#having to learn calculus with her in the background every tuesday for two years of high school

[aro-culture-is]

aro culture is taylor swift's midnight rain

.

[writesaboutbangtan17]

customer satisfaction

woozi x reader smut

20,480 words

a/n: my first woozi fic, my first seventeen fic, my first kpop fic. this was supposed to be something really simple and silly, but my dumb ass had to go and add a bunch of sadness and backstory to it, as always. as you can see, it got dramatically out of hand. i’m so sorry, i hope someone likes it

~ in which you haven’t gotten off in like six months, and lee jihoon is the pleasure specialist, himself. (he’s also a little bit more than that.)

     “I promise you, you won’t regret this,” Wendy reassured you, but they were words she always said right before she convinced you to do something that you definitely would regret. She’d used them very often over the past year, during which she’d somehow persuaded you into going on roughly thirty blind dates that she’d set up in her desperate attempts to get you “back out there.” You knew her heart was in the right place, but every single date had been a disaster. 

     The problem was that if she knew a guy who wasn’t already taken, there was a reason for it. The first set-up been with a guy named Jinho who still lived with his ex-girlfriend (in a one bedroom apartment) and adamantly refused to wear deodorant; one guy, Jinwoo, told you he had recently quit his job and moved back in with his parents because he hadn’t had enough time to play League; you’d tried so hard to will yourself to forget the second to last guy, but how could you forget the name (Daehyun) of someone who sat down across from you and proceeded to ignore you for the whole two hours it took him to eat a salad, baked potato, and two steaks before “suddenly realizing” he forgot his wallet, telling you he didn’t think you were his type, and leaving you to foot the bill.

     The most recent potential suitor had been named Chanhee, and he’d actually seemed really great. He insisted on buying you popcorn and a drink at the movies, made you laugh with jokes about how bad the movie unsurprisingly ended up being, and suggested getting pizza instead of going to the fancy restaurant where Wendy had taken it upon herself to make a reservation for the two of you. When he walked you to your door at the end of the night, he didn’t even try to kiss you, which was a relief. Most of the guys you’d been set up with were mainly interested in getting you out of your clothes and into your bed all before they’d even learned your last name. So you made up your mind that you’d ask Chanhee if you could meet up again, to which he eagerly answered that he’d love to, and then asked him if Monday night for drinks was good?, insisting you’d rather see him sooner than later.

     But of course, whatever higher powers that be were obviously working against you, and perfect Chanhee stuttered through an apology about not having a fake ID and how he had a big calculus test on Tuesday morning that he had to study for (“or my mom will kill me.”) You’d never bailed on a date so fast before, not even the guy who showed up to meet you at a club wearing Crocs. The poor kid spent over an hour pounding on your front door and begging you to come talk to him, before seemingly giving up. “Probably because he had to get home before curfew,” Wendy had laughed, trying to make light of the situation when you showed up at her place offering death threats the next morning.     

     You didn’t find the joke funny.

     (She’d also said, “It’s just a minor setback,” through giggles, “we’ll find you a really good adult man soon,” at which point you stomped out of her house, slamming her door behind you, and got to work ignoring all her attempts at contacting you for several weeks. It took an offer you absolutely couldn’t refuse to stop giving her the cold shoulder; one desperate text promising she’d come over and wash your dishes every other day for a month if you’d just start answering her damn calls. You had immediately messaged her back telling her that your sink was full and she needed to come over right away.)

     After The Chanhee Incident, you decided that romantic companionship was simply not in the cards for you. You’d sworn off Wendy’s blind dates and men entirely, which you were mostly fine with. They’d never done much besides break your heart or otherwise emotionally damage you, anyways. 

     The small part of you that wasn’t as happy about this decision was no piece of your brain or your heart, it was a part of you that was…a little further south. It had been over a year since you’d last had sex, since your first and last serious boyfriend had cut you off long before the relationship itself had ended (courtesy of the other women he was sleeping with instead). It hadn’t seemed like much of a loss at the time, since he’d never been great in bed to begin with, and you’d always had a way with your hands. Rub here, pinch there, then a little prodding—and you were off to O-Town.

     You’d never anticipated that your own body would turn on you like this and suddenly stop responding to your tried and true methods. At first, it had just taken you longer; where you were once seeing stars in ten minutes, tops, it was now taking twenty minutes, then half an hour. Instead of being able to hop in bed and get off whenever you felt like it without any interruption to your usual schedule, you had to plan ahead of time when you were going to masturbate. That only made it worse, since jotting down “masturbate” in your planner at 11 o’clock, once you’d gotten home from work and eaten something, but needing to get it over with soon enough that you’d get a decent night’s sleep really killed the mood. It had gone on like this until one day, it seemed your body just shut itself off. Sure, you could get a good buzz going, but climax never came.

     Wendy had suggested having a good old one-night-stand, and while you weren’t one to judge those who took part in them, they really weren’t for you. If you were having sex with someone, you’d prefer to at least know them at a base level and think they were a decent person. If Wendy’s blind dates were any indication, you just weren’t going to meet somebody like that. 

     The one time you’d thrown caution to the wind and decided fuck it, I don’t care how awful this guy is, I just wanna get laid, had been a nightmare. His name was Hyunsik and Wendy had arranged for you to meet at a coffee shop, where he spent the first thirty minutes of your date describing the traffic on his way there in excruciating detail, before ruminating on how concerned he was over his cat’s most recent bowel movements for a good hour. Two hours after first meeting, when your date had moved to a dinky little restaurant down the road, Hyunsik was talking about how his mother called him last night and talked him through making kimchi fried rice. He was telling you every step, very slowly, exactly as she’d told him. You found him boring and obnoxious, but at that point it had been nearing six months since your last orgasm and you were feeling particularly despondent. As Hyunsik mimicked a violent stirring motion, you decided he had nice hands. And upon further inspection, you decided he had pretty nice hair, too. And you decided that you’d go home with him.

     What a horrible mistake that had been. As soon as you stepped through his front door, he started screaming because his cat had pooped on his couch. You had to clean it up for him. He offered to pour you a glass of wine, but he took a sip of his own as he was carrying yours over and promptly spat it out all over you because it had gone bad. After trying (and failing) to appropriately clean yourself up in the bathroom, you came back out into the living room and he was nowhere to be found. He’d put on music, and apparently his idea of mood music was early 2000’s pop because “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy was the background noise to you getting fed up after waiting twenty minutes for him, and discovering him half-dressed cuddling with his cat in his bed. Potential orgasm be damned, you refused to sleep with that man.

     As you walked home from Hyunsik’s in the cold that night, calling Wendy a thousand times and putting curses on her in your head every time she didn’t answer, you wondered if you’d ever have a decent orgasm again. It was starting to seem like the answer to that question was a resounding fuck no, which was frankly putting a damper on your entire life. This constant need to get off had you on edge at work; in classes; when you had the rare chance to see friends; when you sucked it up and visited your parents. Everyone noticed that you were tense and unhappy, and the only person you could turn to for advice was Wendy.

     Which brought you to this moment in time, sitting in your car with your phone pressed to your ear, Wendy promising that “you won’t regret this.” You jumped at the sound of another car passing by, taking note of exactly what make and model it was, running that information through your brain to determine if the people in that car could possibly be anyone who would recognize you. 

     “Do we know anybody who drives a silver Honda Civic?” You interrupted her, eyes manically looking one way down the road, then the other, back and forth and back and forth. Wendy heaved a sigh before repeating for the dozenth time or so time in this one conversation, “Y/N, you’re not going to see anybody you know. That’s just not gonna happen, that’s not real life.” Her words did not comfort or convince you even a little bit.

     Of course, she had gone to the trouble of finding a shop for you outside of town, dramatically decreasing your chances of being recognized in your great journey to…buy a vibrator. At 21-years-of-age, you had never even considered buying a sex toy, but that was much less about being against sex toys and much more about how you’d get one. The idea of parking outside of an adult store and having to walk up to it in front of however many people in cars passing by made you want to shrivel up and die, and the idea of ordering one online and having it sit outside your door one day while you were at work for all your neighbors to see had the same effect.

     But as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures, and you were thoroughly desperate. Maybe if you’d never known what it was like to have an orgasm, you could have gone on in this life without one...but that was simply not an option. You had never been more determined to do anything in your life than to get yourself off again. 

     “Ok, Wendy, I…I’m gonna go inside,” you finally said, after fifteen minutes of hiding in your car. You could just see her huge smile of relief in your head as she replied, “Good! I’m so proud of you! Remember to buy something that plugs in, not battery-powered!” With a groan, you hung up on her and shoved your phone into your purse, then pulled up the hood of your jacket and stepped out onto the sidewalk. According to the directions you’d been given, the shop was just down this road, in a little alleyway to the left. You figured it would take less than five minutes to get there, and tried to pump yourself up as you slowly made your way. You’re an adult, you reminded yourself, this is a perfectly normal adult thing that adults do. There’s no reason to be embarrassed.

     You supposed the place seemed inconspicuous enough—it was sandwiched between a drug store on the corner and an exotic cheese shop, with windows tinted dark enough that nobody could see the goings on beyond them, and a sign over the door that read Bits & Pieces Boutique in a neat red script. There were no neon triple X’s like similar shops displayed, for which you were thankful. All of these things combined still didn’t make you feel much better about going inside, but you mustered up what little courage you could, grabbed the handle, and forced yourself to take that first step across its threshold.

     A quick eye-level scan of the shop revealed a lot to you; you weren’t sure what you were expecting, but there was nothing particularly extraordinary about the place. It looked like any other store would, with rows of shelves, display tables, products hung on the walls, the check-out counter in the back, and bad fluorescent lighting. Ariana Grande sang through out and you just didn’t know how to feel—this was all so…normal. Too normal. You pulled your coat tighter around you, resolving not to let your guard down. 

     To your left was a wrinkly old man perusing the large selection of flavored condoms and lube, holding hands with a woman who was clearly less than half his age. As you hurried past them, you couldn’t help but notice the ball gag, furry handcuffs, and box of libido enhancers in the basket hanging at the crook of her elbow. You stopped in one aisle with butt plugs and nipple enlargers down one side and DVDs down the other. Through sheer power of will, you ignored the movie titled “Mrs. Dashing and the Dick of Her Dreams”, with a lady on the cover who looked a lot like an old high school science teacher of yours circa 1972. 

     From behind, you could hear the young woman asking her partner which cock ring he wanted, and he chose one called the Ball Banger. His tone of voice gave away the smile on his face as he did so. Despite your morbid curiosity, you refused to look back and see how the supposed “ball banging” took place.

     Instead you pushed on, next finding yourself standing in front of a table filled with aromatherapy products, lotions, creams, and candles; then the one next to it displaying oral sex kits, clit pumps, and testicle binders. You had never imagined that things like this existed, especially not in so many varieties. It was overwhelming, to say the least. One aisle you passed through, which you could only determine to be the novelty aisle, featured among many sex card games and not-safe-for-work birthdays cards: a blow-up punching bag with a place to put a picture of an ex. If you hadn’t been on a very direct mission, you might have considered buying it.

