, she'll kill me" blowing the balloons up with helium, noticing how he already started to lift off the ground. "Ahh! I'm going to fly" wrapping some more balloons on his small body. Body already leaving the ground. Putting his hand over his mouth as he tried to stop giggling, he was so excited to fly, just like his father. Head hitting the ceiling as he got to high. "Take me outside!" Dragging the boy by the strings towards the outside, this was a really stupid idea, already noticing how high he would get if he wasn't holding on. "Satoru!" His wife's voice made him jump as he dropped the string. "Are you stupid?" Running towards your son. He had completely forgotten about his son when he saw you. "Hi mummy!" Saving down as he got higher and higher.

Toji-

"Help daddy!" Legs wailing in the air as she was laid down on the floor, she wanted to go on the mission with her father but he'd never allow that, but she really wanted to go so she did her last resort, trying to fit inside his worm. "What the-" refraining from swearing as he walked up towards the girl. Grabbing her by the legs as he dragged her out, tears streaming down her face, she thought she was going to get eaten by the thing. "I just wanted to come with you, b-b" crying her eyes out as she gripped onto his shirt, "But it started to eat me!" Getting it all out in one sentence before crying, getting his shirt all wet. It was stupid but he had to bring her on a mission after such dedication? "Your fine" leaving the worm alone, he didn't know if someone could survive inside of the worm since he never tried it before.

[howi99]

The nest chapter 1

(a "prologue" to from the nest)

13 years ago

Raven: *rubbing her eyes with exasperation* For the last time, Qrow, i won't come back. Summer is happy, Taiyang finally has someone who can be there for him-

Qrow: *cutting her* And your daughter won't know who her real mother is. *Sigh* I'm not even asking you to come back under Ozpin, but don't you think she deserves to know you exist?

Raven: *rolling her eyes* And for what? So that she can be connected to me? So that if someone wants to hurt me, they can go after her? *Shaking her head* No, she deserves better than this. I might be the one who birthed her, but summer is tenfold the mother i could ever dream to be.

Qrow: *annoyed* How can you be sure you'd be that awful of a mother if you only spent a year with her? You were so happy when she was born, so what changed!?

Raven: *glaring at Qrow* What changed? Nothing changed! *Gritting her teeth* We are Branwen, Qrow! *Taking a deep breath* You might have forgotten, but do you remember why we went to Beacon in the first place?

Qrow: *scoff* To learn aura to become stronger-

Raven: *slamming her hand on the table* No! That's just the excuse we used to leave! *Tightening her fists* We were supposed to change this place! To try finding something else, ANYTHING else, that we could do, instead of pillaging village after village, scrapping by like starved dogs! *Sigh, exhausted* But decades of violence can't be erased by just us two.

Qrow: *sigh* Ray-

Raven: They were dying, Qrow. During our time at the academy, we forgot how hard it was for our family. *Looking back at her brother* I can't leave them to die for a war i never heard of, for the interest of the same people who killed our family without a care in the world!

Qrow: *snapping* Then maybe they deserved it! I can't remember a single good thing happening in this god forsaken tribe! All i can remember is training all day and killing innocent people!

Raven: *grabbing him by the shirt* I KNOW THAT ALREADY! BUT DO YOU THINK THE KIDS DESERVED IT TOO? I-

4yo Jaune: *entering the tent, looking confusedly at Qrow* ... *Shaking his head, focusing back on Raven* Train me!

Qrow: *looking at the kid, then at Raven multiple times* ... Who- *focusing on Raven* Does Taiyang Know-

Raven: *sigh, releasing him* He's not mine, that's just Isabelle and Jacques's son. He keeps coming to my tent even when i kick him out.

Qrow: ... You kick him?

Raven: *rolling her eyes* Not literally, i'm not our dad!

4yo Jaune: *walking towards Raven, hugging her* Aunty, train me!

Qrow: *shocked* A-Aunty!?

Raven: *Blushing slightly* J-Jaune, today i really can't teach you. G-go play with Vernal-

4yo Jaune: *frowning* But she's mean! She keeps bullying me because she's taller, i want to defend myself like you!

Raven: Jaune-

4yo Jaune: *star in his eyes* Like you did when you helped those faunus against the grimms!

Raven: *sigh, patting his head* Can you wait 10 minutes then? *Smiling gently* I just need to finish talking with my guest, ok?

4yo Jaune: *turning to Qrow* ... *Wince* He smells like the meanies you threw out of the tribe.

Raven: *chuckle* I know. Now, move along, i'll be there in a bit.

4yo Jaune: *beaming* Ok! *Leave the tent*

Qrow: ...

Raven: *sigh* Those kids don't deserve the life we had. I know you think they aren't worth it but-

Qrow: *sigh, shaking his head* No, you're right. I spent too much time away from here, i completely forgot about the kids... *Frown* He seemed malnourished.

Raven: *looking down* His family is too big. Seven sisters... it's a lot of mouths to feed.

Qrow: ... Have you tried teaching him how to forage? That might help him a bit, along with the other kids.

Raven: *small smirk* What do you take me for, an idiot? He may look weak, but i can assure you that he's a lot better than before.

[leejenowrld]

back to you — ten (one)

pairing - lee jeno x reader

word count - 93k words… (split into two posts) 40k in this post, 53k in the next post. goes without saying don’t read the next post until you finish this. 

genre - smut, fluff, angst, enemies to lovers

synopsis — after taeyong’s death, jeno and those closest to him are each haunted by memories and ghosts, real and imagined, that refuse to let them move on. grief shadows every moment, but when an unexpected night brings everyone all together, the lines between past and present blur, and everything changes in ways no one could have foreseen. in the midst of it, you and jeno find yourselves pulled back into each other’s orbit, unable to escape the unfinished story between you.

chapter warnings — post college au, small town vibes, explicit language, explicit sexual content(18+), explicit themes, one tree hill inspired, early 2000s vibe, power play, dom reader/sub jeno dynamics (both switches tbh), rough sex, explicit language, this chapter contains scenes of emotional abuse, bullying, and targeted harassment that may be distressing to some readers. this chapter is the largest yet, it’s incredibly heavy and loaded, take your time, i’ve uploaded it into two seperate posts, think of it a special two part(er), read the next part here, i can’t add much here as everything in this chapter will be unexpected and a spoiler, but you’ll see the new york gang having slay moments, you’ll meet baby haeun, many jeno and nahyun moments, you’ll see familiar places :), i wanna preface by saying i haven’t proofread anything and there’s a high likelihood that there’s some small mistakes (i hope not a lot), if it’s something where i’ve accidentally copied and pasted the same section twice then tell me, if it’s correcting anything or being annoying then don’t tell me. the pacing may feel unsteady at times, characters may seem unlike themselves, i tried my best with this chapter lol. 

listen to 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 whilst reading <3

𝐎𝐍𝐄 | 𝐓𝐖𝐎 | 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 | 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑 | 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 | 𝐒𝐈𝐗 | 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍 | 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 | 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄 | 𝐓𝐄𝐍 | 𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍

𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐋

𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐘𝐎𝐑𝐊. 𝟒𝟎.𝟕𝟏𝟒𝟓° 𝐍, 𝟕𝟒.𝟎𝟎𝟔𝟎° 𝐖

The city exhales like it’s tired of lying. Steam rises from beneath the pavement in slow spirals, curling around the ankles of people who don’t look up anymore. Taxis idle along the curb like yellowed teeth in a mouth too bruised to bite, windows fogged from the inside, engines humming with all the things their passengers won’t say out loud. Somewhere blocks away, a siren wails half-hearted through traffic like it’s lost its urgency, like even emergencies are running late now. Above it all, scaffolding clings to buildings like regret—thin metal bones holding up glass spines that were never supposed to bend this far. The whole skyline looks like it’s bracing for something it already missed.

Outside the window, everything rushes forward—horns, heels, rain-soaked cardboard curling at the edges—but the apartment traps its own time. The air moves wrong in here, too thick in the lungs, too still around the wrists. The windowpane’s sweat-blurred, muting the outlines of towers that used to promise arrival. You can’t see the Chrysler spire anymore, just a smudge of silver where glory used to sit. The radiator hisses like it’s biting back a warning. The faucet drips unevenly, tapping out a rhythm like a code you’ve forgotten how to break. And across the street, someone shouts in a language that once belonged to you, the vowels clashing against fire escapes like a memory trying to climb back in. This city was supposed to mean progress, reinvention and survival. It was supposed to swallow everything you were and spit back someone cleaner, smarter, better but all it’s doing now is mirroring you at your most undone, cracking in the places you pretend no one will see, reflecting a face shaped by choices you didn’t make fast enough. The city hasn’t moved on. It’s just mastered the art of pretending broken things are still beautiful if you light them from the right angle.

The ice roller drags slowly beneath your cheekbone, clinking against the edge of your jaw as condensation pools in the curve of your wrist, your body still heavy with heat that sleep didn’t wash off and the kind of restless stillness that sticks when the sky turns too pale to ignore. You’re standing barefoot in the kitchen where nothing breathes properly—air too dry, the windows fogged just enough to blur the skyline into a dull smudge of gold and static. The sun slants through the blinds like punishment, slicing across the metal sink, brushing the handle of the mug Donghyuck used three days ago and never rinsed, casting long thin shadows across the envelope on the counter marked ‘APEX Global.’ You already know what it says. Six months, rotation, international leadership placement. The version of you from three years ago would’ve screamed, the version of you from six months ago would’ve cried. The version standing here now just watches a drop of water roll from the roller’s edge down the side of your wrist and fall, silent, into the hem of your sleeve.

Yangyang’s hoodie is soft, too warm at the neck, heavy around the shoulders like it’s trying to pin you to this moment, like maybe if you stand still enough time will crawl backwards instead of on. The apartment is quiet but the quiet has weight to it, not peace but pressure, not calm but that strange echoing stillness that creeps in after a party ends and nobody’s swept up the glitter. Tote bags are slumped beside the kitchen stool with zippers half-open like mouths caught mid-sigh, a crushed granola bar wrapper peeking out beneath Karina’s travel charger, Donghyuck’s slides tucked just far enough under the couch to suggest he kicked them off while falling asleep instead of taking them off like someone who meant to stay. Her overnight bag is still lying by the bar, unzipped, one strap twisted like it’s been dropped in the middle of something and left bleeding out across the hardwood, mascara rolling under the chair leg beside a sweater you don’t remember her packing, and all of it is wrong in a way you don’t have the energy to correct.

The only thing making noise is the fridge, humming low and inconsistent like even it’s debating whether to keep going, the oat milk on the top shelf probably spoiled, the open cap beside the half-eaten strawberries daring you to pretend it matters. You roll the ice up across your temple and back again, the cold catching at your hairline, and you let your eyes flick toward the envelope once more before looking away. You’d known it was coming. The promotion. The rotation. The invitation. All those things people dream about when they imagine themselves far away from where they started, all those words they say when they try to make ambition sound like grace—opportunity, mobility, voice—but none of them feel like they belong in your mouth right now, not when the floor is still sticky from last night’s wine spill and your throat tastes like regret instead of coffee.

Karina shifts on the couch, her breath catching in that way it does when she’s trying not to cry in her sleep again. The throw blanket slips further down her legs and she doesn’t move to pull it up, and for a second you think about walking over and fixing it but your legs don’t move, your feet won’t leave the tile. Somewhere down the hall, Donghyuck mumbles something you don’t catch, followed by the whine of the tap, the clink of a toothbrush against ceramic. The apartment is full but it feels like a ruin. Everything built too fast, stretched too thin, held together by group chats, leftovers and shared Spotify accounts, none of it permanent, all of it waiting to be cleared away like stage lighting after a dress rehearsal. This was never supposed to last. None of it was but that doesn’t make the stillness any less suffocating.

You turn the faucet on just to hear something change. The water hits the basin sharp and fast and cold. You stare into the stream like it might give you an answer, like if you wait long enough someone will walk in and say it—say he’s fine, say they found him, say it was all a misunderstanding, that Jaemin never meant to vanish, that people don’t just slip through the cracks when they’re that close to you, that you didn’t miss a sign that should’ve screamed. But no one says anything. Karina shifts again. The water keeps running. The envelope doesn’t move.

The roller slips from your fingers and lands in the sink with a dull, hollow clack, the sound too small for how loud everything feels in your chest. Your hand stays suspended in the air for a second too long before you lower it, palm pressing flat to the marble like you’re trying to listen for something underneath—like if you lean in close enough, the counter might confess what the rest of the room won’t. The stone is cold, indifferent, the way most truths are when they finally settle. Water beads against your wrist, trails down the lifeline of your palm, and your breath stutters but doesn’t come. You don’t blink. You don’t shift. You just hold yourself there, steady in a way that feels more like bracing than balance, heartbeat caught between seconds that won’t pass. The sun hasn’t cleared the buildings yet, the apartment’s still thick with last night’s air, and somehow the day already feels like it outran you hours ago.

You towel off with slow, autopilot movements, the steam from the shower still clinging to your skin like something unfinished, something not fully washed away. Your hair’s damp against your collarbone, water pooling at the hollow of your throat, and the hallway feels colder than it should as you move barefoot toward the living room. Karina’s curled into the couch, blanket up to her chin, the TV flickering low with some runway replay she’s not really watching. You don’t say anything at first—you just sit down beside her, shoulder to shoulder, the air between you warmer than either of you feels. Your hand finds hers without thinking, a small squeeze, just enough to say I’m here, even if he’s not. “I’m sure he’s fine,” you say quietly, like if you say it low enough the truth won’t snap in half. “I’m sure—”

She doesn’t even look at you. Just snorts, sharp and sudden, eyes glued to the screen as her hand jerks out from under yours like she’s swatting a fly. “Save it,” she says flatly, voice like chipped glass, “I don’t give a fuck about the man who pulled a full Houdini and vanished for nine months like he’s journaling in the Himalayas and finding his third eye under a waterfall.” Her blanket rustles as she shifts, arms crossed now, remote clenched in her fist like it’s the only thing tethering her to Earth. “He can stay wherever the hell he is and reach enlightenment without dragging me into it. I'm busy doing breathing exercises so I don’t punch a Dior intern in the throat.”

You blink. She finally turns her head, blanket still wrapped around her ears like a burrito of bitterness, only her face visible and fully fed up. “Busy being emotionally terrorised by a designer who thinks ‘accessible fashion’ means making a five-foot-eleven model wear socks as a top and calling it a silhouette study. I’ve been up since six being gaslighted by a man named Bastien who told me zippers are too ‘heteronormative’ and suggested replacing them with magnetic poetry.” She blinks, slow and deadpan, rage simmering just beneath. “He spelled my name with a ‘C’ in the group email. We’ve been working together for two years. I hope his collection catches fire.”

You bite down a laugh and sink further into the couch, her hand still under yours, her voice rising like it’s the only stable thing in the room, sharp with purpose, hilariously righteous. “Jaemin might’ve vanished off the face of the earth but at least he never tried to call muslin an emotional thesis or accuse a zipper of upholding the patriarchy.”

Karina exhales slow through her nose and presses the remote tighter in her hand like she’s resisting the urge to hurl it through something, her voice stays level but you catch the flicker of something behind her eyes when she says, “Please,” she mutters, dead flat, “the only thing Jaemin’s ever designed is his own fucking exit. I hope he’s happy in whatever remote Scandinavian IKEA showroom he’s decided to spiritually rot in. “If he ever shows up again, I’m slapping him with a cease and desist and a list of every yeast infection I’ve named after him in his absence,” then she shifts the blanket like she’s getting comfortable in her own rage, like spite is the only fabric that fits right anymore, her tone doesn’t waver, not once, it’s smooth in that way she saves for publicists and breakups and the second before she falls apart

You don’t answer because you know that voice too well, you know the chill behind it, the way her sentences stretch too far when she’s hiding something that wants out, you recognise the way she doesn’t say his name like it’s a spell she’s pretending she never knew how to cast, her mouth is all defense and her shoulders have been tight for days, the Jaemin-shaped space in her chest not closed off but boarded up, weathered like a house that still breathes through the floorboards, and somewhere beneath her practiced indifference you feel it, that pulse of something waiting, the way a room starts to swell before the wallpaper shifts or the windows breathe in too deep, like she’s not haunted but hosting something she hasn’t let herself name yet. 

After the wedding, something followed Jaemin home, not the kind of thing that slammed doors or flickered lights but something colder, something with patience, something that knew how to wait in the quiet parts of a person until the body forgot it was ever meant to feel full. He didn’t vanish, not all at once, he just slowed—his answers took longer, his eyes stayed still longer, his presence stopped pressing into the room like it used to, and the warmth that once came with him turned clinical, the kind of quiet that fills a waiting room after bad news. His footsteps stopped sounding like they belonged to him and started echoing like something borrowed, as if the floor didn’t recognise him anymore and was learning to flinch beneath his weight.

He became still in a way that didn’t look like rest but like surrender, like whatever grief had been left unspoken had finally laid down roots inside his chest and started blooming upside-down, and he carried it not like a wound but like a replacement, like his pulse had been swapped for something steadier and less human. People said he seemed tired, distracted, overworked, and he nodded at all the right times, smiled when he was supposed to, but his voice lost its gravity, his laugh came too late, and his hands, once so certain, stopped reaching for anyone who said his name like it meant something. He just turned into a version of himself that was unrecognisable — a ghost wearing scrubs, a heartbeat with no map, a name people whispered around instead of toward.

Right after the wedding Jaemin and Karina blew up, iin the way champagne hisses after being left open too long, in the way tension snaps when stretched too thin without anyone realising it’s about to split, and it started with a question, about exclusivity, about whether this was real, she had asked it too clearly and it followed with a silence he let sit for too long, the kind of silence that turns corners sharp and makes the air feel watched, and by the time she’d said ‘you can’t keep giving me half of you and calling it real’ the door was already closing behind her.

The last photo of them together was still warm in the group chat when the quiet started—sharp silences in the middle of shared dinners, late arrivals, early exits, the way Karina would answer his messages like she was filing paperwork and Jaemin would reply hours later with nothing but read receipts. 

Month two dragged its heels, thick with heat and something meaner, and even when the city swelled into summer, the apartment stayed cold in that way heartbreak makes the walls too wide, Karina barely left the living room except to shuffle from charger to charger with her laptop open but untouched, emails rewritten to the point of erasure and playlists playing the same eight songs like she was trying to hypnotise herself into forgetting how often she blinked and realised she hadn’t eaten since yesterday. She stopped going to fittings, started sleeping on the couch, claimed it was better for her back but you’d catch her awake at 4AM watching nothing on mute and fidgeting with the hem of her shirt like the thread might unravel if she pulled hard enough.

Jaemin slipped sideways in a way only the ones paying too much attention noticed, his hours at the hospital stretched long and strange, his name in the group chat trailing further and further up the scroll, and someone whispered they’d seen him leaving a bar downtown with a girl whose coat looked just like Karina’s, same shoes, same swing of the hair, like muscle memory dressed in someone else’s skin. Donghyuck started showing up more often with bags of lukewarm takeout and half-hearted jokes, sat on the arm of the couch pretending to be casual while he checked on how many mugs Karina had abandoned under the table, and even he couldn’t plug the hole Jaemin used to fill just by walking into a room and existing like he belonged there.

One night, Hyuck found Karina in the shower, the water on too hot, her body turned away but her shoulders shaking like she was laughing through glass, and he didn’t say anything, just sat down on the floor outside the door and waited until it stopped. The next morning, Karina burned the toast and didn’t flinch until the smoke alarm shrieked through the ceiling like something dying, and while Donghyuck scrambled for a towel, she stayed perfectly still in front of the stove, eyes glazed, fingers twitching at her side like she’d forgotten how to move, then without a word she crossed the kitchen, uncapped a black marker, and dragged a thick line through one of the dates on the calendar pinned beside the fridge, pressing so hard the ink bled through to the wall behind it, no explanation, no context, just a day she refused to let exist anymore.

By month five, something begins tracing itself into the fabric of your days, a pattern forming where Jaemin’s name used to land, half-typed messages left hanging in text bars, his contact sinking lower in your recents list like a stone dragged by weight, and the air shifts slightly whenever his name almost comes up, conversations twitching sideways, glances exchanged without anchoring, like everyone feels it forming but no one agrees on the shape. His shadow moves in suggestion—an untouched corner at the dinner table, a ringtone that rings once then disappears, a reply box blinking with no answer. You cross paths with his absence in strange places now, in static, in schedule gaps, in the pause before Karina says she hasn’t heard from him in a while.

It starts with Shotaro pacing, phone gripped too tight, saying he’s called three times this week and every time it’s gone straight to voicemail. Karina’s already sitting, arms crossed, eyes hollowed out from nights spent staring at her inbox like it might blink first. You’re on the floor, knees pulled to your chest, phone buzzing in your palm with updates that mean nothing. Donghyuck walks in late, holding a paper bag he forgets to put down. A parcel addressed to Jaemin arrived at the hospital, but the nurse said it came back marked ‘no forwarding address.’ Shotaro tried FaceTiming twice, then once more at three in the morning, stared at the grey screen until the call disappeared like it had never been there at all.

In Seoul, the tension hums through the group like static. Mark’s voice memo sits unopened in the chat—‘you alive, bro?’—timestamped eight days ago. No response. Not even a read. Doyoung mentions offhand at a meeting that Jaemin’s name hasn’t been on the monthly reports. Yangyang says he still owes him dinner and doesn’t follow it with a joke. Irene starts typing in the group chat, stops, starts again—her messages clipped, all full stops, like she’s hacking at the dark with punctuation. Areum scrolls through old photos and mutters that some people just change after breakups, but no one nods, no one agrees. The silence after carries weight, settles sharp behind your ribs, and Shotaro finally says it—‘when’s the last time anyone actually saw him?’ and nobody answers, because somehow, no one knows.

The first real shift comes on the night you’re supposed to meet for dinner, Shotaro booked the table, Donghyuck sent too many reminders, Karina even puts on makeup and then wipes it off before leaving her room, but Jaemin doesn’t show, no call, no excuse, just a chair that stays empty long enough to start feeling like a placeholder for something worse, Hyuck jokes about filing a missing persons report and no one laughs, then Karina’s voice breaks the silence, brittle and stunned, “I haven’t heard from him in a month,” and the words land heavy, like the floorboards underneath all of you have started to shift, like something underneath is preparing to give way

It’s no longer breakup fallout, no longer romantic failure or emotional mess—now it’s something colder, thinner, stretched across too much space, and when Donghyuck calls the hospital and asks for Dr. Na, the receptionist says he quit two weeks ago with no written notice, left his badge at the front desk with a single folded post-it that just said ‘thank you,’ and when Karina visits his apartment the next morning, the blinds are closed, the plants are dead, the bed is stripped, and there’s no sign he ever lived there except for one voicemail on her phone that she plays every night but never lets anyone else hear. You remember the last time you saw him—just a blur of movement in the hospital corridor, fluorescent light flickering overhead, his scrubs creased like he hadn’t gone home in days. He didn’t say anything. Just paused when he passed you, eyes dipping down, not lingering, not obvious, just a glance too slow to mean nothing. His gaze caught at your stomach like a thread snagging on fabric, something registering behind his eyes that never made it to his mouth, and for a second you thought he might speak, might ask, might know, but he only blinked once, like whatever passed through him didn’t have a name yet, just shape, just weight, just a question too fragile to form aloud.

The door clicks open with the ease of someone who’s done it a thousand times, no knock, no warning, just the softened rhythm of keys turning, muscle memory wrapped in familiarity. Shotaro steps inside already tugging his hoodie over his head, curls damp at the edges, shirt clinging faintly to his back where the sweat hasn’t dried from class, and the faint smell of floor polish and sweetness clings to him, the kind of artificial fruit scent that comes from too many bodies moving through one room, pressed shoulder to shoulder beneath dim lights and loud music. His shoes miss the rack entirely, land sideways against the wall, and he doesn’t bother fixing them.

He’s muttering before he even makes it to the living room, something about a new student who danced like his limbs weren’t on speaking terms, hands doing contemporary while his knees waged war with gravity. There’s a half-eaten protein bar in one hand and a single bubble tea in the other, sweat cooling at his collarbone, and when he sees the three of you spread across the couch and floor, he pauses like he just realised how short the offering falls. Still, he drops the drink on the table like it might multiply under pressure, flops down beside you without a word, part of his thigh knocking against yours, breath still a little uneven from the studio, his presence settling into the room like he’s always belonged to the silence that follows a storm.

