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soobadnoonecanstopher · 1 month ago

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Rat Bastard - Part 10

Pairing: You x Kyungsoo

Rating: M (Mature Smut)

Word Count: 12,000

Warnings: There were too many beds, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Sexual Tension, Idiots to Lovers, Mature Sexual Situations.

Tag: @ilovemyapopbaby

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

If someone told you last week that today you’d find yourself staring into the eyes of Doh Kyungsoo — but really, really staring into the depths of them, and all around them, squinting and scrutinizing so up-close that you could even see that itty bitty mole in the lashline of his right — left — one of his eyes, and you could probably even count the lashes he had on his bottom eyelid with the way you leaned in to get the shape right, to get a good view of the shading, to get the minutest of details of this man’s eyes — if someone had told you that you’d be doing this right now with him, you’d recommend that they seek professional help asap.

It didn't help you at all the way his brown irises followed you around, that little dance of his eyebrows and the slow blinking and the little pop up of his cheekbones just below his eyes that vanished as quickly as it had appeared; the beginnings of a smile; some stifled reaction to you when your focus grew to levels too intense and he obviously felt some sort of way about it.

“Stop moving,” you complained when he scratched the tip of his nose with barely there fingernails and you moved to the other big eyeball on his face. The eyes were always the hardest. It was all hard but the eyes were really make-or-break, and once you’d scribbled in your best attempt, this thing might be broken. You were doing your best, but really, your best wasn’t so great.

“This isn’t going to be good, so just put that out of your head right now.”

His eyes flitted around your face again and he inhaled a quick breath through his nose as if he had something to say right now, right now when he’d already been holding the exact same face and exact same position for 25 minutes now and was seriously about to fuck it up with talking, “Shhhh, shut up,” you said preemptively pressing your pencil over his pursed lips.

That primed and ready breath of his was very carefully exhaled through his nose. Thankfully his lips stayed closed.

Your focus on his face was already hanging by a thread. There was just something about seeing him this close up that had you all messed up. You had to remember the task at hand lest you stumble and fall into those pretty lips of his. You did notice the clench of his jaw muscles and slight furrow in his eyebrows but you weren't drawing his mouth yet and you’d long ago scratched in some full eyebrows over his eyes that looked more like two poisonous fuzzy caterpillars than something you’d see on such an attractive face. It didn’t at all help that you were feeling so nervous today.

Today, Day 1 of you and him. For some reason you hesitated to count yesterday as Day 1. Despite the date; despite the dramatic weepy declarations of love; despite the sex. The day had just been so long and fraught with conflict, it felt appropriate to start things off today. Today, the day after you’d accidentally fallen asleep right here in this kitchen on this mattress and the man had simply tucked himself in right beside you and let you sleep and snore and drool or whatever the hell it was you might have done in your sleep; he just slept too. He must have been just as exhausted as you’d been. He didn’t touch you, he didn’t pull you in for a spoon or sleepy morning sex and when you’d woken up he had already been up for who knows how long. You found him cleaned, teeth-brushed, dressed in something fresh, having a cup of coffee as he sat on this mattress you slept on and he just — watched you sleep. Then watched you wake up slowly by the smell of the coffee and the creepy sensation of being watched and he smiled innocently at you as you crawled yourself up from the indignity of sleep and he didn’t even look away as you pretended as if you’d intended for this sort of thing to happen all along.

Whatever protests to your shushing him just now had quit and you moved your focus down to his lips. You were leaning and doing your best to resist the physical pull you felt to him, your resolve was strong today. You had been keeping a distance today. You scribbled some more onto your sketchpad that you held up to your chest to hide all of the awful things you were doing to his pretty face with your clumsy fingers. It was so bad. You didn’t usually draw, but somehow you’d come into this with false confidence. You’d really thought you’d do better than this. But this didn’t look like him at all. You dragged the pencil led down from the top of his forehead, pulling strands of black hair down again and again, hoping that by simply adding more hair you might be able to cover up some of your many offenses.

You’d made no grand claims to being an artist. Perhaps the most disappointing part of this was that you actually were trying.

His lips were soft and plump. Moisturized and full and in the middle of one of the humps sat yet another mole. You’d been counting them with a little hum from the back of your throat with each little dot you counted on the face of your polka dot man, when you looked up again, the corners of his lips were pulled into a tiny smile, clashing with the shape his mouth that you’d already sketched down somewhere below his nose and definitely too close to his chin for accuracy. You hadn’t drawn him with a smile. He needed to stop that.

You lifted your pencil, “Stop smiling. You’re ruining everything.” Your lack of talent wasn’t his fault, but somehow you felt better blaming this monstrosity on him. His eyes widened and he lifted a hand to his chest, lifting both of his fuzzy caterpillars in protest, in indignation, and you made a quick shushing sound with hiss and a tisk from the back of your throat and he somehow resisted the urge to say anything out loud.

The rules to this ridiculous game were clear and you’d both agreed to the terms ahead of time.

You each got 30 minutes to draw each other with the art supplies you’d found in the box. The subject of the portrait was not allowed to speak or move and the artist with the closer likeness would be the winner. If neither of you could agree on a winner, you’d enlist an outside judge. You looked down at the image you’d captured and seemed so bad he’d have to go out of his way to lose to you.

The prize was the last pack of ramen. Something, it seemed, that Kyungsoo might be ready to kill for. You weren’t too invested in the noodles, but you sure enjoyed seeing him work so hard for them. The loser had to wash the mountain of dishes that mocked you from the kitchen counter.

You knew when to quit. You’d shaded your last bits around his eyes, attempting somehow to make shadows but really ending up with some sort of leatherback sea turtle effect on this terrible portrait that might have looked a little bit like him if he was turning into some sort of half man, half moss covered forest creature caught mid transformation. The timer on his phone was ringing and Kyungsoo was exhaling a long breath, shaking his head and pulling his face into dramatic stretches. You placed your monstrosity face-down on the mattress you both sat on in the middle of this kitchen and you did your best to keep your poker-face in place. You wouldn’t let him know that he’d already won the game. He had to work for it a little bit first.

“Okay my turn,” he declared and he actually cracked his knuckles before grabbing his own sketchpad and reaching forward to grab ahold of the pile of assorted color pencils you’d been working through. Maybe that’s where you’d gone wrong, trying to match his skin tone and rosy lips and darker skin colored shadows which without any actual skill behind the application just made him look kind of abused. You should have gone with just black and white. Maybe the result wouldn’t have been so bad.

Kyungsoo was seated on his butt with his legs crossed and he scooted closer to where you sat waiting for him to position you into the pose he wanted you in so he could begin. His close proximity to you had his inner thighs flush up against your knees and you idly wondered about the necessity of such closeness. You’d done his portrait with just a little bit of leaning whenever you needed to get closer to see better.

But here he was.

You squared your shoulders and clasped both hands in your lap looking into his up-close face and you waited, giving the smallest bounce of your eyebrows the second he looked up from his sketchbook and his brown eyes slipped up the length of your face and bounced all around your features, somehow never quite sinking down deep into your eyes. He was looking up at your forehead and he lifted his rounded fingers, lightly trailing the pads of his fingertips over the skin of your forehead down over your eyebrow, you could feel the stray strands of hair he brushed aside. The touch was so light and yet it quickly followed with the silent slip of his eyes down into yours where they lingered for half a second; for long enough for you to inhale through your nose and have to hold it; for long enough for your own eyes to widen and and for you to feel the microscopic bounce of your eyebrows.

Those eyes had you for such a brief moment and yet you felt so captured. Maybe it was the way he was observing you. He had a job to do here though, and he let you go. You exhaled slowly through your nose, careful not to make it known that you had stopped breathing while he looked at you.

You could hear the scratching of his pencil on his notepad in his lap. He kept it just angled enough to keep you from being able to see what he drew and when the temptation grew too irresistible you lowered your chin just a hair, dropping your eyes with your churning curiosity.

Would you also look like a troll or did he have some actual talent? So far he’d proven to be annoyingly talented at so many things.

You felt his fingertips land just below your chin and he lifted your face up with the slightest of pressure with warm fingertips that did not leave your skin right away. He was looking into your eyes again and you forced your eyes to remain up. It took some effort and with him looking at you again this way you felt the same captivation as before. His fingertips under your chin, no longer needing to direct you, yet remaining nonetheless. His fingers left your face and his eyes looked back down at his sketchpad and you exhaled the held breath just as carefully with a controlled and undetectable exhale. You rolled your eyes around inside your head, to moisten them, to make a promise to yourself -- you would make an effort to get the upper hand over your flimsy self control. You would not cheat. You would stay still and you’d follow the rules and then you’d wash the dishes when he was done and you’d probably even wash his still warm ramen bowl after he ate all of the noodles by himself.

If you weren’t allowed to see his progress you’d just have to settle with reading the reflections of moisture in his eyes. You’d just have to settle for catching every glance and glimpse of his pretty eyes that examined your face so closely you swear to god you could make out the shape of you reflected back in his black pupils.

Kyungsoo lifted his pencil to your face, placing the eraser end of his pencil flush against your skin in a few spots that you wondered if he’d ever let you win against him at least once in your life together. He held it once against your forehead, marking a spot on the pencil with his thumb and adjusting something on his masterpiece.

He was back with the pencil and he leaned in and squinted as he looked quite closely at your mouth. The scrutiny had you feeling a certain way and you pursed your lips just a little bit, puckering your chin and giving your face the smallest shake and you cleared your throat.

Your movement caught his attention and he was holding a tiny grin somewhere trapped inside of his mouth. You could see the evidence of it in his eyes.

After not too much of a fight and while he was looking down at his work you saw his mouth pull into a wider grin. He was laughing. Maybe at you.

You knew you shouldn’t speak so you dipped your face ever so slightly and lifted your eyebrows with the tiniest questioning whine escaping from the back of your throat.

His smile widened and you saw teeth, and his eyes bounced up to touch into yours, hearing your unspoken question and clearly understanding.

“Nothing,” he said with the smile still on his face and a quick shake of his head back and forth, refusing to tell you. His response made you furrow your brows and your head ticked backward with a pout forming on your lips from him denying you an explanation. What exactly was funny enough for him to be wearing that silly smile. Was it something about your face maybe? Was it a flaw, perhaps? Something you’d spot in the magnified mirror and obsess over for a week? Did he see something too?

He was still focusing on his work, but you felt the tiny scowl in your lips and when he looked up again you pulled your eyes away from his, looking straight ahead at the empty kitchen behind his head.

You could feel him looking at you. The kitchen cabinets were old and had big sections of chipped away and flaked paint and you wondered how many years ago this place was painted. His face bounced around in front of yours, eyes seeking to touch yours again and you kept your focus on the big loose flakes of paint that might come off easily if you wanted something fun to occupy your evening tonight, you could pick off that old paint all alone and get lead poisoning from it without the man who wouldn’t tell you what he found so damn funny about your face.

“Hey,” you heard him say and you inhaled a very slow, very steady, and very calm breath; exhaling that used-up air with just as slow, steady, and calm of an exit. He called you. You ignored him and stared at your chipped paint.

“Princess?” Warm fingers touched over the back of your hand and his face moved just in front of your line of sight, those brown eyes moved in, uninvited and you felt it again. He had you again, so easily, his sweet tone and that sweet nickname and you gave in. You tightened your fists between your thighs and his eyes roamed around your face again, slipping down into your eyes. You hadn’t heard any scribbling on his paper in a while and you wondered if this multi-talented man was already finished beating you at something else. Your eyelids bounced as you fought against your desires and he was so close to you now you wondered if he had moved even closer while you had your own silent little big-baby fit about absolutely nothing a few minutes ago.

You heard his inhale and your lips parted when you felt the warmth of his hand land over your cheek. You moved nearly unconsciously, pulling your chin up so your lips were in line with his. You could still feel it inside of your chest, that very minor fit, that very slight upset at the very idea that he was laughing at you about something he refused to tell you. You knew you were being silly. This knowledge did not help you any.

“I think I’m done drawing,” he said with a whisper and you inhaled to speak the moment he called it. If he was done you didn’t need to be still and quiet anymore.

“What was so funny before?” You could hear the petulance in your voice as you said it, but you just couldn’t help it. You had some insecurities that loved to make an appearance at inconvenient times, no matter how lovely of a time you’d been having with him. Your question pulled his attention back up and he lifted a single eyebrow with a little tick of his head.

“Oh,” he said with his mouth pulling into another smile with such a softness inside his eyes as he caved to it. He was shaking his head and he broke eye contact.