     It was just as you were losing hope that this store even had vibrators (although you had assumed they were a sex toy staple), that you saw it: the wall beside the check-out counter with the words above it in neon lights that read Vibration Station. You swallowed down your deep desire to run away, hop in your car and drive home and pretend this never happened, as you approached it. The first thing you took note of was the range of colors, wondering why anyone would ever want to put anything neon yellow or baby-poop-green inside of their bodies. 

     The second thing you noticed was the 15-inch flesh-colored dildo proudly stretched out underneath the sign, that just the sight of made you hurt inside.

     You were disarmed by the amount of vibrators to choose from, realizing how stupid you had been to not do any research beforehand. What are the qualities of a good vibrator? How much is too much to spend on one? Is this something I was ever supposed to learn? Why didn’t they ever teach me this stuff in Sex Ed? All you could assume was that something really cheap would probably be weak or break easily, and you remembered Wendy had said to get something that you could charge instead of something you had to put batteries in. But what materials should it be made out of? How intense should the vibrations be? And for God’s sake what is a neutral, normal color to get one in?

     Just as you had grabbed one to read the details on the box, you heard the bell over the door chime, and saw your life flash before your eyes. All the times you’d smiled, frowned, scowled, laughed, cried, and yelled…everything you’d ever experienced would mean nothing if the person who had just walked through that door was say, your boss. Or your mother, or an old classmate, or the old lady who sold ice cream on your street corner, or your cat, or the guy you saw walking by you as you left work the other day, or the priest from that time your parents made you go to church for a couple weeks as a child. 

     Without looking up to see who exactly it was that had come through or possibly gone out the door, you bolted to the counter in a blind panic, needing to leave as quickly as possible. It was only as you were about to throw the vibrator down by the cash register that you even saw what it was called—the Big Boss Thruster. A plus-sized, bright pink vibe that made thrusting motions. You would have grabbed it and put it back immediately, if the person behind the counter hadn’t already taken it out of your hands. You slowly looked up with a bright scarlet flame licking up your cheeks, bracing for the embarrassment that was sure to hit you in a monsoon-sized wave.

     God has it out for me, you thought to yourself, now I know for sure. You thought you’d steeled yourself for any possibility, whether the worker be an old lady who would tease you good-naturedly, or a hot dude to remind you of everything you were missing out on, or whoever in between. Nothing could have prepared you, however, for looking up into the always judgmental eyes of your next door neighbor. You noticed them widen just a fraction as he realized exactly who’d handed the Big Boss Thruster over to him, and his mouth drop open as if he meant to gasp, but was holding it back in an effort to remain professional. 

     Of course, for you, professionalism was not a concern.

     “Jihoon?!” you screeched, wishing the earth would open up beneath your feet and suck you in right then and there. He dropped the Big Boss Thruster back onto the counter and flailed his arms in some vain attempt at hushing you. “Are you fucking kidding me?! This is a joke, right? Wendy put you up to this? Please, Jihoon, please fucking tell me that this isn’t real, you are not actually standing there actually about to sell this to me. Am I having a nightmare? I’m right on the verge of a breakdown, Jihoon, say somethi—”

     “Stop calling me that,” he hissed, slapping his palms down on the counter. Of all things, you had not expected him to say that, and it at least confused you enough to get you to stop rambling. Between taking deep breaths to calm yourself down, you raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “Call me…Woozi,” he continued, “don’t look at me like that. We get some weird customers, so we use fake names, sometimes.” 

     You almost laughed, but the other thoughts and emotions that were paralyzing you kept you from finding it very humorous. You were quite sure, at this point, that the moment you’d walked into the Bits & Pieces Boutique you had stepped into an alternate reality. There was no way that, in your actual life during which you had always tried to be a good and decent person, any deity could put you through so much torture. One half of your brain was concocting a devious plan to get back at the gods, planning all the sins you were going to commit because you’d be damned if you were going to get dealt a hand this bad without milking it for all it was worth. The other half of your brain was visualizing the shop behind you, calculating what would be your fastest escape route.

     Down the aisle with all the fuzzy handcuffs, take a right to pass the fifty copies of “Mrs. Dashing and the Dick of Her Dreams” and go around the cart with all the flavored lubes and condoms. That would take you directly to the door, at which point you’d rush home and try to forget this ever happened. In the morning you’d strategize on how to avoid Jihoon (Woozi?) at all costs until you could end your lease and move across the country. Solid plan, you straight lied to yourself. You’d taken one backwards step, seconds away from making a run for it, when Jihoon (…Woozi) let out a deep breath and asked,

     “Did any of our Pleasure Specialists help you find what you needed today?” You blanched at the words Pleasure Specialist, and belatedly realized that was what was stitched across the chest of the sweatshirt he was wearing, with a name tag reading “Woozi” on his left side. Instead of pointing out that he was the only employee you had seen in the rather small shop, you meekly shook your head. With a forced smile, Jihoon-Woozi set the vibrator back down and asked, “Well are you sure this is what you want? The Big Boss is a decent vibe, but in my opinion the price is just for the gimmick. Let me show you some other products.” Then, to your abject horror, he rounded the counter and started walking back towards the wall of vibrators you’d just moments ago been standing in front of. 

     Oh, no, no no no no no, you chanted in your head, he’s completely out of his mind if he thinks I’m gonna have him suggesting vibrators for me to use right next door to him. The thought both terrified and excited you, but you smothered the latter feeling to the best of your ability. I’m going home, you decided, to die of embarrassment in peace.

     And yet, you were taking one step after him—then another, and another, and another and another and another until your pattern of footsteps could reasonably be considered walking. Your own two feet were following behind him as if they had a mind of their own. “If you’re into realistic stuff, we have plenty of better options. The Big Boss is fine but the real thing isn’t bright pink, you know?” Jihoon-Woozi was saying, as if he was telling you, but he was mostly talking to fill up the dead silent, empty space. To top it off, under his breath, he mumbled, “Do you know?” You chose to ignore that, stopping a good three feet away from him, asking yourself why you hadn’t left when you had the chance. 

     The answer was as simple as this: you couldn’t take back walking in this store and you couldn’t control the fact that Jihoon of all people had to be working here, fifty plus miles from home. And if you stuck it out just a little bit longer, you’d be leaving this hell with the one thing that could possibly end your months of stress and suffering. If you couldn’t turn back time and keep yourself from coming in, then another ten minutes in this store of having a vibrator selected just to fit your tastes couldn’t make things any worse than they already were.

     “Hello, Y/N? Are you listening to me?” Jihoon-Woozi was waving not just a hand in front of your face, but a box decorated with stars, stripes and red block letters calling the large flesh-colored vibrator depicted on it the All American Whopper. You hadn’t been listening to him at all, too busy drowning in your own thoughts of how you couldn’t fall any further than rock bottom, but you wished you had been as you swatted it away. Jihoon-Woozi snickered and held up the All American Whopper and another box, purple with pink loops that came together to make the words Power Stud Vibe.

     “If you want a realistic vibrator, I suggest one of these bad boys. The Whopper is made of skin-safe rubber and the Stud is made of silicone; both have seven vibration modes, are an inch and a half wide, and can be angled to rub the G-spot. But the Whopper has a suction cup for hands-free fun, and the wide base on the Stud vibrates for added clit stimulation. What do you think?” You were pretty sure you had never been more wrong in your life—just when you thought things were as bad as they could possibly get, they took a sharp nosedive for the worst. The yet undiscovered tenth circle of hell had opened up right around you, and Jihoon-Woozi was smirking at your discomfort like he was the devil himself. Of course he’d take satisfaction in your agony, that was so like him.

     “I’m not…I’m not really into realistic stuff. I just want something…good. And pretty?” Jihoon-Woozi turned on his heel, putting both of his suggestions back in their place. With his back turned, you tried to pat away the burn on your cheeks but you were sure it had little effect. You watched Jihoon-Woozi running his fingertips over several boxes, head turning this way and that, thinking hard. He was humming to himself, and you tuned in just enough to decipher the main melody of an old SHINee song. Not that humming was hard to do, but it at least seemed to you that he had perfect pitch.

     “Good and pretty, I can do that,” Jihoon-Woozi said, as if to assure you, and you closed your eyes as if not looking could make you believe it wasn’t him, “but are you more interested in clit stimulation or vaginal insertion?” I’m more interested in evaporating into nothing, you thought, but out loud you said in a voice barely above a whisper, “Um…both. I think.” You opened your eyes again just in time to see Jihoon-Woozi bite his lip in deep focus. Your stomach definitely did not churn at the sight.

     “Ah, here it is,” Woozi finally said, and got on his tip toes to slide a simple black box off of a higher shelf. When he looked back to you and handed it over, his face was blank. He didn’t rattle off the details this time, and you took a moment to read them for yourself: over a plastic see-through top, gold letters read L’Amourose Prism VII, and beyond them was the vibrator itself, delicately curved and pastel pink, with a wide round tip and a short arm at its halfway point. The handle had diamond-shaped embellishments, and Woozi had definitely nailed the “pretty” part of your request. You could put this up in your living room and no one would guess that it was a sex toy and not some miniature abstract sculpture. The back of the box told you that it was made out of 100% silicone, had four insertable inches, and featured nine vibrating speeds with five different modes. 

     Without much knowledge on vibrators, you decided that all sounded good enough to you. You’d only had to look at it for half a second before you knew it was the one; it already had you squeezing your thighs together in anticipation.

     “What do you think?” Woozi asked. You’d almost forgotten he was there. When you looked up at him and saw that he had his bottom lip caught between his teeth again, a wave of arousal rolled over you. You had to get home right now. You answered him with a hard swallow and frantic nodding, sure he’d know what you meant. 

     “Don’t you...want to know more details?” He tried, to you violently shaking your head “no.” One corner of his lip quirked up in another semi-smirk, and this time you didn’t even want to smack it off of him, it just made you squirm.

     “Well I wouldn’t be a very good Pleasure Specialist if I didn’t let you know what you were in for,” he said, and in your haze of need it sounded more like a purr. Woozi took a step closer to you, reaching out and touching the underside of your hand with his own. If you hadn’t been too worried about dropping this precious gift he’d given you, you would have jerked away. That simple touch electrified you. 

     I’m disgusting, you thought, desperate and disgusting. I’d fuck him right here and now. Of course, on Woozi’s end the touch was not sensual, he was simply guiding you to turn the box back over.

     “It’s 100% silicone, it feels like a soft velvet,” he told you, pulling off the lid. You lifted your other hand to take the vibrator out of it’s mold, but Woozi beat you to it. It was impossible to hide your wide eyes zeroed in on it in his hands—he was holding something you’d have in you for hours later tonight, while he was right across the hall. He can’t stand you, Y/N, you reminded yourself, he’s just acting like this to embarrass you. 

     But you really didn’t care anymore. You knew this image of him watching you with that roguish half smirk on his face, with his delicate and slim fingers wrapped around your vibrator would be imprinted on the inside of your eyelids whenever you fucked yourself with it.

    “A USB charger plugs in here,” he slid a small plastic piece off the base to show you exactly where “here” was, “an hour of charge gives you three hours of use, if you can last that long.” Remembering this moment would help you last twice as long.

     “There are four inches to fill yourself up with,” he took another step closer, “and once you’re stuffed with it, this little arm will be pressed snug against your clit.” You squeezed your thighs together again, noticing a distinct squish between them. If you hadn’t been so fucking delirious with want, you’d have thought that Woozi definitely wasn’t supposed to be speaking to customers this way.