He pushes off the couch with a groan, shirt tugged over his head in one rough pull, and your eyes widen before you can hide it—dark marks scattered down his throat and across his chest, a trail of possession that’s unmistakably Ryujin’s handiwork, delicate only in placement. Karina lets out a low whistle. “Damn. Someone’s getting the good kind of cardio.” He rolls his eyes, flipping you all off over his shoulder as he disappears into the shower, towel slung loose around his neck. Fifteen minutes later, he’s back in soft navy pajamas, hair damp, skin pink at the edges, and he sinks down beside you again like the hickies weren’t ever there.

The apartment smells like popcorn and old candle wax, one of those half-burned wicks Karina refuses to throw away sitting crooked on the windowsill, and a movie plays on low—something none of you are really watching, too many sequels deep and too many scenes away from making sense. The only light comes from the screen, flickering blue over Donghyuck’s cheek as he reaches aimlessly for another handful, misses the bowl, and curses under his breath. When Shotaro lifts his bubble tea to take a long, dramatic sip, all three of you turn toward him like vultures. 

“Really?” Karina says, flat. “No one thought to bring extras?” 

Shotaro grins around the straw, shrugs like he’s the villain. “Guess I love myself more.”

But then he laughs, soft and breathy, and ducks into the kitchen without another word, returning a moment later with three drinks balanced in his arms. “Relax,” he says. “I remembered.” He hands Karina her usual—lychee jasmine with aloe and light ice, exactly how she likes it, muttering, “don’t roll your eyes, I even told them no seal sticker so you wouldn’t smudge your nails.” Then he tosses Donghyuck his matcha crème brûlée with extra pearls, the cup practically vibrating with sugar, and finally places yours into your hands like it’s something delicate—taro oat milk, less sweet, no toppings, the way you’ve ordered it since college. 

“This is how I know I’m too loyal,” he sighs, flopping down beside you with a sigh. “You guys don’t deserve me.” 

“Shut up,” Hyuck mutters. “You’re drinking brown sugar like a basic bitch.” Shotaro snorts, kicks him lightly in the shin, and for a few minutes the room is easy, fizzy with sugar and comfort, the kind of soft that feels borrowed.

It’s halfway through the movie when he says it, quiet, casual, voice catching somewhere between the last line of dialogue and the background score. “I think I saw him.” The screen keeps flashing, someone yelling about time travel or betrayal, but your spine goes still against the cushion.

“Saw who?” Karina asks, already frowning. 

Shotaro doesn’t look up. “Jaemin, last night, right outside the studio.” 

You tilt your head, bubble tea half-raised. “Seriously?”

He shrugs once, slow, like the words are still settling on his tongue. “Could’ve been someone else, I guess, but he moved like him,” he says, eyes flicking toward the window even though he’s not really looking. “Same build—kinda bulky now, more muscle than I remember. His hair was different too, different color, longer and messier. I don’t know but it looked like him. It looked like the way he carries himself—like he knew the street but didn’t want the street to know him.” He pauses. “Hood up. Head down. He walked fast but not like he was scared, like he couldn’t afford to be seen.”

Shotaro exhales through his nose, brows pulling together like the memory’s sticking harder now that he’s saying it aloud. “And I noticed something weird,” he adds, voice quieter, like it might break if he says it too fast. “He was carrying this yellow blanket. It wasn’t folded or stuffed into a bag—just draped over his shoulder like it belonged there.” He rubs the back of his neck. “It had little stars on it, I think, faded ones, pale blue. Maybe clouds too? It looked soft, like the kind of thing you’d wrap around a baby after a bath. It just didn’t fit him at all, that’s what caught my eye.” His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “Big guy in dark clothes, built like he could throw someone across a room, but carrying that thing like it was made of gold.”

The room stills, like the air itself tightens. Karina lowers her drink without meaning to, eyes pinned on the coffee table, the condensation from her cup leaving a print that spreads slowly into the wood. “That doesn’t sound like something he’d just… pick up,” she says, quiet, almost to herself. “Not unless it meant something.”

Donghyuck shifts where he’s sitting, the playful slouch gone, his fingers tapping absently against his knee. “That’s not even weird anymore,” he mutters. “That’s straight-up eerie. Like, why the fuck would he be carrying around something like that? In the heat? In public?”

You don’t say anything at first, just watch the bubble in your drink rise to the top and burst. The words crawl up your throat too thick. Jaemin with a baby blanket. Jaemin looking bulkier. Jaemin walking like he had somewhere to be that didn’t belong to anyone else. You finally breathe, “You’re sure it was yellow?”

Shotaro nods, slowly, a crease forming between his brows. “Yellow with stars. I know what I saw.” He glances between you all, something unreadable in his face. “I didn’t think it meant anything until now.”

It’s past midnight by the time the movie finishes, screen fading to black while the room stays lit in that ghostly way only credits can manage, white names scrolling endlessly over silence that feels louder now that none of you are talking. Karina’s curled up in one corner of the couch with a throw blanket tucked under her chin, Donghyuck’s flicking at the empty pearl cups like they’ll refill themselves if he stares hard enough, and Shotaro’s legs are stretched out, head tilted back like he’s trying to cool the last of the sweat behind his ears. You’re closest to him, cross-legged with your phone face down beside your knee, your spine starting to ache, your pulse still stuck on that one thing he said hours ago that none of you have touched since—he moved like him.

Shotaro shifts, reaching lazily for his laptop bag and dragging it toward him with his heel. “Hold on,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “There’s something I wanna check.” He props the laptop against his thigh and opens it with a quiet snap, fingers tapping muscle memory into the keyboard, clicks fast and silent like he’s done this a hundred times.

Karina looks over. “You’re working?” she asks, dry, but he just shakes his head. 

“No, just—there was this thing Jaemin and I used to do.” 

Donghyuck snorts. “Romantic.” 

Shotaro kicks him without looking. “Shut up. No. I’m talking about playlists. We used to trade edits back and forth. Lullabies, mostly. He said he liked sounds that made the air feel soft.” You say nothing, but your eyes don’t leave the screen.

He scrolls through folders like he knows exactly where to go, digging four levels deep until he finds one with a name barely readable in lowercase—jae//midnights—and clicks. The interface flickers, revealing a list longer than you expect, a dozen sound files lined in quiet succession, half of them titled only by timestamps that feel like memories. “This one,” he murmurs, hovering over 03:47AM, “was the first thing we ever built together.” His voice softens like the memory still lives inside his mouth. “He recorded the hum from the heater in his room, looping it under a child’s melody in C minor. Said it reminded him of falling asleep on car rides.” The way Shotaro says it makes something in your chest twist. “We never made it public,” he adds, quieter now, thumb brushing the trackpad. “It’s only on this laptop. Nowhere else.” Then he clicks, and the page begins to load.

There’s a user logged in, you all lean in at once, breath caught, eyes locked to the glowing display where there’s an anonymous figure listening. Donghyuck whispers, “what the fuck?”

Karina jerks upright so fast her blanket slips to the floor, muttering “wait, wait—how?” Shotaro’s already clicking through the metadata with his jaw tight and his brows drawn, voice low and focused as he says “the stream is live, someone’s listening to this exact track right now” and when he pulls up the playback map, a single blue location pin flares to life, hovering steady less than a mile from his studio.

“This file was last edited six years ago, no one’s touched it since” and his voice drops, tighter now, “and now someone’s… he’s listening, he has to be.”

You swallow, throat dry, heart thudding uneven against your ribs. “Check the IP,” you say. 

Shotaro’s already there, shaking his head. “Anonymous server, masked and rerouted through something local—there’s no trace, but the ping’s real.” He zooms in until the edges of the map blur. “It’s been playing for seven minutes straight.”

The track loops, slow and eerie, soft hums layered under a child’s voice too pure to be sampled, and faint static pulses underneath like a monitor trying to sync with something—rhythm, breath, maybe grief—and it’s too exact, too shaped, too him to be anyone else, and none of you speak because there’s nothing to say, not yet, just the weight of it pressing into the walls and the silence between your bodies, and in your chest something cold locks into place with a soft internal snap, like recognition arriving before reason.

It’s the next morning when Donghyuck finds the receipt. You’re all moving slowly, the apartment is too quiet for how much caffeine has been passed around, and the air tastes like leftover sesame noodles and unspoken questions. He’s digging through one of Jaemin’s old books—The Lives of Others, spine cracked, corners bent from being read too many times and something flutters out from between the pages, slips down onto the floor like it was waiting. “What the—” he mutters, leaning down, and the moment he picks it up you already know from the shift in his voice. “Guys,” he says, louder now. “This isn’t old. This is last week.” You’re already moving toward him as he holds up the receipt, timestamp clear as day, 9:42PM, St. Aurelian Hospital Café. Karina blinks, brow furrowing. 

Karina tilts her head, brows pinching. “Isn’t that the new private one? The one with the glass atrium and concierge midwives?” 

You take the paper from Donghyuck slowly, fingertips grazing the faint thermal ink, your eyes narrowing as you read. “Yeah,” you murmur, pulse steadying into something cold. “‘APEX’ did some work with them, they’re a new boutique hospital with no public staff page, no published rotations, and a front desk that won’t give you a name unless your surname is on the board of donors.”

He stays hunched over his laptop after that, headphones in but not playing music, screen brightness turned low like he’s trying not to spook the internet into hiding. “Give me a few hours,” he says. “I’m going full dark web mom mode.” And he does—scrolling through anonymous parenting forums, Facebook groups with names like ‘Mommy & Me Upper Manhattan,’ private nannying directories, anything that smells like recent birth and low-profile doctors. You don’t bother interrupting. He’s in the zone, muttering search strings under his breath like prayers—“single dad,” “pediatric rotation,” “yellow blanket,” “newborn father” and by late afternoon he goes completely still, one hand paused above the keyboard, breath held like he’s seen a ghost. “Holy shit,” he whispers. “I found something.” 

You rush over and see it, a thread buried deep in a private parenting group, already marked removed by the admin but it’s still cached on the page: ‘Saw the hot pediatrician again today—scrubs and all, with the softest baby girl and eyes like he hasn’t slept in years.’ He screenshots it instantly. “Post got deleted,” he says. “But it was posted this morning, from a hospital five blocks from the café receipt.” The room goes still again, that same frozen hum of something real settling in.

Karina’s the one who brings it up, calm like it isn’t the most desperate thing any of you have said all day, scrolling her phone without looking up as she says, “New parents shop near home, near the hospital—no one orders everything online,” and she glances over at Shotaro like she’s already made the decision for both of them. They leave just before noon, drizzle dusting across the skyline, street corners washed in silver light as they move from one baby boutique to the next with vague descriptions and clipped smiles, asking cashiers if they’ve seen someone tall, soft-spoken, carrying a pale yellow blanket and maybe a newborn wrapped close to his chest. Most say no or shake their heads before the question even lands, but one woman behind a pale pink counter with a chipped credit card machine pauses, mouth slightly open, and says she thinks someone like that came in last week—she can’t remember his face exactly, only that he paid in cash and held the gift bag like it was the most breakable thing in the world.

You and Donghyuck take the next part, heading downtown toward the address stamped in faded ink on the receipt, the hospital café tucked into the lobby of a brand new private wing where everything smells too clean and the overhead lights feel too bright for the hour. You pick the table in the back corner, close to the elevators but angled just enough to watch the front entrance, and the two of you sit there for almost two hours with one shared croissant and a pair of iced teas growing warm on the table, pretending not to scan every person that walks by while your heart flicks between hope and hollow. Most of the staff look the same, hurried, tired, blank-faced but then someone brushes past in soft blue scrubs with the collar slightly turned, and stitched just above the left shoulder in pale thread are the initials N.J., the stitching small enough that you almost miss it, and your body reacts before your brain catches up. You’re on your feet, Donghyuck half a step behind you as you follow fast toward the elevator bank, but just as you reach the edge, the doors glide shut and he disappears inside without ever turning around.

You’re the first to speak when you all pile back into the apartment, shoes half-kicked into the hallway, bags dropped wherever they fall, the leftover croissant from the café still clutched in Donghyuck’s hand like he forgot to eat it out of spite. “I’m just saying,” you start, flopping down onto the couch with enough drama to rattle the cushions, “I’ve never worked this hard for someone who so clearly doesn’t want to be found. We’re out here doing field research, stakeouts, combing through online breadcrumbs like we’re in Prison Break, and for what?” Karina raises a brow, toeing off her boots. “For the man who ghosted his own life?” You nod, mouth already twisting. “I swear to God, if I got my people at Apex involved, this wouldn’t be a manhunt, it’d be a two-minute LinkedIn scrape and a casual sweep of facial recognition software. He’d be found before the kettle boils.”

Donghyuck groans, face down in the armchair. “You could’ve done that from the beginning, you evil witch.” 

You glare. “Do you want Jaemin dragged out of a paediatric ward in cuffs by Apex interns named Hoshi and Woozi?” 

Shotaro, sprawled on the floor with a protein bar he refuses to open, raises a hand lazily. “I kinda do, just for fun.” 

You exhale hard through your nose, pinching the bridge. “No, but seriously, why didn’t we file a missing persons report? Are we allergic to normal solutions now?” 

Karina lets out a sharp breath, turning toward the window. “I tried,” she says, voice clipped. “Twice, maybe three times.”

“And?” you ask, leaning forward, elbows on knees, voice softer now, though you’re not sure why—something in Karina’s stillness unsettles you, her posture too rigid, like she’s bracing for a wave she’s already drowned in. 

She shrugs, but the movement doesn’t land, barely reaches her shoulders. “Every single time that I’d start filling out the form, opening the missing persons portal my phone would ring. Sometimes it was a call, sometimes a message.” She swallows. “Always the same thing, ‘don’t file anything, he’s safe, leave it, trust me.’” Her voice twists sharp around the last word like it still cuts her. Then she turns her head toward you, slow and deliberate. “Guess who sent those messages.”

Your body reacts before your mind even forms the shape of a thought, before language returns to you, before the room steadies enough to hold what’s just been said. Something clutches in your chest, tight, immovable, like breath trying to claw its way out from beneath concrete, and your limbs go still from the unmistakable sensation of being seen, like someone’s breath is resting against the nape of your neck without sound or warning. Your wrists feel cold first, then your throat, then the space behind your knees, your pulse dropping into the hollows of you like it’s trying to retreat into bone. Your mouth is parted just enough for the air to sit heavy on your tongue but your name—your voice—doesn’t move, just hovers there like a ghost of a question you already know the answer to.

Your spine straightens on instinct, vertebrae aligning with eerie precision, like strings have been pulled from the ceiling and your body obeys without protest, like you’ve become a marionette under someone else’s hand. It’s too quiet. Even the sound of your own breath feels distant, filtered, like it’s passing through cloth. All you can hear is the echo of Karina’s voice folding into that name, the one you’d buried in some distant chamber of thought—Jeno—and it slams through your mind like a door unlatched in a windless room, opening without touch. You don’t remember standing. You don’t remember looking at her. You just know. You knew before she said it. Knew in the way animals know an earthquake is coming, in the way silence sharpens right before something shatters.

“Jeno,” you say.

Karina nods once, almost too slow to track. “Always him. Always calm. Always exactly on time.” She blinks. “Like he was watching my screen. Like he wasn’t guessing—he knew.” The light in the apartment suddenly feels too sharp, too white, like a surgical theatre instead of a home, like something is being exposed and you’re not ready for the incision. You feel it down your spine, an invisible pressure folding over your shoulders like a cold breath. He hadn’t vanished, he’d intervened and somehow, that’s worse because it means he never stopped holding the strings.

Karina leans back into the couch like the tension just caught up with her spine, her voice low and bitten off at the edges as she mutters, “You’d think he’d have better shit to be doing.” Her thumb skims the condensation down her cup, the words coming slower now, one after the other. “Like breaking whatever new scoring milestone the NBA cooks up for him. That three-point shot from half court last week? They aired it on five different sports networks in under an hour. Someone tweeted that it defied physics. Someone else said he’s the first player in franchise history to hit thirty points in twelve consecutive games with a fractured wrist, like flying to meet with whatever hyper-athletic nutrition brand he’s the new face of—signing a deal with a private equity firm that makes more in a quarter than any of us will in a lifetime.” Her eyes flick past the wall, somewhere far off. “Like that rooftop gala he went to last month in Miami with the twenty-foot ice sculpture and three different drone camera crews. Or the off-season Adidas campaign they shot in Tokyo.” She shakes her head once. “I still see his face on a bus ad near my boutique—digital, full wrap, takes up the whole intersection.” Her mouth curves, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “He’s got millions of followers watching his highlights, watching his life, waiting for whatever designer coat he’s told to wear next and he’s out here intercepting missing person reports.” 

She exhales once, sharper now. “And then there’s Nahyun. The fiancée, matching watches. Her face in Vogue Korea before the engagement was even confirmed. She sat courtside last month in archival Mugler like it was a press conference and held his hand with both of hers like she was praying over it.”

She cuts off before the word can land because she sees it—the way your jaw clenches sharp like a trap that’s already snapped shut, the way your fingers shift just slightly against the cushion like you’re holding onto the edge of something that might give. Her face softens instantly, everything dropping, the bravado, the timing, the sharp edge in her voice that never quite meant to slice. “Shit,” she says, barely above a whisper. “I didn’t mean—fuck, I got carried away.” She leans in without asking, arms slipping around your shoulders like muscle memory, chin tucked lightly against your temple, breath warm at the side of your face. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve to hear that. You’ve already had to carry too much of him.” She presses a quick kiss to your hair, voice catching. “You’re better than him anyway. Prettier. Smarter. You could outrun his entire bloodline in three-inch heels and a hangover.”

You snort, but it doesn’t quite reach your chest, your hands caught mid-air like you’re not sure what to do with them, like affection is something you forgot how to receive properly. “Karina,” you mumble, trying to roll your eyes, but it’s too soft around the edges. “I don’t need the pep talk.” She pulls back just enough to look at you, her brows raised, her mouth curving like she’s about to go full drama. “Okay, cool, so can I go back to slandering your war criminal ex or do you wanna cry and braid each other’s hair?”

You shake your head, but your lips twitch. “You’re the worst.” 

She grins, forehead resting briefly against yours. “Takes one to love one.”

You’re still half-smiling into Karina’s shoulder when a shadow moves past the kitchen counter and Shotaro clears his throat in that very obvious way that means he’s been watching long enough to form an opinion. “Okay,” he says, voice dry as bone, “if you two are about to start scissoring on the couch I’m gonna need you to either pause or pivot because we still have a missing Na Jaemin to locate.” 

Karina groans without looking up, flipping him off lazily with the hand that’s still resting on your arm. “Oh my God, can’t two traumatised women share an intimate moment of solidarity in peace?” 

Shotaro raises both brows and grabs a snack bar from the counter like it’s evidence. “It stopped being solidarity the second she kissed your head like a Regency housewife mourning her forbidden lover.”

You nudge Karina off you gently, trying to compose yourself while still wiping at the corner of your eye, and glance at Shotaro with a crooked smile. “Jesus. Ryujin’s really rubbing off on you, huh?” 

He raises a brow, halfway through chewing the protein bar. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

You gesture at him with both hands. “You’re getting meaner. Like cutthroat mean. That was so mean, Taro.” 

Karina stretches like she’s about to go limp again. “Honestly, I’m proud. He used to cry at butter commercials.”

Shotaro throws the snack wrapper at you and misses. “I did not cry. I teared up respectfully.” He throws another snack wrapper at Karina and it lands. “Now can we circle back to the part where Jaemin might be working a few blocks from here like a ghost doctor and none of you have filed a report?” You glance toward the laptop still glowing on the table, that anonymous playback log paused mid-loop, and the air shifts again—tension curling back in like a tide. The moment softens behind you, but the hunt sharpens ahead.

Later, the apartment is quiet again, not with comfort but with the kind of stillness that feels like it’s listening, like something unsaid is pressing against the walls. No one’s spoken Jaemin’s name in over an hour, but he’s in the room anyway—etched into the glow of the laptop screen, folded into the way Donghyuck keeps refreshing the same tab without reading it, stitched into the silence every time someone almost speaks and doesn’t. No one moves to leave. You’re all still here, caught in the slow gravity of a truth that keeps circling back.

You all knew about the voicemail, knew it had been left the same night Jaemin disappeared, a single minute of sound tucked into the hollow space between his resignation and his silence, a message that had waited untouched at the bottom of Karina’s inbox like a wound left to fester in the dark. No one could understand why she wouldn’t play it—not when you begged her in the thickest parts of night, not when Donghyuck asked with his voice stripped down to threads, not even when Shotaro said nothing at all and just reached for her hand like that might be enough to steady her but Karina only ever shook her head and whispered “I can’t,” like pressing play would be the thing that finally broke her open for good, and maybe it would have been, back then, when everything still hurt too raw to look at straight. But something’s shifted now, something quieter and more urgent, a sense that the gaps between you all have grown too wide to leave untouched any longer, and tonight, long after the playlist’s stopped looping and the candle near the sink has burned itself into a waxed-out crater of cold glass, Karina finally pulls her phone from the depths of her hoodie like it’s a confession she’s been hiding under skin, and the way her hands move—slow, deliberate, trembling just enough to betray her—makes your chest twist without permission.

No one says anything when she plays it—Donghyuck’s still half on the floor, the back of his hand covering his mouth like prayer, Shotaro’s chewing the end of a useless straw he finished over an hour ago, and you’re leaning against the kitchen frame with your arms crossed like a shield across your ribs, watching her thumb hover over the screen like it might detonate if she touches it too hard—and the room is holding its breath around you, every second stretched thin enough to snap, until she finally exhales through her nose and says, “Okay,” her voice low and unraveled and unfamiliar, like it’s been hollowed out from the inside. “I’ll play it but just this once.”

She taps the screen and the sound cuts in raw—no polish, no clean edit, just Jaemin’s voice soft and slightly distorted like it’s trying too hard not to shake, and even though he’s speaking low and slow like calm is something he thinks he can fake, there’s something wrong with the shape of it, something off-kilter and uneven, like his composure is being dragged across gravel just out of frame. “Hey. It’s me,” he says, and then nothing—just air and silence and the echo of a space that isn’t familiar, and when he speaks again it’s like he’s choosing every word as it comes. “I’m fine. I just needed space. Time to figure things out. I didn’t mean to worry you. I just couldn’t explain it yet. I’ll come back when it’s right. I promise.” His voice catches slightly then, just a breath too fast or maybe a tremor too small to name, but it’s there, and after that, something shifts—a movement in the background, fabric maybe, or footsteps, or a body brushing too close to a wall—and then the sound comes, clean and clinical and impossibly loud in the stillness.

Beep.

Then again.

Beep.

You don’t realize you’ve moved until you’re standing straighter, your weight redistributed like your body’s trying to get closer to something your mind hasn’t caught up to yet, and across the room, Karina freezes with her phone still raised like her arm’s forgotten how to move, and Donghyuck’s eyes are wide now, hands dropped to his lap, while Shotaro just stares like the walls might start answering for him.

“Again,” you say, quiet but certain, and though Karina flinches like she doesn’t want to hear it again, she rewinds without argument.

“I’ll come back when it’s right. I promise.”

Beep. Beep.

You exhale through your teeth but it feels like inhaling cold steel, and your voice comes out lower than you expect, flattened by something heavier than fear. “That’s a neonatal vitals monitor,” you murmur, more to the floor than to anyone else, but the words land sharp anyway. “NICU-grade, hospital only. High-frequency, linked to oxygen stats. It’s not some at-home baby tracker.”

Karina opens her mouth but nothing comes out, just a breath that shakes too hard to speak, and beside her, Donghyuck says, “But he’s a doctor. He works in hospitals—”

“Well he sent that months ago and we know he quit his job around that time, we went to the hospital and they told us,” you say, before he can finish, and it’s sharper than it should be.  The timeline presses inward all at once, tight like gravity, and you see it laid out in sequence—the voicemail sent after he quit, after the hospital confirmed his resignation with no forwarding contact, after his apartment was emptied and left blank and meaningless, after his presence was erased from every place he was supposed to belong. This wasn’t left from a shift. This wasn’t a call between rotations. This didn’t come from the life he walked away from—it came from inside the one he shouldn’t have access to anymore.

Karina’s face folds slowly, not all at once but piece by piece, like the understanding is sinking under her skin with teeth, and when she speaks it’s more exhale than sentence. “So he’s not there as a doctor.”

Shotaro sits back like he’s been struck in the stomach, the straw slipping from his fingers. “Then what the fuck is he doing there?” he says, and no one moves.