“It’s,” he inhaled again and you could make out just a little bit of a rosy shade that covered over his neck. If he had that color during your portrait you would have used all of the crimson colors you had in your pile and made him look like some sort of red-necked woodpecker, “it’s silly, but I drew your lips without actually looking at them first. And when I did look, I got them right,” he gave a little head shake and he wrinkled his nose, inhaled, and his focus was back on your face and you felt his hand slip off of your cheek now that he had you back from the silly fit that was really nothing at all; as you knew deep down all along it would be. Your sweet boyfriend would never make fun of your face.

You shook your head lightly, getting his point but feeling a desire for him to say more. Maybe he could describe just how many days, hours, weeks, months he’d daydreamed about kissing your lips. The smile on his lips sank slowly and his eyelids sagged halfway down before he inhaled again, “I‘ve had your face in my mind for so long, I hardly even had to look at you.”

Oh, yes, of course.

Of course it wasn’t something bad that he had noticed. You felt your own lips purse and your bottom lip pushed forward, feeling rather ridiculous for the negative thoughts that had filled your head earlier, before you even gave him, or yourself any credit at all, even though deep down inside you knew it, you knew it.

“I still wanted to. To look at you.” He was smiling while looking down at the sketchbook in his hands, “you have a very nice face. I feel everything when I look at you.”

He blinked slowly and his eyes were back. “I can't even remember anymore -- it was so recent, but I’m struggling to remember any of those old feelings from before. Before I loved you.” He laughed to himself once, “But even this — kind of feels like a dream. I get these flashes of fear that I might still wake up.”

He leaned into you then, moving in close so quickly your eyes went crossed and he blurred in front of you and you gasped in surprise when his lips parted just over your pouting bottom lip and he kissed you quick. You hardly had time to register him coming in, let alone kiss him back.

“You’re still real.” He said with the softest giggle. You felt a tightness inside of your throat. How could he be this beautiful? You felt such warmth in your cheeks. It was the suddenness of it. After yesterday, even after the love you and he had shared together, even with the small touches and longing looks, it was still all so brand new to you both that you almost felt too nervous to touch him as freely as you really wanted to. Maybe he really had been the more conservative type of man. What if you scared him off with how much you wanted from him and how badly you craved him? He seemed to pick up on your nerves and memories of him just sleeping beside you last night not touching you and you too nervous to touch him; well of course this odd distance from him only made you even more anxious for every little potential touch from him. The kiss just now nearly sent you back in time.

You felt the burst of butterflies that filled your chest and you felt absolutely accosted by the overwhelming surge of giddiness that instantly followed.

You had to cover your face. Both of your hands flew up to touch over the burning heat you felt in your cheeks and you closed out the view of him. You had to hold it in, but my God this rush was unparalleled and the built up energy had to go somewhere. It came out of you as giggles; you were too worked up again. You were giggling like a mad-woman hiding under your own hands and when you peaked through your fingers that breathtaking smile on Kyungsoo’s face never even came close to satisfying it; the deep need you felt inside of you to look at him, to laugh with him, to be silly with him and play with him. The best you could do was the little squeal; lean forward with both of your hands on his shoulders and the smallest push against him. How dare he be this perfect, this attractive, this absolutely loveable and how dare he do it with a face that gorgeous?

With the push came some more laughter from somewhere inside of him, you’d jostled it free with the attack and your eyes caught the flutter of a sketchbook that fell down onto the mattress beside his thigh. Your eyes couldn’t resist looking, you really did not try to look and you hadn’t even seen all of it but what you did see was a black and white pencil sketch of a nearly perfect representation of your mouth. There was expert level shading, there was absolutely no mistaking the raw talent this man had for drawing even though at the beginning of this game, he’d promised, swore to you up and down that he had no formal training in art, hadn’t even taken a single art class or watched an art centric youtube video. His fingers grabbed his book the moment it had fallen and since it had all happened so quickly, you’d given nothing away to betray the fact that you had seen it.

Your mind was slipping down to the memory of what you’d managed. That awful monstrosity that sat face down on the mattress beside you and you could feel a dark and dirty cloud; the used motor oil-like, dirty mop water-esque, three times used bath water sense of absolute shame covering over you from your head to your toes. He was just so very special and seeing yourself compared to him just made you feel unworthy. Unworthy of his time, his company, his touches and kisses and love. You felt an urge to hide from this feeling.

You reached a hand out and gripped your sketchpad tightly, shoving it far under your thighs so that you sat on the thing and you opened your mouth to begin hostage negotiations both to save your pride and to save his feelings for having to see such a terrible gross misrepresentation of that absolute beautiful face of his.

His giggles had long since calmed down and you closed your eyes and inhaled a steadying breath; your recent giggles now a long distance memory and in no way competition to beat back the apprehension you felt coursing through your mind.

He couldn’t see this. You’d just give up now and you’d take this thing to the grave with you. He could have the ramen. You’d wash the dishes. You’d rip the page out, tear it into a million pieces and you’d eat every single bit if you had to, but he couldn’t see this.

“Umm,” you said softly, your eyes unable to meet his very suddenly — suspiciously so — and finding your mouth had gone too dry for your words to come out freely, you had to lick your lips, look at the cupboards with the chipping paint flecks behind his head and shake your head to loosen up your tongue.

“I -- uhh,” You exhaled, knowing that it was ridiculous for you to be suddenly nervous about this but you knew the kind of person he was, you needed to find a way to get out of this without raising too much suspicion so he would let it go and just take the win.

“I don’t think we should do this.” The second the words were out of your mouth, you looked into his face and you noticed the immediacy with which you’d grabbed his attention. This game had been a bad idea and you needed to convince him that it was in his best interest not to complete it.

But something was changing on his face; that beautiful smile was sinking quite slowly and he pulled his chin back, giving his head the smallest head shake of non-understanding.

“I just don’t think — it’s the best idea —” your brain wasn’t working right. His eyes had changed and it had happened so suddenly, the dramatic darkening inside of his eyes swallowed up your words and took your confidence.

“What are you talking about?” His whispered question felt so small and unsure and you absolutely hated the look that had manifested in his eyes. Oh no. You’d used the wrong words for this. You’d captured a look of fear in his eyes; the very last thing you meant to do.

You very quickly reached a finger out to lightly grip the sketchbook he’d abandoned on the mattress beside him. You were shaking your head, stoutly denying the awful conclusions he’d had jumped too.

“Let’s just say you won, okay?” There was a whining, pleading tone in your next words to him and that flash of darkness in his eyes shifted when he looked down at the sketchbook that you were still pulling into your lap, while shoving your own farther under your butt. The smile on your face was to really sell it. He won, you lost. Neither of you needed to check the drawings.

You heard a sound come from his chest. A rough exhaled puff of pure air straight from deep inside of lungs. He was lifting his hands and rubbing roughly over this face.

“Why would you say it like that? I thought you meant us.” He said from under his hands and when he pulled his hands down you could see a distinct pinkness in his cheeks, his ears were bright red kind of like the bright red ears on a Tasmanian devil. Maybe the portrait needed more color.

The man had been flustered by your choice of words. Your hands were up and you waved away the very thought of that. Your own insecurities be damned, you loved him and you weren’t about to give him up so easily.

You quickly spoke, to clarify. “No, no. You can have the ramen. I’ll wash the dishes. We should stop this game.”

You smiled wider, meaning it. Nodding your head with how much you meant it. Searching inside of his eyes for signs that he was accepting your graceful terms of defeat.

Kyungsoo shook his head back and forth and closed his eyes lightly through the denial. He had no convincing smile on his face to maintain. He had no scams to run to get out of showing his portrait.

“But you won,” you said with your teeth bared, the wide smile getting more difficult to maintain. “I lost. We don’t need to check. You’re superior. I’m inferior. You’re the best. I’m the worst.”

His face was blank now and he was watching as you rambled, simply letting you dish out as many nervous words as you could at a rate at least twice as fast as a normal loser might declare their loserdom.

“Winner.” You motioned a hand toward him and that blank look in his eyes turned into a suspicious squint. You were over selling it. Something that had been impossible to sell to begin with. Perhaps you’d never have been able to convince him that he didn’t have to look at your picture.

“Loser.” You whispered with your hand on your chest.

“What did you do? Did you draw me with devil horns or something?”

“Not on purpose,” you answered in a shameful whisper. “I really did my best, but, please — it’s just so, so bad.” Your hands were clenched down very tightly both of the sketchbooks. Your right palm dug quite hard against the metal rings that bound the pages together.

“Let me see,” he said in a very calm voice. You wished your own voice could sound so calm.

You shook your head.

“We agreed. Let me see.” You let go of his own sketchbook but doubled down on your own, grabbing tightly with your left hand to the mattress when you noticed the shift in his balance. He would have to drag you out of this room to get this sketchbook from your hands. The silliness of your overdramatics we’re having an effect on him. You could see that the smile was back on his lips. You did your best to fight your own smile but you could already feel just how ridiculous you must seem.

“We can share the ramen and we can wash the dishes together.”

Oh, he was offering now. He was negotiating with his precious ramen and his precious free time after lunch and you had been a fool to think you’d ever get away from this without playing the entire game you’d agreed to play with him.

You closed your eyes and you exhaled through your mouth, opening your eyes again to find that his face had changed again.

“Please, let me see it.” This expression felt much more dangerous. His lips had pulled into a pout, a powerful one. His pretty bottom lip pushed out and his brown eyes begged well before his whining words eked out.

“What did you do to me?” The question felt oddly pointed. Did he still mean the drawing? His voice had dipped with his chin that puckered, his eyebrows and his eyes pleaded.

Your mouth fell open. You hadn’t seen him act this way before and you felt blindsided by how easily you began to entertain the idea of giving in. He leaned in closer to where you stubbornly sat gripping the mattress with just a little less force now and loosening your tight and aching hold around those metal rings of the book.

He leaned in closer to you, that same disarming pout growing even deeper on his face but he was moving so close the polka dots, woodpecker neck, and Tasmanian devil ears all blurred together; you could hardly even see his mouth but you could feel the body heat radiating off his skin.

He could have it.

He could have anything he asked you for as long as he asked for it in this way.

“Baby,” he whined softly, right into your ear. “Please let me see it.”

You felt that whispered word, all that it represented, the very first time he’d called you that, it sunk straight down inside of your chest and you could have let go of everything. That word, that name for you, for how he felt about you, said with that low voice of his, directed at you with about enough sweet syrup dripping off of his tongue to soften every single nervous gasp, every tremble of your hands that grasped so feebly at your old habits and insecurities and every uncertainty you had inside of your body.

His warm palms, as hot as they were debilitating, slipped around your waist and both of his arms slinked tightly around you and you gasped out loud when he pulled you into him, and where he sat, onto his lap; moving you so easily within his strong arms. His lips bounced against your earlobe and you felt too stunned to move. Your skin was ablaze. He was touching you. He was so close to you and he was calling you Baby and you were actually floating away; no longer glued to this mattress with that terrible book under your butt; he had you on his lap and in his arms and his lips had just touched your neck and you were putty. A pitiful, weak-boned loser.

“It’s really bad. Like actually awful. You’ll die,” you whispered, feeling like some sort of puppet under his direct control. You’d felt so desperate for him to actually touch you all morning that honestly, he could get whatever he wanted from you. You were a damned idiot if you thought you stood a chance in any kind of fight against this man.

You felt the inhale he took from within your hair and heard the small stutter of a grunt in his throat. The moment he’d gotten his warm hands around you, you’d already felt too affected by him, by his closeness and now with the way he breathed in his oxygen from so close to you, exhaling again slowly with the ghost of a groan echoing through the chambers of your heart, you were pretty certain his mind was beginning to drift away from the actual discussion you both had been having about the portraits.

“Sorry,” he whispered. He was wrapped all around you but he suddenly felt tense and whatever coaxing movements had quite suddenly paused with his apology. “I’ve been trying to behave -- I know I should hold back and I shouldn’t do things like this, but you have certain--” his head pulled back enough for you to be able to see his face, see his eyes and the movement of his lips as he spoke. His hand was waving now, indicating with his motions what he meant, “--certain parts of you that make me lose my mind.”

“I don't want you to think that I only want one thing from you.”

The tightness with which he’d held you had gone slack and you felt him shift under your ass and you were slid, very carefully down the curve of his hips until you were no longer sitting on him.

It felt like such a loss. You could have wept.

You were shaking your head back and forth. He had been holding back. He had been sparing with his touches and before you had a chance to respond to him, to tell him exactly how much you did not want him to hold back with you at all, he was reaching with his fingertips and grabbing both notebooks and suddenly the crisis was no longer happening inside of your pants but right here on this mattress with him flipping both of the books around at the exact same time so that they were both face up in all of their holy hell, putrid and horrifying, and lovely and absolutely fucking incredible glories.