     “It has nine vibrating speeds, so you can start slow, and keep turning it up to push yourself closer and closer to the edge,” it had gotten so, so much warmer in this shop since you’d stepped over here, you felt a light sheen of sweat settling over your brow, “but once you’re almost there, you’ll turn it back down, slide off the ledge before you can throw yourself over. Because you’re such a little tease you can’t help but tease even yourself, right?” You couldn’t think straight, could barely comprehend the words he was saying, but you nodded. The smirk that was making your knees weak dropped off of his face, replaced with his lips pulled into a tight line and his dark eyes glaring hard into yours.

     “Here, feel it,” Woozi said, his voice soft but demanding, and for a second you really thought he might rip your jeans off and shove it in between your legs in the middle of his shift, in the middle of this store, in front of the old man and young woman who were still looking at condoms and lube. 

     Still looking at condoms and lube? It felt like painfully, deliciously long hours had passed as the sexual tension smothered you back here, and it surprised you to realize Woozi had turned you on so much in such a short time by doing so little. You’d always had a bit of a schoolgirl crush on him, no matter how rude and unpleasant he was, but you never could have imagined he’d have this kind of effect on you.

     You didn’t notice Woozi’s hand raising, didn’t notice the soft snort he gave as he realized how spaced out you were, but you were shocked back into the moment by the feeling of soft vibrations on the tip of your nose. You gasped, going cross eyed to see the bulbous tip of the vibrator pressed there.

     “The clitoris and the tip of your nose have similar sensitivity levels,” you couldn’t believe Woozi could still sound so sexy saying something so ridiculous, “Well? Would that feel good on your clit?” Fuck, yes, it would. He didn’t have to wait for an affirmative cue from you, he could tell by the look in your eyes and the way your neck moved. You were gulping, trying to wet your dry throat.

     “I know it would,” he said, “just like I know you’ll be a good girl and try not to wake me with your screaming tonight, right? I work early tomorrow, I know you don’t wanna keep me up?” He waited for your nod, so sure you’d be obedient and agree with him.

     “I can’t make any promises,” you whispered. What you didn’t say was that even though earlier you’d been ready to get as far away from as you could as quickly as possible, now you wanted him to be achingly aware of you getting off every night with the toy he had so graciously suggested to you. Woozi didn’t say anything back, and his face didn’t reveal much to you, just his narrowed eyes that seemed to imply he wasn’t exactly pleased with you. He never is, your pesky meddling brain reminded you, this is the only way he ever looks at me.

     And just like that, the suffocating sexual tension of the past five minutes came to an abrupt end. It had been easy for awhile there to just focus on how good-looking Jihoon-Woozi was, and on the nasty inappropriate words coming out of his mouth, but there was nothing like remembering how much he’d always disliked you to kill the mood. You took a wide side step, letting the vibrator hang in thin air where it had once been pressed against your nose, and coughed to clear your throat. 

     “Well, I’ll take it,” you announced, refusing to look over at him. You held the box out and felt the slight weight difference of the vibrator being gently placed back into it, then slid the top back on and held the box tight to your chest. Beneath it, you could just barely feel your rapid heartbeat.

     Your walk back to the counter was more like a sprint, like the further away from the Vibration Station you were, the less you’d have to endure this sudden empty feeling. It was a physical emptiness, of course, as you felt the ooze coating the inside of your underwear. But there was a distinctly emotional emptiness as well, that you successfully, immediately ignored after detecting it. Yeah, I’m definitely gonna pass on that today. Now was not the time or the place to try and unpack repressed emotional baggage that you’d been carrying for possible years.

     “Did any of our Pleasure Specialists help you find what you needed today?” It was a different voice this time, and you found that the person at the cash register now was a middle-aged woman, just beginning to sprout gray hairs, smiling warmly at you. You were too fucked up to give her a real answer, so you shook your head and hoped she hadn’t seen you talking to Jihoon-Woozi a mere two yards away from her. Luckily, even if she had, she wasn’t in a position to point out your obvious lie. She just gave a nod and proceeded with ringing up the vibrator.

     “Alright, that’ll be one hundred twenty seven dollars and twenty cents.” Your hand that had been instinctively handing over your card already dropped. The lady behind the counter, who you now noticed was fake-named Scarlet according to her name tag, seemed unfazed by your gaping at her. It was obvious that you were surprised by the price, and she must have been wondering what kind of idiot you were to not have looked at it beforehand, but she kept those thoughts off of her face, only watching you expectantly.

     Maybe he gets some bonus for selling their most expensive products, you thought bitterly. That would definitely explain why he’d randomly turned on Sexy Woozi for you—he was just trying to squeeze as much cash out of you as he could. The idea that he’d play you like that hurt, but you had to remind yourself that you weren’t special to him. In his eyes, you might as well have been any other customer on any other day, minus the sparse-and-somewhat-complicated history you two had. 

     Against your better judgment, you looked back to where you’d last left Jihoon-Woozi, wanting to give him a good glare, but he wasn’t standing there anymore. Where the shelves of vibrators ended, you saw a door with a handwritten “Employees Only” sign and figured he must have disappeared through it.

     “Ma’am? I don’t want to rush you, but there are other customers waiting,” this so-called “Scarlet” spoke up. If common sense and knowing they were the only other people in the store wasn’t enough of an indication that it was the old man and young woman, the murmurs of her asking if he wanted to use the fuzzy handcuffs tonight were. Overwhelmed by anger, some hurt, a light disgust, and mostly a roaring from your vagina insisting that an orgasm is worth $127!, you pressed your card into “Scarlet”’s hand with a huff. You reasoned that you’d make Wendy buy you a decent dinner once a week for the next month to make up for the bullshit you’d been through over the past few weeks because of her, and that combined with the dish washing might begin to make up for all of it, financially and otherwise.

     “Scarlet” rang up your purchase and placed the L’Amourose into a nondescript plain black plastic bag. It was so undistinguished that it was almost even more obvious what was inside of it, at least that’s what your anxious mind had you convinced of. You took the bag and your card into your hands and turned away, in the opposite direction of where the odd couple was standing so you wouldn’t have to see whatever touching and cooing at each other they were doing. You didn’t even tell “Scarlet” to have a nice day, and you didn’t feel guilty about it as you walked away, either. Of course, from behind you, she shouted in a cheery voice, “Please come again!” 

     You didn’t miss the emphasis on the word come and promised in your head that you’d never drive down this road again, you’d never come within five miles of this place again, you’d never even step foot on this side of town again, if you could help it.

     Moving at the fastest pace you could manage without running, you exited the shop and took what felt like your first breath in hours as soon as you had traveled halfway down the alley. The exotic cheese store seemed like it was mocking you, want to come inside? Too bad you’re carrying a fake vibrating dick in that bag and have just been completely traumatized by your satanic neighbor. But you’d been completely traumatized and completely turned on, to the point of feeling like anyone who happened to pass you on your way to your car would be able to hear the squelch of the arousal pooled between your legs. 

     At the end of the alley, you looked both ways to see if there were any other people strolling down the sidewalk. You were relieved that there weren’t, since you definitely didn’t want to hide behind the dumpster against the opposite wall (but you would have if you had to). Then made a break for your car.

     “Dear Wendy,” you read out loud as you typed out a text, comfortably hidden back behind the wheel with your bag of dick tucked securely into the seat beside you, “I’m probably gonna kill you the next time I see you. But I got it, so please do me a favor and stay away from my apartment for the next 24 hours.” Sent.

     It had been two years since you moved into your apartment. At the time, you’d still been with your ex, Seungri. Nowadays you knew it wasn’t really okay for a 23-year-old to date an 18-year-old, fresh out of high school and living on their own for the first time, still impressionable and easily manipulated. But back then, you’ just liked the attention from an older guy.

     On that fateful day, you were age 19 and had been with him for a little over a year. That seemed like a good amount of time to warrant him helping you move out of your dorm and into this place, but he told you he’d made plans already and couldn’t get out of them. Wendy would have helped, but she was visiting her parents, and you weren’t close enough with anybody else to ask them to suffer through this for you.

     So you were alone when you walked up to your door for the first time to find an unaddressed envelope taped below your peephole. Inside you found a less-than-friendly note, “To 203A.” The plate above your peephole displayed that 203A was, indeed, you. A few messily scrawled lines explained that should you fail to keep your music down, or should so much as a yip from a dog be heard, or should you leave any mess outside of your front door, etc. you’d be immediately reported to your landlord. 

     It was signed off, “Thanks, 203B.” This was your first (informal) introduction to the man you would later come to know as Lee Jihoon.

     It was only days later that you got home from class one afternoon to find exactly twenty four shoes piled up on his welcome mat, and a chorus of male voices inside loudly singing along to Girl’s Generation. You hurried into your apartment, throwing your bag down on your kitchen counter and digging through it until you found exactly what you needed. Five minutes later, a bright pink sticky note was stuck over his peephole, with your insistence that he was not only rude but a hypocrite scratched onto it in glittery purple pen. Love, 203A. All the shoes and noise were gone within a couple of hours, but the note stayed on his door taunting you for a week until you ripped it off and threw it away yourself.

     A month or so passed before you finally met the ever elusive 203B face-to-face. It was 2 A.M. and Seungri was laughing as you stumbled down your hall, completely wasted. He would grab you if you were going to fall flat on your face, but otherwise let you slip on the stairs and run into walls simply for his entertainment. When you finally found yourself at your door, you squatted down in front of it and start to rummage through your bag for your keys. 

     “What’s taking so long?” Seungri whined. He wasn’t really drunk, just had a buzz going. If you hadn’t been so far gone, you would have known that he still shouldn’t have been driving like that. But you had failed an exam in one of your classes, and when you called him crying about it, Seungri’s best idea was to fill you up with drinks so you could just forget. Many beers, a few mixed drinks, and two or three shots later, here you were, unable to find your key.

     “Can I…jusssst stay overatyerplace tonight?” A good boyfriend wouldn’t have needed any convincing, but you shot him your best puppy dog eyes, for good measure. In the morning, you could have Wendy bring over the spare key you’d given her in case of emergencies to let you in, but you did need somewhere to sleep. Seungri scrunched his nose, kicked his feet. Clearly the idea of you staying over was not very appealing to him. 

     “Does that mean I’ll get lucky?” He asked. Even Drunk You had enough wits about her to be unimpressed.

     “Nooo, I’m not…I’m not gonna sex with you right now,” you slurred at him, putting on an angry face, eyebrows knitted together and all. Seungri laughed, leaning down and pushing the wrinkles out of your forehead. “Well I can’t bring you over to my place, Daesung has some girls over,” he told you, like that meant shit in this situation. What you didn’t know at the time was that Seungri had every intention of hooking up with at least one of them since he wasn’t getting any out of you. He rose back up to his feet and took a cautious step backwards.

     “You can call Wendy and have her come pick you up, right?” Tomorrow you’d be making up excuses for why he couldn’t just take you over to Wendy’s himself, but at the time, you just nodded dumbly. He gave you two thumbs-up, and threw a “love you, bye,” over his shoulder before he hopped back down the stairs. 