You’re still staring at the floor, but your voice cuts through it like a wire pulled tight. “He’s not working,” you say. “He’s staying, he’s there as a patient.” 

Karina blinks hard, her throat shifting like she’s swallowing glass, and then she shakes her head—not in protest, not in denial, but in correction, something sharper, more certain, something she’s been holding back because saying it out loud would make it too real to unfeel. “No,” she says, and her voice catches but she doesn’t stop, not this time. “He’s not the patient.” She looks at you then—really looks—and her eyes are wide with something terrified and bare, but beneath it there’s a clarity that slices cleaner than panic, something that shakes all the way down to the bone but still lands steady, and she swallows once, hard, her jaw tightening as if the truth might break her open even as she says it anyway. “He’s there as the father of one.”

And just like that, the air leaves the room. The silence that follows doesn’t echo—it spreads, it thickens, it settles across your shoulders like weight, and no one moves, because there’s nothing left to say that doesn’t feel like breaking something sacred in the air. Shotaro drops his gaze to the floor like it might offer a softer answer. Donghyuck blinks twice and says nothing, the disbelief too large to fit in his throat. And you—you stay exactly where you are, one hand gripping the edge of the counter like it might anchor you to the moment, but there’s a roar building behind your ribs now, something tidal and cold and rising.

Because of course it makes sense. The sound, the monitor, the pause in Jaemin’s voice, the way he spoke like his body was somewhere else entirely—of course it makes sense now. It explains everything. Except how he never said a word.

The laptop’s glow casts the room in a cold, artificial blue, and no one’s moved in fifteen minutes. Donghyuck’s pacing like his thoughts are running ahead of his body, Karina’s got her knees pulled to her chest with her sleeve over her mouth like she’s trying to keep something in, and you’re still at the table, headphones wrapped around your neck, knuckles pressed to your mouth as the voicemail plays again on loop, dissected down to the static. You’ve filtered it six different ways, dragged the audio into an editor you barely remember how to use, but you keep listening because something’s off—not just Jaemin’s voice, not just the beep, but something quieter beneath it, something no one else hears until you say it out loud. “Listen,” you murmur, dragging the cursor back again, volume low. “Right there. After the second beep, that’s a page. Three tones, then a voice.” You crank the gain and it’s almost lost to distortion.

You start cross-referencing layouts of the major locations, pulling up floor maps and old blog posts from nurses and interns who once filmed TikTok videos near Unit Twelve, and Karina’s staring over your shoulder now, her eyes glassy but sharp, and then her hand shoots out suddenly, jabbing at the screen. “There,” she says. “That corridor. That angle, the sound in the voicemail—it’s echoing like that. Hard tile, narrow space, no curtain buffer.” You nod, and Shotaro mutters something about ventilation sounds, mentioning metallic hums of older buildings.

Donghyuck throws himself into the search with the kind of intensity he usually saves for online scandals. “Okay,” he says, breathless. “We need something more direct. Something physical.” And then he curses under his breath, digging into his back pocket like it’s been hiding a secret this whole time, and pulls out the half-folded receipt. “Let’s dissect this again.” 

You unfold it again, slower this time, smoothing the softened receipt against the tabletop like it might yield something new if handled gently enough, and it’s familiar at first—too familiar, the kind of paper your eyes have skimmed a dozen times without ever really seeing, the ink faded at the edges, the item codes a blur of numbers that meant nothing to you before. The timestamp still sits at the top like a wound you don’t touch—two weeks after Jaemin left—and the location is as unremarkable as it always was: a few blocks east, a street you’ve passed without thinking. But this time, your gaze catches on something you didn’t register before. A symbol.

It’s small—barely the size of your thumbnail—stamped into the corner like a watermark or an afterthought, a clean-lined insignia shaped like a triangle split through the center, one side hollow, the other shaded in like it’s holding something it can’t name. You tilt the receipt toward the light, squinting at the lines, and it starts to feel like you’ve seen it somewhere before—not in this context, but maybe in passing, maybe attached to something industrial and clinical, something you didn’t know you were filing away until now. You pull out your phone, snap a picture, and reverse image search it with shaky fingers, the screen glow reflecting in the laptop’s black frame like a second pair of eyes watching over your shoulder. At first, nothing. Then a match. 

Holloway Medical Group. You say the name under your breath like it’s a password, and suddenly the rest of the receipt reconfigures around it. Not just a generic supply outlet, not some off-brand uniform store—it’s a licensed subsidiary under Holloway’s network, restricted to vendors, staff, and contract personnel affiliated with their medical partnerships. Donghyuck leans over your shoulder, brows pulled, voice quiet. “That’s a hospital supplier,” he says, more question than statement, and you nod, already pulling up their vendor delivery routes, cross-referencing purchase logs and site access histories against hospital facility records, and it narrows quick—too quick—down to two locations in the area. One is a small pediatric outreach center, low-capacity, designed for short-term care and routine follow-ups, no overnight staff, no NICU, barely a ward to speak of. The other is different—larger, established, not flashy but formidable, known for its cross-disciplinary research and high-volume surgical output, with specialists in pediatric medicine, general and trauma surgery, neurosurgery, and cardiothoracics flown in from across the country. It’s not just a hospital—it’s a flagship facility, a semi-private institution with federal backing and restricted-access wings, and its eleventh floor is listed as sealed to external access. Unit Twelve.

You don’t speak as you type, don’t blink as the screen flickers in front of you, the hospital’s internal directory locked behind a firewall that clearly isn’t meant for your hands, but you’ve cracked harder things with less reason, and tonight, reason is burning a hole through your chest. Karina watches from across the table, breath shallow, mouthing, “You shouldn’t—” but you already are. The guest portal is useless, restricted by default. No public access. No back doors. So you write your own—just enough code to ghost your way through the surface, no alarms, just static, and when the system coughs up a directory dump, you search his name, nothing, not a single trace—not in active staff, not in archived contracts, not even a flagged resignation file. It’s a clean absence, too clean, like someone swept it deliberately, and your mouth tightens as you scan again, reloading the system cache just to be sure. Still nothing—not within the last year. Which doesn’t make sense. That’s exactly when he disappeared. The exact window when everything went quiet.

So you adjust the parameters, pull the timeframe back—twelve months, then fourteen, and the second the list refreshes, your breath hitches in your throat. There he is. Chief Pediatric Surgeon. A three-month appointment. High-acuity work. Surgical lead on congenital heart defects, rare neurodevelopmental corrections, multi-system interventions in infants under two weeks old. You scroll faster, heart in your throat—two peer-reviewed papers in pediatric journals, one co-authored with a visiting trauma team from Boston, another documenting a successful experimental closure on a case other surgeons refused to touch. He was cited in a write-up on early-age stroke intervention, featured in a local op-ed about the rise of high-success surgeries under forty. He saved thirty three children in ninety-one days.

Then the record stops. No end date. Just a notation. Paternity Leave. You blink at the screen, once, twice, not because you misread it, but because the words land too quietly to process. Your cursor drifts down. There’s a patient name linked to his file—flagged for weekly outpatient evaluations. Pediatric cardiac recovery. Fridays. Every single one.

Tomorrow is Friday.

The city folds inward as you approach 87th and Crescent. The skyline narrows into teeth. Steam slicks up from the grates in rhythmic bursts like something breathing beneath the streets, and the wind doesn’t move around you so much as through you—threading the sleeves of your coat, brushing the inside of your collarbone, humming low between your ribs. Traffic presses forward in slow, glinting waves. A delivery truck exhales sharply into the curb. A kid on a scooter slices past and leaves behind the smell of burnt rubber and bakery sugar. But here—this block—feels peeled back. The noise thins. The color dulls. Time stretches just enough to make you notice the texture of the air.

The hospital rises without warning. No sign. No fanfare. Just mass. A monolith of stone and window tucked between two glass high-rises, squat and silent like it grew there by mistake and stayed. The stone isn’t cold, it’s ancient—scraped down by weather, smoothed by time, the kind of façade that absorbs secrets into its pores. The entrance—recessed, shadowed, framed in steel—doesn’t welcome you, it swallows. A single door, dark glass and pressure-sealed, blinks once before unlocking with a sound like breath caught in the throat.

Inside, the light shifts. It’s still artificial, but softer now, like it’s been diffused through skin. The air is warm and holds you in place. The floor tiles stretch in perfect grids, the faint shimmer of wax and fluorescence kissing your soles. The lobby hums low, like something alive and pulsing just below frequency—ventilation, elevator gears, a distant rolling cart wheel catching rhythm across linoleum. You pass through it like being moved by gravity. Your steps don’t echo, but you feel the weight of each one. Like the ground knows who you are. Like it’s counting.

To your left, a family sits pressed into blue waiting chairs, their coats still zipped, eyes blank in the way only people halfway between answers can look. To your right, a hallway draped in muraled paper—whales, giraffes, moons with smiling faces—trails off toward pediatrics. A paper butterfly flutters from a nurse’s clipboard as she passes. It lands on the tile and no one picks it up.

Karina walks like her spine is held by thread. Shotaro’s eyes keep moving—windows, corners, fire alarms—cataloging exits without knowing why. Donghyuck’s hands stay buried deep in his pockets, his shoulders squared like he’s forcing his heartbeat to stay inside his body. And you—you walk slightly ahead, chest tight, temples buzzing, like you’ve entered the part of a dream where everything starts to slow down but won’t stop. The elevator at the end of the hall glows under a brass sign stamped with floor listings that mean nothing to you. The up arrow is lit. The doors are closed. But it feels like the building already knows where you’re going. And it’s waiting.

The receptionist barely looks up when you approach the desk. Her hair’s pulled tight into a coil, nails long and lacquered, and she’s tapping through a scheduling interface like the keys owe her something. Her badge reads ‘DAYOUNG’ in pale block letters, and the lanyard around her neck is printed with a faded rainbow of hospital departments—trauma, cardiology, oncology, pediatrics. She doesn’t stop typing when she greets you. She doesn’t blink, she just says, “name of the patient?”

You exchange a glance with Karina, but she doesn’t speak. None of them do. It’s you who steps forward, pulling your coat tighter with one hand and resting the other on the edge of the desk like you belong there. “Na Jaemin,” you say smoothly. “We’re here to confirm his reassignment.”

That gets Dayoung’s attention. Her fingers slow. Her eyes flicker up. “Is he a doctor or patient?”

“Doctor, but he’s also the father of a patient,” you say. Calm. Steady. Not defensive. “Pediatrics. We’ve been told he was transferred back into the system, but we haven’t received floor confirmation.”

Her eyes narrow slightly. “And you are?” You don’t hesitate. You reach into your coat and slide out the APEX behavioral clearance pass—laminated, coded, issued from your last cycle in clinical psych research under a federal child trauma initiative. It’s old, but still active. Gold-stamped along the bottom edge. You lay it on the desk with care, letting the light hit the seal just enough. “External psych field liaison,” you say. “Na was flagged for a cross-disciplinary study last year. I need to verify the current ward assignment for our internal records. It’s policy to confirm direct placement in person. This isn’t for visitation.”

Dayoung looks down at the pass. Then back at you. You keep your face smooth, shoulders relaxed. Not too eager. Not too calm. Just a little bit annoyed—like you’ve done this too many times in too many cities to pretend it still matters.

She picks up the pass with two fingers, scans the barcode under a recessed reader built into the desk. The machine chimes. Approved. She exhales. “One moment.” Her typing slows into something more deliberate now—layers of access, redirections, protected floors. Her expression doesn’t change, but you know the system’s making her double-confirm clearance. Good. That means she’s in.

A few more taps. Then her gaze lifts. “Dr. Na is registered under pediatrics. Currently assigned to restricted-access ward, floor six, south wing.” She clicks again. “Room 611. Parent-only level. You’ll need to enter through the secondary elevator bay. East corridor. Take the south access hallway past lab intake. It’s unmarked. You’ll see a security panel to the left of a janitorial door. Input code seven-seven-four-zero-three. That’ll unlock the elevator control.”

Donghyuck exhales low behind you. Karina doesn’t blink. Shotaro shifts his weight but stays silent. Dayoung doesn’t flinch. She taps something into her own screen—likely logging the clearance, maybe flagging it, maybe not. “Once you’re on six,” she says, “follow the signs for the blue pod. Pediatrics splits into four wings—he’s in the far end. You’ll pass the imaging annex. If you reach physical therapy, you’ve gone too far.”

You nod, like you’ve done this before. Like you’ll do it again tomorrow. “Thanks,” you say, sliding the pass back into your coat.

Dayoung just shrugs. “Don’t get lost. That floor eats time.”

You don’t answer. You just turn. Karina follows first. Then the boys. And together, you step into the east corridor, your pulse syncing to the rhythm of your own lie, wondering if this—right now—is the moment Jaemin starts feeling real again.

The east corridor feels longer than it should. You move through it like a current pushed underground, surrounded by steel, concrete and quiet pressure. The lights overhead buzz faintly in rows, casting sharp shadows that slice across the tile like surgical threads. The air smells of citrus cleaner and iodine, and beneath that, something warmer—steam, maybe, or freshly laundered linens still clinging to heat. The signage is minimal. Color-coded bands on the wall. Blue for pediatrics. Green for surgical transfer. Red for restricted. No one speaks. Your boots click evenly across the floor like a metronome too fast for comfort.

You pass a group of interns whispering by a vending machine, faces pale from night shift, eyes flicking up but not long enough to clock you. A nurse jogs past wheeling an empty isolette, her badge flashing with every bounce. Someone calls out a code over a hallway comm: short, clipped, not urgent—but the sound still freezes something low in your spine. This place doesn’t feel chaotic. It feels sharp. Fast. Like every second is being held in a fist somewhere you can’t see.

A little girl walks past with a stuffed whale tucked under one arm and an IV pole dragging beside her like a companion. She waves at Karina. No one says anything. The hallway narrows where the light shifts. The south access hall isn’t labeled. Just a matte-gray stretch of wall that curves slightly to the left, too clean, too quiet. You spot the janitor’s closet first—faux wood door, mop sink visible through the crack—and then the panel.

On your left, a janitor’s closet nestles into the wall beneath a recessed arch, its door edged open to reveal the pale curve of a mop and the shine of a rust-streaked utility basin. To the right, smooth and recessed into the steel, the keypad waits. The panel is seamless—machine cut, flush with the surface, its presence unannounced yet unmistakable. You place your fingers gently over it and it wakes beneath your touch, blooming with blue light in a slow pulse that spills across your knuckles like breath catching under skin. The numbers rise, pale and precise. Your fingers move without hesitation. Seven. Seven. Four. Zero. Three.

The panel releases a single chime, soft and final. A mechanism shifts behind the wall. Then the elevator opens—steel-framed, doors gliding inward on silent tracks, the kind of entrance that feels like being accepted rather than permitted. You step forward, and the others follow without a sound. The interior gleams. The brushed metal walls reflect your bodies back to you, stretched in quiet motion, flickering under the narrow downlight like silhouettes inside a pulse. The air here changes—slimmer, more deliberate, as though the space is regulating breath. The control panel illuminates, offering no numbers, only a touchscreen glowing with a red key icon. You input the code again, deliberate and slow. The system swallows it without pause, the screen fading before a new one appears.

6R – Access Granted. The elevator lifts—fluid, gliding, no drag in the movement, only an ascension that feels inward and precise. Karina stands to your left, arms folded in tight restraint. Donghyuck holds himself steady without leaning. Shotaro’s gaze remains fixed on the floor display as the numbers rise, his eyes unblinking. Your heart syncs to the movement. Each breath feels shaped around what comes next. The silence between you all sharpens. There’s no room left for theory or guesswork. Just this—this rising. This certainty. And beyond the steel doors, a hallway waits. And inside that hallway, the weight of every answer you’ve spent months trying to survive.

The elevator opens without a sound. The floor greets you with quiet lighting, walls painted in ocean tones, soft and sleep-heavy, like this corridor was designed to mute the outside world. You step out first, and the others follow without speaking. There’s a curved bench tucked under a long frosted window, a row of closed doors marked with soft blue numbers, a glass bulletin board lined with paper cranes folded from hospital chart paper and pinned like a constellation across cork. The air carries a warmth that doesn’t feel artificial—like something’s been lived-in here, touched by presence, by breath, by lullabies and antiseptic and grief folded into routine. A monitor hums behind the wall. Somewhere, a child laughs, then coughs.

You see him before your brain finishes registering the shape of him. He’s seated just beyond the nurses’ station, half-turned from view, angled into a patch of light that slips down from the window behind him like a benediction. He’s dressed simply—sweatpants, a dark hoodie pushed to the elbows, a faint smear of something pale across the collar, maybe milk or formula or sleep-deep exhaustion—and his frame is different now, broader through the chest, shoulders set like stone, forearms pulled tight under soft fabric. There’s a heaviness to him that doesn’t weigh down so much as anchor—like he’s settled, like the gravity around him has doubled and found its center.

In his arms, small and impossibly still, is a baby.

A little girl, no more than a few months old, her head smaller than the palm cradling it. She’s swaddled in a soft grey blanket stitched with tiny stars, her face turned in toward his collarbone, tucked beneath the edge of his jaw where the light can’t reach. One of her fists is curled loosely near his chest, her fingers wrapped instinctively around the cord of his hoodie drawstring like she’s claimed him in her sleep. He shifts her gently, barely at all, just enough to realign her head against his skin, and you can see the flex of his hands—big and careful, protective without tension, like every nerve in his body is dedicated to keeping her exactly as she is. He murmurs something low, a soft string of sounds just above a whisper, then presses his mouth to the crown of her head like punctuation. The way he holds her—secure and slow and whole—is so tender it hurts to witness.

You don’t need to see his face to know it’s him. Every line of him speaks. The way his knee bounces just slightly. The slope of his brow in profile. The way his gaze doesn’t drift. The world ends at the edge of that baby’s breath and he’s guarding it like it’s his only task on earth. He doesn’t see you. Doesn’t sense you. His focus is sealed in the weight against his chest, in the tiny rise and fall of her sleep.

Even though the signs have been building for weeks, even though every line of evidence has led you here—receipt, voicemail, badge record, paternity leave—it still crashes into you with a velocity your body wasn’t built to absorb. Because he’s real. And so is she. Karina steps forward, but her body goes stiff like she’s walked into the wrong dream. Shotaro’s mouth opens and closes again. Donghyuck stares, unmoving, his grip tightening on the cereal bar he forgot he was holding. And you—you feel the thud in your chest, the pull in your gut, the sharp hum of thought slicing through disbelief but unable to stick to anything solid.

He’s a father.

And somehow, even with every breadcrumb, every piece of this built by your own hand, the shape of that truth doesn’t feel possible. It doesn’t fit. It doesn’t settle. You can’t imagine him that way. You can’t imagine how. The timeline feels warped. The version of him you knew doesn’t stretch this far. It bends. It resists.

And then— 

A voice cuts through the air, sharp and passing. “Dr. Na,” a woman says, clipboard tucked under one arm, coat flaring slightly with her stride as she walks past. She doesn’t pause, doesn’t glance back. “Your daughter’s charts show her oxygen levels have finally stabilised. We’ll come check again in twenty minutes.”

Jaemin shifts her gently in his arms, one hand cupping the back of her head with a kind of reverence usually reserved for glass. His thumb moves in slow, instinctive circles against her spine, each pass like a whispered promise. Her breath is soft against his collarbone, feathering across the fabric of his hoodie as if even sleep trusts him to keep her safe. He leans in, mouth brushing the top of her head, one long, steady press of lips to skin, like he’s sealing something there. “I love you, baby,” he murmurs, low and warm, the kind of voice that can only come from the center of the chest. “I’ve got you. Always.”

The baby stirs a little, her tiny fingers uncurling and catching at the string of his hoodie. He lets her pull. He lets her hold. His arms tighten just slightly, the motion so subtle it feels like muscle remembering how to protect. He sways without realizing, a slow back-and-forth, the rhythm of someone who has been doing this long enough for his body to memorize the lull. His nose grazes the side of her head again. He whispers something else, barely audible, maybe a name. Maybe a promise.

He doesn’t see you yet, he only sees her.

You reach him slowly, every step drawn through molasses, like the air thickened the second you crossed into his orbit. His head remains bowed, breath syncing with the tiny one pressed to his chest. The light catches on the curve of her cheek where it peeks from the blanket, her skin warm and impossibly smooth, one fist curled into the collar of his hoodie like she was born knowing it belonged to her. Jaemin holds her with both arms wrapped around her, one hand cradling her back, the other resting along the top of her swaddle. His thumb moves in small, soothing arcs. He whispers into her hair.

The hallway has folded itself around him like it was built to carry this moment. Like this bench, this patch of light, this hour — they were waiting. Karina stops beside you, shoulder brushing yours, heartbeat loud enough to feel. You’re all watching him, watching them, watching a version of Jaemin that none of you have ever met. He’s still cooing to her. Still brushing her forehead with the backs of his fingers, rhythm soft, voice even softer.

And then Karina speaks. “Jaemin?” Her voice cuts sideways, choked and sharp at once. “What the fuck?”

Jaemin freezes.

The reaction is immediate. His head lifts in one motion, slow but full-bodied, like someone pulling himself up from underwater. His shoulders rise. His eyes snap toward the sound, and for a breathless second, he just stares—lips parted, lashes unmoving, gaze flicking from face to face as if the hallway has shifted into something he cannot place. He doesn’t speak. His hand on the baby stills completely. The rhythm breaks. She sighs once in his arms, adjusting slightly. He catches her instinctively, gaze dropping for a moment to check her weight, to shift her higher against his chest without disturbing her sleep. His body moves out of reflex. His mind is slower to follow.

You can see the question before it forms, sitting just behind his eyes—how the hell did you find me? But then she stirs. A soft sound escapes from the bundle in his arms, small but rising, a wet hiccup blooming into a whimper. Jaemin’s focus drops immediately, hands moving on instinct. He shifts her higher against his chest, one palm splayed across her back, the other brushing under her blanket to find the edge of her foot. “Hey, hey,” he murmurs, voice low again, quiet and certain, “Daddy’s here, I’ve got you.”

The fussiness crests, turns, then begins to settle. Her fingers twitch at his hoodie string again. He rocks slightly, rhythm finding him again then he looks at you. The recognition strikes him in full. First in his eyes, then in his mouth, which doesn’t speak but tightens just enough to reveal a language that only he’s caught. His throat works around a breath that doesn’t turn into words. The tendons in his neck pull taut. There’s nothing composed in his reaction—only the raw, stilled shape of shock pressed across his face like it was sculpted there.

You say nothing.

None of you do.

Because in front of you, Jaemin is holding a child. And the silence has never felt heavier.

“Hey,” he says quietly, voice rasped but steady. “You found us.”

No one answers right away. The baby’s breath hitches once in his arms, a little uneven puff that makes him glance down, adjusting the crook of her neck against his chest with a slow, practiced ease. The silence stretches until Karina’s jaw locks, her mouth opening again—but this time it’s not cautious. “You absolute bastard,” she hisses, stepping forward, voice pitched somewhere between cracked fury and relief. “I thought you were dead. I had Shotaro checking morgues. Do you know that? Morgues, Jaemin.”

“Technically only once,” Shotaro adds, holding up a hand. “And we didn’t go inside.”

“You ghosted us. You fell off the face of the earth. And now you’re just… here? At some unknown hospital? Rocking a literal baby?”

“Technically,” you murmur, arms still at your sides, voice calm in a way that feels vaguely misplaced, “this hospital isn’t exactly unknown. It’s one of the leading pediatric centers in the country. They’re affiliated with three different research labs, and they pulled top neurosurgery stats last year—”

Karina whirls on you. “You don’t need to correct everything, Y/N.”

Jaemin blinks at the two of you. Then glances down at Ha-eun again, his hand adjusting her sleeve, tucking her fingers in beneath the blanket like it’s the most important thing in the room. “She’s asleep,” he says under his breath. “Keep it down unless you want to watch me cry.”

“You cry?” Donghyuck scoffs. “Since when do you—”

“I cry all the time now,” Jaemin cuts in, eyes wide and unbothered. “I cried yesterday because her sock fell off and she looked betrayed. I cried last week because she rolled over and I didn’t record it. I cried this morning because she grabbed my thumb like she’d chosen me, and that’s insane because she doesn’t even know what a thumb is.”

Karina stares at him. “Who are you?”

He lets out a soft, breathy laugh, the sound cracked open at the edges. “I’m Ha-eun’s dad.” The name lands with a softness you didn’t expect. Ha-eun. It fits the shape of her, small and whole and safe in his arms like she has always belonged there.