You ran your fingertips over his drawing of your face and you melted. It was very obviously your face. it was you. It felt like love when you looked at it. Your chest felt tight. You noticed he’d added small details that you were positive you’d been the only one to notice about yourself. A tiny mark here mirroring something that had happened to you long before you were able to form lasting memories. The look he’d somehow managed to capture in your eyes had a depth that you didn’t think was possible to create with just a pencil and paper and yet the focus he portrayed looked far away, deep in thought perhaps, and somehow, inexplicably beautiful.

Beside it sat your portrait.

To your surprise, Kyungsoo did not laugh right away. You did hear the sharp intake of breath he took as he looked at what you had spent the entire 30 minutes to produce. This … shit. He lifted his hand to cover over his mouth and God dammit, he’d held out for so long. Longer than anyone in their right mind could have done.

A testament to how much he loved you; how desperately good the sex had been but how much he didn’t want you to think he was only after one thing was spelled out right there in the stifled silence before he broke.

Right before that palm clasped over his parted lips, you could see the pinkness in his cheeks, the stuttered exhaled breath that came out in rhythmic huffs from both is nose and his mouth and he was holding himself together at the seams now, that hand covering over his mouth and his eyes feasting on the rotten truth before him. It was so bad.

“Oh nooo,” he whispered through a trembling voice, and you closed your eyes up, bit down on your bottom lip hard and risked another quick glance at his face. “Oh my God -- what is wrong with me?” He was staring down at it, picking it up and, holding it up to his face, even looking closer at it and then his hand was back on his mouth, this time he pinched his nostrils closed hard and the suction of his desperate inhale pulled them tight. He was shaking now, on the inside. You felt the trembles through the mattress. You could hear the silent laughter stuttering deep down inside of him, even though his hand plugged his nose and his mouth as tightly as he could manage to dampen the sounds of his laughter but it only made it more frantic.

It was impossible not to laugh. You knew this would happen. It was so awful and dreadful it actually might have looped back around to some obscenely hilarious thing that definitely shouldn't exist; this cursed object.

“L-Look, why c-colors” he couldn't even talk. Your chest was shaking with your own laughter but when his rounded fingertips pointed to the eyebrows, you lost the fight against it. You had to cover your mouth to keep from actually spitting on him.

“Help -- my, my eyebrows,” he was lifting that same hand that touched the portrait and he rubbed his fingertips over his own eyebrows on his face, probably checking to see if a family of big black creepy crawly caterpillars had moved in when he hadn’t been paying attention.

You reached a hand forward and laid it over the drawing, covering as much as you could but both of you were laughing too much to get many words out. Your out of breath squeaks did their best to convey the ‘No. Stop. Don’t look anymore,’ messages. He was pulling your fingers down to uncover more bits to try and ask you questions about. You heard something to the effect of ‘w-why m-my nose’ but he fell over onto his side; rolling onto his back with his eyes closed up tight and his laughter taking the rest of his words and making them come out in rough nonsensical guffaws.

The laughter was too deep. His hands were holding his belly and you reached up a swift palm to smack several times on his butt in some attempt to get him to stop the maniacal laughter and breathe before he died.

“Stop. Stop! I told you, you’d die.”

He was gasping through it, wiping wetness from his eyes and your abdominal muscles were beginning to ache from it all.

“It’s so funny and so amazing,” he managed to sit back up but he was wobbly and very pink and even a little bit damp. “I can’t believe this.”

“It’s so awful! Stop, stop.” You’d reached for the book, pullin hard and the second he’d registered that you were grabbing it he doubled down, holding it so tight you might both rip it in half before either of you gave it up.

“No, no, no, it’s mine,” he was really fighting you for it. You lost your flimsy hold on it amid the giggles. His eyes were wide and his voice was agitated and overly dramatic sounding. “You cannot take this from me. I’ll never ever forgive you. It is mine.”

“I’m pretty sure this is going to be a core memory.” He’d scooted himself several times back and away from you with his precious disaster and he held it up right beside his face, “Look at us, we’re twins.”

You collapsed in laughter again to see them side by side. Your stomach genuinely ached and you were actually begging him now, “Kyungsoo, please. No more. I’m going to puke.”

You had to put a stop to it. He was insane. He could have it. You give up. You could only escape. You pushed yourself up and off of this mattress in the middle of the floor, took a step over the projector that was still playing some long forgotten movie on mute and you made your way toward the kitchen sink for your punishment.

You weren’t working alone for long. Kyungsoo was quick to slink up beside you, flipping on his radio and slipping his hands into the same soapy water you had your hands inside.

It wasn’t exactly a practical way to wash dishes. His hands kept grabbing for the same things you were already washing and after the little tug-of-war over a coffee mug that resulted in a tidal wave of soapy water that soaked your t-shirt to near transparent levels you had to actually shove the man with your hips away from your sink of dishes. He was unshovable. While he did move a tiny bit, he was back in an instant with a rough plop of his hands right back into your water and a chest full of manic giggles. You were feeling just a little bit exasperated by his silliness. It was adorable and it was, it was taking at least twice as long as it needed to and you were actually getting very wet. Your shirt stuck to your skin.

You inhaled to voice out a quick complaint, not even looking at him as you nagged. “Dammit, Baby, let me wash them. The soapy part is not a two person job. Why don't you just rinse them or dry them or put them away? Get out of my bubbles.”

You’d expected him to move. You’d expected him to take his hands out of the water, rinse them off under the tap and move to some other more helpful spot in the kitchen so you both could get this boring chore out of the way and maybe play another game, or take an explorative walk outside to survey the damage from the storm. He hadn’t moved though and after a few moments of his very noticeable stillness you turned to look at him.

Kyungoo was looking at you, an odd expression on his face, almost confusion, almost disbelief. Did he not usually do boring kitchen chores? He was watching your face for a long while and you watched the very slow manifestation of a smile that built on his lips. His eyebrows rose up above his eyes and that same smile stuttered halfway through. His cheeks seemed just a shade rosier and you genuinely could not figure out what could possibly be going through his head.

“What?” you had to ask. He was suddenly acting stranger than normal. He was, ultimately, a weirdo deep down inside, but this was an odd reaction even for him.

He leaned in then, his warm and soft lips landed over your mouth and this time he kissed you much slower than that quick stolen kiss during the game. You had a few moments to respond, you had a few moments to close your eyes and enjoy the unbelievable softness of his lips, the taste of his tongue. The sopping wet, soapy hand prints that added to the wetness on your shirt was an afterthought to the warm breath that you pulled into your lungs from his mouth, the slow and gentle way he pulled away from you before coming in again and when at least he inhaled to speak he didn’t bother to move his lips away from yours with the whisper.

“You called me, Baby“ he said with his teeth bumping lightly against your top lip, “Am I your Baby? How can I resist? What should I do when you call me that?”

Did you really call him that? You knew you’d been nagging him. He got you all wet with his stubborn attempts to help.

“Did I?” You whispered with a little raise of your eyebrows. His eyes were on you when he gave you the smallest nod of his head and you remembered something about the odd words he’d been saying and the pointed way he’d held back with you all day. Small touches here and there but that unbelievably sexy man who had not only fucked you last night, but did so without hesitation or even protection was now trying to behave himself.

Was he standoffish because the two of you had rushed into things so quickly? Was he out of his depth now and trying to retreat and rewind? Was this someone being done out of misguided respect for you or was he somehow reacting to your own anxious energy you’d been emitting all morning? You admit you had been rather nervous around him today but that wasn’t because you had any reservations or regrets; it was just so very new to you and the last thing you wanted to do was fuck things up so early in the game when the two of you were still getting to know each other by essentially living together in a strange place right off the bat.

Your lifted your still dripping hands, trailing a wet path over his shirt from his abdomen up his firm chest and your eyes followed your fingertips over his shoulder bring your fingers to touch lightly over the back of his neck. His hands were still around your waist and his eyes had drifted a little with you touching him.

You’d been so nervous today that you hadn’t touched him much, maybe even not at all. Maybe it had been your doing. The unwelcome weirdness.

“Baby,” you called out and you pulled your eyes up from the view of his parted lips that inhaled a sharp breath, looking up into his deep brown eyes that searched your face with the sweet name again slipping off of your tongue, “Why are you holding back? If it’s for my sake, I don’t want that.”

“You seemed,” he pulled his head back to look into your eyes and whispered, “a little different today. I thought —”

You leaned in and you kissed him, capturing whatever words he had to say about whatever weird nervous mixed signals you’d accidentally sent him with your lips.

His eyes watched closely for whatever meanings you’d hidden inside of that kiss when you pulled away.

“I’m just — you make me nervous and a lot has changed.” His mouth hung open and he watched you speak. “I must like you too much.”

“But I am serious about you, Kyungsoo, and I definitely don’t want you to hold back with me,” you added quickly and the look in his eyes changed as the corners of his lips twitched hinting at the smallest smile. He licked his lips and bit down before anything obvious could manifest.

“You’re nervous?” You heard a hint of amusement in his question and finally, your eyes caught the smallest slip of a smile on his pretty face.

“What do we do? We can’t both be nervous. I called dibs on nervous already, so you have to be something else.”

His reassurances brought a smile to your face and you’d both stood here for too long already. The fabric on his chest had begun to lose the wet hand prints. The dish water was in danger of going cold.

He moved first, with a quick dip of his hands inside of the bubbles he was grabbing dishes, your dishes, your punishment for destroying something as breathtakingly beautiful as his face and he was washing them. You were shaking your head as soon as you noticed what he was doing.

“You stop washing them right now.”

“My woman shouldn’t have to suffer alone,” he mumbled and you opened your mouth to protest.

“No, Kyungsoo, I turned you into a sea monster. Let me do it.”

You should not have said anything. He inhaled a sudden gasp and his eyes closed up tight as he started to laugh all over again, bringing his wet and soapy hand up to cover over his belly in pain as he laughed. The contagiousness of his giggles had you laughing entirely against your will. His laughter didn’t even sound enjoyable anymore, he simply couldn’t help it. He breathed in and out again, forcefully deep, trying to control it; holding a hand up and pressing fingers into his arching cheeks.

“Sea monster! I was trying to figure out the animal. It was definitely something aquatic. Why did you put so many spots on me?”

“Those were your moles, Kyungsoo, you are covered in them.”

“Jesus. I am? Really?” he whined out his question in a playful voice and you smiled widely and nodded your head up and down in earnest. He really was quite spotted and the more you looked at him the more you saw. They were quickly becoming one of your favorite things about his face.

His balance was off and it was easy to pull his hands up by the forearms and plop him down into the other side of the sink, getting him the hell out of your bubbles once and for all. You had no idea he could be so silly and so happy so deep down on the inside that it bubbled up from inside of him and spilled out all over like this. You couldn’t remember the last time you felt this kind of joy before and to feel this while scrubbing the burned on bottom of an old soup pot that was probably older than you were was unreal.

The stray giggles had long gone quiet and you’d both worked in a comfortable silence for quite some time before he inhaled and whispered out a casual sounding question.

“Do you want to finish watching that movie after this?”

You looked behind you at that mattress and the movie you’d hardly been paying any attention to and looked back at him. At some point, he must have paused it. You searched your recent memory and you could have sworn that he wasn’t really paying much attention to it either, but maybe he had seen it before.

You watched his profile for a few seconds, noticing how he’d quite calmly asked this question, made no other suggestions for other movies, or even suggested restarting it so you could catch up on the plot and after a few moments his tongue darted out and he moistened his bottom lip, swallowed the moisture in his mouth and he just quietly cleared his throat in a very certain sort of way; all the while not looking up from the pot that had rinsed and re-rinsed at least five times now.

This was something.

You weren’t born yesterday. There was something happening here with this innocent, but only on the surface question that he’d clearly worked up the nerve to ask only after confirming how very receptive you were to the idea of him not holding himself back when it came to the physical aspects of your brand new relationship. Doh Kyungsoo was testing the waters.

You asked an equally innocent question.

“Any updates from the hospital?”

He must have known what you were asking. Would the two of you continue to be alone for a significant amount of time? Enough time for whatever might take place under that blanket on that comfy mattress if you just so happened to agree to slipping into that bed with him under the guise of watching an easy to ignore movie that neither of you were invested in.

“Still waiting. They’ll be a while longer,” he said into his sixth rinse, all of his attention and focus down on that flowing water. You didn’t even give his response an acceptable amount of time to stew before you shrugged out a quick response.