     You tried calling Wendy a dozen times, but of course she was asleep in the dead of the night. Then you were knocking on your door, asking your cat to open it. “Twinkie? Twinkieee, canyouhearme? It’s easy, just…jusss’ reach up and turn the knob with…with yer paws?” Twinkie, a fat cream colored beast, did meow at you through the crack under the door, but obviously couldn’t do much else.

     It took about an hour and a half for you to start crying. You had called Seungri to essentially beg him to come pick you up and take you somewhere instead of having you sleep on your welcome mat, but he didn’t answer. And the crying didn’t go on for long before you heard a long whine of a creak from behind you. You flipped over as quickly as your body would allow you to, and your hand slipped, so you fell backwards and hit your head on the tiled floor of the hallway. 

     “Shit, what are you doing?” It was a voice you’d never heard before. You’d thought the creak could only be either of the nice old lady a few doors down coming out to your rescue, or a ghost. Since it definitely wasn’t an old lady’s voice, you determined it had to be the latter. It was just as you felt someone grabbing your shoulders and trying to hoist you up that you started screaming.

     “Don’t touch me! I’m alive, you can’t…you can’t take m’ body! Don’t possesh me, pleeasssse…..” And a hand was slapping itself down over your mouth. You managed to get your eyes open enough to see that cold brown gaze for the first time, and you looked this person up and down to see a short, slight body wrapped up in a worn out old pink sweater, grey sweatpants, and socks with holes in the toes.

     “Wow, I knew I was avoiding you for a good reason,” that voice said again, and obviously it was his, and he obviously wasn’t a ghost. You immediately felt more relaxed. Underneath his hand, he must have felt your lips shift into a dopey smile, so he let go of your face. Instead both of his hands moved around your shoulders again, and then he was moving you towards the door across the hall.

     “203B! You’re 203B!” You squealed, and he shot you a dark look that you immediately understood, giggling as you made an exaggerated hush motion with your finger over your lips. “But you are…you’re 203B. I was…I was wondering if…if I’devermeetyouuu…” you trailed off. He opened the door and led you into his living room. 

     You could just barely make out that the layout was a mirror image of yours. “I have to pee so bad!” You announced, and tried to rush towards what you knew to be the bathroom door, but stumbled and banged your knee into the coffee table. “Fuck, that hurrrrt!” You spun on your heel and pointed an accusing finger at 203B, although it was actually pointing a little above him, to the left. “Why’d you do that?!” You demanded to know, and got a snort as an answer.

     “Sit,” he said, and he sounded like an Angry Dad, so you did as told. There was a raggedy brown couch beside you that you flopped down onto, and you sunk into the cushions happily. The couple of hours you’d spent lying down in the hallway had been really uncomfortable, and your back was sore. You kicked off your heels one by one, not paying any attention to where they went. One of them safely rolled away, while the other flew into the air and was about to land in a fish bowl on the table behind you, but 203B caught it just in time. He threw it down next to the other one before stomping into his bedroom. 

     You didn’t think much of where he’d gone, you didn’t think much of anything, really. He could have been a violent, sex-crazed deviant but you weren’t in the right state of mind to care. You were just drunk, sad, and really, really tired.

     The next thing you knew, you were woken up by the smell of coffee. You peeked an eye open, wondering where you’d ended up last night, panicking. You saw your shoes on the floor and smoothed a hand down your torso to make sure you were fully clothed, relieved to find that your dress and tights were still on. 

     Ok, now, where the fuck am I? Music theory textbooks were scattered across the coffee table (you definitely didn’t know anybody in the School of Music), an acoustic guitar was propped up in a chair opposite you (you definitely didn’t know anybody who played guitar), and there were many pictures of the same large group of dudes framed on the wall (who the fuck are those people?) The easiest conclusion you could come to was that some stranger had abducted you and you were going to die.

     “Thirsty?” On same wild instinct, you shot up and threw the blanket that had been laid over you in the direction the voice had come from. You looked and it was draped over a figure that could barely be your height, standing stock still. 

     “Uh? Who are you?” Why did I do that? There was no vocal answer from the other person, they just stuck an arm out and pulled the blanket off of themselves, tossing it over the back of the couch. And when you saw their face, it all came rushing back to you. Seungri leaving you on your doorstep, nobody answering your calls, begging your cat to let you inside, and 203B, himself, coming to your rescue. 

     He stared at you blankly, and you opened and closed your mouth a few times, struggling with what to say. You didn’t know if you should apologize or thank him first, and there was another part of you that wanted to tell him off for daring to leave that note on your door about being too loud when he had weekly karaoke parties, seemingly with every single person he knew.

     “I’m Jihoon,” he said, before you could decide which of the things on your mind was the first priority, “203B,” he clarified, “I made coffee. You can have some and then you can leave.” With nothing more to say, he marched back into his kitchen. You stood up to follow him, and the change in altitude made your mouth water with a desperate need to empty out the contents of your stomach. You rushed into the bathroom and heaved into the toilet for a good ten minutes, making a (false) promise to yourself that you’d never drink tequila again. 

     When you emerged, a plain white mug with steam rising from the top was sitting on the table, and Jihoon was sitting in the chair with the guitar in his lap, leaned over and scribbling some notes in on a piece of sheet music. You cleared your throat to get his attention, and when he didn’t give any indication that he’d heard, you did it again, louder. This time, when he didn’t look at you or say anything, you knew he was purposely ignoring you.

     “Thank you for letting me sleep here,” you started, “and sorry for…everything? Probably waking you up, and throwing the blanket at you, and throwing up in your bathroom.” The clock on the wall read 1 o’clock, and the sun was high in the sky, sending streams of light through the blinds. You saw your phone plugged in on the other side of the couch and picked it up, sure that Seungri would have finally called or texted you back to see if you’d made it to Wendy’s safely. But he hadn’t, you just had thirty missed calls from her and many texts demanding you answer her immediately to let her know you were alive. You swallowed the disappointment down. He must be busy, you thought, something you’d told yourself a thousand times.

     You sat down and read through each text from Wendy, the last being that she was coming over with the key and you’d better be there when she arrived. You replied that you were fine, and that you were at your neighbors. She sent back many question marks and exclamation points, but you let those go unanswered.

     “So you’re a songwriter?” 203B—Jihoon—nodded tersely. You picked up the mug of coffee and took a sip, just to instantly let it dribble back out of your mouth because it tasted like tar.

     “Wow, I never would’ve guessed that a college girl only likes pumpkin spice lattes or some shit,” Jihoon mocked you, earning a frown. But you didn’t say anything back because he’d been nice enough to give you a place to stay overnight, so he was allowed a few jabs. 

     You put the mug back down and asked, “Do you have any creamer?” He didn’t reward you with a response, just another snort. Your phone pinged with a new text, 203B? The guy who left you the note? Wait so he isn’t an asshole? And you hastily answered, No, he is, just not enough of an asshole to leave a drunk girl outside to fend for herself.

     “I know you probably think I’m some saint now for letting you in, but,” you looked up at Jihoon, “do you think you could go? Is someone coming with your key?” You nodded, brushing off his attitude. You’d probably be rude to someone who woke you up at 3:30 A.M. with their blubbering and indirectly forced you to let them sleep over, too. After pulling your shoes back on and unplugging your phone, you walked over to the door. You waited to see if Jihoon would say goodbye, say anything, even a “fuck off” would suffice, but he didn’t so much as spare you another glance. 

     “I’ll have to make this up to you, somehow,” you said, trying to sound lighthearted. Jihoon finally looked over at you again, his stare deadly, before asserting, “No, you don’t. We don’t have to talk again.”

     That stung, not knowing what you’d done to upset him so much, but you knew as much as you wanted to it wasn’t your place to snap back at him. You just bowed your head before disappearing out the door. Wendy arrived ten minutes later and let you into your apartment, where you found your key on your kitchen counter. 

     “Why didn’t you go home with Seungri?” She wanted to know, but you just shrugged. “Well how was your neighbor?” Another shrug. You didn’t feel like venting to her like you’d planned on doing anymore, you were just tired again. Speaking with someone as cold as Jihoon was exhausting.

     You never did divulge the details of that first meeting with Jihoon, not to Wendy and definitely not to Seungri. He did ask what you ended up doing that night, and you told him that your neighbor had let you stay over, and he just got pissed at you for staying in another man’s apartment. It didn’t matter that you’d had nowhere else to go or that you’d slept on the couch, it didn’t matter that if he hadn’t gotten you wasted because he didn’t know how else to deal with you when you were sad than it wouldn’t have happened, and it didn’t matter that he should have taken you back home with him. Logic and sense never did matter much to Seungri.

     Your relationship with him was in full meltdown mode by time you had your next encounter with Jihoon, months later. Wendy asked you to go to a party with her; a guy she liked was one of the hosts. With no reason not to go, you agreed. Seungri was “out of town,” which by now you were sure meant he was with another girl, so he couldn’t stop you. 

     The house was packed, and a wide circle cleared in the middle of the living room for two guys to have a dance battle didn’t help with the space issue. You still stopped to watch, and you were rooting for the one with noodley dark blonde hair who was spinning on his shoulders. People were chanting for him as he went, “Ming-hao! Ming-hao! Ming-hao!”

     “Y/N! Come with me to meet Seungcheol!” Wendy insisted, dragging you into the kitchen where some guy with broad shoulders and a thousand watt smile immediately passed you both a red plastic cup full of whatever toxic waste the hosts had to offer for the night. “I call it the DKoncoction,” he told you while Wendy looked over the crowd of people stuffed in there to see if any of them were this mystery man of hers, “no, see, it’s really clever, it’s spelled with my nickname, DK,” he continued, pointing to where he had written the name of the drink on the cup. You gave him a small smile, “It is clever,” you agreed.

     “There he is!” And then you were being dragged away again, this time out onto the back porch. There were less people out here, most of them passing a joint around. One of them took a long drag and then started sputtering, tears coming to his eyes, and the others slapped him on the back, laughing. “This is why we can’t let the baby come to the college parties,” a long-haired guy said, “c’mon, Chan, I’m taking you home. Your parents would kill me if they found out I brought you here and let you get high, fuck.”

     Finally, there were a few of them sitting on the steps leading down into the backyard, facing away from you. The one in the middle had inky black hair, the one on his left had his hair bleached blonde, and the last of them had a shock of pink on his head. “No, dude, it looks fine, go inside and get your own drink! No one’s gonna say anything to you!” The blonde was trying to reassure the pink-haired one as you and Wendy approached them.

     “Uh, Cheolie?” All three heads whipped around when Wendy spoke up, and you took them in one-by-one, left to right. The blonde smiled so wide his eyes practically disappeared from his face, cheekbones pushing them into tiny slits. The black-haired one looked up at Wendy with wide doe eyes, his very pink lips in an “o” as he took in her dress and the nice way she’d done her hair, just for him. Obviously, he was Seungcheol, and you had to admit Wendy hadn’t been lying when she spent hours waxing poetic to you about how cute he was.

     Then you turned to the pink-haired one and had to resist the urge to throw your drink in his face. Jihoon rolled his eyes when he noticed it was you, too. “You should lay off the alcohol,” he chided you, “wouldn’t want you getting hammered and not being able to make it back into your own apartment again. I won’t be so generous with my couch this time.”