“She’s one next week,” Jaemin says, softer now, barely above the hush of her breath. His eyes stay on her, every word kissed into the space between them. There’s wonder in his voice, quiet but steady—the kind that glows from deep inside instead of trying to reach the world around it. His thumb brushes the curve of her ear, gentle and rhythmic. “Feels like she just got here yesterday,” he murmurs, half to her, half to himself. “Feels like she’s been mine forever.”

You watch her more closely. Her cheeks are warm, her lashes long and soft against the curve of her face, her body curled inwards like she’s learned to keep herself small. Her head fits perfectly beneath his chin. Her blanket rises and falls in slow, careful rhythm. You swallow, tongue caught against the back of your teeth. “She looks really little,” you murmur, eyes still on her, voice barely threaded together. “For a baby who’s nearly one.”

You knew the answer the moment you stepped into this hallway—the moment you saw the way he held her, not like something precious, but like something that could slip away if he blinked too long. You knew when you realized his badge had no department, when his voice broke around the word daughter, when every inch of him bent toward her like prayer. This isn’t a man in uniform. This isn’t a doctor finishing rounds. This is a father on borrowed time, keeping vigil in a place that only holds what it cannot promise.

Jaemin sighs, the sound deep and almost silent, then presses a kiss to the top of her head. His hand strokes down the length of her back once before he looks up. When he speaks, the words come quiet and full, like he’s had to shape them gently to keep from breaking. “She was born with a congenital heart defect. The medical term is truncus arteriosus—it means there’s only one large vessel leaving her heart, when there should be two. It makes everything harder. Breathing. Circulation. Growth.”

Shotaro’s hand flies up to his mouth. His eyes blur with too many things at once. “Oh my god.”

“We have to stay strong,” Jaemin says quickly, his voice cutting in with a soft, insistent edge. “She’s strong. Stronger than anyone I’ve ever met.” He glances down at her again. His hand moves automatically, smoothing the edge of the blanket near her shoulder. “She’s had four surgeries since she was born. One at three days old. One at four months. Another when she turned six. And just last month, they had to go in again to adjust the graft. It’s been—” he stops, exhales, then nods like he’s saying it to himself—“a year of holding our breath.”

Karina wipes at her eyes in silence. Donghyuck doesn’t move. “She’s getting better,” Jaemin adds, voice firm now, like he’s anchoring the sentence in truth. “She’s getting stronger every single day. Even when it’s hard. Especially then.” And in his arms, Ha-eun sleeps on, untouched by the weight around her, as if her body already knows that love like this will carry her through anything.

Jaemin shakes his head slowly, eyes still fixed on her like he’s drawing strength straight from her sleep. “She’s more than what’s happening in her chest,” he says, and there’s a quiet edge to it—tired, certain, protective in a way that feels carved into bone. “She’s brilliant. You should see her when she’s awake. She studies everything—faces, voices, colors. She knows when I’m the one holding her, even if she’s half-asleep. The second I walk into the room, she lifts her head. She says ‘dada’ when she sees me, clear as anything. She doesn't speak to anyone else.”

His mouth softens as he speaks, and something in his expression changes—lightens without losing depth. “She sticks her tongue out when she’s concentrating. She gets really quiet when it rains, like she’s listening to something I can’t hear. And she hates socks. I mean—hates them. We’ve lost twelve pairs this month alone. She’ll look me dead in the eye and rip them off like she’s making a point.”

A smile pulls at the edge of his mouth, lopsided and full of something sacred. “She’s funny. She’s opinionated. She loves the color yellow and gets genuinely offended when I eat the last bite of her yogurt without offering it to her—like she didn’t just fling half of it across the table and reject the last three spoons with full dramatic flair. She makes this little growl when she wants attention and she knows exactly how to fake-cry to get what she wants. She’s got the weirdest taste in music, a total old soul. She doesn’t like any of the baby songs I play for her but she’ll fall asleep to Debussy, perks up for acoustic lullabies, but her favorite song in the world—no joke—is a stripped-down jazz cover of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ I swear, if I play anything too upbeat, she looks at me like I’ve insulted her lineage.” And in his arms, Ha-eun stirs softly, her tiny fingers flexing once against his chest before curling back into warmth—like she knows he’s telling her story, and she’s letting him.

Donghyuck stares at him, expression halfway between awe and something deeply unhinged. “You… you have a daughter. Like a real, breathing, sock-wearing, Debussy-listening baby. You’re someone’s dad. How the hell did that happen?”

“Not someone,” Jaemin mutters, smoothing her hair with his palm. “I’m Hae-un’s dad.” 

Karina makes a strangled sound and half-lunges at him—not to attack, but to slap his shoulder so hard he has to rock slightly to keep from waking her. “You idiot. You disappeared. You broke all of us. You broke me. You could have at least sent a fucking text!”

“I didn’t know how,” he says, and this time his voice folds inward, like he’s talking less to you and more to the version of himself that didn’t make it through. “After you and I fizzled out, everything around me got quieter but heavier. Like I kept walking through rooms that used to be full and couldn’t remember what I came in for. And I don’t mean it in a dramatic way. I just stopped knowing who I was when no one was looking.”

He glances down at her hand—so small it barely covers the center of his palm, her tiny fingers curled into him like they grew there. “Then she arrived and no one else mattered. I had to step up, it was only me, I had to do it all myself and it wasn’t easy, but she made it easy. There was one thing that mattered more than my shame, my pride or all the versions of myself I couldn’t live with. She came into the world already fighting for air, and all I could think about was whether she’d hear my voice first or the machines.”

His eyes flick up to meet yours, and there’s no mask left—just a tired, honest quiet. “I know it’s not an excuse but I needed time. To become someone she could trust without even thinking. Someone she could fall asleep on without wondering if I’d still be there in the morning. And maybe that meant disappearing from everything else. Maybe that’s the part I’ll always regret. But I couldn’t afford to mess this up, not this time, not with her.” He doesn’t add anything else after that. Just smooths the edge of her tiny sock where it’s slipped loose, then lets his hand rest there like it’s keeping the whole world in place.

Donghyuck breaks the silence first, tipping his head and raising both brows like he’s looking at a puzzle that somehow built itself while no one was watching. “So you just had a secret baby in the past year,” he says, voice too casual to be serious, too stunned to be joking. “I got a parking ticket. Shotaro dyed his hair. Karina joined a yoga cult and started meditating because of you. And you—” he gestures toward Jaemin with a flick of his wrist, “—you went full Witness Protection Program and showed up as someone’s dad.”

There’s a moment of stunned stillness, then a tiny snort from Karina that might have been a laugh if it weren’t drowned in disbelief. Shotaro shifts where he stands, something more serious pulling at his face now. His hands are loose at his sides, but his voice is careful. “Did no one know about this?” he asks quietly. “Jaemin… you should’ve come to us. We would’ve helped. You didn’t have to carry this all alone. Did you seriously tell no one?”

The silence is like pressure dropping in the room. Then you speak, quietly, your words more shape than sound. “You told Jeno.”

Jaemin looks up, and for the first time, his expression shifts—something flickering just beneath the surface. He doesn’t look surprised. He doesn’t ask how you know. He just nods, the movement slow, like it comes from a place that’s lived in this truth too long to hide it. “Yeah,” he says. “I told Jeno. He’s helped a lot. More than I can explain. When it got bad—when she had her third surgery and I didn’t sleep for days—he flew out and stayed with us. Slept on the couch. Took shifts with her when I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Kept the monitors from sounding like alarms. He was here for a while, a whole month, actually.”

Your stomach pulls tight.

The timelines add up. Too perfectly. That night last spring when the city felt too loud and too quiet all at once. The bar on West 38th, the one you never meant to walk into, the one where Jeno was already sitting, glass in hand, sleeves rolled to the elbow like he was trying to breathe. You never asked why he was in New York. He never offered. You both said things you didn’t mean and did things you never talked about after.

And now, standing here, the weight of it curls beneath your ribs like smoke rising from something you thought had gone cold. He was here because of Jaemin. Because of her. You blink once, slow. The hallway sharpens again around you. Jaemin’s still speaking, quiet and steady, eyes back on Ha-eun now like the rest of the world is just background. “I haven’t been alone,” he says, and there’s something almost grateful in his voice. “It’s been hard. But she makes it worth it. And I had help when it counted.”

Jaemin huffs a soft laugh, the sound tugged right from his chest, and glances down at her with mock betrayal. “She’s obsessed with her uncle Jeno,” he says, shaking his head. “When he’s around, I practically don’t exist. It’s like she forgets who changed her diapers at 3 a.m. for eleven months straight.”

His hand shifts slightly, brushing her tiny foot where it’s peeking from the blanket. “He walks into the room and she lights up like a lamp. Grabs at his shirt, tries to babble faster than she knows how. Do you wanna know the worst part?” He leans back slightly, eyes narrowing like he’s preparing to deliver a personal offense. “She flirts. I’m not kidding—she flutters her lashes. She gets shy and tucks her chin like she has a crush. Literally blushes. On cue.”

Karina snorts. Shotaro coughs into his sleeve. Donghyuck mutters something about being the forgotten godfather. But none of it reaches you, because something quieter has already taken hold, something slow and deliberate that rises not from what was said but from what lingers in the silence between their voices, something threaded beneath your skin in a place you have never named. It stirs when Jaemin speaks of Jeno, when he says his name like it belongs to something steady and sacred, when he smiles and recalls how she leans toward him like she has always known him, like he is home—and that is where it lodges in you, sharp and silent and echoing like a breath held too long. There is a ‘he’ in this room who isn’t here yet, but his shadow has already passed through you, has already marked you, and has already left something behind. And whatever it is that tightens now in the quiet curve of your throat, whatever it is that steals your breath before you can feel it—it’s already inside you, placing shape where none should be, forming quietly, unknowingly, and it moves like his.

There’s a pause. And then you ask it—softly, gently, like the answer might pull the light out of the room. “Who’s her mother?”

Jaemin exhales. Not like a breath. Like a weight. His mouth twists into something that tries to be a smile and fails halfway. His hand keeps moving over Ha-eun’s blanket in small, rhythmic strokes. His voice comes slowly. “That’s — it’s not important, I don’t wanna get into it.” And then he looks down at her again—like she’s the only thing keeping that story from unraveling in his hands.

Jaemin shifts her slowly, the kind of motion that carries memory in the muscle, like his body has learned her rhythm so completely it doesn’t need thought anymore. His arms fold in toward his chest, her weight still resting soft in his hands, and then he turns to you—not with words, just with his eyes, and something in them asks if you’re ready for something that might change you. 

You reach without meaning to. He places her in your arms with the kind of care that feels ceremonial. Not cautious, but reverent. Like handing over a piece of sky. Like trusting someone with light. Her warmth bleeds instantly through the fabric between you, her head nestling into the inside of your elbow, her fingers twitching once in sleep.

She is so light. Lighter than anything with this much gravity. Your breath catches, quiet and sharp, like it was startled into stillness. And then she stirs—barely. Just a sigh through her nose, a flutter behind her eyelids, and the smallest sound leaves her lips, softer than a whimper, louder than a thought. You do not mean to coo, but you do, and the sound that comes out of you doesn’t belong to the voice you know. It’s quieter. Warmer. Older.

Her eyes blink open, clouded and bright all at once, unfocused but seeking, and for a heartbeat she just looks up at you, small chest rising slow against the side of your forearm. She doesn’t cry. She just looks, as if she knows something you don’t. The moment lands heavy, not in your arms, but beneath your ribs—because this feels like the kind of thing that can only happen once. Like something the universe allows before it takes it back.

And you’re not sure if she’s giving you something or saying goodbye.

Karina steps closer, arms half-extended, like reaching for Ha-eun might snap whatever spell is humming in the space between all of you. Her voice comes quieter than usual, softer, rounded at the edges by something fragile. “Can I—” she starts, then swallows. “Can I hold her?” Her gaze flickers between Jaemin and the baby in your arms, and it isn’t anger anymore that sits in her throat. It’s wonder. She looks at Ha-eun like she’s watching something sacred sleep. And for a moment, every cruel thing she wanted to say to Jaemin dissolves into the air between them, too small to matter. Too human to hold.

Jaemin nods. You shift slightly, ready to pass her over—but the moment breaks before it completes. Ha-eun stirs, just a breath, just a soft movement that feels less like waking and more like remembering. Her tiny hand uncurls from where it’s been nestled against her chest and drifts downward, clumsy, unfocused, yet drawn with the precision of instinct. Her fingers find your wrist.

And they tighten. Not harshly, not in pain but in a way that stills everything. Her palm rests against the bracelet there—your bracelet. The one you never took off. The chain cools against your skin, her fingers warmer than anything has a right to be. And for a moment, the air feels like silk being pulled through water. Slow. Soundless. Crushing in its softness.

She clutches it like she knows the story it tells. The bracelet wraps around your wrist like a timeline masquerading as jewelry—delicate, yes, but heavy with the weight of things that shaped you. Each charm is a relic, a kept secret, a chapter without words. The microphone gleams gold, dulled at the edges from years of skin and stage-light dreams, a symbol from the first time you chose your voice over silence. The basketball hangs beside it, small and scuffed, the color worn from afternoons spent under dying suns and the memory of someone who taught you how to want without shame. A miniature book with a cracked spine dangles from the center—its pages fused closed, no titles, no words, only the echo of everything you never said out loud. There’s a tiny theater mask, one side smiling, one side hollowed out, a gift from a winter that almost undid you, when pretending was the only way you survived. A wave curls near the clasp, silver caught mid-crash, from the summer you lost something to the ocean and pretended it was just the tide. A charm shaped like a safety pin sits next to it—thin, silver, unbending—a quiet nod to the year you held everyone together except yourself. 

Near the clasp, where the chain begins and ends, rests the smallest charm—quiet in shape, but exact in meaning, a silver quill with its spine curved just enough to suggest movement, its tip narrowing to a point so fine it seems to tremble in the light. Each groove along the feather reads like a line already written, the surface cool and clean and carrying the stillness of something that has waited a long time to be found. Her fingers close around it gently, with a stillness that feels less like reaching and more like remembering, the motion dreamlike and inevitable, as if her hand was carved for this weight long before it ever found its shape, and in that quiet moment the charm begins to shift—no longer a feather, but a promise folding itself into form, a name blooming beneath silence, a future written so softly it settles into the air like ink that never needed a pen.

Now her fingers are wrapped around it, she isn’t letting go.

Karina stands with her arms open, but something stills between you—the baby’s hand wrapped around the bracelet at your wrist, her fingers curled with such delicate purpose it feels carved from something older than her body, and older than yours. Her grip is small, soft, but the weight behind it is immense, as if she’s touching more than metal, as if she’s pressing her palm to every shape and memory it’s ever carried. There’s no resistance in her hold, only certainty. The kind of certainty that steals breath. Your arms don’t move because it feels like passing her to someone else would unmake a moment that has already planted its roots inside your chest. And still, Karina waits. Her breath is uneven, her expression splintered somewhere between wonder and the ache of something breaking open. Her hands tremble as she reaches again.

You exhale, barely, and begin to shift.

The baby stirs, blinking once, her eyes cloudy but bright, lashes trembling with sleep, and the second Karina gathers her into her arms, something changes in the room. The air warms. The distance softens. And from the curve of Karina’s shoulder, a sound escapes—fragile, vowel-shaped, almost a laugh but shaped like language. A sound meant for her. Karina gasps, then smiles so suddenly it crumples her whole face. “You’re talking to me?” she whispers, voice cracked around the edges. “You’re saying hi?”

The baby gurgles again, a soft string of syllables that mean nothing and everything. And Karina holds her closer, rocking slightly, like her body remembers how even if her mind doesn’t. Her hair slips forward and brushes the baby’s forehead. The bracelet on your wrist is still warm. The space where her weight once was still pulses with memory. You stand there, breath folded sharp beneath your ribs, because even without her in your arms, something of her remains threaded through you—light as breath, deep as marrow—as if her weight carved a space inside you that hasn’t figured out how to close.

Donghyuck takes her next, arms slightly unsure at first, but cradling her with the gentleness of someone who knows how to make himself soft when it matters most, and the second she blinks up at him, he lets out a laugh so quiet it folds into a hum, bouncing her lightly as he murmurs something low and ridiculous, something about her cheeks being engineered in a lab to destroy him. She doesn’t cry. She watches. She settles. And then she sneezes once into his shirt and Shotaro chokes on a laugh, already reaching for his turn. When the baby passes into Shotaro’s arms, she sighs like she’s returning somewhere, her tiny fingers brushing his chest as he rocks slightly from heel to toe, his face open in the way only he knows how to be, full of wonder, full of awe, whispering “hello” like it’s a secret between them and only her eyes can answer it. They stay like that for a while, wrapped in a kind of silence that feels bigger than stillness, until her head tips slightly, her weight shifting again like instinct — and without needing to ask, without needing to speak, she comes back to you.

She nestles into the crook of your arm like she never left, her body folding soft into yours with a breath that shivers down your spine, and you shift her closer with hands that remember the rhythm now, your cheek brushing her temple, your voice cooing something senseless and warm just for her to hear. And behind you, quiet and unnoticed, Shotaro lifts his phone, screen dimmed low, not to interrupt, not even to remember—just to capture, to hold still the shape of something that might never happen quite like this again. The photo blinks into existence with a hush of light: you, holding her against your chest, your lips curved into a smile too soft to be posed, eyes half-lowered, your wrist glinting beneath her fingers as she touches your bracelet like it belongs to her. There’s something golden in the angle, something still. You don’t notice the click. You don’t hear it save itself. But when Shotaro looks down, the image quiets him. Because the moment is whole. And you are glowing. 

Monaco is the twenty-sixth country this year, though it doesn’t unfold the way the others did—no flash, no skyline stretch, no chaos pretending to be luxury—just stillness, just silence, just the kind of coastal hush that costs more than gold to maintain, and Jeno moves through it like breath caught inside the body of something too old to speak, streets winding like thought, alleys clean enough to mirror bone. His name followed him here, first in the windows of storefronts where his face hung beside gold-trimmed logos and limited edition sneakers, then in the whispers of brand reps in linen suits who smiled too wide and asked nothing of him but presence. Twenty-six cities, twenty-six courts, twenty-six languages softened into endorsements and autographs. They hand him heat-pressed jerseys and gold-tipped pens, call him the future with smiles that stretch too wide across brand decks, clip microphones to his collar while cameras catch the angles they already studied, and his face—clean, balanced, carved by sweat and spotlight—moves from billboard to broadcast like it’s no longer something he owns, just a polished surface they pass between them.

The season ended three months ago, but the world hasn’t stopped asking for him—the NBA called it a peak, the numbers called it a breakout, and he called it none of those things because there was never a version of this that didn’t feel like a performance, like precision dressed as prophecy, like grief passed down through muscle memory and sold as ambition. Every stop is the same: photos under heat lamp bulbs, contract meetings in rooms where silence matters more than answers, gym sessions booked at three a.m. to dodge cameras, and a new country pressing its fingerprint into the back of his neck before he can forget the shape of the last one. He hasn’t unpacked in months. The suitcase lives open.

He still ties his own shoes before every game, double-knots them the same way he did at seventeen, sits on locker room floors with his elbows on his knees and his head bowed like he’s praying for focus and not forgiveness, keeps the first towel he was handed after his rookie debut folded in the bottom of his gym bag like a promise no one else remembers. The drivers call him sir, the stylists ask if they can post him, the agents float words like empire and legacy and icon, but he nods without lifting his eyes, always thanks them by name, always clears his own plates, always trains until his chest aches—not because the cameras ask, but because the work is the only place that feels honest, the only place that asks nothing but everything.

But Monaco slows everything, slants the light gold and long across stone like it’s trying to teach him how to mourn in style, and he lets it, walking with the weight of his father’s watch wrapped twice around his wrist, gaze pulled down the narrow corridors that taste like salt and dynasty, steps echoing against glass storefronts that sell stillness at premium. The buildings here feel like they remember names even after the families forget them, arches carved into silence, marble clinging to old heat. He pauses at the edge of the overlook, not for the view but for the shadow that stretches before him, lean and tall and motionless across the glinting water, and the way it folds with the curve of the rail makes it look less like his own and more like the echo of someone else’s—someone who taught him how to stand like that, how to disappear without leaving.

The air smells like money and memory, seafoam and steel, and the harbor below shifts with a patience that makes his stomach tighten, because here even the water moves with legacy. His phone buzzes against his thigh, another message from another brand, another opportunity to be seen, to be owned, to be sold. He doesn’t check it. He keeps his hands at his sides, eyes on the line where the sea meets the light, and waits for the ache to pass. It doesn’t. It only deepens, slides lower into his ribs, joins the rhythm of his breath like it was always meant to be there. And the city watches. And the shadow holds.

He doesn’t raise his voice because he doesn’t need to, the quiet does it for him, spreading slow and deliberate across any room brave enough to ask about lineage, each mention of legacy left to hang midair like smoke rising from something already burned. He lets it breathe, lets it sour, lets the pause between words collect weight until the question curls in on itself and disappears, and when he turns his head toward the sea, it isn’t for beauty or peace, it’s for the way the reflection handles him—how the surface holds his face like a secret, edges soft, eyes dark, the sky folding around him like it’s tucking him away, like it’s preparing to bury something without ceremony.

The watch speaks in silence against his pulse, thick leather brushing bone, gold dulled by time and sweat, ticking steady as if to remind him he’s still inside the hour Taeyong never outran, and the key rides hidden in the same place it always does—tucked beside gauze, resin, salt—never reaching the lock but never leaving the bag either, carried like breath, like superstition, like proof of a door that still exists. Grief doesn’t ask for attention anymore, it lives in muscle and scar, in clean form and cleaner footwork, in how he lands his shots with the kind of finality that belongs to legacy, in how he looks past the questions now, not to dismiss but to disarm, voice cut to the shape of ritual, steady and stripped and shaped by years of learning how to say everything without offering anything. Nahyun calls it control, calls it dignity, calls it the strength his father would have admired, but she never felt the cold behind Taeyong’s voice when he issued silence like a sentence, never learned how stillness can scream when it’s taught by someone who held power like a blade.

So Jeno folds everything into movement, places it in the flex of his jaw, the evenness of his breath, the weight he drops into every step like his bones are measuring distance not in steps but in cost, and when he finds himself alone in the late light of windows that reach the floor, he doesn’t look away from the reflection, because it gives nothing, asks nothing, holds the shape of him without judgment, and the city gathers around that image like a crown built from shadow.

He wakes to headlines before the sun reaches the windows, name printed in sharp fonts and sharper praise, called the future before he can rub the sleep from his eyes, voice already hoarse from the weight of questions he hasn’t answered yet, and by the time he’s walking through the terminal—hood low, sleeves cuffed, security flanking him like shadow—there’s already a crowd waiting, already a camera rolling, already a child pushing forward with sneakers in both hands and eyes wide like he’s seeing something holy. They call him king. They call him an icon. They call him inevitable. And he signs his name like he’s pressing a bruise into the fabric, smiles the way he’s been taught to, holds their gaze long enough to be remembered but nothing touches him. Not anymore. 

The higher it climbs, the less it reaches. The air thins. The light glitters too cold. And every win drags something behind it, something heavier than celebration, something shaped like survival. Interviews stack on top of photo shoots, blur into press days, press days bleed into flights, into training, into sideline microphones asking him again and again what fuels him, what inspires him, what he’s chasing now. He tells them discipline. He tells them hunger. He tells them love for the game. He never says revenge. He never says father. You’re the one he never names. The one with ash on your smile and fire beneath your ribs, the one who held out your hand even as he stepped back, who stayed soft long after he’d gone silent. He left you in a breath, without warning, without apology, without giving you a place to set all the love he left burning, and he told himself that distance would erase the shape of you, that silence could starve what memory couldn’t kill. But you stayed. You stayed in the empty stretch between headlines and hotel rooms, in the stillness of locker rooms after the noise fades, in the way his chest pulls tight at every question he dodges, because your name still lives beneath his tongue like a secret bruising him from the inside out. And on the nights when everything else falls quiet—when the fans are gone and the lights are low and his hands won’t stop shaking—he finds you there again, not in forgiveness, not in fantasy, but in the part of him that never stopped asking why he left something that felt like being alive.