“Sure,” you answered his first question with as much nonchalance as you could convince your tongue to portray, “let’s watch the rest of the movie.”

You were still looking at him when he finally pulled his eyes up to look at your face with your nonplussed ‘Sure.’ Your lift of a single eyebrow as you accepted his suggestion to watch the movie had his big eyes watching your face for a long while and somewhere hidden deep inside of those dark pupils, you caught the slithering tail-end of enough thick desire to flood your stomach with heat. The bounce of his own eyebrows and that slipping focus of his eyes that slid down your face; sinking down to your lips and sitting right there until you felt the itching need to twitch, to lick your lips, to bite down on them to do anything you could manage to do to satisfy those dark eyes of his and get him to finally look away from you.

The dishes were washed, dried, and put away.

No movie snacks were prepared.

There were no attempts to catch you up on what you missed on the movie; you doubted he himself knew. You didn’t even know the name of this movie and when you’d made your way to the mattress you found him sitting on his butt, his legs bent up in front of him at the knees, and with a quick button pressed on his phone, that movie began to play again.

You took your space beside him and adopted a similar position, wrapping both arms around your knees and you stared ahead at the wall where the movie scene played, feeling an overwhelming nervousness about the unpredictability of this. This movie had something to do with magic. You’d seen bits of flashes of lights and smoke. Someone had said a spell. You could feel him moving beside you, shifting his body into a more comfortable position with the piles of pillows propped up behind his back. He adopted a more casual half laying down position, his knee caps facing in your direction and his chin propped on his hand bent at the elbow. You could not even tell if his eyes were on the movie. You felt much too self aware to face him right now. You didn’t look directly at him but kept an eye on him in your peripheral vision.

You forced your eyes forward but your every focus remained on the position, the slight movements, the little adjustments of the man who laid down beside you. The movie was playing and yet you could hardly absorb a single cinematic detail and you were still sitting up on your butt with your arms wrapped tightly around your bent knees, beginning to feel the urge to just give into this and lay down beside him under this ridiculous guise of watching a movie. You knew what this was. Your body was already responding with the flush of heat you felt all over, because of him, because of this man who had so easily burrowed himself a permanent home right under your skin.

Your legs were beginning to feel tingly. You had to move. You had to shift. You couldn’t really see the screen as well as you wanted to with the angle your face had been in and that was why you couldn’t focus on this. It had nothing to do with anything else, it was just for comfort, the tingly legs, the angle of the screen.

Fifteen minutes into the scene, you moved. You shifted further down on the bed, you let the blanket he pulled up cover over your legs and you laid down with the center of your back propped up on your own personal pile of pillows. You pulled another one just under your head and you let your face sink toward his just a little bit, just enough to feel the warmth and comfort of another living human beside you, just enough for you to be able to smell his skin.

It took another ten minutes for you to relax enough to drop a hand down between both of your bodies and it only took two minutes for you to feel the warmth of his fingertips touching lightly over the back of your hand and your silly mind lost the ability to keep track of time after that.

His fingers were traveling, just light as a feather touching up and down your arm, slipping up high into the crook of your elbow before switching direction and making his way back down again with just as light of pressure and as heavy as hell intentions.

You felt on fire. Every single perceivable thing about the man felt heightened. Your cells felt the warmth of his cells. Your skin was hyper aware of the exact position and location he lay in. You knew his bent knees were maybe 4 centimeters from yours, facing you. His thighs would have been within grazing distance from your hand if you merely reached a bit. Your ears tuned into the rhythm of his breathing, even the stuttered half breath he took with the little block you heard in his throat made its way into your ears and when he shifted his face mere millimeters you turned yours in involuntary response. It felt unimaginable that he wasn’t touching you more. He wasn’t reaching a hand up to slip behind your neck to pull you into him; he wasn’t lifting himself up to kiss you on the mouth, wasn’t rolling over your body and pressing himself in between your needy thighs, he was just laying there, lightly touching your inner arm with his fingertips as your entire body burst into flames that rivaled the burning building you caught glimpses of in that movie.

You could have fallen with one word from his mouth.

It was the last slow exhale that did it. You could tell that his lips were parted and his face had turned, impossibly closer to yours. You felt the heat from his lungs against your face and the skin of your scalp prickled and pulled with the goosebumps that spread from your nape down to the center of your spine; it moved like a wave through you and when you finally lost the battle and turned your face enough to look at him, he was watching your face with his dark brown eyes. The moment he had you held within, he inhaled through those parted lips and let his eyelids sink down halfway through the breath, his brown irises turned black in this dim lighting, his pupils never once letting go of your face.

He didn’t look away.

You couldn’t look away.

The forces radiating out of him felt too heavy to resist and you gave in with a sigh. You turned your face, dipped into him and you kissed his lips. That want had you by a chokehold, the way you wanted him nearly suffocated you.

You kissed him and he kissed you back and oh -- oh you were trembling. It was coming from inside of your chest and each gasp for air had a stutter. His soft lips changed, tightening against your mouth; you felt the smooth hard toothiness of a grin and the puff of air from his laugh blew over the wetness left behind by his mouth. His hands were holding your face and after the chuckle from him came the inhaled whisper, “Why did it take you so damn long to kiss me?”

You didn't know. You didn’t know. You shook your head back and forth and leaned into him again, touching his face, reaching for his lips, capturing him again in another deep and desperate kiss before pulling away again to answer his question with one of your own.

“Why didn’t you do it? You could have kissed me.”

You wanted him. Every bit of your body wanted him. You kissed him again; it felt insatiable. Biting down on his lip did not satisfy it. Sucking on his tongue felt like not enough — you wanted to burrow under his skin just like he’d done to you and when you pushed yourself to sit atop of his slim waist and your thighs tightened their hold around his hips you felt eternally thankful for the thinness of the fabric of your panties below the shorts you wore today. Thin enough to be able to feel the definite shape and size of his arousal pressing hard into you; the friction and pressure gave very little relief. His hands dug hard enough into your thighs to leave marks and he pushed his hips up while his rough grip pulled you down.

He shook his head back and forth and his lips pulled, showing his teeth before he pulled his pink lips in and bit down. He made a sound from the back of his throat, a moan that turned into a no, matching the shaking of his head, answering your question with a sound before he spoke.

“It had to be you,” he said cryptically. Smiling the moment you shook your head in confusion.

“Why?”

Kyungsoo sat up then, and he was reaching for your face with one hand, wrapping his other around you, pulling you harder over his lap with a strong forearm around your lower back.

“Because I want you to fuck me—” your skin reacted first to his words whispered into your ear; you felt the goosebumps erupt everywhere. Another wave of warmth flooded your abdomen, settling between your legs.

“I already know what I want.”

“But I need you to want me. I need to feel you wrap yourself around me completely.” His hand tightened around the back of your neck and you felt the sting of his hard teeth sinking down into your neck below your ear.

“And have me.” Your breath was caught in your throat. “And fuck me.”

You nodded your head, “I do — want to,” feeling much too breathless for quite as many debilitating words as he used. Your hands were pulling uselessly at his clothes; feeling not quite in full control of yourself with the trembling that you still felt happening inside. It was too much. You were overwhelmed but you managed a whispered request, “Take your clothes off.”

You had to get off of him. The logistics of removing all of these damned layers demanded it. You let balance give in and you sank down, noticing how the clarity in your mind very gradually returned without his hands on you; without that pressure between your legs; without those low whispered weighty words in your ear.

If you’d been under the impression that he was beautiful before this moment, you hadn’t come into this with the full impression of him. You’d thought he was simply beautiful but this word felt so inadequate for the illuminatingly, nearly blinding view of this man watching you — waiting for you. You hadn’t come to this conclusion with everything; not the glimpse of that thick heady look of arousal in his eyes and the way he consumed you entirely as you stripped bare in front of him. You hadn’t made up your mind about his actual beauty without first properly considering the swollen lips; plumped up by your teeth — the dark eyes, black eyelashes, the perfectly straight hair that fell over his forehead and contrasted perfectly with the pink in his cheeks; the expanse of absolutely perfectly smooth skin; the very scant trail of dark hair that scattered from his navel; a breadcrumb trail that lead to the evidence of the effect you’d had on him. That beautiful part of him that swelled and twitched when you touched lightly along his abdomen with your fingertips as you made your way closer.

Your lips pulled into a smile, feeling quite satisfied. His beauty was overwhelming and when he saw your smile, his lips mirrored it, pulling his lips in staggered bursts as his big eyes watched you climb over this bed coming closer to where he was, moving a thigh over him to sit over his waist again. This time without any barriers between your skin and his skin.

The moment you felt him, when his hardness and your wetness met each other, the smiles fell for the sake of the other senses that overwhelmed. You closed your eyes and had to breathe through parted lips as you moved your hips over him, the slip within the wet here; each pass; each bump between your legs was particularly addictive. A peek through heavy eyelids gave you glimpses of him; his face as he felt you, the furrow of his brows, the way his lips fell open — pink and plump; the flutter and drift of his eyelids and the way his head fell back; him reacting to the way you felt slipping over the length of him. Those sinful words he’d said to you still echoed inside of your mind as you moved. You felt encouraged by his words. He wanted this. He wanted your unrestricted enjoyment of his body.

You braced your hands on his abdomen and you pushed and lifted yourself up and as if he had been made specially for you, he lined up so perfectly without any effort at all. As if you were two pieces of the same puzzle, he slipped inside of you, making you feel complete in a single motion as you sank down on top of him. And all at once, all of the feelings of this, of him inside of you, of the slight pain of the stretch, the bump against him inside and then with how good it felt to feel him again; all of this consumed you so completely, you struggled to pay attention to anything else but the memory of his words; you let go of whatever silly restrictions you usually attached to sex. You could have this man. You could do what you wanted.

Still again and again your eyes sought him out. You watched his face as you fell. He was so beautiful and so very overcome — you watched him react to the feeling of you and each gasp from his lips, each furrowed brow and each bite down of his lips all fueled your movements. His hands were touching you, moving with you and he struggled to keep his eyes open, despite the very obvious need to look at you riding him like this, these feelings took his self control away from him.

The temptation to watch his reactions was so strong but another sensation demanded precedence. Closing your eyes and feeling him was everything. With each sink, each glide, each rough grip of his hands on your hips that pulled you down onto him the pleasure built inside of you, and when you could feel yourself succumbing. When you snaked your hips forward, slipping against him in that desperate way that brought you closer, you simply gave in; tightening your thighs, tightening your walls around him, shaking and trembling and coming undone on top of him with a reckless abandoning of every inhibition you’d had in the past. Something about him -- something about Kyungsoo. You gave in without hesitation.

And he -- he gave you only a few moments of it. You were still trembling when Kyungsoo sat up, compressing his strong arms around you tight enough to steal your breath. You felt dizzy when his hand landed on the back of your neck and his demanding mouth opened; he used plump lips to spread your parted lips further, he suctioned your tongue into the hollow of his mouth and the trail of wetness that connected your mouths when he pulled away held on, succumbing to the distance with a wet pop that landed on your heaving breasts. You felt just as desperate as his needy kiss; even his humid naked skin when pressed up against yours seemed reluctant to let go, you felt the warm stickiness wherever your skin met his, and when he moved just too far away, the humidity slicked over your skin’s surface begged to hold on just a little while longer.

His tight hold around you did not let you go, even through the rough roll as his muscles pushed and you found yourself on your back, looking up into the ceiling at the harsh fluorescent lights that lined this big room. Your limbs all wrapped tightly around his body as he pushed and pushed and pushed in between your sticky thighs, into the slick wetness, deep inside of you again and again until he was shaking, until he was pushing in hard, until he was moaning into your ear with that low voice, until the tremors echoed inside and brought the flooded heat that he filled you up with.

There was a pause, only for a few breath’s worth of time.

You felt the weight of his body land over your chest for a moment.

Kyungsoo laid his head down on you, his temple right over where your heart beat frantically inside of your chest and you unwound one of your hands, slipping your fingers into the strands of his straight hair and feeling the heat of his scalp with your fingertips and you just touched him softly and gently, feeling all of the life inside of him and knowing that this was something bigger than you. It was something bigger than him. It felt like so much more. All of that labored breathing and these two thumping hearts that beat in sync beside each other seemed to fall into the background.

This felt like nothing you’d ever felt before. This felt more than love. This felt more than happiness. Something greater than peace or satisfaction and something insurmountably bigger than the universe. Something unnamable, something indescribable like the nanoseconds of death itself when the soul slipped over the threshold and exploded into pure light.