     “But if I get drunk enough, I won’t have to remember how someone threw up cotton candy all over your head,” you sneered back at him, lip curled and all. The other three stared wide-eyed at the two of you, and Seungcheol violently elbowed Jihoon in the side. “What the fuck,” Jihoon snapped at him, and Seungcheol smacked him upside the head. “Don’t be rude to my guests, or you’ll have to go,” he snarled.

     “Y/N, you know him? Oh, my god, wait—that’s 203B?” Wendy put two-and-two together, then sent her own glare at Jihoon. In the months since that night, the appreciation for him letting you in had worn off, and resentment for how much of an asshole he’d been had settled in. Wendy shared your feelings. You’d almost baked him a cake or something to “repay him” out of spite, and then realized how stupid it’d be to waste your money on it. 

     Instead you started leaving more passive aggressive notes, and he responded in kind. You’d stick a note on his door thanking him for the smell of garlic that drifted from his apartment to yours and wouldn’t leave for days, he’d stick a note on your door about how much he loved hearing your cat meow for an hour after you left every day; he’d find a rant about how you never thought you’d love being kept up until 4 a.m. by the sound of his acoustic guitar so much, you’d find his thoughts on how refreshing it was to have to park at the other end of the lot because you had someone over and they parked in “his spot”; then you walked all the way over to his car to tuck a note under his windshield wiper complimenting his cleverness in changing the name of his WiFi to “Faster, Seungri, HARDER” after a night in with your boyfriend, and he slipped one under your door to applaud you on your choice in holiday decor, a pumpkin on the floor that started singing when he walked past it at 5 A.M. and made him spill his coffee all over himself.

     “Good point, I’ll need a drink of my own so I can forget the fucked up way you painted your face,” Jihoon pressed on, despite Seungcheol’s threats. He stood up and started making his way back into the house, but stopped as he passed you to add, “That shade of red looks particularly slutty on you,” before he disappeared back into the kitchen. The blonde jumped to his feet and rushed to your side, looking at you with devastatingly sincere eyes, before he said, “I am so sorry, I’ve never seen him act like that towards a stranger?” You laughed and reached up to pat his hair, which seemed a little fried.

     “We’re not strangers, and he’s always like that. Don’t worry.” He grinned and finally introduced himself (“My name is Soonyoung, but you can call me Soon,”), and then he took his seat beside Seungcheol again and they both scooted over to make room for you and Wendy.  

     The lovebirds were cuddled up to each other in no time, whispering and giggling, and you and Soonyoung had to lean forward to talk around them. You told him you lived next door to Jihoon, and he apologized again, this time for an incident in which Jihoon had asked his friends to bring over all their shoes and dirty socks and pile them up in front of your door. He insisted he never would have gotten involved if he knew the neighbor was just “an innocent young lady,” which got him a scoff. That had been in retaliation to the time your bag of garbage ripped open at his doorstep while you were taking it out and you just…kind of…left it there. So the shoes and socks stunt had been more than earned, you had to admit.

     “203B didn’t tell you why you were doing that to me?” You double checked, and Soonyoung shook his head no before explaining that he’d never told them why they did any of the shit they did to you, which included: late night musical choruses in the hall, drawing graffiti in the dust on your car, having all twelve of them knock on your door when they passed by, and so, so much more. “If he asked you guys to jump off a bridge, would you?” You mocked him with the cliche line, and Soonyoung shrugged, “Maybe?”

     Most of your night was spent with you trading stories of all the ways you’d set out to annoy Jihoon for behind-the-scenes information on all of his actions against you. Soonyoung told you that he had been particularly irritated that night he could hear you and Seungri going at it, which certainly piqued your interest, and then said he figured it was because Jihoon wasn’t getting any. “You’d think he would with his job,” Soonyoung had mumbled to himself, but he moved on to another topic too fast for you to ask what he meant by that.

     Wendy and Seungcheol wandered back into the house around 1:30, and she easily talked you into being okay with her bailing on you to stay with him instead of taking you home. “I found someone to give you a ride,” she’d promised, and you trusted her enough to not send you away with an ax murderer. What you weren’t expecting was to walk outside and see Jihoon leaning against the porch railing, straightening up when he saw you and jerking his head towards the cars lining the street as if you should follow him to one of them.   

     “Wait, what? Are you serious? Wendy was this desperate?” You whined, and Jihoon stopped in his trot down the steps to ask you, “Who else would be taking you back? We live in the same building, should someone go out of their way to get you there?” He had a point, and you didn’t really have the money to be blowing on a cab, so you sucked it up and found yourself crawling into the beat-up old sedan you’d frowned and stuck your tongue out at many times before. 

     Seungcheol’s place was on the other side of town from your apartment, a good half hour drive, and you felt your soul leave your body at the idea of having to be in such close proximity with Jihoon for so long. Should I say something to him? Small talk? How about this weather and all that shit? You’d opened your mouth to say just about anything to disturb the awkward silence between you, and it was at that exact moment that he leaned forward and turned his radio on. Your ride home was spent listening to Super Junior at max volume, having your seat vibrate along with the bass line in “Sorry Sorry” and every other song on that album. Jihoon softly sang along to every word.

     It was just as “Shining Star” was fading out that Jihoon pulled his car into a spot, and you were clambering to get out of it as quickly as possible. In the spot beside his was another car that you’d recognize anywhere—it was Seungri’s. You dug through your purse for your phone just to see that it was completely dead and feel a wave of dread pass through you. 

     For the last several weeks, any time you were with Seungri, all you’d done was fight. You were so sure that he was seeing other girls, but if you dared to confront him about it, he’d just insist you were being crazy and overbearing. Of course, if he knew you’d gone to a party without his knowledge and then came home with Jihoon, he’d have pitched a fit.

     “What are you mumbling about over there?” Jihoon asked, lazily scooting out of the driver’s seat. You hadn’t even realized you’d been anxiously ranting to yourself as you desperately tried to get your phone to turn back on, no matter how dead the screen kept flashing to try to tell you it was. 

     “You can just…just go in without me, okay?” You tossed at him, admitting defeat and stuffing your phone back into your bag. What am I gonna tell him? You thought, I don’t wanna start another stupid fight. You leaned back against Jihoon’s car and felt exhaustion settle into your bones. It had been a long day, yes, but it was more of an emotional exhaustion. You were so tired of fighting with Seungri, not trusting him, feeling insecure because of him; any smart girl would have broken up with him a long time ago, but he was your first serious boyfriend and there was a small but very stubborn part of you that didn’t want to give up on him.

     “Isn’t that your boyfriend’s car?” Jihoon piped up from beside you, sending you flying a few feet away from him and stumbling against the curb. “What the hell! I thought you went inside!” You reached over to shove his shoulder in frustration. He shrugged your hand off and said, “I thought you were gonna start having a panic attack over here, I didn’t want that hanging over my head.” 

     A hand over your heart confirmed that it was indeed beating quite fast, and you had been breathing heavily as anxiety wormed it’s way into your mind. You looked down at your feet, no intentions of telling Jihoon about your problems.

     “Yes, that’s his car,” you answered his earlier question, “and I’m fine, I just. I just wanted a minute to myself.” Despite that, Jihoon didn’t walk away, but leaned against the car beside you instead. He kept watching you and it was making you thoroughly uncomfortable.

     “Well I’d rather make sure you get into your apartment alright, like I said, I don’t need anything happening to you and having it weigh on my conscience. Also Wendy would kill me,” he laughed. That much was true, the guilty conscience thing you weren’t so sure about. He did hate you, after all. 

     You sighed and looked up at your window, seeing the light shining from inside your bedroom, regretting giving Seungri his own key. It was something you’d done in recent months, a gesture of good will, trying to express to him that you wanted to make your relationship work. If you hadn’t given him that damn key, he probably wouldn’t be here right now. Jihoon followed your line of sight and huffed.

     “Why are you making your boyfriend wait? Trouble in paradise?” You figured if Jihoon had heard you guys having sex, he had to have heard all of Seungri’s screaming and your crying that had been happening lately, so you ignored that question. He was just rubbing salt in your wounds. You pouted and pointedly looked away, not wanting him to see the hurt on your face.

    Unfortunately the only other thing you could really look at was Seungri’s car, and that only reminded you of the fight you’d had inside of it just a few days ago. He didn’t think you were spending enough time with him, but you had classes and a job you needed to go to, and your grades were suffering since you’d often skip studying to see him. That wasn’t enough for him, but nothing ever was.

     “Y/N, come on, it’s cold,” Jihoon grouched. You’d almost forgotten he was there. He was right, though, it was too chilly to keep standing in the parking lot in your tiny shorts with no jacket. Better bite the bullet and get this over with, you conceded to yourself. Jihoon was already halfway to the stairwell door, and you jogged over to catch up with him. He held the door open and let you through first, and stayed behind you no matter how slowly you trudged up the stairs.

     “Seriously, why aren’t you more excited to see your boyfriend?” Jihoon asked again, the same question with different words. You had to remind yourself that under no circumstances could you disclose personal details about your life to Jihoon. He’d find some way to use them against you next time you did something that aggravated him.

     “Why do you keep saying it like that, ‘your boyfriend’? Like they’re dirty words?” You asked, instead of telling him the truth. You figured he’d say something rude and nasty, like he just had a hard time understanding how any guy could want to date you or something like that. But he was silent. You were surprised he wouldn’t jump at the chance to insult you for the thousandth time. You stopped at the landing that exited to your hall and turned to look at him a few steps below you—saw him gnawing at his bottom lip, wringing his hands together, eyes cast to the side. You were about to ask him what was wrong, when he spoke up quietly,

     “I’m just wondering what kind of guy he has to be to be dating you.” You could have pulled out a snappy comeback, but you weren’t really up to it. It relieved you that he didn’t have anything more serious to say. You had enough on your plate right now, you didn’t need Jihoon fucking up the rival dynamic that you two had going on; it was probably the most consistent relationship you had in your life at the moment. You just nodded down at him, then pushed the door open that continued the path to your doom.

     It was almost 2 A.M. On any other night, your hall should have been empty. But there stood Seungri, leaned against your door and tapping violently at his phone screen. His head shot up when the door slammed closed behind you and Jihoon, and his hard gaze settled on the pair of you watching him. Your eyes were wide and you weren’t proud of your hands shaking a little bit; you weren’t scared of Seungri. He’d never given you any reason to be. You just knew how this must have looked to him, and you’d never convince him that it was anything other than his first assumption. 

     “Y/N, move,” Jihoon groaned, stuck between your back and the door, and put a hand on your arm to nudge you out of the way. You allowed yourself to be pushed to the side some, but didn’t take any steps forward. If looks could kill, you and Jihoon would be long gone.

     “What the hell is going on?” Seungri spat as Jihoon approached him, and from where you were with the soles of your shoes stuck to the floor, you only saw Jihoon shake his head. He’d probably rolled his eyes at Seungri, which would just piss him off more. But your boyfriend was more interested in what you were doing and what you had to say, so he stormed towards you, shoulder checking Jihoon as they passed each other and he finally got to his door. 

     “I called you like fifty times! I sent you a hundred texts! Where have you been?!” Seungri demanded to know, coming up close to you and wrapping his hand tight around your elbow. You just gulped and kept staring up at him. I’m not scared of him, you tried to convince yourself. Seungri had never hit you, and he never would, but he could be an intimidating presence. Just his hand on your elbow was imposing, dominating, making you feel small beneath him.