Nahyun keeps it all in motion, or at least gives it the illusion—schedules his fittings like they’re sacred, checks his call log before he can, turns down interviews with a smile that lands better than any statement he could’ve made himself. She walks through their apartment like she owns its quiet, adjusts the volume of the speakers without ever asking what he wants to hear, lays out clothes he never remembers choosing, hosts dinners where the wine is imported and the compliments feel rehearsed. Her hand curls into the crook of his arm just before the camera clicks, her laugh lands at the exact pitch that trends best on reels, and when she whispers “you’re the most wanted man in the league” it sounds like she’s reminding herself who she’s standing beside. He nods because it’s easier, lets her kiss land against his cheek with the softness of habit, but his fingers always drift to his chest after—just beneath the collarbone, to the hollow place that never closes, the one her hands never find, no matter how many rooms she fills.

Sometimes after games—after the roar fades, after the jerseys are swapped and the lights go down—he showers without speaking, moves through the water like it’s trying to baptise him into someone untouched by love, someone immune to memory, someone who never once stayed too long inside a goodbye. He wraps the towel around his face and sits there breathing, elbows on knees, head bowed, counting each inhale like it might bring something back that hasn’t had a name in years. And in that dark, inside that silence that wraps around him tighter than anything ever has, he lets the question come. If he stripped it all away—the cameras, the contracts, the kingdom built around his name—would anything remain but yours in the back of his throat, the syllable shaped like mercy, the one thing he never got to keep.

Outside the court, the pace never softens. The days spiral—early lifts in private gyms that smell like metal and intent, meetings held in penthouses where windows outnumber clocks, jet-black SUVs that move like shadows through cities that keep his name in lights. There are stylists waiting with garment bags he never picked, trainers adjusting macros to match analytics he never questioned, agents whispering forecasts like scripture between elevators. His phone doesn’t sleep. His signature moves faster than he does. He lands in one country before the sweat dries from the last, and when he walks into rooms, the air tightens—because even when the game ends, the game keeps playing. Just louder. Just cleaner. Just dressed in suits instead of jerseys.

There’s a building in Seoul’s financial core that rises sharper than zoning should allow, clad in obsidian glass that swallows daylight and brass so polished it throws reflections like weapons. It doesn’t shimmer. It stares. Security rotates every four hours. Every floor requires biometric clearance. The air smells like ozone and contract ink. Inside, the logo for ‘Vantae Group’ curves across a monolithic reception wall—matte black, unlit, unbranded—small enough to whisper, sharp enough to wound, the kind of design that doesn’t ask to be remembered, only obeyed. It began decades ago as a fashion house known for blood-slick runways and silk cut like shrapnel, but it expanded fast, teeth first—into luxury athletics, global media ventures, equity-controlled event syndicates, real estate portfolios spread across seven continents, and a closed-access network of neuro-performance labs buried beneath ex-military vaults in cities that never sleep. It doesn’t sponsor athletes. It engineers them. It doesn’t sell product. It trades futures. And if something moves the culture—Vantae already owns the patent on its breath.

The company began as a split vision between Taeyong Lee and Nahyun’s father—one known for his cold ascent, the other for his immaculate restraint—and now Jeno runs what they built. The partnerships are listed clean across documents, board seats shared, but in every meeting, the weight tips toward blood. He enters the first boardroom of the fiscal year in charcoal wool and shadow, jaw set like a warning, and they don’t stand. They don’t pause. They barely glance up from their numbers, seeing the face, the contract, the league asset, but not the threat. So he lets them. He flips the projections without speaking, listens to their pitch for a new digital rights package while silence gathers like static, letting the room warm itself with assumptions. Then he closes the folder with two fingers and says, “Not worth it.” Nothing more. And for the first time that morning, they stop speaking. By the next quarter, three directors step down, two entire departments restructure, and the company starts breathing through sharper lungs.

He learns quickly. Speaks slower. Lets silence drape across the table like velvet, eyes steady beneath tailored suits that sharpen the way his body already holds power, voice low enough to make people lean in, still enough to make them wonder if he’s waiting or watching. He wears less expression now, just precision—sits longer in rooms where men used to try to measure him, their smiles softening when they realise he won’t flinch. He ends calls with a glance. Fires with a phrase. Stands without needing to raise his voice, and the room folds around his absence like heat leaving silk. Every night ends the same: a cold dinner left untouched, half-read reports scattered in columns across the table, and Taeyong’s old memos sealed beneath glass—lines in red ink that feel more like warning than advice. One of them reads, ‘never trust a man who flatters before he listens,’ and Jeno keeps it folded in his coat pocket, right beside the place his heartbeat slows, pressed flat like a weapon made for silence.

So when an investor leans in over low firelight and a glass of scotch aged older than his father’s mistakes and says, “You’ve got his instinct,” Jeno doesn’t smile. He lifts his glass like agreement was never the point. That night he takes Nahyun to bed with the same hands he uses to close deals—measured, practiced, clean. He touches her like routine, moves through her like breath held too long, keeps his mouth pressed to her shoulder and exhales slow, as if the scent of her might drown out the part of him still listening for another voice. He finishes with his eyes open, his jaw tight, the quiet after feeling sharper than anything that came before. And before sleep thins the air between them, he whispers it—low, deliberate, the way someone says something they need to believe—“I’m nothing like him.” But silence holds memory like a knife under the tongue, and blood moves like handwriting through the body—unseen, unspoken, but always returning to its source.

Jeno’s days stretch like wire, tight and polished, pulled across cities that blur before they settle—training in glass-walled gyms where the mirrors breathe back precision, meetings in penthouses where coffee comes pre-sweetened and silence signs faster than language. His body moves through routine like ritual, protein calculated to the gram, recovery woven into ice, heat, shock, repeat. Security walks a step ahead, stylists wait behind velvet ropes, and agents speak in numbers that sound like legacy. So when a rest day arrives, carved out by publicists and trainers like a favour disguised as strategy, he takes it without question but never without weight. The world doesn’t quiet, it just tilts—less noise, more echo—and the stillness inside those hours doesn’t soothe so much as sharpen, because peace, when it comes, always arrives dressed like surveillance.

The villa stretches across the cliffside like it was poured from sun-bleached marble, every inch designed to keep secrets beneath silence—stone floors smoothed by time, glass walls angled to catch the sea without letting it in. The ocean sits far below, too distant to roar, humming soft like a machine that’s never broken. Inside, the air holds weight—sharp with citrus, brushed with something artificial, the kind of clean that feels curated. Security shifts behind mirrored doors, earpieces glinting once before vanishing. The chef slices into ripe fruit in the open kitchen, blades moving like punctuation. There’s jazz playing in another room, faint and unobtrusive, stitched into the background like a mood board someone forgot to mute. The house belongs to someone who understands appearances, and Jeno lets himself exist inside it like an echo, body submerged to the chest in saltwater blue, earbuds in but quiet, arms loose at his sides like he’s waiting for the weight to pull them deeper. His eyes track the edge of the sea with a stillness that feels like prayer held at knifepoint.

Jeno stands waist-deep in the pool, bare to the sun, shoulders gleaming with a sheen that comes from sweat worn down by ice baths and infrared saunas, from mornings that begin before the city rises, from training so strict even his rest days arrive with caution tape. His chest rises slowly. His spine stays long. There’s a stillness to him that feels uninterruptible—like his body has already calculated how many more breaths it will take before he moves. His abs tighten with each inhale, muscle etched into him by grind, not gift, and his hands float just barely away from his sides like something inside him is bracing for impact. His jaw is clean-shaven, cut sharp enough to draw focus. His arms ripple when he shifts. But nothing about him calls for attention. He’s sculpted to endure. To last. To outlive whatever it is still chasing him.

The water holds him like memory—gliding up to his ribs, curling around his wrists, cool and glass-like, but never forgiving. It mirrors him without distortion. Every ripple is earned. Every stillness earned more. His earbuds sit against his ears, silent. No music. No voice. Only the low static of his own mind, thoughts tight and quick, running in formation like they’re late for something. Headlines. Trades. Contracts. Time zones. Rotations. His trainer says the brain doesn’t rest until the body forgets how to fight but the body never forgets.

His phone buzzes once on the stone lip of the pool, then again, a pulse inside the quiet that doesn’t beg for attention but pulls it anyway, and while most alerts fold into background—business, agents, schedules wrapped in urgency dressed as relevance—this one carries a name that tilts the water. Jaemin. No sound, no shift, but his hand rises clean from the surface, droplets tracking down his forearm as he lifts the phone without hurry, thumb steady even as his pulse stirs, once, then twice, like something inside him already knows the shape of what’s coming. Anyone else, he’d leave on read and reply hours later, but it’s Jaemin so he opens it before the second buzz fades.

The first image arrives soft—Haeun swaddled in cotton blue, lashes feathered against her cheeks like closing curtains, one small fist curled around a plastic spoon with the stubbornness of royalty, and Jeno feels it before he processes it, the way something inside his mouth pulls open, subtle and warm, not a smile exactly but the beginning of one, the kind that lifts slow and lives behind the eyes. His body stills completely, chest loose, gaze locked, and it takes a beat for the shock to settle—the understanding that this is her, that this is real, that after a year of silence and sideways answers, after months of watching Jaemin vanish behind clinical phrases and guarded tones, he’s seeing the thing Jaemin never shared to anyone but him, the secret held so tightly it left no fingerprints, and it’s her, it’s his baby, and she’s everything.

He swipes again and the breath catches lower, deeper—Karina cradling her like it’s instinct, Shotaro caught mid-laugh with his eyes half-closed, Donghyuck blurred beside them with a snack pouch raised like a toast, and the light across their faces softens the air around them, the kind of gold that makes joy feel physical, that makes time slow into honey, and Jeno just looks, thumb resting against the edge of the screen like he’s afraid the image might slip away if he blinks too long. The smile comes again, realer now, a quiet stretch across his face that makes his cheekbones sharpen and his eyes crease slightly at the corners, but it’s the kind that carries ache beneath it, the kind he only wears when something beautiful arrives too late to touch.

The fourth photo opens like a trigger, velvet-wrapped and breathless, and his heart stutters so sharply it sends silence ringing through his ribs, the kind that only follows something you weren’t ready to want. It lands with the precision of fate disguised as accident—your image caught mid-laugh, your hands holding something fragile, and it doesn’t feel like a photo, it feels like a memory resurfacing in full color, sharp with light, brutal with beauty, and aimed straight at the part of him that remembers everything. Your hair is pulled low at the nape, knotted clean like it was meant to be undone slowly, and your shoulders curve bare beneath soft fabric that holds no shine but every kind of gravity. One hand cradles the back of Haeun’s head with a stillness that feels older than instinct, bracelet sagging just enough to show the charms—each one worn, gleaming in dull rhythm, each one the shape of something he remembers memorizing with his fingertips on nights when your breathing steadied him more than sleep. Your mouth is parted mid-laugh, caught in the soft blur between inhale and joy, and it hits him all at once—how alive it looks, how unscripted, how you’re looking at the baby like you’ve known her longer than language, like love is a memory that lived in your chest before it had a name. Haeun reaches up toward your lips, tiny fingers spread, and her touch lands on your mouth like it’s searching for the shape of a sound not yet spoken.

His gaze catches on the bracelet curled against your wrist, its shape so familiar it feels cruel, the way each charm still clings to its chain like no time has passed at all. He sees the book with its welded spine, the wave sealed mid-crest, the fractured heart held together by nothing, and near the clasp—the last charm, the one he pressed into your palm without a word, the one he thought you would have thrown away before the door even closed behind him. He had hoped you burned them, melted every memory down to ash, because the thought of them surviving—of them still touching your skin like a secret held soft—feels like a forgiveness he hasn’t earned, and he stares as the ache builds low and brutal, the kind that settles in the lungs like silence after goodbye.

Jeno doesn’t move, but the world inside him shifts. The water stays level against his ribs, warm from the sun and heavy from stillness, and his hand holding the phone lowers slightly, not in weakness but reverence. Light skips across the pool surface in small trembling arcs, and the horizon drags wider like it’s bracing to hold something bigger than distance. Then the messages arrive, sliding into place with the kind of softness that means something sharper waits beneath. 

Jaemin —  baby girl’s in good hands today, she’s obsessed with her. 

Jaemin — she can’t stop smiling. thought you might want to see it. 

He reads the messages once, then again, each word soft on the surface but sinking like lead, and the phone stays warm in his hand while the pool holds still around his ribs, tension curling beneath his sternum like a name carved into wet cement. His thumb brushes over your face with reverence more than touch, slow and exact, the way someone reaches for something holy not to claim it, but to be forgiven by it. He doesn’t zoom in because you’re already inside him, already threading through the part of his chest that applause never reached, already louder than every moment that tried to replace you. The ache comes without panic, without sharpness—just depth, just truth, just the quiet clarity that some things don’t leave, even when they’re gone. The sun slips lower behind glass, light bending over the surface like it’s bracing for the dark, and somewhere beneath the bone, the voice in his head steadies, quieter now, patient, familiar, shaped exactly like yours.

The screen’s glow reflects faint and ghostly across his chest, fingers resting idle around the slim weight of his phone, thumb unmoving on the glass. His head tilts in that unfocused, far-off way he gets when he’s disappeared into his own head, Jeno sits like a statue in the dusklight—bare thighs stretched out, muscles slack, unreadable. The screen glows against his chest, the only sign he’s even tethered to the moment. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t move, doesn’t notice the way the air changes.

Soft as steam, Nahyun emerges from the hall, her silhouette catching first—a glimpse of bare thigh, the dip of a waist, the shine of black satin brushing against her hips. She moves like something choreographed, like silk unraveling in slow motion, each step intentional, soundless, her bare feet gliding across the polished floor. The robe is black satin, cut short enough to tease the curve of her ass, cinched at the waist by a lazy knot that does nothing to hide the way the fabric clings to her like liquid. With every step, it shifts over her skin, catching the light, slipping up her thigh just enough to hint at what isn’t beneath. Her skin gleams—oiled, luminous, kissed bronze by the sun. Every inch of her is polished, perfected: collarbones carved clean, breasts full and high beneath the robe, nipples visibly hard and proud against the thin fabric. She smells faintly of warm sugar and expensive perfume, the kind that sinks into skin and stays. Her hair is pinned up in a loose twist, glossy and elegant, a few strands falling down her neck with studied imperfection. Her lashes are long, curled high, framing eyes that smolder without trying. 

She’s not just pretty. She’s sculpted—every line of her body a deliberate, obscene kind of perfection. The high arc of her waist, the taut swell of her ass, the soft weight of her breasts pressing against lace like they were made to be unwrapped. Her thighs, toned and smooth, shift with slow, fluid motion as she walks, each step an invitation. She’s the kind of beautiful that makes men ache, makes them stare too long and forget their own names. The kind you want to ruin and worship at the same time. Fucked into form—like someone, maybe more than one, had shaped her with hands and mouths and need. Jeno doesn’t look, not yet, but the air tightens around her anyway, as if even his silence can feel her coming. There’s something coiled beneath all that glow, something sharp beneath the silk. The kind of beauty that makes men follow, even as the ground falls out beneath them. Like a queen in a fairy tale, hand outstretched—apple already bitten. She’s the kind of beautiful that kills slow—like a crown dipped in poison, regal and ruinous, glittering just enough to make you lean in before it slips the knife. 

She stops beside him, leans one hip against the railing, head tilted just enough to let her hair fall slightly, as if offering her throat. Her body is lithe, legs long and toned, and there’s a kind of practiced casualness to the way she stands there, a predator in lingerie. She sighs, not loud—just enough to be heard, just enough to announce her presence. Her fingers find the knot at her waist and slowly, like she’s unwrapping a gift, she pulls.

The robe slides open with a whisper.

It slips down her arms, gliding over her shoulders and falling to the floor in a puddle of silk, forgotten. What’s left on her body is more suggestion than clothing: a lace bodysuit, jet-black and nearly transparent, hugging every contour of her with cruel precision. It’s cut high on the hips, making her legs look impossibly long, and the bodice dips low, exposing the curve of her breasts in delicate, floral sheer. A tiny satin bow rests between them like a tease, and the fabric is thin enough to leave nothing to imagination—nipples visible, hardened, the swell of her chest rising with each slow, deliberate breath. Thin straps cling to her shoulders, and at the base, near her thighs, tiny silver clips glint at the crotch, unfastened and waiting. There’s nothing underneath. Just bare skin, warm and flushed, thighs soft and parted slightly in her pose, the lace clinging to the slickness beneath.

“Hi bubba,” she purrs, voice low, syrupy, curling around the air like smoke. She shifts her weight just enough for the lace to stretch tight across her breasts, her hips angling toward him like an invitation. “You gonna keep ignoring your future wife?”

For a moment, something breaks. Jeno glances up. It’s brief, but real. His gaze drifts—slow, deliberate—tracking the slope of her body: the glossy swell of her breasts, the cinched curve of her waist, the open, slick line of her thighs framed in lace. His lips part without meaning to. His jaw shifts, tense for half a second. Beneath his shorts, there’s a twitch—small, quick, a reflex he doesn’t allow to grow. And then it happens. A flicker, so faint it almost passes unnoticed. His eyes narrow just slightly, the corners of his mouth pulling back in the barest twitch. Not a smirk. Not quite a wince. Something instinctive and unfiltered—like a taste gone wrong, like disgust he hasn’t named yet, rising from someplace deep and automatic.

Then, like a shadow slipping off his face, it passes. Whatever flickered in him—want, revulsion, something unnamable—fades beneath the quiet blankness he wears like armor. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look at her again. Instead, he moves with eerie calm, the kind that feels deliberate, cruel in its precision. His hand lowers, placing the phone down on the stone lip of the pool beside him, screen up, still glowing. The image doesn’t fade. It bathes him in pale light, steady and unwavering. Behind him, Nahyun stands—bare-skinned, lace-clad, every inch of her honed to seduce. Her voice still hangs in the air, velvet-sweet, sticky with suggestion. Her body is flawless, posed, gleaming like temptation. And yet—none of it matters. Because on the screen, in that lit little rectangle of loyalty, it isn’t her he’s been staring at.

It’s you.

He slides his shorts off without urgency, just a shift of his hips and they fall in one slow drag to the deck, gathering limp around his ankles like they were never meant to stay on him in the first place, his cock freed and hanging heavy, half-hard already, thick at the base and flushed at the head, a drop of slick catching the light where it glistens against the curve of his thigh, and he doesn’t look at her, doesn’t move, just leans back with his arms slack at his sides and his eyes unfocused, like this isn’t even about her, like this isn’t about anything at all except the weight between his legs and the sky overhead.

She climbs into his lap with too much sweetness in her voice and not enough control in her hands, one palm splayed across his chest for balance, the other fumbling between them as she wraps her fingers around his cock and lifts her hips, guiding the head through her folds with a practiced sort of urgency, like she’s done this in dreams or mirrors or private rehearsal, and when she sinks down, it’s slow at first, deep and tight and wet, her walls pulling him in inch by inch, her breath catching on every stretch until she’s seated flush in his lap, thighs trembling, cunt full, a soft broken gasp leaving her lips like she’s trying not to moan too loud, trying to keep it controlled and pretty for him.

“There you are,” she breathes like it’s intimate, like it’s meaningful, like it’s earned, and starts to ride him with a rhythm that’s just a little too perfect, all angles and control, the bounce of her ass sharp, measured, glossy with slick where her skin meets his, her knees bracing against him, back arched, her tits dragging lightly across his chest every time she leans forward, and still he doesn’t look at her, his head tipped back, jaw flexed, throat bare to the sky, one hand lazily resting on her waist and the other falling useless beside him, fingers twitching slightly like he’s aware of the motion but doesn’t care to shape it.

She rocks her hips harder, letting out these high, breathy little whines that sound polished and designed, her moans sweet like honey melting in her mouth, and she presses her chest against him again, lips near his ear, sweat slick on her temples as she whispers nothings with the cadence of agenda, her words tangled up with breath and heat and strategy, “We have the shoot at noon, don’t forget, I confirmed with the agency, and the dinner’s at seven sharp, black tie only, we’ll match in velvet, you’ll wear the Saint Laurent I picked in Paris,” her cunt tightening on him as she speaks, as if her body’s trying to make the words mean more than they do.

His cock bounces once inside her, thick and wet where her cunt drags around him, and it pulls a sharper whimper from her lips, her rhythm faltering as the friction builds, her body starting to stutter with effort, but Jeno doesn’t look at her, doesn’t shift beneath her, just leans his head back slowly until it rests against the warm edge of the pool’s stone border, the muscles in his neck flexing slightly as he stares upward, gaze locked somewhere deep in the darkening sky like it’s the only thing worth seeing, like her body means nothing, like this is happening around him rather than to him, his hands rest loose on her waist, barely holding her, just enough to keep her from falling off but not enough to claim or guide or want her, his breathing shallow but steady, the kind that rides the edge of release without ever tipping into meaning.

“Say you want me,” she breathes into his neck, soft and syrupy like a kiss, her voice trembling at the edges but sharpened beneath, sweet the way poison is sweet when you dress it in perfume, her hips grinding in circles now, sloppy and wet, more need than rhythm, her body pressed so tight against his it feels like she’s trying to climb inside, her nails digging crescent marks into his skin as she whispers, “Say it, Jeno—say you need me, say you fucking love me, say you want to come inside me, that you’ll give me everything, just say it — because if you don’t, baby, I might just have to make a scene at that dinner tomorrow, tell everyone your little secret, wouldn’t that be fun—”

His eyes snap open like the temperature changed without warning, like the air thickened and soured in the space between heartbeats, and for one stretched second nothing moves at all. Her hips are still working, her cunt still dripping around him, her breath still caught on that fake sweetness she coats everything in, but his body has gone still beneath hers, breath tight, pulse misfiring, pressure climbing in a way that feels wrong. His cock twitches once too hard and the warning hits behind his ribs, not fear but a reaction, not thought but refusal.

He grabs her hips hard and lifts her off in one motion, clean and unceremonious, her body dragged up and off his cock with a slick, messy sound that leaves her open and twitching, a high gasp spilling from her lips like she wasn’t ready to be emptied so fast. His hands drop away the second she’s off him. His jaw is locked. His knees shift slightly apart. He leans forward and wraps a hand around the base of his cock with a kind of focus that looks like control but feels like severing. He leans forward, jaw clenched, hand closing around the base of his cock with a grip too tight to be for pleasure, wrist working in short, hard pulls, no rhythm, no grace, just motion, just necessity, his thighs tense and still as if bracing against gravity itself, and with each jerk he angles away from her, his body curling slightly inward like the last thing he wants is for any part of this to land where she is.

She’s still breathing hard, still shaking beside him, cunt flexing uselessly around nothing, but he doesn’t look at her. His hand works tight, rough, no rhythm to it, just force and friction and the urgency of not letting it happen inside. They’ve used protection before, she’s on the pill but he’s never finished inside her, not once, not even by accident. He doesn’t care how many precautions she stacks up, the idea of her with even a trace of him inside, even for a second, makes his stomach turn. His grip tightens like muscle memory, like recoil, every motion small and controlled, the angle of his wrist turned sharp to keep the spill contained, his hips held still, thighs braced, not a single part of him tipping toward her, like his body knows without needing to be told that nothing from him belongs in her.

He comes in a breath that barely breaks the silence, shallow and sharp through his nose like pressure releasing from something sealed too tight, his stomach tightening beneath his own hand as thick streaks of heat spill across his skin, landing high on his abs, lower on his chest, nowhere near her. His cock jerks with each slow pulse, flushed and wet, twitching against his stomach while his fingers stay locked around the base a moment longer than they need to, like part of him doesn’t trust it to stop. He stays there with his head slightly bowed, jaw tight, shoulders drawn in like the tension inside him broke without easing. When it’s done, when the twitching fades and the grip releases, he lets his hand fall to the side, fingers sticky, thighs loosening under her but not inviting, his body starting to come down but his eyes never lifting from the surface of the pool, still rippling from the movement earlier, glowing faint blue under the lights like something colder than the heat between them.

She watches him for a moment, her breath still uneven, chest rising fast then slower, cunt still flexing around absence. Her thighs tremble where they straddle his, wet and aching, and her hands hover at her sides like she doesn’t know whether to touch him, hit him or curl into herself. Then she laughs, a small, disbelieving sound under her breath like she’s been slapped with something invisible. “What the fuck was that?” she asks, voice thin and fraying around the edges like fabric stretched too far. 

He just shrugs, low and uninterested, “What it needed to be.” 