You could have cried; if it had prolonged for longer than only a few breaths you might have. You felt him shift, probably worried he was suffocating you by laying on your chest like this. With the shift of his body came the soft sounds from him; the soft touches and gentle kisses over the surface of your skin that was already beginning to cool off.

He sighed into the skin of your neck and the dreamy sound pulled your lips into a smile.

His whispered words slipped inside of your waiting ears. “I can’t wait to spend my life with you.” With these words, they carried along the dreamy sort of promise that slipped into your open heart and clamped down tight inside the chambers, promising to never ever let go. Promising you a lifetime of this -- this something that you might just spend the rest of your life with him trying to give a name to.

“Me too,” you whispered and for now you just smiled, not too concerned with silly things like finding the right words to describe just how much this human meant to you.

All that mattered was that he was yours and that was enough for you.

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

#exo fanfiction #exo smut #kyungsoo #exo fic #kyungsoo smut #kyungsoo fic #exo story #do kyungsoo #kyungsoo fanfiction #exo ff #kyungsoo series

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lilacsongs · 8 days ago

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“.... is everything okay?” kyungsoo asks, shifting uncomfortably with a towel wrapped around his waist post shower, but the concern in his expression is apparent. it’s still confusing but as far as he can put together, he thinks he might have overheard a couple’s quarrel on the phone. or is it exes? either way, it’s awkward as hell. / @artisn

#( last plot in source in his musician verse <3 )#kyungsoo — threads.#kyungsoo ft. eden.

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fadinglights · 7 months ago

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muse: baek kyungsoo, bartender/underground fighter, 26 open to: m / f / nb plot: maybe your muse just found out about his other job

"look at me. this is who i am, no matter how much you wish it wasn't.”

#kyungsoo — threads.#open rp #open starter #indie rp #indie starter

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marshmallow-phd · 5 months ago

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A Manor of Shadow and Blood

Genre: Regency Gothic AU

Pairing: EXO x Reader

Summary: A stormy night brought you to the manor in the middle of the woods. Nine strange men occupied its halls. They won’t let you leave. A dangerous secret haunts this estate. Learning it might either be your saving grace or it could lead to the last breath you ever take.

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5

The grand hall was lit as bright as midday. Every surface was polished to perfection, reflecting the candlelight at a greater force. Brilliant brass and gold surrounded you as you made your way through the dancing couples, their movements in perfect sync. Wrapped in each other's arms, they spin around without a care for your wandering presence.

While all who surrounded you were decorated in blacks and whites, your own dress was the color of freshly spilled blood. The heavy skirts that hug from your waist made it difficult to navigate the ballroom. Their fullness was of an older fashion, one that maybe your grandmother would have worn in her youth. The dropped shoulders left you exposed, your skin chilled despite the amount of bodies in here.

You kept navigating the dance floor, on the look out for something, though you didn’t know what. Then you felt the familiar burn of eyes boring into your back, which sent a shiver down your spine. You whirled around to find the source, the dress brushing at your feet with the sudden motion. Through the crowd, you spotted Baekhyun leaning against the wall. With a single finger, he beckoned you over. And you obeyed.

Breaking through the sea of dancers, you took in his elegant suit, the hems lined with gold thread that shimmered against black velvet.

"You shouldn't dance alone," he purred. Arms crossed over his chest, he smirked at you with a grin even the devil wouldn't wear.

"I have no partner," you retorted. He held out a lazy hard. Hardly the romantic gesture. "No, thank you."

"How about me?" asked a sweet voice in your ear.

You turned your head to find Junmyeon at your back. He laid a soft hand on your hip to keep you from escaping out of propriety. When you didn’t shove him away, the hand slyly moved to your stomach, pulling your bare shoulder blades into his chest. With the fingers of his left hand, he tilted your chin towards him.

"Am I a suitable partner?"

No answer passed your lips. You could think of nothing to say. The thought of him twirling you around the dance floor was not… unpleasant.

Junmyeon neither needed nor cared for a reply. He dipped his head to your shoulder and pressed a kiss to the skin. A small gasp passed your lips. And then he pressed another. More and more as he climbed up the curve of your neck. Heat rose from every inch of you as you sighed into the affectionate touches. You relaxed into his touch, welcoming each new contact of his lips.

"It's rude not to share, Junmyeon.”

Your attention snapped back to Baekhyun, who you had forgotten was there. He pushed himself off the wall and stepped closer to you so he stood in front of the minor.

No, not a mirror. There was no reflection.

Except… there was. The mirror reflected the floor, the ceiling, the candlelight. You.

But not Baekhyun. Not Junmyeon. And not the dancers still spinning behind you.

Fingers snaked through your hair and pulled your head back, your vulnerable neck exposed. From the gallery above, Kyungsoo watched as elongated fangs flashed behind Junmyeon’s lips and plunged into your neck.

*****

You woke with a start, the blanket flying off of you as you sat up in a fury. Sweet drenched every pore of your skin. Your day old dress clung to your skin in a way that felt suffocating. Each breath was a struggle for your lungs.

Vampires. The nightmarish tale that had kept you up as a child until you were convinced they weren't real turned out to be true. But how could they be real?

Creatures of the night. Blood drinkers. Horror stories meant to keep children from wandering about after dark.

Curling your legs to your chest and encasing them in your arms, you tried to think of a way out. To escape. With what strength you possessed, you slid off the bed and walked over to the window. The sun, so bright and full of life, was just beginning its descent towards the horizon. Night–their domain–was hours away. If the legends were true, then they would all be asleep at this moment. Any risk that was to be taken had to be taken now.

After changing into a sturdier dress, you retrieved your still mud-covered boots and, keeping them in one hand, you carefully pushed away the pathetic barrier and snuck out of the room.

Each step was taken with unmatched caution. You tested every board with your foot before fully committing. Any squeak of a floor or stumble down a stair could alert them to your escape. But by the grace of a miracle, you made it to the front door. Fingers trembling, you pulled on the boots and tied up the laces before opening the door only wide enough for you to slink through.

The next breath taken outside was like the first breath of life. But there was no time to take it in.

Gathering your skirts in your grip, you took off into the trees. The dirt was dry and sturdy under your feet. Branches and leaves crunched with the weight of your boots. A lady’s delicacy was out of the question as you ran without abandon. You didn't know what direction you were running. But vampires needed blood to survive and they weren’t drinking yours. And Jongdae had brought those buns from a bakery, not their own kitchen. You doubted any of them knew how to cook. That meant a village or town had to be nearby. Junmyeon had lied about the isolation of the manor. If you just kept going, you could find freedom.

However, your stamina was running out. This was never your preferred activity. Your lungs and throat burned in an unfamiliar way. The sun still shined above. A short respite could be spared.

You leaned against a tree trunk for support. In your boots your feet pulsed. Only now did you realize that you had run away without food or water. Not knowing where the kitchen was located, you didn't have time to waste on it. You could survive, you told yourself. Just a little farther. The town couldn’t be too far. Unless you were headed in the wrong direction.

A rustling rippled through the silent forest. You snapped to attention, trying to find the source.

“The wind,” you gasped between ragged breaths. “It had to be the wind.”

A low, rumbling growl said it wasn't wind.

In the distance, large silhouettes emerged. Wolves. Nearly a dozen of them.

You ran as fast as your crying legs could take you. With their superior nature built for the hunt, the wolves caught up to you within seconds. Their growls and howls grew louder and more threatening behind you. Running from the manor had been easy. Running from the wolves was to be your end.

Powerful paws slammed into your back. You were thrown to the ground, rolling across the ground as a scream ripped at your throat. The momentum stopped you on your stomach. Hair covered your face, but you could still see your death through the strands.

Wolves of gray and black gathered in a half moon circle. They had their prey in perfect position. The middle wolf pounced. All you had time to do was throw up your arms to protect your face. Claws raked across your forearm. Another scream echoed through the merciless trees. The wolf landed on the other side of you with pride. Now you were surrounded. A second wolf leapt.

A blur appeared in front of you and collided with the wolf midair. The two bodies tumbled across the forest floor. A human and the wolf.

Not a human.

Chanyeol. The wolf trapped within his grasp, Chanyeol tightened his grip–

Crack.

The wolf fell limply to the ground, its tongue hanging from its jaw.

The others appeared seconds later. Not understanding what they were up against, the wolves let you go to attack the newest threat.

"Are you alright?" Junmyeon knelt down in front of you. His hands were outstretched as if you were the wild animal on the verge of attack. Behind him, snarls and whimpers told of the fight–and who was winning. Despite not answering him, he caught sight of your bleeding arm. "We need to get back to the manor."

He didn't ask permission before picking you up into his arms and sprinting through the forest. Everything blurred past you, your loose hair whipping at your face. He burst through the manor doors and didn't stop until he was able to set you down in the largest chair. Once you were safe, he fell to his knees, only his palms keeping him upright. The others soon stumbled in behind him, heaving and collapsing onto the floor. Only then did you notice the smoke floating up from each of their backs. Patches of burnt, red skin sizzled on their knuckles and faces. Anything that had been exposed to the sun.

"Baekhyun," Junmyeon gasped.

"I already have it." Kyungsoo came into the parlor with bottles stacked in his arms. He quickly passed them around, waiting until the others were quenching their thirst before pulling the cork out of his own bottle and chugging the contents.

With his bottle empty, Junmyeon tossed it to the side and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Red smears stained the ivory fabric. You shrank back in the chair as he turned towards you.

"What hell were you thinking!" He growled. "I warned you about the wolves!"

"Junmyeon, she's shaken up enough," Jongdae defended. Before your eyes, his burnt skin healed to be like new.

"She could have been killed!"

Your head was pounding. He was… concerned about your life? The legends said that the sun was a vampire's deadliest enemy. It was why they thrived in the darkness. But they had all risked a final death to come after you.

"Did you hear me scream?" you whispered. You could barely feel your own lips moving. All heads tuned to you.

Yixing was the one to answer. "Yes. We all heard you."

"Why were you out there?" Sehun asked aggressively.

You sucked in a sharp breath. There was no escaping the truth now. You stared at Jongdae. "I figured it out.”

Baekhyun laughed. "At least we don't have to walk around delicately anymore."

"When exactly did you do so?" Minseok mocked.

"Then you should remember what I said to you before was true. Harm would not come to you within these walls." Junmyeon crouched down next to the chair. His eyes... there was something behind the darkness that tugged at your still wildly beating heart. "I know you were running away. And if you're desperate to get away enough to get yourself killed, then the choice can be yours. We can send you on your way with every provision. Or," he cleared his throat, "you stay here. With us."

A choice? He was giving you a choice?

Your gaze drifted over the faces that stared back at you. Even Kyungsoo refused to look away while he waited. There was almost a plea in his expression, a subtle beg. But was it to stay? Or for you to run as far away as possible?

Junmeyon took your attention away when he picked up your wounded arm with delicate fingers. His pleading was much more clear.

To leave would be the better choice. The more sane choice. But what would happen afterwards? You could claim being lost in the woods. With evidence of the carriage and the missing driver, what else could they believe? After a few days on bed rest, you would be back by your aunt's side, following her every whim. Including indulging her on a "perfectly adequate" suitor because you had no other option, no other path. That suitor who would then become your future. But you didn't want it. You refused to give in to it.

Already within these few days, you were… changed in a way. They might not be human, but these men would forever be burned into your memory. Who could move you with music the way Chanyeol had? What silent strength could match the aura of Junmyeon? You had been promised that none of them would harm you. The chance for something extraordinary was right in front of you. The kind of chance you had only read about. It just had to be taken.

"I think… I think I want to stay."

*****

The moon became an ever changing friend. You hardly saw the sun anymore. Like the men you had given yourself over to, you lived under the stars. It was oddly beautiful. This time was often forgotten about by you and many others. The night was only a background to your time within your dreams. But now it was your entire world.

Every evening, you awoke to the dying orange light of the day. Breakfast always waited for you outside the door. It was the rule that no one broke; none could enter your room without explicit permission from you. Those walls remained your safe haven when things grew too overwhelming.

Despite your decision to stay, discovering that other creatures walked the earth required a step away once in a while. Especially now, with you aware of their true nature, the men were refusing to hold back.

Dropping from the roof, running around with spectacular speed, and lifting objects that ten men couldn't hold. It was remarkable. Except for the diet and inability to walk in the sun, the… condition seemed more like a blessing.

"You're rather thoughtful this evening,” Jongdae commented. He walked beside you like he did every twilight.

After you finished your breakfast, you met Jongae at the front doors to go on a walk around the manor grounds. Often others would join you as well. Junmyeon was the most frequent, though Yixing, Changed, and Jongin made many appearances over the past week and a half. Boundaries were constantly tested, but one word from you and they retreated.