     “I went to a party with Wendy,” you said meekly, hoping to avoid a real blowout, but Seungri just barked out a laugh. 

     “Right, you went to a party with her but ended up coming home with another guy? That makes a lot of sense, Y/N,” he growled. You thought you knew your boyfriend pretty well, but you’d really never figured out how to diffuse these situations and calm him down. No methods that you’d use on any other person ever seemed to work with him; begging him to believe you, trying to convince him with the truth, trying to convince him with lies when that didn’t work. All you could ever really do was let him go off on you until he wore himself out. You were about to let him drag you into your apartment to do just that when you suddenly heard,

     “I’m her neighbor. I was just taking her home.” You really thought Jihoon had disappeared into his place already, but he was just standing there with his key hanging out of the door, watching the scene unfold in front of him. He was too far away for you to see the expression on his face, but you were sure he was judging you for letting Seungri walk all over you. You didn’t need his pity, really didn’t want to have him trying to stand up for you, but if it worked you’d be grateful. You looked away from Jihoon to see if it did, and you weren’t surprised to see Seungri only looked angrier.

     “Are you kidding me? I fucking knew it, I know you’ve wanted to fuck him ever since you moved in here, haven’t you? Always playing your stupid games with him?” Seungri dropped your arm and turned away, setting his sights back on Jihoon, “And you can’t stay away from another man’s girlfriend, fucking prick.”

     “Trust me, I try to stay away from her as much as possible,” Jihoon corrected him, and your temper flared at the audacity he had to say something like that right now, “She’s pretty annoying to have next door, but the worst part is having a guy like you around.” The hall went dead silent, there wasn’t so much as a breath to be heard. It had been tense already, but now it felt like you and Jihoon had pressed as much as you could, and the wire that was Seungri’s patience was about to snap. 

     “What did you just fucking say?” Jihoon moved to face Seungri fully, shoulders back and jaw locked. Your boyfriend’s slow steps in his direction almost seemed like he was stalking prey, but someone who had themselves opened up to a fight could not be hunted. 

    Jihoon didn’t seem worried, despite the good four inches and several pounds the other guy had on him. You didn’t know if he could hold his own in a fight, but you weren’t interested in waiting to find out. You’d seen Seungri knock a couple of guys out at a club before and didn’t want to see that happen to your neighbor, no matter how many irritating things he’d done to you.

     “Seungri, let’s just go inside and talk, please,” you tried, “Jihoon didn’t do anything wrong, he was just giving me a ride!” Seungri laughed, and the sound made your skin crawl. It was so different from when you’d first met, when you’d tell a dumb joke and he’d laugh and it was like music to your ears. He wasn’t the same person you’d fallen for, he hadn’t been for a long time…or maybe that had never been the real him to begin with.

     “Baby, of course we can go inside and talk,” Seungri said, and you felt a split second of relief, “right after I finish beating this piece of shit bloody.” He stopped within a foot of Jihoon, looking down at him over his nose, challenging him to make the first move. It shocked you to see how comfortable Seungri was playing such an antagonistic role, immediately resorting to violence. 

     Why am I with him? You didn’t have any answers left to that question. Jihoon hummed out a, “Well?” That was the only cue Seungri needed.

     One second you saw him rearing back, fist ready and swinging right towards Jihoon’s face; the next you were grabbing Seungri’s arm and spinning him in your direction, ducking to miss his punch before straightening to give him one of your own. He instantly fell to his knees, cradling his jaw. Holy shit, what did I just do—you hadn’t even realized you’d rushed down the hall to stop him until it had already happened. Seungri was still holding his face as if you’d done any real damage; you were sure it didn’t feel too good, but you weren’t that strong. If his wide eyes and complete silence were any indication, his reaction was out of shock more than anything else. It had the same effect on Jihoon, who didn’t move or say a word.

     You could have felt any number of emotions at that moment, between fear and anger and confusion and uncertainty, but instead you just felt…you just felt better. After almost two years together, you’d finally found the one way to make him shut up. It felt like the weight of Seungri and this entire toxic relationship had been shed from your shoulders. There was only one thing left for you to do.

     You shook out your fist deliberately; it didn’t really hurt, but it was worth it for show. Jihoon pressed himself back against the door to let you saunter up to where Seungri remained kneeling on the ground. You bent down to his level and cocked your head to the side, examining him, reaching out to gently move his hand away from his face. There would definitely be a touch of a bruise there, and you couldn’t bury the swell of pride in your chest or hide the way your lips tilted into a satisfied grin.

     “What the fuck, Y/N, why’d you do that?” He finally spoke, shuffling backwards and out of your reach. You wouldn’t be rewarding him with an answer, just moved closer to him again and shoved your hand into the pocket of his hoodie before he could stop you. It only took a second to feel the metal, and then you were pulling out the key you’d given him not that long ago.

     “I’ll be taking this back,” you affirmed, “and you can leave now. Don’t come back, please.” You hopped back onto your feet and reached out to your door, smiling to hear Twinkie meow from the other side of it. Glancing at Jihoon, you only got the sight of his back as he pushed his door open, ready to get away from this drama. You couldn’t blame him, but wished he’d thank you for stopping his face from being beaten in.

     Seungri scrambled to his feet and hurried to your side, but he continued to have nothing worthwhile to say, only able to stutter out halfhearted apologies in between sudden manic rants about how Jihoon had it coming, how could you do this to him, who did you think you were, blah blah blah. None of it could touch you. You were high off of this freedom from him.

      “Will you fucking stop and just listen to me for once!” Seungri snapped as you were opening your door, and he grabbed the side of it to keep it from opening just that little bit further it had to go before you could slip inside. You felt the brush of your cat’s tail as she ran out the door and into the hall, but you were focused on Seungri. This is my only chance to speak my peace.

     “Listen to you for once? Listen to you for once?! I’m done listening to you Seungri, all I ever fucking do is listen to you! Listen to you tell me how paranoid I am, listen to you tell me you’re just busy with work, listen to you tell me you love me before you go fuck some other girl. I can smell someone else’s perfume on you right now, asshole! I’ve known for a long time, I’m just someone you like to keep around, someone who’d always be there if you couldn’t find anyone else to hook up with, right? Well I’m fucking done being that, I’m done with you, you can go fuck yourself.” You’d never seen your boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—run away from a fight so fast before. He was already slamming the door to the stairwell shut behind him before you had even caught your breath from that tirade. Maybe that’s why he’d always shut you down when you tried to be honest or reason with him—he just couldn’t handle the truth.

     You relaxed against your door frame, eyes shut and letting out the deep breath you’d been holding since you first pulled into the parking lot and saw Seungri’s car. God, it was creeping on 3 a.m. now, and there was a heavy blanket of fatigue draped over you. Just as you were about to roll into your entryway and shut your door on this long night, you heard a cough from across the hall. Jihoon was still standing there in his doorway, but now had an armful of cat rubbing underneath his chin and leaving gifts of fur stuck to his jacket.

     “It tried to run in here,” he informed you, and you could only say, “Her name is Twinkie.” He shrugged as he came forward and moved her into your arms, handling her more lightly than you’d have thought he would. Instead of immediately retreating into his apartment like you expected, Jihoon stood there in your space for a beat longer, looking you straight in the eye. Then he took one small step back before he asked, “Why did you do that?” 

     “Do what?” You honestly didn’t know what he meant—why did you break up with a guy who he knew was a piece of shit? There were a million reasons why you’d done that. 

     Jihoon groaned and looked away from you before he said, “You should have let him hit me. I could have taken him.” To say you were surprised would be an understatement; you couldn’t believe that Jihoon could slip so easily into this testosterone-fueled neanderthal act after everything that had just happened. He’d been witness to you being a total badass, and all he cared about was that he hadn’t gotten a punch in himself.

     “Is that a joke? Sorry, how dare I stand up for myself instead of letting the big strong men duke it out for me,” you mocked him, “Wow, Jihoon, is your masculinity really that fragile?” He bristled at that, puffing out his chest and trying to make himself seem larger than he was. You gave him a dismissive laugh.

     “Why are you acting like I’m an asshole for wanting to defend you,” he tried, and you shifted Twinkie in your arms to get a better hold on her before facing Jihoon to say, “You weren’t defending me, that was all about you, how could you call that defending me when you couldn’t even do it without getting an insult in? ‘She’s pretty annoying to have next door’? It’s not the worst thing you’ve said, but it definitely wasn’t you defending me.” Jihoon sputtered, arms flailing, trying to wrap his head around what you were saying. It was so typical man of him to try and reframe his own shit as him trying to “defend your honor.”

     “Thank you for the ride home, and you’re welcome for not letting him punch a hole through your head,” you said, tone final, “I’m going to sleep. Don’t worry, as always, I know this doesn’t make us friends now or anything. Good night, Jihoon.” You stepped inside and promptly shut your door in your neighbor’s face. If he had anything else to say, you didn’t care to hear it. 

     You were shocked you made it to your room with how tired you were, and you immediately flicked off the light that Seungri had left on before collapsing onto your bed. Trying to process everything that had happened that night was impossible—your head was swarmed by a thousand different thoughts. You wondered how you’d start removing all evidence of your ex from your life in the morning, and you wondered if Wendy finally hooked up with Seungcheol, and you wondered if Seungri even cared that you’d broken up with him, and you wondered what the hell was in that DKoncoction, and you wondered why Seungri had even been waiting at your apartment in the first place, and you wondered if Minghao had won that dance battle.

     But the last thought you had before you fell asleep was that you were done with this silly battle you had going on with 203B. You were 20 years old, had just ended your first serious relationship of almost two years, had a horrible job and schoolwork that you needed to focus on. You figured it was time you did some growing up, and not hanging a banner over his door that read “LOSER” like you’d been planning to do for a few days was how you were going to start. You didn’t need that relationship with Jihoon any more than you needed your relationship with Seungri—you only needed yourself.

     So much for only needing myself, you thought as you turned the L’Amourose over and over in your hands. You’d been home for a couple of hours, the sun was setting, your pants had been flung over to the other side of the room, but you’d yet to turn the vibrator on and get to business. Your body was still buzzing with an inexplicable need, but you couldn’t get Jihoon’s face out of your head.

     The long drive home had given you time to rethink his behavior at the shop, but you were still convinced he’d just been playing you for his own gain, so you decided you’d rather not get off to thoughts of all the dirty nasty hot…hot hot hot stuff he’d said. Too bad you didn’t have any other material stocked in your brain to tap into and get yourself going.

     With a huff, you placed the L’Amourose upright on your bedstand and wandered out of your room, to your kitchen where you’d deposited your purse on the counter. Twinkie was laying beside it, and you gracelessly shoved her onto the floor before grabbing your bag and moving over to your couch. She rejoined you there, curling up beside you as you found your phone inside it and checked your texts. Wendy had replied to you telling her to stay away with a simple ;) that you’d have to give her a good smack for whenever you next saw her. 

     That was the only new message you had, which didn’t surprise you. A lot of your friendships had ended with the end of your relationship. You hadn’t realized until most of the people you socialized with stopped talking to you that you’d centered your whole life around Seungri. 