“You didn’t even look at me.” Her voice is low, almost quiet, but it carries that sharp edge she doesn’t bother to hide anymore, the one that rises when sweetness fails. “You can’t even come inside me. You can’t even pretend to want to.” She says it like a joke, like it’s funny, like she’s still in control, but her mouth shakes slightly at the corners and her knees shift on either side of his, like she’s trying to stay on top even when the high is gone. “I’m not asking for much, Jeno. I’m right here. I let you—” her voice breaks off, just slightly, and she swallows, then reaches for his shoulder like it’ll ground her, like touch might make it true again. “It’s not a crime to give a fuck.”

She opens her mouth to scream, to sob, to demand answers, some flicker of validation, and then her eyes on land on the stone lip of the pool beside them, his screen still unlocked, still glowing, still untouched since before he even looked at her, and the image displayed is not her, not even close, but a photo of you, soft and unfiltered, caught mid-laugh, hair falling out of place, smiling at something behind the camera, and his thumb print rests just near the edge of the screen like maybe he had been scrolling through you the entire time. 

Her chest caves in, her lungs forget how to move, her hands curl into fists on either side of her bare thighs and she swallows once, twice, bile thick in her throat as she whispers, “What is that?” Her breath catches sharp and wrong in her throat, like something hooked itself behind her ribs and pulled, and she forgets how to inhale, forgets where her body is supposed to move, the air stalled between her collarbones and her spine as her gaze locks on the screen. She doesn’t want to see him look but she can’t stop tracking the slow tilt of his head, the turn of his face toward the phone beside him, she sees it, sees the moment something changes behind his eyes, sees how the muscles in his jaw still, how his mouth slackens just slightly, how his whole face seems to ease in the smallest, most dangerous way. 

There’s something in his face she’s never him give to her before, something unguarded, drawn toward the screen like gravity lives there now. It’s attention, pulled clean and direct, his eyes soft at the edges, lips parted just slightly, the kind of stillness that only comes with wanting. The way he looks at the photo isn’t passive. It holds him. His whole body quiets under it. There’s a flush at his throat, a softness around his mouth, and for one suspended second she sees what it looks like when he’s drawn to someone — not just physically, not just out of need, but want, deliberate, low and sure. He doesn't look like that with her. Not when she moans against his neck, when her body wraps around his, not when she rocks herself raw just to pull sound out of him. She does everything, she gives everything but he never looks like this.

Her lungs stay locked for too long and when they finally open it’s fast, shallow and uneven, a ragged inhale like a gasp she doesn’t want anyone to hear, and her hands curl into fists on either side of her bare thighs, nails sinking deep into skin that doesn’t even register, her whole body buzzing with something too sharp to be just breathless. Her vision tilts at the edges. The lights smear. Her knees press tighter and her pulse races so loud she can’t tell if it’s inside her skull or under her skin, and when she blinks she can’t stop blinking, can’t stop swallowing, her mouth dry and sour as she stares at his face. He’s still looking at it. He hasn’t looked away. He’s staring at the photo of you — your smile out of frame, your body lit soft and clean, a moment he wasn’t even in but somehow lives in his head anyway — and it’s not the image that breaks her. It’s the expression on his face. Gentle. Present. Like something inside him is actually there.

She breathes in, shallow and sharp, like she’s about to speak, then doesn’t, her lips stay parted just long enough to tremble. Her eyes flick from his face to the phone again, then back, like she’s still hoping he’ll look away from it first but he doesn’t. That stillness is still in him. That softness. Her mouth curves. It’s not a smile. “Wow,” she says lightly, voice stretched into something breathy and almost amused, like it’s just gossip, just banter. “So she got herself knocked up, huh? Is that what this is?” A quick laugh slips out of her, dry and mean, like she’s entertained. “Who’s the father? Are you guys picking names yet or do we need to line up a few paternity tests?”

His gaze stays on the water, steady, unflinching, breath pulled slowly through his nose as if each inhale chooses patience over instinct. The muscle in his jaw flexes once. Heat settles beneath his skin, clean and silent, and his mouth tilts just slightly, something like a smile but shaped with contempt. He gets used to tuning her out, used to the sugar-laced venom, the way her words always reach for something they can’t touch. 

She leans in slightly as she says it, eyes glittering, voice sweet as sugar syrup. “I mean, come on, it’s not like she’s known for keeping her legs shut.”

His eyes stay on the water, steady, detached, the kind of stillness that says everything without shifting an inch. The glow from the pool cuts along his jaw, calm at the surface but carved clean underneath. Her voice scrapes at the air, bitter and thin, but he lets it roll past like wind he has already walked through. His fingers press once against the ledge, measured, his posture all silence and tension. Then he speaks, low and smooth, the kind of voice that holds weight no matter how soft it sounds. “Nahyun.” His tone barely shifts. “Just stop talking.”

Her pout deepens like she’s been wounded, like his voice bruised her pride more than any shove ever could, and she leans in again, lashes fluttering, hips brushing close to his. “Why?” She whispers, fingers curling over his wrist like sweetness might pry an answer out. “Why are you being like this?”

He waits just long enough for her to think he might not answer at all, then lets out the flattest, driest, most unbothered exhale of breath. “Because I have a headache.” The words land with no inflection, no smile, just cool finality, like she’s the migraine.

Her lips push forward in a pout, soft and automatic, like habit, like she can still play the game. “But I was joking,” she murmurs, blinking slowly, head tilted just enough to pass for sweet. “I didn’t mean it like that. You know how I get when I’m nervous.”

“Nahyun.” The pause holds. “Just stop before I decide I’m done being polite.”

Her mouth pulls into a pout, glossy and trembling, like the words tasted worse coming out than they sounded, and she shifts forward on her knees, hands crawling over the stone ledge and then to his thighs, slow and deliberate, her voice curling into something soft. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, head tilted, lashes lowered, already climbing into his lap like gravity called her there. Her knees slide open around his hips, satin skin brushing his as she settles down, body warm and pliant, all sweetness now. She presses her chest to his, her fingers sliding up his arms, across his shoulders, into his hair like she’s smoothing the moment away, and she leans in with a kiss that lands just below his jaw, hot and lingering, her lips trailing lower as she murmurs again, “I didn’t mean it, baby, you know I didn’t.” Her hips roll once, light, teasing, breath catching as she drags herself against him with slow, syrupy pressure, hands everywhere now — his stomach, his sides, his chest — like if she touches him enough he’ll forget the sound of her voice a minute ago, like she can pull the apology out of his skin instead of his mouth.

The silence stretches long enough to sting, long enough for her to shift on his lap, thighs pressing tighter around his hips, her hands curling around his jaw like she can coax a reaction out of stone. His face stays still. His breath doesn’t change. His eyes never leave the water. She swallows once, then twice, then lets her voice drop low, curious and sweet like she’s asking out of interest, not need. “Who’s the baby then?”

The question hangs, soft but pointed, and for a beat he considers keeping it closed but then he remembers Jaemin’s voice, calm as ever, from that last conversation they had: “I’m not keeping her quiet anymore. When she was born, I needed space, time to get things right, but that chapter is over now. We’re ready, she’s ready, her health is finally stabilising, I want her to live a normal life. Plus, people are going to start asking questions, so I’d rather show her to the world the way she deserves, on my terms. She needs to feel that love from the people I trust, the ones who matter.” So Jeno nods once, like it’s an answer to himself before it’s one for her, and when he speaks, his tone stays level. “Jaemin’s daughter.”

Nahyun scoffs, short and sharp, like the words offended her by existing. “Since when does Jaemin have a daughter?”

His eyes don’t shift. “Nearly one year.”

She pulls back slightly, enough to blink at him, enough for her hands to slip from his face to his shoulders like she’s trying to recenter. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jeno’s gaze stays fixed, steady on the water, his voice low and even like the words have been sitting inside him for a while. “Because it was never yours to know. Jaemin didn’t tell anyone, not just you, so don’t take it so personally and don’t make it about yourself. He disappeared before she was born, no texts, no updates, nothing, he had completely vanished. I couldn't even reach him, and I tried every day. It didn’t start with Haeun, it started months before her. He needed out, it’s a blessing she came when she did because she saved him.”

His fingers press once into the stone ledge, slow and deliberate. “She’s had a rough first year and so has he. He needed privacy, not to hide her, but to focus, fully, on giving her a life she could hold onto. No noise, no pressure, no cameras or crowds. Just him and her, that’s what he chose and the only reason I found them is because I wouldn’t let go. I kept on looking until I found him, and when I did, I found a baby girl with a heart so fragile it scared me just to be near her. He didn’t stay quiet to shut the world out. He did it so he could give her the world first.”

She tilts her head like someone hearing bad news they already know won’t touch them, her lips parting into a small pout, eyes softening just enough to fake depth, trying to work out where in that story she’s supposed to care. One manicured hand lifts to her collarbone, fingers brushing lightly over skin like she’s reacting with emotion, but her breath stays even, her voice low and flat in the wrong way. “That’s… really sad,” she says, slow and delicate, like she’s reading from a card. Her gaze flicks to his chest, not his face, then away just as fast, already shifting her weight like the moment’s passed. “Must’ve been hard, I guess.” She doesn’t ask about the baby, ask how she’s doing, if she’s strong now, if her heart’s holding up. There’s no follow-up. No care. Only silence filling the beat before she steps right past it.

Her tone lifts before her face does, brighter now, lighter, already somewhere else. “Anyway,” she breathes, tucking hair behind her ear, “we really do need to talk to someone about the schedule—everything’s back to back next month and no one’s factored in Jaemin finally being back. We’ve got the Saint Laurent dinner, and Paris fashion week’s opening night, and I got the official invite for the Venice premiere. You know, the one where they’re expecting full couture and editorial coverage—” her eyes flick to his again, suddenly excited, mouth glossy and half-smiling, “it’s going to be so good for us. Press, photos, all of it.” Her hand lands softly on his leg, like she just remembered to be sweet. “We just need to stay ahead of it, right?”

Jeno exhales slowly, long and quiet, the kind of sigh that comes from somewhere low in the body, where patience used to live. He pushes himself up from the ledge without a word, water slipping from his skin in clean streams, his body bare under the low pool lights, tension rolling through his shoulders as he steps out with deliberate stillness. He doesn’t look back or reach for a towel. He walks naked and silently back into the house.

Behind him, Nahyun scrambles to her feet, nearly slipping on the wet stone as she grabs for her robe, her voice fluttering after him like tissue caught in wind. “Wait—Jeno, wait—I didn’t mean it like that, babe, I’m just saying—it’s just hard on everyone, that’s all—wait for me—” Her steps are quick, almost clumsy, legs too long for the panic in her voice, her movements all gloss and no gravity, like a doll trying to chase a man who already left.

The suite is dim when he steps through, the light from the pool still flickering faint on the glass walls, casting ripples across the white stone. The bathroom glows gold behind frosted glass, the shower already running, steam bleeding out across the floor like breath. He walks in without a glance back, stepping beneath the spray, the heat dragging over his body in heavy streaks as water pools at his feet and runs down the clean lines of his back. His hands press flat to the tile, eyes closed, water darkening his hair, breath even. He stands there in stillness as the steam builds and then she enters like she always does. Quiet but aching to be noticed, robe whispering to the floor, her silhouette soft in the light as she steps inside and slides her arms around him from behind, the press of her breasts slick against his spine, her hands curling around his waist. She tilts her head into him, lips brushing the curve where neck meets shoulder, voice syrupy against wet skin, something like apology threaded into sweetness as her fingers move down, over his stomach, around his hips. 

He turns without resistance, catches her face in his hand, and kisses her like it’s not forgiveness, not affection — just muscle memory, clean and closed. His mouth drags hers open with heat and breath, no rush, no hunger, just pressure. She moans into it, soft, grateful, nails pressing into his back as she lifts herself higher, thighs wrapping around him before she even realizes how ready she is. He lifts her by instinct, her back pressed hard to the tile, one hand under her thigh, the other gripping her jaw as he pushes into her in a single slow thrust. She gasps — breath breaking, head tilting back — and the sound echoes across the glass like a ripple. His rhythm is relentless but calm, each movement deliberate, his eyes locked on her face like he’s watching a performance he already knows the ending to. She wraps tighter around him, arms shaking, voice faltering in praise, but he doesn’t answer, just keeps fucking her with the kind of control that feels surgical, her pleasure nothing more than a rhythm to hold.

When it’s over her cheek rests against his shoulder, lips parted, legs still trembling around him as the water runs down her back and his breath evens out again, his hands slow now, sliding over her hips, through her hair, resting for a second at the base of her neck before he speaks. “Tomorrow’s important.” He says it like a fact, tone nonchalant but filled with warning. 

Her breath catches, her lashes fluttering once as her eyes lower, and her voice comes out soft, trying to stay sweet. “I know,” she murmurs, almost too quietly, like she hopes softness can rewrite what she knows is coming. “I’ll be perfect.” 

His fingers move again, this time curling lightly under her jaw, tipping her face up just enough for their eyes to meet as steam coats the mirrors and his voice drops.“You better.” His tone doesn’t rise. His eyes don’t flicker. “You ruin that night and I’ll leave you standing in it.”

The Legacy Court Complex emerges from the cliffside with the weight of something sacred, every line carved into the Alpine stone like it was meant to exist before blueprints were ever drawn. From above, the structure appears as a dark cut through the white, glass catching sky at a sharp angle, obsidian stone drawing a boundary against the mountain, geometry so exact it feels like it was discovered rather than constructed. Helicopters move in coordinated intervals across the air, their descent slow and deliberate, rotors sweeping the snow into soft spirals that drift upward before dissolving. The landing terrace stretches wide and bare, the stone beneath polished to reflect more shadow than light, and each arrival plays out with choreographed restraint. Doors open with soundless precision. Figures step out one at a time, each one wrapped in wool and cashmere, coats belted high, gloves fitted close, platinum invitations held with fingers that have never fumbled. No lines form, no voices rise. The complex receives them like it remembers them.

Past the court’s edge, a corridor curves inward toward the archival wing, a long, dim hall lined in frames that climb the stone wall from knee to crown, each one inset with anti-reflective glass and museum-grade lighting. The first few hold black-and-white legends, their jerseys stiff with era, their expressions quiet and proud. The next shift into color, into sharper footage, into limbs extended mid-air, sweat glinting, teeth bared, motion frozen just before impact. One by one, they move forward in time, names that reshaped eras, arms that built empires, faces that lived across generations of screens. Jordan. Bryant. Garnett. Duncan. Curry. Every photograph in the hallway is dated and placed, each one selected from the moment that changed a season. The gallery reads like scripture. Each frame is a page, each face anointed.

At the very end, mounted beneath a new arc of white light, a final portrait waits. Jeno. Caught in the apex of a jump, mid-air, ball still lifting from his palm, breath visible in the cold above the court. His name is etched below in clean type, no embellishment, just fact. The plaque reads ‘Lee Jeno, Europa Trust Legacy Award, 2025.’ The wall has carried decades of greatness, but now it carries him. He stands before it without moving and his body stills, his suit doesn’t crease. The glass holds both, the image framed in stillness and the figure standing before it, their outlines nearly seamless, one suspended in motion, the other shaped by everything that followed. The light wraps them together in a soft gleam, reflection and portrait fused at the edge, twin echoes drawn from the same silence. The shutter clicks once, crisp and far away, but he remains exactly where he is. The moment folds into him like a thread pulled tight across the chest, something invisible, something ancient, something worn like iron beneath his skin. 

At the end, the space opens with scale, the kind that holds its own silence, stretching into height with a stillness that feels earned rather than offered. The court reveals itself beneath the mountain like a preserved relic, a chamber shaped by reverence, each surface curated with the same care reserved for cathedrals and museums. The parquet floor gleams in long uninterrupted panels, hand-laid in a pattern that mirrors the golden ratio of the original Boston Garden, each plank sealed in lacquer so clear it reflects outlines before it reflects movement. The room’s proportions trace the legacy of the Chicago Palace, rebuilt by three award-winning architects whose lines bend like memory and precision combined, their names cast discreetly into the foundation beneath the marble edge. Above, the ceiling stretches into a vast inverted dome, structured in netted crystal, a constellation of shot arcs, rebounds, and suspended form, each piece hand-cut and strung in mathematical rhythm, refracting light across the court like breath caught mid-air. The shimmer moves without rush, soft and full of tension, casting gold across wood in long ripples. The temperature sits in perfect calibration, tuned for tailored wool and sculpted skin, designed to preserve elegance rather than react to it. 

Along the perimeter, recessed lounges line the curve of the room, each one carved deep and upholstered in velvet the color of dried wine. The seats are spaced in clean, private symmetry, enclosed in gold trim and glass panels so subtle they fade into the architecture. Each one is marked discreetly, house crests, insignias, founding dates pressed into the corner in shadowed embossing. Guests step into their spaces like they are returning to them. Foundation directors, captains of defunct dynasties, firstborns and financiers all dressed in iterations of inheritance, monochrome suits cut like armor, evening dresses folded like sculpture. Each body holds its place with quiet precision, no slouch in spine, no flicker of distraction, only posture shaped by bloodline and silence carried like inheritance.

Jeno and Nahyun’s hands link with the kind of ease that’s been rehearsed, his fingers resting just behind hers, barely curled, skin against skin in a way that reads intimate from a distance but carries no anchor beneath it. Nahyun moves beside him in a dress the color of moonlit glass, cut to drape off one shoulder and slit high enough to part around each step like fabric made to chase camera flashes; her lips are lacquered, lashes curled wide, collarbone gleaming with something deliberately expensive. Jeno wears black, sharp and matte, collar firm, cufflinks discreet, the suit fit so exact it carries silence in the seams, and together they move through the gallery floor with the kind of slow authority reserved for people who no longer need introductions. Hands reach to greet them, nods tilt in their direction—veterans with weight in their names, men who once carved empires out of courtlines, suits that speak in legacies and trade history—Jeno meets each one with a nod so slight it borders on stillness, says nothing but lets his presence fold into theirs like he’s already surpassed the story they expected of him.

Music stirs above them, unannounced and unhurried, a quartet tucked behind a carved archway playing from shadow, the sound uncoiling with reverence rather than rhythm. It’s an anthem he knows—everyone does—but the tempo has been hollowed out, each note slowed to the breath between memory and echo, the melody rising soft like a eulogy hummed into glass, and as the first few measures melt into the room like polished stone, his spine pulls straighter, shoulders still. The projector comes alive without warning. No frame. No sound cue. Just a flicker on the far wall, a pulse of white light softening into motion, and before he even registers what he’s seeing, his grip on Nahyun’s hand releases.

His father.

Taeyong in flight. Taeyong in stillness. Taeyong mid-rotation, the ball leaving his fingers with the kind of precision that lives beyond physics, the arc clean, the form holy, sweat glinting at the base of his throat like it belongs there. There’s no commentary, no title card, just moment after moment stitched together from different years, different jerseys, different lighting, from his prime, all of them folding into each other like time never broke. Jeno doesn’t move. His chest expands once, slow and shallow, like surf dragging against the pull of tide, and he stays there suspended, breath caught high in his throat, gaze locked to the wall like it might split open and pour the past out in salt. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t shift, doesn’t speak—just stands with his mouth slightly parted, as if the shape of a name has risen behind his teeth but lost the sound to carry it, and when the voice comes, low and deliberate and cut from the same steel that once ruled the court, it doesn’t arrive like memory, it arrives like undertow. The room doesn’t fall quiet because quiet was already woven into its bones—it just holds still, like a wave stilled mid-rise, and in that moment he becomes part of it, breathless and bracing, spine upright against a current that only he can feel.

Jeno’s hand closes around Nahyun’s without looking, palm firm, grip tighter than it needs to be, and he leads her forward in silence, their steps echoing against polished stone as the projection fades back into the wall. The corridor opens in two clean angles, revealing the inner hall where the award will be given, the ceiling climbing higher, the air rich with the scent of cedar oil and ironed wool, the lights dimmed to dusk tones along the walls. The carpet underfoot runs deep and smooth, the kind that muffles heels and softens each step until it feels like walking through breath, and as they move through the threshold, the space stretches around them, rows of velvet seats dipped into the floor like theatre stalls, each pair centered with a candlelit table holding a single engraved program and two flutes of still champagne. Brass rails gleam at the edge of each tier, the floor subtly lit from beneath so the architecture glows without ever showing the source.

They are led toward the center row, front and exact, the seats placed directly across from the stage, a low platform set in ivory stone, the backdrop smooth and curved like the inside of a chapel, its surface empty but radiant, prepared to carry whatever name is about to be spoken. Nahyun lowers herself with a flick of her train, crossing her legs elegantly, the hem of her blue dress catching the gold footlight beneath the row. Her hand stays on his knee. Her perfume opens soft in the warmth. She leans toward him with a smile that touches only her mouth, whispering something that sounds rehearsed, “This is the moment, baby. You look like power.” Her nails tap lightly on the program as she glances around the hall, eyes tracing the coats, the house names, the cameras hidden like sculpture in the corners. Jeno doesn’t respond. He sinks into the seat with both feet planted, spine upright, his hands pressed to his thighs as he watches the empty stage. His father’s face is still printed behind his eyelids, etched into the air above the projection wall, not from the footage but from something older, something caught in the way his name was spoken, like stone cracking under its own weight. The speech lives behind his ribs, already memorized but constantly shifting, rewritten in the language of silence, of obligation, of everything he has trained himself to carry. 

A single spotlight lands on the stage, slicing the hush with warmth, and the host steps into view, a former franchise star in deep navy velvet, his medals worn as accessories, his smile tuned to elegance. The mic waits for him like a cue. He speaks slowly, practiced, with gravity that flatters without imposing. “Good evening, distinguished families, honored guests, and keepers of the court. We gather tonight at the Legacy Complex not only to reflect, but to consecrate. “This award,” he lifts the plaque, silver set in white, gleaming under the light, “is more than a title. It is testament, to weight carried across seasons, to form held under fire, to discipline measured not by restraint but by how long it endures. The Europa Trust Legacy Award is granted only when legacy surpasses lineage, when performance turns myth, when consistency becomes history. Tonight it is awarded to an athlete whose name echoes across continents, stitched into languages that speak sport like scripture, whose record now stands unmatched, eighty-two consecutive starts without injury, highest point efficiency under pressure in the league’s modern era, three back-to-back franchise pivots with no loss in form. His balance redefined movement, his silence redefined presence, and his ascent was not a rise but a return to the place that always waited for him.” He looks up and his eyes find Jeno’s. “And so, without delay I’m honoured to present this award to Lee Jeno, this is your court.”

Applause rises like a tide pulled by moonlight, smooth at first, then swelling into something full and rhythmic, hands clapping in measured succession, camera shutters joining like quiet percussion beneath it. The lights above sweep slowly across the audience, picking up the gleam of velvet shoulders and champagne flutes, while the stage remains still, held in that suspended breath just after the name is spoken. Jeno doesn’t move, he remains seated in the center row, jaw tight, eyes fixed where the projection had once flickered, his face half-shadowed and perfectly framed by the overhead live feed, his image now cast large against the back wall, composed, breath shallow, mouth parted as if something unsaid still lingers between his teeth. His father’s voice echoes nowhere now, but Jeno still hears the cadence, still sees the arc of that shot frozen in time, still feels it hover just behind the eyes.

A warm hand presses against his shoulder, fingers firm, familiar, his manager, leaning in just close enough to speak low without a microphone. “Go on.” The words come like a click in the mechanism, a quiet shift that resets his spine. Jeno blinks once, eyes sharpening like glass under pressure, and rises in a single motion, legs straight, suit folding clean at the knee, collar sitting crisp against the cut of his jaw. Nahyun turns toward him with her smile already in place, mouth glossy, lashes dipped, and presses a kiss just below his ear, a whisper tethered to it that doesn’t quite reach his expression, “you’ve got this, baby.” The cameras catch the moment exactly how she wanted. His hand moves out of hers before the second frame. He steps into the aisle with the grace of something rehearsed in private, steps cut to soundless rhythm, the floor beneath him reflecting his movement like water catching shadow.

Jeno stands at the podium with his jaw set, his hands resting flat on either side like he knows exactly how much pressure to apply, his body cut into silhouette by the angle of the overhead lights, posture tuned, shoulders broad, collar perfect. The hall leans into the silence that follows, a silence he owns, and when he speaks, the voice that emerges carries no urgency, only gravity, a quiet command that tightens the room without force. “I spent the last twenty seven years choosing this,” he says, no rush in the words, only shape. “Choosing the pain, the loss, the repetition. Choosing to wake before light, choosing to lose before I learned how to win. Every movement cost something, blood when the cut didn’t stop bleeding, sweat when the court kept burning, and tears when no one else stayed to see it.” His voice stays even, but it holds. “None of it was chance. This is what it looks like when a body survives the pressure it chose for itself.”