"I guess you could say I am thoughtful tonight," you finally sighed. You hadn’t realized that you were being so obviously quiet. Funny, since you would have thought Jongdae would enjoy the silence. You typically had many questions or comments of your own to make.

"Should I go steal a penny from Sehun?"

You laughed. "I'd like to think my thoughts are worth more than a single penny.”

"They must be if you've become so skilled in deflecting from them." He crossed over to block your path. Gaze narrowed, he studied your carefully guarded expression. "What are you thinking about so hard? Regretting your decision to stay already?"

"No," you insisted. "Not at all."

He raised an eyebrow that simply asked, "Then what?"

"Do you always stay here?" you countered. "At the manor, I mean."

"We travel," Jongdae answered with a nod. "Not too often. It’s a bit difficult, you see."

"But we like traveling north.” Minseok dropped from who-knew-where, landing with barely bent knees and hands folded behind his back. "In the winter, the night lasts longer. Junmyeon has a small hunting lodge up there.

A hunting lodge? "Then why do you stay here?"

Minsoek shrugged. "This manor is bigger."

"Having nine of us in one household can be a bit volatile,” Jongdae added. He stepped aside to continue the stroll. "We need the room to separate so we don't level a building."

Your foot caught on an invisible lump in the grass. "You could destroy a building while fighting?"

Minseok snickered as he caught your stumble and helped steady your stance. His hand lingered at your waist until your sharpened glare made him remove it. "We haven’t crumbled a wall in a few years."

You scoffed at the casual tone. "What sort of fight caused that?"

"I can't remember." Minseok leaned forward slightly to look at Jongdae for help. But he didn't seem to recall either.

"Who knows what started it between Chanyeol and Kyungsoo.”

Your mouth dropped open in shock. Kyungsoo and Chanyeol had fought over something to the point of destroying a wall to crumble? It didn't feel plausible. Neither seemed like the hot-headed sort. You wanted to know the igniting incident so desperately.

Both Jongdae and Minseok suddenly whipped their heads towards the front of the manor.

"What is it?" you asked when neither offered an explanation.

"Junmyeon's calling for us." Jongdae scooped you up into his arms without warning. At your confused expression, he explained, "We're not leaving you alone out here." Remember your last adventure in the woods lingered in the silence.

The short lived wind whipped at your hair that you still wore loose to cover your neck. As soon as he stopped running, you wiggled out of his arms to be back on your feet. Everyone else was already gathered just outside the door. Several eyed you and Jongdae with suspicious and annoyed glares. You took a step away from him for some separation.

Clearing his throat, Junmyeon called everyone to attention. "We have to go hunting–real hunting. Now, normally, we all go together, but now that we have our guest," he nodded towards you, "some will have to stay behind with her until the first party… comes back."

"If you all need to go,” you couldn't quite speak the word feed, "then I'll be alright. For a few hours, at least." You weren't sure how long this excursion would take.

Junmyeon's features softened. "No. We'll go in groups. Chanyeol, Kyungsoo, Minseok and I will go first. We shouldn't be gone long." He reached out and patted the top of your head before disappearing into the trees. Kyungsoo gave no goodbye as he followed suit. The last two playfully shoved each other while taking off.

"Come." Yixing took hold of your hand and started pulling you inside. "I want to show you something."

"But–" You had wanted to ask Jongdae a question, but the traitor was already gone, off somewhere to do something he would never tell you about. So, you let Yixing take you into the manor and up the main staircase at the end of the hallway. At least he let you stay on your own feet instead of insisting on going at his speed.

Going down an unfamiliar hallway, you were reminded how big this place was and how much you still had to explore. The men occupied most of your time, vying for your attention and pulling you this way and that so you didn’t have much time on your own. It was odd and overwhelming at times.

During your seasons in town, you were hardly a well-sought after prize. There were prettier girls with grander dowries. You had accepted that fact. Now you were the center of a courting dance to which you knew none of the steps and possessed endless partners.

Yixing paused in front of a door that looked identical to all the others. He kept his fingers tight around yours as he slowly turned the knob with his free hand. The door swung open.

The gasp inhaled through your parted lips wasn't enough to convey your awe.

Maps of all the places you'd heard of and dozens more you hadn't covered the walls like homemade wallpaper. Slipping out of Yixing's grip, you walked further into the study, spinning slowly around to take it all in. The maps were varying degrees of tan, some as light as his skin, others as dark as animal leather.

Instead of bookshelves, doorless cabinets waist high lined three of the walls. Their squared shelves were stuffed full of parchment and ink and quills. A lone sketcher's desk sat in the middle, an unfinished drawing laying against the tilted surface.

"What is this place?"

"It's my personal study," Yixing answered as he laid a hand on the edge of the desk. "Kyungsoo gave it to me after I had accidentally taken over one of the parlors."

Your awe increased ten-fold. Your initial assumption was that he was a collector, not the original artist. "You drew all of these?"

He nodded almost... shyly. "I did. I was a cartographer. Before."

"Before?" You understood what he meant, but you didn't know how to ask for the story.

Turning his eyes to the parchment, he pinched it between his fingers. "I didn't just love traveling. I loved capturing it on paper. I wanted to make these places into art, but not like every other painting. I wanted them to be perfect. Exact replicas as if you were staying at them from God’s point of view. And I wanted to be the best. I couldn't be, though. I wasn’t good enough."

You moved closer to him, entranced in the story. "What happened?"

A rueful smile tightened at his lips. "I was given a chance to become perfect. What I didn't know was that I traded everyone knowing my maps for the talent to make it happen." Sorrow rolled from him like the tide warning of an oncoming storm.

Feeling the pull to comfort him, you reached out and covered his fidgeting hand with your own steady fingers.

"People will be able to know your work some day," you whispered. "I’m sure of it."

Perhaps you had been a bit too forward, a bit too open.

Yixing moved gracefully forward to eliminate most of the space between you. A smooth thumb that once must have been calloused when it was human caressed the edge of your jaw. His flickering eyes made intentions obvious.

Clearing your throat, you stepped out of the touch. "Why isn't this one finished?" You pointed to the drawing on the desk. It was an aerial view of the manor, with the top half of the parchment containing the beginning edges of the garden hedges. Disappointed, Yixing sighed and went along with your distraction.

"I'm still working out the maze. It is intricate. Much more than I was prepared for."

"Goodness." You were thankful that you hadn't wandered in there yet, especially on your own.

"Yixing.”

Both of you turned towards the door to find Sehun standing under the frame.

"Yes, Sehun?" Yixing said through somewhat gritted teeth. The young vampire wasn't phased.

"I need to speak with you."

"Fine." None of you moved.

Sehun looked at you with a pointed glare.

You received the hint loud and clear. "I'll leave you, then.”

With more relief than you cared to admit, you scurried out of the room and down the hallway.

Around the corner, you pressed your back against the wall and forced yourself to take deep breaths that filled your lungs to capacity. Panic had been the response at Yixing's closeness. You didn't mean for that to be the response. You didn't want to be closed off to any of them. But you couldn't help it. Maybe it was merely the closeness of the situation.

Giving yourself a small amount of grace, you pushed off the wall and made your way downstairs. So used to your time being absorbed by the men that you weren't sure what to do with yourself. Two of the ones that remained behind were currently occupied. As for the three others, they could have been anywhere.

You wandered around the main floor with a fleeting hope that one would come to find you. Then you saw them. A row of grand doors evenly spaced along the north wall called you forward.

The grand ballroom took your breath away. Not so dissimilar to the one in your dream, though this one’s lack of warmth and light left you heartbroken. Memories of dancing figures and lively music haunted these walls. In the corner, you could imagine a small orchestra strumming their instruments in delight.

You walked to the center where dozens of pairs used to twirl and bow and embrace each other in time with the melody. Ghostly laughter echoed in your ears. What had once been bright and golden and full of life was dull, dark, and covered in cobwebs that swayed in the breeze of unknown origin.

Glancing around, you confirmed that you were truly alone before closing your eyes, lifting your arms, and began a soft hum.

You danced with an invisible partner in the fashion that your grandfather had taught you as a small child. It was more intimate than the choreographed dances currently popularized. You had always imagined your first ball like this, instead of the disappointment you really experienced. You had pictured a boy you didn’t know catching your eye. As the music was struck up, he laid a hand on your waist.

Just like now.

Hm. Your imagination was running wild, even pretending the weight of a palm was there on your lower back. And now in your lifted left hand.

No. That wasn’t your imagination.

Your eyes snapped open.

Jongin had taken the place of your imagined partner. He smiled down at you with a feline smirk as his hands tightened around you, refusing to let you slip away. There was no choice in leaving this musicless dance. You had stopped humming but he continued to whirl you around the marble floor. He controlled the dance, in charge of every step. He led with an expertise he shouldn’t have possessed–if he were a man of this age.

In one final move, he slipped his arm fully around your waist, pulling you so close that no room remained between you. Without breaking the spin, he lifted you from the floor as if you were no more than a kitten and whirled you around like the heroine from your favorite novel.

When the spin came to a close, he set you back on your feet, but didn’t let go. Your lungs heaved from the exercise–and from the way your bodies pressed together. Each rise of your chest brought you even closer to Jongin. He kept your gaze like a stablehand trying to calm a wild horse. His right hand slipped from your fingers, softly tracing the delicate inside of your arm. The touch left behind a fire you couldn’t explain. A cold, simmering fire.

He cupped your jaw as his eyes drifted down to your lips. This was a different reaction to Yixing’s wandering gaze. Not panic, but something similar.

Jongin held you in place as he leaned down, his lips pressing gently into the corner of yours. The thin breath in your lungs hitched. He lifted his lips only to find a new patch of skin. The delicate skin covering your pulse. Every muscle in your body froze. He kissed the skin softly. Surely, he could feel the race of your blood.

“Whenever you need a partner,” he said in a hush against your neck, “just whisper my name.”

And then, he was gone.

You stared off at the empty path left behind Jongin. The sheer hubris.

His name lingered on your lips, wondering if he would really come back like he said. But you kept the whisper inside and left the ballroom just the same.

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soobadnoonecanstopher · 2 months ago

Text

Rat Bastard - Part 4

Pairing: You x Kyungsoo

Rating: M (Mature)

Word Count: 9000

Warnings: There were too many beds, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Cahoots envy, UST

PSA: this couple is called the Rat Couple and their individual names will be Rat Princess and RatSoo (or Rat Basard when we are mad at him)

Tag: @ilovemyapopbaby

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

You were playing a game. It involved lots of fast moving and tricky words that this small group of people shouted out with cheers or groans depending on how good or bad they felt the words had been. You didn’t really get it. The explanations at the beginning went too quickly and you might have nodded off during the vital parts.

Obviously you were losing this game. It was a drinking game but you had nothing invested as your drinks no longer contained any alcohol. You had almost no other reason to keep playing except for boredom which, you were surprised to learn about yourself, was a pretty good motivator.

You’d been given a virgin drink to sip on by a thoroughly-scholded, Javier. He could hardly meet your eyes after being accused by his coworkers of ‘nearly killing the only girl we have.’ The marker board had come out again. There was now a ‘wall of shame’ section and Javier’s name was written in angry looking capitalized red letters.

‘A category five!’

‘I just didn’t expect an adult to have such a low alcohol tolerance.’

‘How could you tell her where the patio door was?’

‘Why were the drinks so strong?’

‘You told me to get her drunk!’

‘Just last week some guy died from falling off a stool. People have died from much less.’

‘The wall of babies conceived during the Serenity Sands Resort Singles Retreat is something to be proud of. Adding a death toll to the wall is not.’

‘Cat-Te-Go-Ry Five!’

‘We add to the population, we do not subtract.’

‘To be fair, it’s as if she has almost no sense of survival.’

Your mumbled and slurred declarations of how completely fine you were had gone unheard.

You’d long been eliminated from this game by the time your mind began to sharpen to what was actually happening. It was after Kyungsoo won a prize. You hadn’t even realized there were prizes, but the whole group of people were gathered around a table with various odds and ends, one of which was up for grabs each time a game was won. Because the seven of you were trapped here in this bunker for a week with minimal possessions, a few items had been brought over from the hotel, things that normally would not be so valuable but given the current state of things, these items suddenly had a whole new appeal.