     Your life now had less people in it, but you knew you were better off. You had Wendy, and by extension you had Seungcheol, and a few of his friends from that dumb party way back when that you talked to every now and again. Sure, it was a little awkward when they were all at Jihoon’s place for their usual get-togethers and you had to pretend all but one of your friends was not a mere thirty seconds away from you, but you were used to it now. If you just so happened to be coming out or going into your apartment as they were leaving his, you knew not to acknowledge them until he had his door shut. He knew you were friends with them, but ignoring it made the nature of your relationship with him that much easier to swallow.

     And your relationship with him was—well, it was nonexistent. You’d kept your vow to yourself to stop your rivalry, lining your door so that he wouldn’t hear Twinkie meowing and making sure none of your visitors parked in his spot, and the one other time your trash had busted open in front of his door, you gagged through the cleanup instead of leaving it there for him to deal with. For his part, there were no smells coming from his place to yours and he was rarely up playing guitar at 4 a.m. anymore, usually he’d stop around 1, at least. His friends still knocked on your door when they passed, but that was usually because they wanted to say hi and get some Twinkie pets in, or they just felt like annoying you for their own amusement.

     You and Jihoon very, very rarely spoke. If you ran into each other in the parking lot or the staircase or the hall, some nods and brief hello’s were all that passed between you both. At times like those it was like your war with him, the night you stayed over, and that night with Seungri had never happened. Of course, you still thought about it all sometimes, on your lonelier, more pensive nights. Maybe if you had never left that note about him being a hypocrite on his door, you two would be friends and you’d never have to go more than a few steps across the hall to find someone to keep you company. It was too bad you’d fucked it up like that.

     You found yourself scrolling through Twitter, shamelessly checking up on fansites of the groups you liked, hoping you’d find a good picture to shape a fantasy around so you could finally start masturbating. Usually you could think up an elaborate scene with one of the guys from BTS or Got7 or EXO, but every time you blinked, all you saw was Jihoon with his lip tucked between his teeth, watching you with those eyes like he’d already imagined getting you naked and panting for him a dozen times over. Thinking of all the times he must have given that look to other women to wring as much money out of them as possible made you cringe, but you also found yourself imagining him flushed, panting, squeezing his eyes shut together from above you as he came…

     “Fuck it,” you blurted out at nobody, at yourself, at Twinkie, maybe. Back in your room, you slipped your underwear off and crawled under the covers. You swiped a fingertip between your folds, pleased that you were still soaking down there, then grabbed the L’Amourose and placed the tip of it against your clit. 

     Ok, this is happening, this is happening, this is happening, you teased it up and down your slit, then held it so it’s entire length was pressed against you, rolling to get a thorough coating of your juices on it. When you were finally satisfied with that, you pushed the tip against your opening, and poised one finger over the button to start the vibrations. 

     Because you’re such a little tease you can’t help but tease even yourself, right? His words echoed in your mind. Those dirty nasty hot, hot hot hot words.  

     You pressed the button.

     And nothing happened. No soft buzz filled the air, no tingles erupted across every inch of your cunt, your hand wrapped around the toy didn’t vibrate along with it. You were frozen, all of the tightly wound anticipation suddenly unraveling, leaving you grasping at straws, unsure of what to do. This can’t be happening, you thought, I need to have an orgasm, I’m actually going to die if I don’t have an orgasm tonight. You pressed the button again and again and again, each time letting your hopes up for just a second only for them to come down crashing and burning over and over. Eventually you kicked your comforter off and brought the L’Amourose up to your face to inspect it more closely, and with it at eye level kept pressing the button, desperate for the toy to come to life. It just sat quietly in your hands, completely dead.

     You didn’t know exactly what your plan was when you hopped out of bed and frantically pulled on a loose pair of sweatpants that had been laying on the floor, when you found yourself jogging into your living room and to your front door, when you were suddenly pounding your knuckles on the door marked with the characters 2-0-3-B. You were so desperate. It was only when the door was swinging open that you realized you still had your left hand wrapped tight around the sticky L’Amourose.

     Jihoon looked tired, but as each second passed and he continued to process the scene before him, the exhaustion on his face was replaced by sheer panic and bewilderment. He opened his mouth to say god knows what, but before he could get any words out you were pressing your empty palm to his chest to push him back into his entryway, following close to him and kicking his door shut behind you. 

     You hadn’t been in this apartment in almost two years, and a quick glance around proved that little had changed. The fish bowl was gone and there weren’t any textbooks on the coffee table, but there were more pictures hung up on the wall and now a row of guitars hanging up opposite of them. You shook yourself out of that line of thought, none of that mattered right now—right now all that mattered was getting off.

     “Ok, Woozi,” you sneered, “I bought this fucking hundred dollar dick because of you, but it’s not fucking working and I’m a little bit pissed off and worked up over it, if you can’t tell.” There was no way he couldn’t tell, with your panting and burning cheeks and all. You slapped the L’Amourose down onto the coffee table.

     “Well? You can either make it work or we have to figure something else out right now,” you hissed, not even thinking about the implication of your words. Jihoon took a cautious step forward, and you watched his mouth open and close and open and close and open and close like there weren’t any words left in his head for speaking, no matter how much he wanted to. He reached a hand out to pick the toy up, but stopped halfway and let it fall back to his side.

     “It’s…It’s…” He started, and he was biting his fucking lip again, and you felt yourself ache at how red and swollen they looked. “Were you already using it?” He asked instead of continuing whatever he’d begun saying before, and the question confused you for a moment before you followed his laser focused gaze back down to the toy, and took in just how wet and gleaming it looked, coated with your arousal.

     Your jaw dropped open, and you…you should have been embarrassed. I should be grabbing that thing and running away, you agreed with yourself. But instead, the sight of Jihoon looking down at the vibrator that you’d been rubbing up and down your pussy lips, that was literally shining from your wetness, made a fire roar to life in the pit of your stomach.

     “Jihoon,” you sighed, and felt your fingers tremble with a need to touch him—to get wrapped up in his hair, to trace his sharp jawline, to drift down his abdomen and into his pants so they could curl around his…you shook your head to dislodge those thoughts from your brain. You’d only come here so that he could get this toy working again, then you’d be back in bed with it in no time, definitely not thinking about him. He was still staring down at it when you grabbed the vibrator and hurried to his kitchen, ripping a dozen paper towels off the roll on his counter and beginning to wipe it down.

     “It won’t turn on, and I don’t know why, I mean, it was working at the shop? I haven’t done anything to it since then, I had just taken it out of the box and was ready to use it, and no matter how many times I pressed the button nothing fucking happened, so I decided to—” You were abruptly stopped by the feeling of a hand grabbing your shoulder from behind, and you froze. 

     Jihoon hadn’t touched you since that night you were drunk and he had to get you into his place. You felt a chip of the wall you’d built up around your heart ages ago slowly, gently drift away as a long and jagged crack emerged.

     “Shh, Y/N,” he cooed, “don’t be so nervous, it’s just me. Relax,” and then he had his hands cupping both your shoulders, deliberately pressing the heel of them into your tightly wound muscles. You couldn’t help the groan that escaped your lips and echoed through his living space.

     “You want to get off so badly, don’t you,” Jihoon said, his voice soft while his touch was anything but, “you know, these are thin walls. I can hear everything—I hear you singing off-key in the shower, I hear you screaming at scary movies, I hear you laughing when someone tells a stupid joke, I hear you talking to your cat when you’re lonely…and I used to hear those pretty sighs and moans when you’d come. I’ve really missed that sound. I was looking forward to hearing it again tonight, I was kind of relieved when I realized that was you at work.” 

     Somehow, even though you’d always complained about hearing things from Jihoon’s apartment, the implications of him hearing everything from yours had never really crossed your mind. Though you couldn’t say you were surprised, maybe you’d have felt more humiliated about it if Jihoon’s massage didn’t feel so good, didn’t have you almost on your knees in pleasure.

     “I don’t think the vibrator is gonna work,” he said off-handedly, a throwaway comment, “it has an 18-month warranty, don’t worry about that, but…if you still want to get off…obviously the real thing would get the job done better, don’t you think?” You were too far gone to protest, to think of all the hundreds of ways this could go wrong, to care that all the hard work you’d been doing avoiding him and keeping your guard up for the past couple of years was for naught. 

     Jihoon’s touch slipped from your shoulders, his fingers grazing your spine through your thin t-shirt and making your back arch, before each hand took a firm hold of either side of your hips and was spinning you around to face him. The vibrator fell to the tiled floor with a dull thud, but as you finally felt those plush, swollen lips of Jihoon’s press urgently against yours, that was the furthest thing from your mind.

     You grabbed the collar of his sweater and tried to pull him closer, longing to feel every inch of him against you. He had the same idea, shifting to wrap his arms tight around your waist. It was unclear where your body ended and his began, and you wouldn’t have had it any other way. Jihoon pulled his face away from yours for just a moment before he was diving back in to latch his teeth onto your bottom lip, and you opened your eyes wide to see him watching you intently, gaze dark and hooded. You gasped at the intensity of his stare, giving him the perfect opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. 

     Your eyelids gently drifted shut again at the sensation of his tongue brushing against yours, and you lightly pressed back before he retreated to tilt his head a different way, then dive back in. This time your tongue reached in first, slowly and gently pressing against his, and when you withdrew you felt his lips chase after yours. You let a soft giggle pass between you, and felt him shiver as your breath fanned out across his face.

     “Let me take you to my room,” Jihoon purred, his fingers rubbing small circles into your sides, his eyes never once leaving yours as you peered up at from beneath your lashes, “please, let me make you feel good.” 

     How could you say no to him? All it took was the slightest incline of your head before Jihoon was unwrapping himself from around you, grabbing your wrist and dragging you out of the kitchen, past the living room, through his wide open bedroom door and into what was new territory for you. You didn’t have the time or interest to look around and inspect the interior, as Jihoon was already leading you on to his bed and pressing you back against his dark sheets.

     When he crawled over you, he had already discarded his sweater. Of course, Jihoon was on the shorter side, but you could see now that his body was sturdy and firm despite that. You reached up to press your palms against his chest, and then let the fingertips of one of your hands drift gently downward, across his abdominal muscles that twitched beneath them. 

     “What do you think?” He asked, and if the crooked smirk on his face was any indicator, he already knew the answer to that question. Still, you told him, “I like what I see.” Inflating his ego was worth it to see the proud light flash in his eyes.

     Your hand stopped at his waistline, and Jihoon took the next step, dipping back in to press more kisses to your jaw and neck as his own hands fiddled with the hem of your t-shirt. It was just as his tongue dipped in to taste the skin stretched across your collar bone that his fingers finally danced up underneath your clothes, teasing touches on your stomach until one of his hands cupped a breast at last. You thanked god that you never wore a bra at home. 

     “Let’s get this off,” Jihoon hummed against your skin before he sat back on his heels, giving you space to tear your shirt up over your head and fling it onto his floor. He didn’t waste a second, diving in and wrapping his lips around one of your nipples as he pinched the other between his fingers. You were breathless—it had been so fucking long since a man touched you like this, you’d almost forgotten how good it felt to let someone else get their hands and mouth on you.

     As Jihoon gave your nipple a hard suck, you pressed both of your fingers into his hair, massaging his scalp with your nails in gratitude. He immediately rutted against your thigh, letting you feel his erection for the first time. The hard heat of it through his jeans made your mouth water. You could have laid there for hours with his tongue and fingers worshiping your chest, but you were overwhelmed by the need to get your eyes and hands on his cock. When he parted from your chest with a dramatic, wet pop! you grabbed his shoulders to push him away, only far enough so you could move onto your knees. 