He lets the pause stretch, lets the breath fill the space, then lifts his eyes just slightly, locking on no one and everyone at once. “I’m here because of who stood next to me. Because of the names I carried and the ones that carried me.” His tone shifts, quieter but firmer, his right hand sliding once over the edge of the podium before falling still again. “I want to thank my brother, Mark Lee. Playing basketball with you in our raven days changed my life.” His voice stays low, shaped by memory more than emotion. “Those courts built the way I move and you were part of every rep that made me sharper.”

Another breath, pulled clean. “My mother. Seulgi. Who gave everything before I understood what sacrifice looked like. She held the roof over me and told me I could build my own. She is the reason I know how to stand still and still be strong.” The crowd holds still with him, the air charged, shaped around his cadence. “Jaemin. My best friend. My mirror. My proof that love and loyalty don’t have to shout to be real.” 

His gaze slips sideways, drawn to her through instinct more than intention, and for a breath that stretches too long to be casual, he just looks, Nahyun bathed in the low shimmer of the stage lights, her body coiled into a perfect seated shape, back straight, gown clinging like liquid foil, lips parted in a smile already timed for the flash. Her eyes catch his like they’ve been waiting, rehearsed, ready. There’s a softness she summons — glossy, practiced — the same one she’s used in interviews, the same one she wore the first time she slid a hand across his jaw and said ‘we’re unstoppable.’ He watches her long enough for the room to expect something. His manager probably would like it, even. A nod, a name, an acknowledgment to his fiance, a gesture that paints the right headline and for a second, he imagines doing it. Giving her the last slot. Letting her name carry the aftertaste of legacy.

But then the light behind his eyes sharpens, the projector still playing somewhere in the back of his skull, Taeyong’s frame frozen mid-jump, arm extended in that impossible line, mouth slack, eyes already beyond the arc. The silence of that image pulls tight around his spine, wraps itself across the base of his ribs like a weight remembered too late to drop. His father’s voice floats up again — not proud, not warm, just cut clean — and the echo feels like iron in the mouth. It reminds him of what matters. Of who bled for this moment. Of what should be spoken and what should be left to silence. So he looks back at the crowd, jaw tight, throat dry, and lets the tension stretch out one second longer before he closes his hand gently around the edge of the podium and says it, calm and exact. “That’s all.”

Nahyun claps before he finishes the sentence, her hands crashing together with too much force, too much rhythm, too much everything — the sound sharp, uneven, her nails catching against her rings like she needs to hear something louder than what he didn’t say. Her smile stretches too wide, teeth flashing under the lights, lips trembling from the strain of holding it in place, and her eyes lock on him with a shine that could pass for pride if it weren’t brimming with demand. She leans forward in her seat like she’s about to rise, chest high, shoulders squared, mouth already parted as if she thinks there’s still a chance he might look back, might double back, might say her name late like a plot twist written just for her, and when he doesn’t, when the stage swallows him in motion and silence, her expression flickers — not into sadness, but disbelief, like the world’s cut her from the scene by mistake.

Her fingers tighten around her clutch until the beading imprints into her palm, the silver catching in the stage lights like broken glass, and she shifts her weight as if moving might change what just happened, as if posture can rewrite omission. Her gown spills like liquid mercury across the seat and floor, perfect in every angle but heavy now, as if even the fabric is punishing her for waiting. She claps again, softer this time, mechanical, like she can’t remember how to stop, her face fixed in something breathless and brittle. Jeno never looks her way. He descends from the stage with the award in hand, eyes focused forward, footsteps unhurried, and holds the plaque like he’s forgotten it was meant to be precious, like it weighs exactly what she no longer does.

The applause has dissolved into conversations pitched just above candlelight, the sound of glass stems tapping against gold-plated rims, and Nahyun moves through it like she’s been choreographed, one hand still looped around Jeno’s arm, the other smoothing the edge of her dress with a touch too performative to pass as absentminded. Her heels click faster now, rhythm slightly off from the music in the room, posture taller than usual like she’s compensating for something unseen, and when she pulls him toward a man in navy velvet with a Legacy Sport pin at his collar, she interrupts mid-sentence with a smile like a mirror turned too bright. “We’ve been thinking about a spring ceremony,” she says, nails brushing the inside of Jeno’s wrist as she speaks, her voice styled to sound soft but slip into the space like perfume. “Seoul always photographs best in April.” The man glances at her, then at Jeno, then somewhere else entirely as he changes the subject without blinking, and her smile doesn’t fall but it tightens, like silk stretched across glass.

By the second round of drinks she’s speaking in wedding syntax, weaving it into conversations that had nothing to do with her, turning small talk into strategy as she gestures just wide enough to catch the downlight against her ring. “He helped design it, you know, I said no diamonds at first, but he wanted something timeless,” she tells a woman whose badge says investor but whose earrings say old money, her fingers grazing the rim of her wineglass, each swirl of her hand angled to flash the stone. “I’m still getting used to the weight,” she adds, louder, as someone walks past behind her, and when no one responds, she sips without breaking eye contact. Every question she asks is baited — “Would you choose lace or silk for a winter ceremony?” “Do you think candlelight photographs better than uplighting?” — and each time, her smile holds until it bruises. A photographer passes and she shifts toward the lens like her body already knows how to find the light, like there’s no difference between being in love and being in frame.

Jeno stays beside her, but his stillness grows louder with every minute, the shape of his silence sharper than any disagreement could be, and when people speak to them both, his answers cut diagonally through hers like wires misaligned. “That’s more her vision than mine.” “We’re figuring it out.” “It’s a process.” His mouth moves but his eyes stay elsewhere, and when someone jokes about punctuality — “Don’t be late to your own wedding, Lee” — he smiles with his teeth but not his mouth, the kind of expression that doesn’t sit well on camera. Nahyun laughs too hard, touches his cheek like she’s turning him toward the spotlight, but he moves just enough for her to feel it, the recoil subtle, precise, real.

She guides him toward the media wall after that, arm still wrapped around his, and the flash goes off the moment he steps away to adjust his cuff, catching him mid-turn, his jaw in profile, expression unreadable, alone. The image hits feeds within hours, clean, striking, untouched by context. while the second photo, the one where she’s laughing at something he’s already turned away from, circulates with captions that sting in their simplicity. One says, She thinks this is still about her. Another: When the ring is the only thing in focus. By the end of the night, she’s heard enough to know what people are saying without needing to ask. A woman near the exit murmurs, “She’s trying to marry a legacy.” A man nearby says, “That’s not a couple. That’s a costume.” And a gossip blog posts a candid of her reaching for his hand mid-step while he’s already walking forward, the headline clean and cruel, ‘you can’t hold onto someone who already let go.’

She finds him near the marble hallway behind the main floor, where the air is cooler and the lighting falls in gold streaks along the walls, and she pulls him by the wrist like it’s an emergency masked as affection, her voice still sugar but thick at the edges. “You didn’t tell anyone about the date, or the venue, or the ring.” Her eyes shine with the kind of disbelief that doesn’t understand how to die quietly. “You didn’t say my name.”

He doesn’t speak right away, just breathes slowly, eyes low, jaw tight from holding in something that never needed to be said until now, and when it comes, it’s flat, no edge, no effort. “Because we haven’t even planned the wedding.” His voice stays steady, each word measured like it’s been waiting in his chest. “And they didn’t ask.”

Her breath stutters, lashes batting hard, mouth parting like the sentence wounded her, not just hurt but humiliated, and her voice rises too quickly to sound stable. “That’s not true.” It spills before she means it to. “You said you wanted something small, you said you didn’t care about the venue, that it could be anywhere, as long as I was there. You said that. So now what — now it’s not real just because we didn’t put it on a fucking Pinterest board?” Her hand tightens against his jaw, nails digging slightly into his skin like pressure will make the moment true, and her face twists with that bright-sharp pain she always wears when she’s cornered, glossy eyes, trembling lips, performance made from panic. “I’ve worn this ring every single day like it means something. I’ve changed my name in my notes app. I’ve had conversations with people about what to call me after we’re married. Do you even see me anymore, or do you want me to be someone else?”

He exhales once, slow, the weight of her emotion sliding over him like water on stone, and his voice comes lower, steady, shaped to anchor her without offering anything more than the bare minimum. “I see you. You’re here. This is happening.” His thumb brushes over her wrist as if that could pass for tenderness, and he leans in, closes the space between them with a kiss, not cold, not empty, but not pulled from heat either. It’s containment. A gesture built for peace and it almost lands until the sound of leather soles breaks the hallway quiet, and a voice cuts clean through the air behind them, bright, familiar, irritatingly amused. “There you two are,” says Jeno’s manager, stepping into the light with a grin too wide for the atmosphere. “The night isn’t over yet.” His hand gestures back toward the hall like an invitation, but his tone makes it a command, already turning to lead the way as if he never noticed the tension bleeding down both their wrists.

Jeno pulls back first, the kiss half-finished, breath still caught between them as he turns away without a word. Nahyun blinks, lips still parted like she might chase it, but he’s already walking. Already following. Already back in the shape the world expects him to fill. They return to their seats like nothing happened. Only the cut of the silence has changed.

The lights dim again, low and slow like a curtain drop, and Jeno exhales as he settles into the velvet seat, the pressure still lingering beneath his ribs like residue. He can feel Nahyun beside him, stiff, breath quick, thigh pressed hard into his, like she’s still trying to stay in the moment even though it’s already passed. Her energy is sugar-laced panic, too still to be calm, too alert to be composed, and he knows what comes next if he doesn’t intervene, the quiet unraveling, the questions, the voice that rises behind closed doors. He doesn’t want that. He wants sleep tonight. So he leans in, arm sliding around her shoulders like he means it, his lips brushing her temple in something that looks like comfort and tastes like surrender. “You looked beautiful tonight,” he whispers, the words warm but weightless, soft enough to soothe but hollow enough to pass, and her body stills slightly beneath his hand, her breath catching like maybe this is the moment that saves her.

The host’s voice returns, now smooth, rich with nostalgia. “Before we close the night, we want to take a moment to celebrate the journey of one of our own, Lee Jeno. The heart of modern basketball today. This is for everything it took to get here.” 

The screen lifts in slow light, the kind of golden that lives behind the eyelids when you close them too long under the sun. A boy runs across uneven pavement in a backyard just wide enough for a game and just private enough to make it sacred, a plastic hoop bolted high against a crooked fence, wood splitting under rust and weather, the net tied back with string where it frayed. His sneakers slap too hard against the concrete, the ball bouncing wild under hands still learning how to control weight, not because he’s weak but because he loves it too much to let go. His laugh doesn’t belong to the camera, it belongs to the air, and the shot holds just long enough to show him chasing after the bounce even after it rolls past him, his fingers curling over it like it carries something more than rubber. Jeno feels his own throat tighten, a heat behind the ribs. That ball was his first secret. His first rhythm. His first way of keeping quiet without ever being still.

The screen cuts to an older video, softer in grain but sharper in meaning, two figures in frame. One small. One made of legend. Taeyong dribbles slowly, one-handed, bent slightly at the waist, eyes locked on a boy no taller than his ribs. Jeno stares up at him like the world exists in his palms. The ball bounces between them, deliberate, slow, rhythmic like a heartbeat passed back and forth, and then Taeyong steps back and gestures for him to try. Young Jeno plants his feet, lifts the ball, and shoots with every muscle in his arms — the motion clumsy, imperfect, too strong, but the sound of the swish lands clean. Taeyong claps once. Jeno looks at him and grins so wide it splits through the grain. In the chair, Jeno’s jaw tightens, his breath shallow, his posture frozen like muscle memory caught in motion. This was the first time the hoop opened like a doorway instead of a target, the first time the weight in his hands felt like belonging instead of pressure, the first time greatness bent low enough to meet his eyes and said ‘everything worth chasing already lives in your reach so take it and keep going.’

The footage shifts into the echo of a gym, the Little League season when the jerseys still came in a plastic bag, numbers printed too high on the back, everything oversized except the pressure. The sound of shoes squeaking on waxed court fills the speakers, high and close, and there he is — smaller than most of the team, faster than almost all of them, arms loose, form wild, dribbling down the side of the court with his tongue between his teeth. His face is serious in that way only children playing with purpose can be, expression pulled tight with concentration, even when his pass goes wide and the point doesn’t land. The ball returns to him and he moves again, no pause, no tilt of the head to check the scoreboard. Just the want. Just the movement. Just the decision to be better before he’s even learned what better means. Someone calls his name and he glances once toward the sound, a quick flick of attention, then takes the shot with his feet just shy of the line. It doesn’t need to land for the moment to hold. It just needs to be seen.

The footage sharpens into the Seoul Ravens era, the high school years where things stopped feeling like a dream and started demanding blood, the gym wider now, bleachers packed in navy and silver, the Ravens logo stretched across the court like a seal of initiation and Jeno moves through it with a focus shaped by repetition, his jersey no longer oversized but claimed, number stitched tight against his spine, feet sure, cuts clean, the pace faster but the rhythm calmer like his body had finally caught up to the ambition behind it. Coach Suh stands at the edge of the court in a structured jacket, face unreadable, arms crossed, only speaking when the moment earns it and every time Jeno looks his way he receives nothing but the expectation to rise so he does, over and over, even when his legs burn and his lungs scrape raw, because that’s what the Ravens meant — not flight, but fight. Jaemin runs beside him in one clip, eyes quick, hands signaling before Jeno even turns, the pass connecting like it was rehearsed in another life and the shot goes up without hesitation and drops clean through the net just as the gym erupts, and Areum appears next, barely in the frame but smiling wide with her fingers pressed to the glass, mouthing something he doesn’t read but still remembers, and in the next beat it’s Jeno on the bench during a timeout, towel over his shoulders, sweat catching on his jaw as he nods once to himself like the future had already introduced itself and he’d decided to answer.

The screen flares once more, light cascading like liquid gold through the stadium rafters, bathing every surface in radiant clarity as the state championship footage settles into view. The camera trembles slightly—breathless, urgent—but still manages to capture the decisive seconds counting down, numbers burning away into nothingness, as the court blooms into an ecstatic chaos. The ball arcs toward Jeno with almost poetic inevitability, spinning serenely as if guided by invisible threads only he commands. His feet slide effortlessly to the three-point line, a single perfect stride anchoring him firmly to the earth before he rises skyward, arms slicing through the air with a grace so precise, so practiced, it resembles scripture etched against dusk. The release is holy, a quiet prayer set loose, the basketball spinning serenely through the air before slicing through the net—smooth and effortless, silk splitting beneath glass.

The buzzer erupts a moment too late, overwhelmed by the roaring wave of sound pouring forth from the crowd, thunder wrapped in velvet, exploding in euphoric celebration. Teammates surge forward, voices raw with triumph, but Jeno remains momentarily rooted—eyes wide, mouth parted, frozen not in disbelief but in profound recognition, as though every nerve in his body had already whispered this outcome to him, and reality had merely caught up. He's barely taken a full breath before you collide into him, sprinting from the sidelines, face alight with wild, boundless joy, hair streaming behind you like a banner carried through battle.

He watches as you leap into him, your cheer skirt flying up with the force of your sprint, thighs flashing under the stadium lights as your pom poms tumble from your hands and scatter across the court like offerings, forgotten the second your body collides with his, legs wrapping around his hips without hesitation, your fingers diving into his hair while your lips find his with a gasp that’s half-sob, half-laugh, your hips grinding forward instinctively as he catches you with both hands gripping under your thighs, pulling you tighter into the cradle of him, breath spilling into your mouth like heat caught between two people who’ve waited too long to pretend this is just adrenaline, the kiss tipping into something deeper as you moan into him, soft and sharp and shaking, your skirt bunched around your waist and his hands flexing over your bare skin like memory and muscle had planned this all season.

Your lips find his cheek before intention registers, and his eyes flutter closed, surrendering immediately to the quiet sanctuary your touch creates amid the storm. His forehead dips to yours, his breathing ragged, chest rising and falling with breaths you've chased all season, your fingers knotting urgently into his jersey—holding onto more than fabric, anchoring him to this ephemeral now, grounding him as the world fractures open around you both. His hand rises tenderly, thumb tracing the delicate line of your jaw, noses brushing softly, lips parting just enough to taste the corner of his mouth, not fully a kiss but something hungrier—a whispered promise ignited in the heat of victory.

Confetti descends slowly, gold and white drifting lazily like snowfall inside a dream, catching in your lashes, brushing your skin in delicate caresses, but neither of you moves, locked in the quiet gravity of your shared orbit. And then the moment deepens—the kiss lands fully, your mouths melting together hot and open, your hand sliding possessively into the warmth at the back of his hair, the roaring celebration fading to insignificance beneath his absolute focus. He molds perfectly against you, his hips pressing insistently forward, fingers sinking into your curves like they've memorized every contour, the kiss neither polite nor reserved—it's fierce, greedy, raw. It speaks of victories earned, wounds healed, scars worn proudly; a kiss that knows intimately every sacrifice made to reach this pinnacle. You arch subtly, shifting him gently off balance, and he anchors you instantly, arm tightening protectively, mouth moving with silent, relentless devotion. A camera flash bursts briefly—neither of you blink—and his tongue sweeps tenderly against your bottom lip, pulling back just enough to whisper your name into your mouth, syllables reverent and heated, a prayer woven from sweat, triumph, and something deeper still.

Watching himself from the darkened audience, Jeno breathes differently now, the rhythmic certainty of his lungs disrupted, chest constricting sharply beneath his tailored suit, pulse visible at his throat like an unsteady heartbeat beneath thin ice. His gaze remains riveted to the screen, intensity cracking open something unseen within him, jaw tightening reflexively, hands resting deliberately still upon his thighs. It's not the win that unravels him—it's the raw intimacy of his past self, captured vividly in the way he once held you, claiming you not just as part of his victory but as its very essence. The way your mouth sought his without question, certain and unapologetic, a truth recognized in skin and soul. Nahyun beside him is utterly motionless, her eyes locked forward, knuckles blanching as they tighten against her satin clutch. Her carefully poised smile doesn't falter, though her stillness seems an attempt to rewrite a story already etched irrevocably into history. The footage fades. The room exhales collectively. But Jeno remains unmoving, pulse throbbing quietly, awaiting the inevitable—what comes next, the unraveling, the reflection, the ultimate reckoning with choices now impossible to escape.

Nahyun doesn’t blink for a full ten seconds after the screen fades, her body rigid in its posture like the fabric of her dress had hardened around her bones, her chest rising faster than it should beneath the sequins as though her heart is racing toward a truth her mind refuses to accept. Her hands stay curled on the clutch in her lap, knuckles stiff and bloodless, as she forces a soft laugh under her breath — high, almost musical, but too sharp to land as joy — and her voice spills out sweet and breathy like an actress closing a scene. “That clip was so old,” she says with a tilt of her head that looks like grace but tastes like panic, her tone styled for cameras that aren’t even on her. “We’ve filmed so many better moments. Paris, that week in Rome, that boat in the Maldives when you said I looked like a woman someone would fight for.” Her fingers glide along the inside of Jeno’s sleeve, feather-light, too rehearsed, her smile flickering wider as if daring the lights above them to turn back on and redo the scene with her in it this time. “They chose it because of the score. That’s the only reason, it has nothing to do with her, she doesn’t even look pretty —”

Nahyun turns toward him with the force of someone coming undone from the inside out, her breath catching before her words even form, her hands flying up to his arm and gripping it hard like a lifeline she has to hold or drown, her voice breaking the moment it leaves her mouth but still rising, still reaching. “You said she was just a phase, Jeno,” she says too loud, too fast, too breathless, like each syllable is chasing the one before it, like if she stops now the truth might slip through the cracks. “You said college never mattered to you, you said none of it lasted, you said you didn’t even remember what she looked like anymore, you said that win didn’t matter because you’ve won bigger ones with me, with me, with me.” Her smile shatters as it forms, mouth shaking into a laugh that doesn’t sound human, eyes wide with something too sharp to be sadness, too wild to be joy. She grabs his hand with both of hers now, pressing it against her chest like that touch could rearrange what just happened, like heat alone can rewrite the timeline. “We have real history. Real memories. Real life. I’ve already booked our honeymoon. I ordered matching rings for our dog tags. I’ve already spoken to Chanel about the gown. I’m the one who’s going to walk down the aisle, not her. I’m the one who’s going to get your babies, your name, your future.”

She leans in too close, her body pressed into his side, hands still locked around his as she breathes fast, uneven, almost gasping now as if the thoughts are too many to speak at once, as if the entire theater is shrinking around her and he’s the only anchor left. “You love me, Jeno. You said I was your peace. You said I made you feel still. You said you didn’t want anything else but me. You said I was your home.” Her fingers clutch tighter, her grip panicked now, frantic, nails digging lightly through the sleeve of his suit as she searches his face for proof, for softness, for anything that will tell her this isn’t the moment it all slips away. “Tell me that clip means nothing. Tell me it was just nostalgia. Tell me I’m the only thing that’s real now. Tell me. Right now. Please.”

Jeno’s eyes widen just enough to register the shape of the warning, his pulse tightening low in his throat as the sound of her voice coils sharper than the words themselves, and he recognizes it instantly, the pitch she only uses when she’s already crossed into the version of herself that speaks in ultimatums dressed as declarations, the tone that wraps desperation in sweetness and throws it like a blade, the one he’s learned to read like weather, like instinct, like a threat dressed in satin. His body stills beneath her grip, jaw flexing once as if weighing every possible version of wrong, and he moves only when the silence between them begins to drag too long, his hand lifting with practiced gentleness as he brushes her hair back behind her ear and leans in just enough to let the world think it’s affection. “I know,” he says, voice low, even and warm at the edges like comfort, like concession, like control shaped into calm. “I know what we are.” His lips press to her temple, light and slow, his hand staying against her cheek like he’s grounding her, but his eyes don’t close and his breath doesn’t shake and the words never touch the inside of his chest.

They come back to the hotel just past midnight, and the silence between them is louder than the echo of her heels on the marble floor. The clatter cuts through the hallway like a warning shot, sharp and deliberate, every step a wound neither of them acknowledges. He walks ahead, keys still in his hand, jaw tight, eyes unreadable. The front door clicks shut behind them, but the tension that’s been building all night doesn’t settle. It tightens. Coils. Gathers itself in the corners of the room like storm clouds. She doesn’t speak—not in the hallway, not as she shrugs off her coat, not even when she kicks off her heels with more force than necessary, letting them land where they fall. Her dress clings to her, satin and spite, the same deep blue that earned her camera flashes all night, the same blue he refused to even glance at.

“You didn’t touch me. All night.” Her voice isn’t raised, but there’s a crack underneath it, something trembling and furious. She’s not asking for an explanation—she’s offering a challenge. He turns slowly, meets her eyes without flinching.

“You didn’t shut up all night.” That hits. She laughs—sharp, cutting, nothing like joy. She steps forward, dress slipping around her thighs as she closes the distance.

“Is that what this is?” she spits. “You couldn’t kiss me because I was too loud? Because I smiled too big? Talked too much? What, am I too embarrassing for your legacy now? Is Nahyun too messy for your pristine little highlight reel? You didn’t even look at me, Jeno, not once, not after they played that fucking video, not after the entire world saw you kiss her like she was yours and smile like she mattered, like she was the reason you won, like I was never even in the story to begin with.”

He loosens his cuff in one slow motion, gaze cool, head turned slightly toward the window like the night might answer instead, and when he speaks it lands like fog, distant and dry. “It was the state championships, it was such a big moment, people remember the shot and I wasn’t with you then.” 

She laughs instantly, too fast to sound real, and her voice jumps an octave as she storms across the room, dragging her earrings off and throwing them onto the bed like the sound might punctuate the unravelling. “They remember the way you looked at her. Don’t lie to me — don’t sit there like a statue and pretend you didn’t feel it too, like your fucking soul left your body and went back to hers when they played it. You’re still in that clip, I watched you relive it, I watched you breathe like she was still in your arms.” Her hand shoots out and grabs his wrist and she presses it against her stomach, breath shaking, lips parted. “You’re with me now. You promised me everything. You said you didn’t want the past, you said I was your future, you said I was forever.”