There were a few emergency ponchos for the rain, pairs of waterproof rain boots to keep muddy flood water from seeping inside of your shoes, bug spray, lip balm, ear plugs, wet wipes, a big bag of marshmallows and lots of other snacks, a powerful flashlight and separately, a big pack of batteries for the flashlight or whatever other item needed them. The winner would need to either win both or be in cahoots with the person who won the other. Your eyes zeroed in on the high thread-count luxury blanket with real down feathers and beside it, a cheaper and lighter blanket with such a low thread count the package didn’t even advertise it. You remembered that your beds back there were made up with the bare minimum, just a fitted sheet, a sad pillow and a bed sheet that was so thin it would have been transparent if that room had any windows other than the tiny ones in the bathrooms.

Your now sharper mind began to really understand the stakes. This wasn’t only a drinking game. You’d be stuck here for a week. The small radio that Kyungsoo just won put a blinding smile on his face and you looked around the room at the stacks of items the other people had won. Sara won a neck pillow and an eye mask for sleeping. Mr. Chen, ever the diplomat, won a pack of bar soaps that he promptly ripped open and passed one around to everyone, leaving one sad little bar down at your feet with a pitiful smile. Roxy had won a jumbo pack of ramen and a camping stove and Jun had won butane fuel for the stove. It seems some cahoots were already in the works. The pair didn't even bother to separate their stacks of prizes.

Then and there you made a promise to pay attention to the rules of the next game and you actually felt a wave of relief pass through you when you realized that the next game wasn’t one that required much difficult thinking but only required you to be quick with your hands. Or more specifically the tiny stretchy sticky hand that you’d been given. Everyone got one and the smallest white button that had fallen off of Javier’s sleeve was placed on the surface, in the middle of the big table.

The object of the game was simple. First one to grab the button wins. There were a few practice throws allowed before the battle began and the table erupted in quiet chaos and giggles as everyone quickly realized that these things had very little control or aim to them. You simply threw it vaguely in the direction of the button as fast as you could and if you got lucky you might grab something other than some other player’s sticky hand.

The practice round was declared finished. Not a single hand grabbed the button on the table and clear reminders of the rules were announced before a countdown was called out and it was time.

You needed to win something. Once the go was given, you and everyone else was frantic with it. Slapping sounds echoed all around the room and there was screaming and yelping as hands came close to the button. You were moving so quickly you hadn’t realized you’d bumped up elbows with the person beside you and in the excitement you’d reached a hand out to hold him back. Kyungsoo was creeping into your space. The only thing you could do was fight him off with your free hand. You reached for his forearm and pulled him back, trying to get his tossing hand back enough so you could break through. The sound of everyone’s laughter was like a drug. The mood of the game was so fun and exciting you hadn’t even noticed that it was the sounds of Kyungsoo’s giggles that paired so well with your own. That it was a sound you’d never before heard in your life, the mixture of both of your laughter with his laughter and the two voice tones blended so beautifully together you had to force your eyes to look away from the giggling profile of his face so you could focus on the game.

Through the struggle and the giggles when you pulled your sticky hand back quickly you shot it forward again and to your absolute shock your hand landed square on top of the button in the center of the table and quickly whipped it backward, trapping it right in front of you on the table. You reached down with a shout and gripped that button and you stood up in happiness as the entire rest of the table groaned at the loss.

You’d done it. You’ve finally won something. You were jumping up and down with excitement and you couldn't help the drift of your eyes over to the man who sat beside you with a pretty smile still on his face. He lifted a hand and ran it through his hair, letting the straight black strands fall back into place slowly and his dark eyes watched you for a few moments with that breathtaking smile taking just a bit of your oxygen and making it stutter inside of your lungs. You’d been denying it to yourself, refusing to admit even inside of your head just how beautiful he was, but again and again you would lose that battle. It had been getting worse lately, the longer stretches of time you got to actually look at him and the longer stretches of time when you actually held his brown eyes with your own.

Someone steered you to the big table of prizes and handed you an enormous multipack of batteries. Batteries that would power any one of these hand held devices such as the flashlight and even that small radio that Kyungsoo had stashed underneath his chair.

The weight of this prize brought a change inside of you. You had won the power, quite literally. Everyone who won an electronic device needed you. You had what might be considered currency.

“Roxy, I’ll give you the batteries for your portable fan for one pack of ramen,” you said as you sat down and her eyes widened and she nodded her head, ripping open the multipack of noodles and tossing them over to you in exchange for two small batteries. You had so many of them and curious eyes were now offering small trades.

Once the trading had started you noticed others making small deals as well. Kyungsoo gave Roxy a can of spam for some ramen and you looked at the several cans he had left and then down at his powerless portable radio but you lost the nerve to say anything to him when he looked at you. You just looked away and avoided his eyes until the next game started. The sticky hands game was quick and popular, more prizes were handed out, and you all played it again and again until all the sticking power wore off and nobody was able to grab ahold of anything anymore.

If you were meant to be avoiding this man those plans went out the window with the announcement of the next game. This one would be played in pairs and your eyes touched upon every single person in this room except for the man sitting beside you begging to God they hadn’t already settled on their person. Of course they were all taken, the dirty rats.

“Okay so you, and Kyungsoo,” Mr. Chen clapped his hands, “excellent, that works out perfectly.”

You’d cooperated with him already. You’d both worked quite closely and very well together in the kitchen when he was cooking blindfolded, but that was before the blowup outside. Before you hurt his feelings for real this time, he called you an asshole, and you drunkenly tried to blame your cruel, hateful words on the actions of the other people in this room when you got caught by him. Even as upset as he had obviously been, he still swooped in and caught you before you could fall off the patio and hurt yourself. But he’d not said a single word to you since, and even only looked at you when absolutely necessary.

This game was more physical. There was a big bowl of flour and two spoons and the task was to hold the spoon with your mouth and use it to scoop flour. You were then to transfer the flower scoop to your partner’s spoon and they took it to another bowl which sat on a scale. The fastest team to transfer 40 grams of flour won. The prize was the pair of blankets and while you weren’t about to share your new high thread count luxury blanket with this man, you could be convinced to give him the cheap one.

“There’s a catch,” Mr. Chen explained and you groaned in annoyance as you took the spoon back out of your mouth to listen to the added condition of the game that was being explained. “You must both stand within the same square on the tile during the flour transfer. Touching each other is allowed.”

You both looked down at the floor, realizing that these floor tiles were tiny. Maybe your feet and his feet would fit if you stood exactly on one side of the tile but it would have to be very close. In fact, everything about your bodies would need to be close for this.

Sara had her hand raised and Mr. Chen quickly added that pregnant persons with big bellies could use up two tiles. Everyone else was limited to one.

When the game began, Kyungsoo was standing closest to the flour supply so you simply stood at the halfway point, placing your feet carefully within your tile. From the looks of his shoes, it was likely he could manage to fit one foot between your two, and the other on the other side while remaining within the perimeter lines. He was coming with his spoon suspended in his mouth and a mountain of flour filling the spoon. He was coming with a big white spot of flour on his chin and several white spots down his cheek and what was probably hidden all over his white shirt and when he reached you, you felt him place his first foot in between yours and carefully place the other within the tile. With his feet in place the warmth of his body quickly followed and you felt the length of him pressing up against your body from thigh to chest. Oh god.

Your eyes were wide open and he looked into them with a quiet urgency in the small grunt he gave you. His head tiled the smallest amount, not enough to spill his flour but enough to tell you that your spoon was not at the right angle to receive and that you should tilt your head.

You could feel your heart beating inside of your ears with him standing so very close to you and you had to remind yourself that this was only for the game. This was only to win the prizes, your blankets. You would sleep warm and comfortable tonight if you won those blankets.

A commotion beside you called your attention briefly and you began to turn your head. Someone had coughed a faceful of flour on their partner and someone was coughing and laughing noisily.

Kyungsoo’s hand reached up and you felt the warmth of his palm land over your cheek, pulling your face to look at him again. He’d lifted his other hand just high enough to wrap around the small of your back and you felt the gentle pull there as he pulled you in closer to where he stood inside this tile. He was just refocusing you. He was only directing your face so you could tilt your head into him to gather all of the flour he brought to you and you held your breath as his head tilted further and the white flour fell into your own spoon.

He let you go and he stepped back, inhaled a deep breath as he moved, his eyes widened with a nod of his head and you quickly turned around to take the spoon to the scale. You had more than 10 grams already. You only had to do this three more times to win. You glanced around at the other teams, one who was still transferring, and the other who had gone back to square one covered in white flour all over their faces and hair.

Your waist and your face felt all dumb and tingly, your skin was acting unreasonable to be so undeservedly affected by his touch. He wasn’t even touching you because he wanted to. This was for the game. It has just been so very long since a handsome man actually put his hands on you.

When you returned to your tile, Kyungsoo was already coming with another spoonful. He was less careful with his touch this time and you felt the strong warmth of his hand that he placed on your waist the second he reached the tile and situated his feet. Your hands lifted to lightly touch the side of his waist to keep your balance and this time as he was turning his head to dump the flour, half of the flour seemed packed on his spoon, refusing to budge. You had to touch him more, you lifted your hand and guided his face more. You could see the moment the powder dislodged and plopped neatly inside of your spoon and you were glad you were holding your breath because you nearly laughed in excitement to see it fall. You were rushing to the scale, careful to not jostle your precious cargo any more than necessary.

This had been a bigger spoonful. Your totals were 25 grams already, much more than any of the other teams.

You gave him an encouraging nod of your head and he had a smile in his eyes that sent him rushing back to the bowl before you could even make it back to the tile he was waiting with both of his arms outstretched for you, hands falling easily into place now, faces tilted in a position with him that to anyone who might be viewing this from the back may seem romantic. It was definitely close enough to kiss his pretty lips if not for these blasted spoons.

You had your flour scoop secured and his eyes widened marginally when you lifted a hand to lightly brush stray the white powder off his cheek before you turned to deposit your spoon.

You were almost there. The sense of urgency moved your body and you rushed back to where he stood waiting for you with his spoon positively loaded up with flour.

You collided with him with more force than you had before, your desire to win clouding your judgment and with the impact you felt more of his firm body pressed against you. You felt more of the hardness of his thighs that flexed when you placed your own over him, straddling his legs so you both would fit perfectly in this tiny space. When his hand pulled you harder into him he used his entire hand and forearm and you were reminded of the position he caught you in out there in the rain when the thumping of your heartbeats seemed to scream even louder than the torrential rain hitting the roof of the patio; when the heat you felt between his legs pressed into you sent an overwhelming wave of warmth and attraction radiating through your belly and brought along a damp flush to your skin.

You didn’t have time for all of this. He was tilting his head into you and his hand was on your face, cradling your cheek, your jaw, your ear, slipping down the smoothness of your neck and his eyes were closing as he lightly exhaled through his nose. The flour moved. You caught the bit of some of it falling off the spoon and you felt the tickle as some of it fell over your bare chest.

Impossibly and as if he had been possessed, you felt the smallest brushes of his soft, warm fingertips along the skin below your collarbone, brushing away the little mess he had made of you there.

When his eyes pulled up you were staring into his face and you didn’t have time to decipher any of this because you needed to be moving. You hoped it would be enough. You spun carefully on your heels and you could feel the shadow of him following your journey as you made it to the scale and poured the contents of your spoon.

“43 grams!” Mr Chen shouted and you heard groans of disappointment from the other two teams, you heard the metal clanging as discarded spoons fell to the floor or landed and echoed on a table and your body felt as if it might be on fire from just how much Kyungsoo had been touching you during the game. Every single cell that his skin had touched felt electrified and when you spun to look into his face you caught the most beautiful smile of genuine happiness there.

It pulled the smile of celebration from your own chest and you laughed and leaned into him, lightly bumping your shoulders against his bicep, not quite trusting yourself to openly celebrate so freely with this man.

You felt it then, the smallest reach of his arm that he lifted and wrapped lightly around your waist, you felt the small pull of him there as he did it and you gasped in surprise to feel the brush of his fingers that landed over your hair. He was grinning and brushing flour out of your hair. He was happy and he was so beautiful and you smiled back at him, tapping away some of the flour that had fallen from his chest and when his eyes reached into yours you caught the shift as the smile slowly flattened out and he cleared his throat, pulling his eyes quickly away from your face and pulling both of his hands back to himself.

If you hadn’t been holding them together your hands might have been trembling.

It was time to claim your prizes so you steadied your expression as quickly as you could, making excuses about how sometimes the nature of celebrating wins involved tiny touches and achingly deep eye blinks with each other and trying to ignore the longing you felt to feel the temperature of his skin pressed up against yours like that again. This was getting out of hand.

You both looked down at the two blankets, one of them clearly more superior than the other and Roxy suggested you both have a competition to see who got the good one.