     “What is it, baby?” Jihoon asked carefully, noticing the frantic look in your eye, instantly worrying that he’d done something wrong, pushed you too far. The idea of making you uncomfortable and upsetting you physically hurt him.

     But you quelled his concerns with your hands on his waist, undoing his belt and slipping the leather from it’s loops so you could toss it aside and get to his button and zipper. Jihoon laughed as your hands fumbled with them, shaking hard with desire and rust since it’d been so long since they’d done this, and even some stifled nerves. You’d be an idiot to not be nervous right now—you’d just discovered that Jihoon was some sort of hot sex god and didn’t want to leave him disappointed in what you could do. 

     Jihoon did his best to ease your apprehension by reaching down and undoing the button and zipper himself with his steady hands over your own, keeping his eyes locked with yours. There was something so intimate about it, more intimate than making out and him slobbering all over your boobs, more intimate than everything you were getting ready to do. This is what made you blush, and your blush is what made Jihoon’s heart lurch in his chest.

     “Are you sure you want to do this with me, Y/N?” He asked you. He wanted the answer to be “yes” so badly, but if it was no, he’d have to let you leave, and he’d have to be enough of a gentleman to leave you alone after that, for good this time. You deserved that much from him. But you couldn’t imagine saying anything but “yes.” God, you’d wanted this for so long. 

     You’d wanted him for so long.

     “I wouldn’t leave this bed and stop doing this with you even if this building caught on fire right now,” you offered, before giving his jeans and briefs a sharp tug down to his knees. You’d never felt so empty between your legs as you did when you first laid your eyes on Jihoon’s cock; for such a compact man, that part of him was anything but. The length was decent, but it was the girth that made a whine bubble up from your throat. You wrapped your middle finger and thumb around him, and as he bucked into your hand, you considered the inch that kept them from touching each other.

     “Please, please fucking move your hand,” Jihoon gasped, and you realized you’d been been just staring at him for several moments now. You didn’t need to be told twice, letting the rest of your fingers take hold and giving his cock a single dry jerk. You noticed him wince, and removed yourself from him so that you could grab his hands that were pressed tightly to his thighs. 

     “Jihoonie,” you sighed, “take my pants off, will you?” He did as asked, slipping your sweatpants off and then watching in awe as your spread yourself out for him. You could have sworn you saw a little drool dribbling out from his dropped jaw.

     “Silly Jihoonie,” you purred, and slid one of your hands up your thigh before settling it against your folds, scooping up a generous amount of your juices, “later we’ll have to put your mouth to better use than that.” He slowly shut it, a touch embarrassed, but that was washed away the moment you wrapped your hand back around his cock, stroking it up and back down again to coat it with your wetness. A moan ripped out of him and made the heat at your core flare. 

     You gave him a few more jerks, then rolled your palm across his tip. He immediately fell forward, bracing himself with his hands on either side of your waist, mouth wide open in a silent gasp. Your other handed drifted down without him noticing and he whimpered when you suddenly grabbed his balls, squeezing them gently. 

     “Oh, fuck, fuck, Y/N, fuck,” he chanted, and you were sure you could feel yourself leaking onto his sheets. His cock felt so smooth and heavy in your hands, and as much as that was a feeling you had missed, there was a different feeling you’d been craving so, so much more. You tugged once with both of your hands, and he reached down to stop you right before you could stop yourself.

     “Wait, wait, I want to fuck you, I need to cum with my cock buried inside of you,” he hummed the magic words. You let go of him and watched with bated breath as he scooted forward on his knees, letting yourself be manhandled so he could place the back of your thighs over the top of his, then wrapped your legs around him, heels pressing against his back, pressing him closer. 

     Jihoon leaned over to grab a tiny foil packet from his nightstand, and god, you were going to fucking melt all over his bed if he didn’t get inside of you already. When he finally had the condom on, Jihoon wrapped his own hand around the base of his cock and tentatively swiped it through your slit; just the brush of his tip on your clit made your whole body twitch, made you mewl. 

     “Mmm, that’s what I like to hear,” he whispered, and did it again, but this time deliberately pressed the head of his cock hard against your clit.

     “Oh, god, Jihoon! Just put it in me, please, please please please, fill me up, I need to come, baby, I need you to make me come,” you begged him, eyes screwed shut, fingers clenching and unclenching against thin air. He snickered, and you thought he’d do as you asked when you felt him move again, but then he was slapping his length against your clit like a fucking tease. God, you could have cum right then and there, from that alone. It would have been the most unsatisfying orgasm of your life, and you were so, so fucking close to it, tears were already forming at the corners of your eyes.

     “You really want it, Y/N? You want my cock that bad?” Jihoon growled, and just as you were screaming out a ‘yes!’ he took mercy on you and shoved himself balls deep into your pussy. Only half of the word got out before your breath was sucked out of your body, and you choked on thin air. Your eyes felt like they’d fall right of your head with how wide they opened, and you took in the beautiful sight of Jihoon on top of you. 

     Your imagination could never come up with something half as good as the real thing—a flush had spread from his face, down his neck, across his shoulders and chest; a layer of sweat had built up on his brow, and he had his eyelids screwed tight together from all his effort not to instantly cum.

     You had been soaking for hours, but it had been so long since anything was inside of you and Jihoon was so wide that the light sting was inevitable. You hissed as he slowly drug his cock out of you, then slammed it back in. Your breasts shook with the force of it, and he took it upon himself to grab and squeeze one of them as he started a slow, steady rhythm of thrusts. You put your hands on his shoulders to brace yourself.

     “I’ve been hard ever since I saw that was you at the shop,” Jihoon spoke up through gritted teeth, “I’d been ignoring how bad I’ve wanted you for years, and there you were, looking so naive and innocent trying to buy a fucking sex toy,” his statement came with a particularly hard thrust that made you cry out and clench tightly around him, ���it was my every wet fucking dream come true.” 

     Jihoon opened his eyes to stare down at you, and you felt like you might dissolve from the pressure of the raw want they poured into yours. You’d never been able to read him very well, but now he was completely open to you, and you could see through his cold exterior to the simple, untainted affection he must have been harboring for you for awhile now. You felt a whole chunk of that wall around your heart ripped away.

     You felt Jihoon’s touch on the outside of one of your knees, and then his hand was skimming up your thigh and around your hip until it dipped down to press a thumb to your clit. You ground down against it, inadvertently pressing more of his cock into you, and his tip scraped lightly against your g-spot. “Oh, fuck,” you wailed, and when he thrust back into you, you did it again, and this time he slanted his hips just so to stab at it again, but he didn’t pull out. 

     Now he stilled to let you rotate your hips, lips trembling around broken gasps as his cock brushed against your g-spot over and over and his thumb smoothed measured circles into your clit. You felt the pressure in the pit of your stomach bubbling up, past your belly button, dancing through your ribs, until it pressed desperately against your lungs. Just before you could burst, you wrapped your hands around the back of Jihoon’s neck and pulled him down with all the force you could muster—you slotted your lips over his and screamed into his mouth as you came. Jihoon started moving his hips again, and your orgasm faded only some before roaring back to life when his pace became frantic, his thrusts wicked and brutish, making his balls smack against your ass.

     “C-Come for me, come for…come for me, Jihoonie,” you sighed against him, barely able to keep your eyes open, stars dancing behind their lids and beckoning you to drift into the most perfect of post-orgasmic naps, but you couldn’t do so until Jihoon had gotten his own release. You focused enough to suck that sinful bottom lip between yours, and clenched around him once, twice, a hard third time before Jihoon’s body went rigid on top of you. An animalistic groan erupted from him and bounced off the walls, the last thing you heard before you slipped into unconsciousness.

     “’Cause tonight I’m making deals with the devil, and I know it’s gonna get me in trouble, just as long as you know you got me,” and Ariana Grande was the first thing you heard when you came back to the land of the living. Well, not exactly Ariana Grande, but Jihoon softly singing the song of hers that had been playing when you first set foot in Bits & Pieces Boutique. That felt like years ago after everything you’d just been through. 

     A soft touch on your thigh shocked you, but you controlled your body and didn’t jump away from what you could immediately tell was Jihoon’s hand rubbing up and down. You peeked an eye open and, god help you, you’d never seen anything more beautiful than Jihoon sat up against his headboard, scrolling through whatever on his phone with one hand while keeping the other protectively on you, the late evening sun spilling through his window and casting the most beautiful light against his soft, pale skin. His hair was going in a thousand different directions, his lips bruised, and he couldn’t have looked any better if he tried.

     “I’ve been there all night, I’ve been there all day, and boy, got me walkin’ side to side,” he continued. You didn’t want him to stop, so you laid there silently, afraid to breathe lest he be alerted that you were awake, until he finished the song. And when he did he locked his phone and looked right down at you before he said, “You must have liked my singing, then.” 

     You gave him a girlish giggle, not physically capable of hiding the silly smile that stretched across your face. You went to sit up, but your arms were wobbly beneath your weight and you couldn’t manage it. Jihoon shook his head at you, turning and pressing your shoulders so you’d lay back back down, then petting your hair as you rested against one of his pillows. You noticed he’d put his briefs back on and you were a little disappointed.

     “Just rest, that took a lot out of you,” Jihoon bragged, with a comically cocky grin, but instead of irritating you, it filled you with fondness. “I have to clean myself up,” you insisted, but Jihoon reached down and grabbed a wet washcloth off the floor before he reassured you, “I took care of you.” 

     He chose his words carefully, and you knew they were deliberate. You gulped down the rush of emotions that threatened to spill over. I took care of you. You’d never allowed yourself to think about it before, but he’d taken care of you so many times already.

     “Thank you,” you whispered, and you meant it for everything. For putting that letter up on your door before you’d even met, for letting you into his apartment that night you were drunk, for plotting all those stupid ways to get back at you for all the stupid ways you were always getting back at him, for being at that party and taking you home and standing up for you against Seungri, for backing off and leaving you alone when he knew you needed it. For suggesting that stupid, beautiful vibrator that didn’t even work and brought you right to him. You didn’t say that it was for all of those things, but Jihoon knew, you were sure of it.

     He shifted to lay beside you, and you rolled over to rest your head against his bicep and throw your arm across his chest. “You’re welcome,” he finally replied, “and thank you, too.” You didn’t ask for what—you knew what he meant, as well. The pair of you laid in silence for a few minutes, and Jihoon lifted the arm you weren’t laying on to reach his hand out to yours. 

     As you stared at your fingers and the way they fit so comfortably in between his, you suddenly remembered something that Seungri had said the night that you broke up with him: he believed you had wanted to fuck Jihoon all along. And maybe that was true, he was a good looking guy, after all…but ever since that first letter, you’d always wanted just a little more from him. At first, it was some respect. Then it was friendship, and a little over an hour ago, it had been sex. 

     You could feel the wall around your heart imploding and Jihoon was forcing his way inside, by way of squeezing your hand to break you out of your reverie and sending you a shy smile when you looked up at him. Yes, this was the man you’d wanted for a long time.

     And as the dust settled, you hoped that maybe now,      you could finally have him.