His head snaps toward her like a trigger pulled without hesitation, the calm in his jaw gone, his voice tearing through the space between them with sharp, final weight. “I never said that.” His hand drops from her grasp and he steps forward once, not to hold her but to break the rhythm, to cut the scene before she can twist the next line into fiction, his breath tight now, jaw locked, the heat in his eyes no longer soft but forged. “Not everything is about you,” he growls, louder this time, each word carved with precision and held long enough to hurt. “I was there to receive an award, for my game, for my name, for what I built. It wasn’t a party, it wasn’t your goddamn runway, it was my moment, and you walked into it like it owed you something, like I owed you something.”

She throws her hands up, laughing again, but there’s fire behind it now. “Oh, fuck you. You loved it when they chased us down in Milan. You loved it when they called us the power couple of the year. You loved it when I was a trophy for you. But now—what, I wear one tight dress, and suddenly I’ve ‘stolen your moment’?”

He moves toward her then, sudden and close. “You turned it into a photo op. You couldn’t even let me have that.”

“You make me lose my fucking mind, you—”

His eyes flash. “What did you lose, Nahyun? A brand deal? A stylist? Or did one of your pet photographers miss the shot?”

The slap comes fast, heat cracking across his cheek like a fuse finally touched flame, her hand trembling after the impact like it hadn’t caught up to what it just did. His head turns with it, the sharp twist of his jaw drawing the light across his cheekbone, but his body stays still, rooted, spine straight, breath measured as if every part of him had already braced for this. She stares at him, wild and shaking, chest rising too fast, fingers curling like they want to throw something else, and he only breathes — once, deep and slow, then again, deeper, sharper, like he’s dragging oxygen through restraint. And then he moves.

His hands find her waist like impact, rough and immediate, and he turns her so fast her back hits the wall with a thud that silences everything. Her dress rides high around her thighs, the fabric crushed between them as he grips her hips and yanks her flush against him, one hand at her jaw, the other at her waist, and still he won’t kiss her, won’t touch her mouth like it deserves softness. He pulls her panties aside with a motion that feels like war, not seduction, and when he thrusts into her it’s raw, brutal, full-bodied and breathless, the air between them hot with hate and heat and the kind of desperation that doesn’t wait to be forgiven. His jaw is clenched, throat tight, eyes burning at something behind her, through her, inside himself, and every thrust feels like punishment, not just for her, but for everything he’s never said out loud.

Her moans come fast, high, fraying at the edges like fabric too thin to hold weight, and she claws at his back, thighs trembling, breath breaking as she rocks against him harder, needier, frantic for friction, for proof. “What’s our future, Jeno?” she gasps, voice cracking like glass underfoot, “Don’t you want something that’s yours? Don’t you want my babies? Don’t you want to stay?” Her hands cup his face then, dragging his gaze to hers, mouth searching for connection, for closeness, for something real. But he doesn’t kiss her. He just fucks her harder, eyes dark, locked on hers like the intensity might disguise the emptiness behind it.

His breath catches for a moment at her words, not in tenderness, but tension, his jaw tightening as her voice breaks like crystal across his chest and her hands reach up like they could pull something true out of a face that no longer mirrors anything back. His rhythm doesn’t falter, it deepens, sharpens, the force of his body driving harder into hers like refusal shaped through motion, like denial disguised as devotion, and he stares into her eyes as if holding her there might force her to understand. 

“You know what this is, you know I have no choice” he says, voice steady, almost quiet, but threaded through with something raw and buried. “You know why it keeps happening. You know what your father set in motion and what mine never got the chance to stop.” His fingers tighten at her side, not to bruise, to remind. “You know what was lost and what was owed. What this was meant to fix.” He pulls her hips forward again, slow and deliberate, like gravity is doing the work for him. “You know I didn’t ask for this and you know why I never walked out.”

His thrusts slow but never soften, rhythm tightening into something mechanical, unfeeling, a rhythm set by memory not desire, and his hand finds the back of her neck with a grip that doesn’t threaten, just holds, like a weight pressed to glass, like a warning left unsaid. “You want something to keep,” he murmurs, breath hot and unshaking against her cheek, “You think a child would make this permanent, that blood would bind me the way memory never could, but you don’t understand what’s already been traded.” His voice deepens, darkens. “You don’t know what my father had to erase to keep my name clean. You don’t know what yours offered in return. You want babies, Nahyun?” His grip tightens, final. “I would never bring a child into this, into this lie, this family, this fucking performance you’ve built like it’s a future. I wouldn’t trap my worst memory in this house, Nahyun. Let alone my blood.”

And just as her body begins to come undone, just as her thighs tighten and her voice lifts and she arches toward release, he pulls out, breath ragged, falls to his knees like gravity snapped the last thread in him, fists clenched against the floor, cock twitching once before he comes hard on the marble between her feet, head bowed like he’s praying to something no longer listening. She braces herself against the wall, dress twisted, hair falling from its pins, skin flushed and trembling with nothing left to hold.

She doesn’t move for a full breath, her eyes fixed somewhere above him like the ceiling holds an answer or a script or maybe a timeline where everything went the way she planned, and when she exhales it comes out through a laugh, small at first, soft and melodic, but it twists too quickly, brightens into something that shakes at the edges, and she turns to face him like the argument never happened, like the sex meant everything, like the story hasn’t already ended. “You always do this when it gets scary,” she says, voice sweet and rushing, eyes wet and full, hands smoothing her dress like she’s about to walk down an aisle no one else can see, “you push me away and pretend it’s fear but it’s not, it’s just habit, it’s just what happens when you’ve never had anything worth staying for until now and you don’t know how to carry it, but you will, you will, because you love me and you know this is real.”

She crosses the room slowly, her heels unsteady now, hair falling from its pins, lips parted like she’s still whispering to a dream, and she picks up her clutch from the dresser like it’s delicate, sacred, sets it down again and reaches for nothing, just air, just the space between them, then speaks again in a voice full of bridal lilt and practiced control. “They’re going to ask about the video,” she says, smile curling even as her throat tightens, “they’re going to say she looked happy, that you looked at her like she was the last thing you’d ever lose, but they’ll never understand what that really was, you were young and naive, you were chasing a feeling, she was just a moment that got filmed too well, and you didn’t know what forever looked like until you saw me in that Dior fitting room holding your ring.”

Jeno has no fight left in him, the space between them expands until the bed feels impossibly wide when they finally lie down. Nahyun curls onto her side, her back to him, eyes open and staring blankly at the far wall. Jeno remains motionless on his back, gaze fixed to the ceiling as if answers might bloom there, slow and careful like cracks in plaster. Eventually, their breathing aligns into something steady and shallow, slipping toward sleep in a rhythm of resignation. Nahyun's breathing evens out first, delicate and careful as if afraid to disturb the fragile truce of the moment. Jeno listens carefully, muscles wound tight beneath sheets that feel cool against his skin, thoughts circling relentlessly around the images of the night. Slowly, finally, he falls into restless sleep, dreams tangled and dark, his subconscious haunted by moments he can neither reclaim nor erase.

Morning arrives like an eclipse, sudden and consuming, the light aggressive and merciless as it bleeds through the curtains, spilling relentlessly over the bed. It feels apocalyptic, the warmth searing into his skin as though punishing him for every thought he kept hidden through the night. Nahyun wakes first, phone buzzing urgently on the bedside table, screen glowing ominously, relentless alerts stacked on top of each other like waves cresting before the crash. She reaches for it blindly, eyes barely open, heart dropping as headlines flood her vision—each more damning than the last, each tearing into a carefully maintained reality she had begun to trust.

By the time Jeno wakes, the room feels starkly different—tension hanging thick, air charged like before a storm breaks. Nahyun sits upright, rigid, phone clutched tightly, eyes hollow. He doesn't have to ask what's wrong; the silence already screams volumes. She hands him the phone without looking, and he scrolls through headlines with numb fingers, each title slicing deeper, sharper, bleeding truths he'd buried far too long.

“Lee Jeno: Love, Legacy, and the Woman Missing From the Montages” —                                                           The Athletic The Legacy Invitational Gala was designed to honor greatness, yet it exposed a fracture far deeper. Amid tributes to the late Lee Taeyong, a moment of startling clarity emerged—a clip from the Seoul Ravens' state championship victory resurfaced, capturing Lee Jeno’s euphoric kiss with renowned Apex Analytics strategist Y/N. While the moment drew collective awe, the conspicuous absence of Lee’s current fiancée, Kim Nahyun, sparked immediate and fierce public discourse. Analysts are left dissecting the delicate intersection between personal history and public legacy, questioning if perhaps Lee’s true legacy lies not in his heritage but in the woman who quietly disappeared from view, only to resurface in a flash of undeniable intimacy.

“The One That Got The Crown” —                                   We all saw it—the glow, the exuberance, the unmistakable way Lee Jeno’s face softened at Y/N’s touch. The gala tribute, intended as a celebration of dynasties and inherited glory, inadvertently crowned someone else entirely. Legacy isn't only about bloodlines; it's about those who stand beside you, those who rewrite narratives and inspire victories. Perhaps, as Y/N stepped back into collective memory, the world realized they'd crowned the wrong queen all along. This isn't just gossip; it's a reckoning with public perception and emotional authenticity, proving once again that history—and legacy—often belongs to those we never saw coming.

“Who is Y/N?— Forbes Culture” —                                    Until last night, Y/N was a name whispered mostly in niche industry circles. Known for revolutionizing player analytics with emotive storytelling, Y/N transformed Apex Athletics' Seoul branch into an influential powerhouse. But beyond professional acclaim, her personal history with Lee Jeno during the Seoul Hill Ravens era had largely faded from view—until a single clip resurrected her role in his narrative. Sources confirm she left Apex quietly a year ago, slipping beneath the public radar. Now thrust unwillingly back into spotlight, Y/N stands at the intersection of nostalgia, speculation, and legacy, prompting fresh curiosity about her abrupt departure and what lies ahead.

“The Forgotten Fiancée: gossipforum.tv” —                                                                  The Legacy Invitational’s editing oversight—or deliberate choice—sparked an unexpected firestorm online. Kim Nahyun, celebrated influencer and fiancée to NBA star Lee Jeno, found herself erased from the evening’s key tribute montage. Fans quickly polarized: many condemning the gala for disrespect, others revealing a harsher reality—that few had even noticed her absence. Social media narratives spiraled rapidly, turning Nahyun into a symbolic figurehead of forgotten partners everywhere. With each repost, like, and biting comment, Nahyun faces not just public humiliation, but an undeniable truth: the world was looking elsewhere, focused on a past she'd believed was irrelevant.

Nahyun doesn’t blink as the screen fades, eyes glassy but dry, fingers curled around her phone so tightly the metal frame digs deep into her palm like a blade she doesn’t plan on letting go of, and even though the room stays still around her, quiet, unbothered, untouched, she can feel the entire narrative collapsing under her, the ground shifting beneath her spine, like waking in a life that’s no longer hers, like lying in a bed she spent weeks designing only to realize someone else had already left their imprint in the mattress. She doesn’t hand the phone to Jeno so much as discard it toward him without turning, as if looking at his face would confirm something irreversible, something sickening, something she’s already decided to ignore. 

She moves with the stiff poise of a woman betrayed by fantasy, not reality—chest lifted, chin sharp, like she’s the one being wronged by the world for not clapping hard enough. She scrolls through every post and headline like she’s feeding off them, dragging them deeper and deeper into her bloodstream, and each image of you, smiling, glowing, being looked at like that, etches itself behind her eyes until the jealousy rots into something feral. She memorizes the photos like studying an enemy, like preparing for a face transplant she believes the world will thank her for, reading the captions like gospel, like scripture, like a prophecy that went wrong because someone cast the wrong lead, and when she stands in the mirror later that night, hair tied up like yours, lips glossy like yours, necklace subtle like yours, she doesn’t see herself at all, and she doesn’t care.

She dyes her hair darker two hours after the last article drops, chooses a cooler undertone to match the lighting in your college interviews, asks for volume and shape through the ends, shows the stylist a blurry screenshot she cropped to hide your face, and when she leaves the salon she walks past every reflective surface with her head tilted slightly, strands bouncing softly around her shoulders like they belong to someone with memory worth chasing, and when she gets home she waits by the mirror for Jeno to come out of the shower, hand already mid-swing to casually toss her hair back, neck exposed like a dare, but he doesn’t pause, doesn’t slow, just pulls on his hoodie and leaves a damp trail behind him on the carpet, and still she smiles into the mirror like she won something, because even his silence feels cinematic if she frames it hard enough.

The makeup comes next, soft and luminous with sheer foundation and cream blush pressed into her cheekbones exactly where you wear it, brows brushed upward with restraint, lashes curled and left almost bare, lips filled in with a mauve balm she had overnighted from a niche brand she saw in the background of a locker room clip where you smiled after someone called your name, and she studies the light across her face in different rooms of the apartment until she knows which lamp mimics golden hour best, sits there practicing her expression—neutral, open, gentle—with the camera just below her chin to catch her jawline the way yours turns when you laugh, and she waits by the kitchen doorway when Jeno walks past, radiant in soft light and practiced stillness, but he barely lifts his gaze, just nods once with a flat “hey,” and she holds that word inside her mouth for three hours like it might reshape into something more if she doesn’t breathe too hard.

The bracelet comes after—the same silver thread of charm links you used to wear, delicate and soft and clinking when you gestured in videos, except this one is hers and empty, bare except for a single heart she picked herself from a mall kiosk, and she wears it to bed the first night, letting it knock gently against her wrist as she scrolls through old photos of you at galas, laughing with friends she doesn’t recognize, zooming in to count the charms you once wore, memorizing them like symbols in a language she plans to steal, and when she passes Jeno the next morning, she lifts her arm casually to brush her hair behind her ear, the charm flashing in the light like an invitation.

He notices, and it hits her like a spark catching fabric, because the moment she lifts her wrist, his gaze lands there with precision, eyes locking on the flash of silver, the faint glint of the charm she angled perfectly toward the light, and there’s a stillness in him, something shifting behind his eyes like a memory rising too quickly to name, and for a breathless second she watches the shape of his mouth change like a question forming in silence, the crease between his brows deepening with something that feels like recognition, and for a heartbeat she’s certain he sees it, the styling, the weight, the mimicry carved into every decision and there’s a quiet thrum of shock beneath the tired slope of his shoulders, but he doesn’t speak, instead he nods softly, like a thought he’s still catching up to, murmurs something about needing to call Jaemin, and reaches for his phone, his fingers brushing the counter without looking back. She stays frozen in the doorway, the charm still swinging as if hoping to be touched, replaying that look over and over as she lies in bed later, her body stretched perfectly across the sheets, the bracelet imprinting gently against her wrist while she stares into the dark, imagining how much closer she must be now, how the next one might be the charm that makes him stay.

She shifts again, this time without subtlety, shedding whatever softness she had left in favor of silk and lace and skin, wearing versions of your old outfits with an eerie kind of precision, she pairs sheer mesh with oversized jackets the exact way you used to in winter, wears cardigans half-slipped from her shoulders with bralettes peeking beneath, keeps the lingerie visible, deliberate, curated for effect, and even the things meant to look accidental feel staged, like she’s dressing for a memory that doesn’t belong to her but still clings to the seams of Jeno’s past like perfume that never faded. One morning, she steps into the living room barefoot in the same sheer slip you once wore to an afterparty, the hem brushing her thighs, her collarbone framed with delicate lace, and the look on Jeno’s face flickers with recognition, immediate and exact, like watching a rerun of a scene he never asked to relive.

He doesn’t say anything at first, just lets his eyes travel down and then back up with the kind of silence that burns hotter than words, and when she crosses the room with a smile that tries to mimic your alluring confidence—soft, unbothered, a little sharp around the edges, his posture changes, shoulders stiffening, hands curling around his phone like he needs something to ground him, because he knows, fully and precisely, what she’s doing. She tosses her hair back in the exact rhythm you used to when you laughed in bars past midnight, when you danced barefoot on balconies, when you wore those same low-slung jeans and camisoles without ever asking for attention but earning all of it anyway. She starts wearing the bodysuit—the exact one, or close enough—a ribbed black piece with snap closures and a neckline that plunges at the same slope, and one evening she stands at the edge of the kitchen island in it, waiting for a reaction, leaning her hip just slightly into the marble the way she’s seen you do in photos, and Jeno looks up once, says nothing, but his eyes hold longer than usual, jaw tight, and then he turns away, almost too fast, retreating into the bathroom and closing the door like it’s a break he’s forcing into the timeline.

She begins organizing her outfits by moodboard, your moods, not her own and not casually, not as inspiration, but with the obsessive precision of someone reconstructing a ghost wardrobe piece by piece, down to the cut of your jeans and the exact shape of the neckline that once made his eyes linger half a second longer. She tapes screenshots inside her closet doors, cropped, zoomed, sharpened stills she’s pulled from fan accounts and background sightings, building a catalog of your expressions, your silhouettes, the subtle hierarchy of how you dressed when you knew you were being watched versus when you didn’t care. She doesn’t label her drawers by type anymore—no bras, shirts, skirts—but by scenario: studio drop-by, post-game silence, backseat of the car after a win, hotel breakfast in someone else’s hoodie. It becomes a ritual, it becomes warfare. She studies softness like it’s weaponry, takes lace and crumples it in her fists just to see how it wrinkles against her palm, practices leaning against counters with your posture, rolling sleeves with your carelessness, existing not as herself but as an echo she’s desperate to make louder than the original.

Jeno notices. Of course he notices. He watches every outfit like déjà vu bleeding into high definition, every loose cardigan and half-buttoned shirt scraping across his memory like nails down a familiar wall, and though he says nothing, though his expression stays fixed and neutral, there’s always a second too long of pause when she walks into the room, always a beat where the air stretches tight with recognition, but he doesn’t speak because he doesn’t trust himself to say it kindly yet. His silence isn’t ignorance—it’s restraint. He’s biting his tongue until it bleeds because he knows the second he opens his mouth, something irreversible might snap in her, in him, in this space they’re both pretending hasn’t already caved in on itself. He hasn't commented yet but he could, at any moment. And the weight of that unspoken possibility is something she wears more intimately than any of the clothes. 

After Nahyun falls asleep, still in the bodysuit, still smelling like the perfume she thinks might remind him of something better, Jeno steps out onto the balcony and wraps a blanket around his shoulders like he’s trying to disappear without leaving, the air too warm for comfort but just cold enough to help him breathe. The city hums quietly below, soft streetlights stretching across the pavement like veins beneath glass, and he lowers himself into the lounge near the far edge of the railing, phone heavy in his hand, chest heavier still. For a long time he doesn’t scroll. Just sits there, still and quiet, thumb hovering but unmoving. And then the feed updates.

The first post that loads is Areum’s. It’s the kind of photo that makes your breath catch, sunlight soft and honeyed, the ocean behind them quiet and wide, her hand held up to the camera in a casual gesture that hides most of Mark’s face but reveals everything else: the shape of their closeness, the comfort in their knit sweaters, the familiarity in the way his body tilts toward hers. The ring sits perfectly on her finger, sparkling even in the warmth of late afternoon light. Her caption reads, ‘forever sounds like him, marked for life.’ It’s simple, bare, and real, and Jeno doesn’t scroll past it—he reads it twice, maybe three times, something in his chest cinching tighter with each word. He remembers how nervous Mark was picking out that ring, how he’d dragged Jeno into a quiet boutique on a Tuesday afternoon and held up every option with trembling hands, how he paced the aisles like he didn’t trust himself to choose something worthy. Jeno stood with him for over an hour, made him laugh, offered him steady words, told him she would love whatever he gave her because it was him giving it. When Mark finally picked one, Jeno took a picture of it on the velvet stand and texted him later that night: You did good, so proud of you man. Now it’s here, on her hand, in the middle of the life they built. Jeno double-taps before he even realizes it, the sound of the ocean almost audible in the stillness around him, and his heart presses heavily behind his ribs as he keeps looking, and looking, and looking.

The next post is Jaemin’s. The image opens to a soft, low-angle shot of his daughter lying on her back, dressed in a pale embroidered dress with delicate eyelet detail, her cheeks full and flushed, hair messy from sleep and spread out in dark waves across a cream pillow. Her smile is wide and open, showing tiny teeth, her eyes caught mid-laughter, and there’s a white clip tucked gently into her bangs like something chosen with care. The lighting is warm, the carpet in the background blurred into soft tones, and the entire moment feels private but lovingly offered, like he couldn’t keep her to himself any longer. The caption reads, ‘world, meet my girl.’ One grey heart. Nothing else. Jeno stares, chest drawn tight beneath the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders, thumb hovering over the post until it lights up red, then lingering there even after it’s done, and without thinking he presses the save icon too. The glow from the screen softens the edges of the night around him, and he keeps looking at her face—so free, so bright, so unfiltered—wondering when the last time he felt that kind of peace in his own skin was, and why it aches in his throat now.

Then the tag hits. A fan account. One he doesn’t follow, but the post floats into his feed like fate. It’s a throwback—college game night, a flash, a moment he never knew someone captured. You’re on his shoulders, laughing so hard your mouth is wide open and your head is tilted back, hair flying in waves. He’s crouched slightly, hands gripping your thighs, and his lips are pressed to your ankle like it was instinct, like it was holy. You’re both backlit by stadium lights. He’s smiling like nothing bad has ever happened. The caption cuts through him. remember when his smile looked like this? The next inhale doesn’t come easily. He swipes out of Instagram. Locks his phone. Keeps the screen pressed to his lips for a second longer than he should. And then he just sits there, heartbeat shallow, blanket bunched in his fists, the night wrapping around his shoulders like the only thing left that knows what he’s holding back.

The moment he closes the app, the decision feels inevitable, like he’s been quietly walking toward it for months without knowing, like his body knew long before his mind caught up. He stands from the balcony with the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders, breath shallow, pulse slow, the glow of the screen still ghosting the inside of his vision as he walks back through the apartment without turning on any lights. Nahyun is still asleep in their bed, one arm stretched into the space where he used to be, her face soft, lips parted, breath slow and unaware, but he doesn’t pause, doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t give her any part of this moment, because this isn’t hers. He opens the drawer, pulls out his passport and wallet, slips his phone into his pocket, and walks out of the apartment without checking if the door shuts gently behind him, because it doesn’t matter anymore.

He books the flight in the back of the cab, fingers fast and practiced, eyes scanning departure times until one appears that leaves just after three a.m., a direct one-way ticket to Seoul with no return, no extras, no baggage added. He doesn’t tell anyone, doesn’t text Nahyun, doesn’t alert his manager, doesn’t clear it with the team or send a calendar block to his agent, doesn’t even open the group chat, because the silence feels better, purer, more honest than any explanation he could try to give. The driver doesn’t speak and Jeno doesn’t ask him to, just stares out the window at the city flashing past, already detaching from it, already untethering himself from every version of the life that’s still running behind him on autopilot.

At the airport, he moves like a shadow through the low glow of overnight terminals, hoodie pulled tight over his face, cap low, sunglasses hiding the weight in his eyes, and he doesn’t stop for food or water or distraction, just walks to the gate with nothing in his hands and everything in his chest, the ache pressed right beneath his sternum like a secret. He boards without hesitation, phone set to airplane mode before they even ask, and when the plane lifts into the dark sky, the city falls away beneath him with a kind of quiet relief, like he’s finally slipped beneath the surface of something he was never meant to keep surviving.

He doesn’t sleep, doesn’t watch a movie, doesn’t speak to the flight attendants, just folds the blanket over his lap and stares at the clouds outside the window as they start to shift from black to blue, dawn slowly curling at the edges of the earth like it’s making space for something to begin again. He doesn’t know if Mark will be home, doesn’t know if he’ll pick up when he lands, doesn’t know if you’ll even be in the same time zone, he doesn’t know where you are but none of it matters, because he’s going back to the only place that’s ever held him right, and this time he isn’t looking for answers, he’s just looking for air.

[continuation — 53k words]

taglist — @clblnz @flaminghotyourmom @haesluvr @revlada @kukkurookkoo @euphormiia @cookydream @hyuckshinee @hyuckieismine @fancypeacepersona @minkyuncutie @kiwiiess @outoforbit @lovetaroandtaemin @ungodlyjnz @remgeolli @sof1asdream7 @xuyiyang @tunafishyfishylike @lavnderluv @cheot-salang @second-floors @hyuckkklee @rbf-aceu @pradajaehyun

authors note — 

if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! it truly means the world to me. i poured so much effort into this, so if you could take just a moment to send an ask or leave a message sharing your thoughts, it would mean everything. your interactions-whether it's sending an ask, your feedback, a comment, or just saying hi gives me so much motivation to keep writing. i'm always so happy to respond to messages, asks and comments so don't be shy! thank you from the bottom of my heart! <3