Someone said arm wrestling, someone else suggested a straight up fight for it and Kyungsoo snorted with laughter and reached out to grab ahold of your wrist, wrapping his fingers easily around it he lifted your arm and shook it wildly.

“I could snap her in two,” he said and you pulled your wrist back from him forcefully, not quite having the strength to fully break free from him until you felt his grip relax and he just let you go. You knew he was right but that didn’t stop the wave of undeserved confidence that surged through you; foolishly believing deep down inside that if you fought dirty enough you could probably take him in a fight. You’d go for the weak points first, obviously the crotch shot, then the eye balls, and you’d end with a throat punch that would send him to the hospital. You’d completed two self defense courses in your life and you knew if you hit him right now, when he wasn’t expecting it, you could win. As long as you didn’t give him any advanced notice of what you were up to.

You’d always had trouble with intrusive thoughts. You reached for him quickly from behind and wrapped your arms around his shoulders, reaching your hands around for his neck and he gave the smallest grunt of genuine surprise to find you so suddenly and aggressively climbing on his back like a flying squirrel might stupidly try to attack a gorilla. His grunt of surprise changed into a small grunt of effort and you felt a sudden but definite shift inside of his back muscles.

You should have known better than to attack from behind. Not someone with such a strong back as he had. You felt his arm muscles contract and he reached his hands around to grab you, you felt him bend at the waist and you felt him spin right inside of your arms. He had the upper hand in less than a second and you could yourself fully encased and trapped well inside of his arms as he casually lifted you right off of your feet and plopped you back down, lifting you up easily just to show you that he could. He took two quick steps with you trapped completely inside of his arms and you moved like a puppet. His hands had reached down, squeezing you tighter when you struggled against him and he grabbed ahold of both of your hands, keeping you from being able to tickle him or pinch any of his skin, as you had instantly tried to do. You were completely trapped.

“See,” he whispered into your ear, the heat of his chest laid against your back and you fell back into that same familiar feeling of being pressed up against his body, “you can’t beat me, Princess.” His voice skipped over your neck traveling slowly up your earlobe until his words sunk down deep within your ear.

You turned your head toward his voice and you felt the softness of his cheek press against your own and as he spoke you could smell the strong smell of alcohol on his breath. You might have been the more sober of the two right now. You were also the most desperate. You wanted that blanket badly. You moved into the head turn and you let your lips land against his skin, just high enough on his cheek to find his ear with your message to him.

“I’ll give you batteries for your radio,” you whispered against his skin, using the same low tone and sultry whisper he had used on you seconds earlier and you allowed your lips to pop the smallest bit, letting the softness of your lips play every so lightly with the softness of his earlobe. “Please let me win,” you whispered into his skin. The effect moved through him like a wave. It rippled through the muscles that held you tightly within his arms. You felt the nearly silent groan that originated somewhere deep inside of his chest that echoed throughout your back and with the groan you felt him cave in.

“Come on, that’s not a fair fight,” someone shouted from the back of the group, “he’s a man, and she’s a woman, how is that fair?”

But you could feel it, he had been ready to give in. He was relaxing his grip and you leaned against his back, pushing lightly against him as if you were really fighting this strong man off of you for show. As if you even wanted to get the heavy weight of his entire body off of you.

“Rock, paper, scissors,” someone else shouted, “ play for the blanket.”

He had let you go. You’d taken a step away from him and you turned back around to look into his face. His breathing seemed just a little bit hard for such a tiny struggle with you and you noticed his cheeks were quite pink as he looked into your eyes. You saw the smallest movement there. He blinked his eyes once as he lifted his chin the smallest degree. It felt like a gesture of agreement and you caught another motion as he lifted his hand and made a discrete fist with it, lifting his chin once more with a nod.

He accepted your terms and he was going to play rock.

The others were already shouting the commands to begin the rock, paper, scissors round and you had to quickly play your hand. You shot out a flat hand for paper and it landed squarely over his closed fist as he played the rock that he had promised you he would play.

“She’s the winner!” Javier shouted and you smiled wide and genuine — your evening was finally beginning to look up a little bit. You jumped up and down in happiness and you rushed to the table to grab your blanket and curiously you could still feel his brown eyes watching as you did it. There was an odd expression on his face for someone who had lost the round. His eyes followed you around the room as you’d celebrated your little win and you could have sworn you could see the smallest smile on his lips when he went to the table to retrieve his loser’s blanket. You couldn’t quite understand why he would have looked pleased by this. You won and he lost.

Oh right, his batteries. He must have been happy about getting batteries and a blanket out of this deal. If you were a blanket-less pauper, you might have also been happy to receive such a low quality crappy blanket.

You couldn't quite remember the last time you felt so happy to win something so dumb. You just knew this would solve all of your nighttime problems. You skipped up to him holding your prize and you quickly stuffed it under your seat next to the other goodies you’d either won or traded to obtain, feeling pretty damn good about how the rest of the week might go. If you had to, you’d just spend the whole week in bed under this blanket and catch up on all of the missed sleep you’d ever missed in your life.

When you stood up, Kyungsoo was standing right behind you with his hand outstretched toward you in a surprisingly congenial gesture of a handshake for a job well done. ‘Good job,’ his posture said, with a pleased smile on his smooth face. You reached your hand forward fully ready to make this change in your relationship with the man. Like a pair of coworkers who got along sometimes. Not friendly by any means but still able to get the job done if they were being paid to. You’d accept his congratulations. He was right, you had done a really good job of winning this and he should be thankful to you for how well you could walk with a spoonful of flour and dump it into a bowl without spilling a speck. If only that was a skill you could market. Your balance and coordination should be studied.

The second the skin of your palm touched his and you gripped your fingers around his hand to shake it, he pulled his hand back abruptly and came back hard with a swift smack of his hand against yours. Was this some sort of trendy side-five, not a high-five or a low-five, but a side-five?

“No, idiot. Batteries.” He said gruffly after swatting away your hand shake. He wasn’t here to make peace at all. He was here to claim what was his. His face didn’t look as grumpy as he usually did, but he seemed to be back to calling you names.

“I’ll give them to you in the room.” You said under your breath, a little bit of your earlier joy from having won something so precious deflated by the return of his crappy behavior.

He leaned his head closer to where you stood, “don't want the others to know that you’re a cheater?”

“I didn't cheat. I just made a deal. Something I wanted for something you wanted,” you said with a flippant dismissal and all it got from him was a doubtful scoff.

“Always playing a game, huh,” he remarked under his breath and it pulled your focus back on him for a few moments. There was something under the surface with his words. Something darker than the golden aura of winning.

Your memory flashed to the blurry drunk view you had of him and the actual hurt you saw in his eyes. The hurt you had trouble really understanding because it felt so unwarranted. There had never been any pretense to the way you felt about each other. You hated him and he hated you and people who hate each other don’t get to look that hurt when someone says something hateful, it’s a given. He said awful things to you all the time although now that you really got to thinking you were having a hard time finding an example of something truly mean he said to you. Something that wasn’t just a reaction to something you did first. Try as you might, you couldn’t bring up anything concrete. The nature of your very specific problem you had with him, that he had so callously rejected you back then kept you on edge around him so much that nearly every interaction you had with him had you on the attack. You always came out swinging first and asked questions later.

“Hey, Kyungsoo — I really, really didn’t mean all that stuff I told Sara about you —” this was difficult to get out but you really hated sitting on an unspoken apology when you had done something wrong.

If Kyungsoo’s unwavering focus was what you wanted — if his deep dark brown eyes looking into your face with every bit of his attention focused up close on every single centimeter of you from your eyes down to your lips, then you certainly had gotten what you wanted. His eyelids pulled wider when he realized what you were saying. His lips parted and his tongue darted out to moisten his bottom lip.

You inhaled to continue, “I was … drunk, yeah, but I still don’t — I didn’t —,” you couldn’t get any more details out, not with as closely as he was looking at you.

“I-It wasn't for you to hear, it was for her. I’m sorry if that was super mean of me.”

“It was,” he agreed, “mean,” he added for clarity and he inhaled to speak again, lifting his chest and shoulders with the breath and lifting his hand to run over the length of his face. You could feel the agitation in every motion of his body. The drink he still held in his hand rattled with the movement.

He half spun with it and came back, his voice teetering along the edges of anger, “it wasn’t for me to hear? That’s it? I was supposed to hear you saying all of that shit? Is that your apology attempt?”

“No, that’s not — that’s not what I mean,” he had to be the most difficult person to make your point with.

“Then what do you mean?” His lips closed as he pulled his bottom lip inside his closed mouth, his eyebrows lifting in question, “hmmm?” he prodded again. You figured you had about five seconds before another argument and another fight erupted and this time you didn’t even have a high balcony to hurl yourself off of.

“I know we don’t get along, but I don’t even really hate you. Not really. I mean, we got off to the worst start ever, not that there ever was anything to start, that’s not what I mean,” you sighed in frustration — this was so difficult to explain.

“I don’t hate you. I don’t think it’s the absolute worst thing in the world to be here with you. Actually working together on these games today, it seems like maybe we work together well, at least.”

Some of the wildness you’d seen in his eyes a few seconds ago had left with your rapid explanation. He still watched your face with rapt attention and the burdensome feeling under the scrutiny of his eyes had your face blushing and your voice cracking a little bit. You felt silly for having such a strong reaction to something as simple as a conversation with the goal of clearing the air.

You chuckled lightly to yourself, both with how silly you felt being this nervous and with the very beginnings of the thought that crept through your mind.

“This is only the first day,” you laughed lightly to yourself. Kyungsoo did not laugh or even smile. His lips were pulled into a flat line and he didn’t respond right away with any indication of what he was thinking.

“Maybe,” you closed your eyes and inhaled a breath, “maybe we could just be … f-friends?” You could feel the shape of your mouth pull into a grimace when you said it. The upward inflection put the ball squarely in his court to decide what he thought about your call for a truce and maybe even some of those cahoots you’d been dreaming about.

Kyungsoo didn’t respond right away. His eyes watched your face very closely and you caught the hard clench of his jaw and the half lidded blink as his eyes closed down. He inhaled the smallest breath and just under that tiny breath and using only the air and almost no volume of his voice you could barely make out a response from him

“‘Friends’” he whispered and you thought you might have heard a follow up response “friends is the last thing I want to be with you.”

He said it so quietly you doubted you’d even heard it the second the next inhale sounded out from his lungs. He cleared his throat at a normal volume and opened his eyes, that same pretty pinkness coloring his cheeks as he inhaled again, deeper and more committed this time and on the exhale he spoke. The words were slightly tinged with the alcohol on his tongue.

“Friends,” he said with more commitment, “umm, maybe… let’s just hold off on that for now.” His eyes formed a squint that matched the grimace you’d had on your face earlier and with his soft but decidedly sharp denial you felt the heat slip up your neck and touch along both of your cheeks. “It's just — the things you do and say always feel like a trick and I’m getting a little burned out tonight.”

His rejection of you time and time again burned against your skin but you needed him to expand on the first thing, that whispered, just under his tongue response that set off weird bubbles inside of your stomach with the strangeness of the sound of those exact words.

You had to speak. “What did you say the first time?”

He shook his head slowly back and forth as a response.

“‘Friends is the last thing I want to be with you’ — does that mean you really do hate me?”

His lips were closed and his head was pulled back. The pretty hair layed flat atop of his head after the distraction of his hand running through it had taken your attention from his dark eyes for a split second.

“I think I’m the drunk one now,” he said as a final response to your questions and you could feel the door slam shut. He downed the last of his drink and headed away from you toward Javier at the bar who was already ready with another one.

You watched him walk away from you and he didn’t turn back around.

You felt almost ready to give up. Ready to crawl into your bed, under your new blanket and block out the rest of the world for a solid week. You’d just avoid him entirely to save yourself any more humiliation. Not only did he not want to go on that date with you, but this handsome, charming, funny, and talented man didn’t even want to be friends with you. Even that was unbearable to him. How awful of a person were you?

You reached down beneath your seat and gathered your things, catching Sara’s worried eyes as you made your way toward the door to this kitchen that led back to that dark and scary hallway that would take you to your bed.

“We're calling it a night — already?” Mr. Chen’s voice broke through the laughter and giggles from the others who were still hallway through their drinks and clearly not ready to call it a night. You were fresh out of any more ability to be social and happy when you had been so obviously put in your place again and again.

“She’s feeling a little done so we are taking her things to her room — might settle in already,” Sara spoke up for you and soon was by your side linking her arm with yours as she helped you with the door, “don’t stay up too late, we might have a long stormy night ahead of us!” She called behind her toward the group in a cheerful voice. You heard an agreeing sound from Mr. Chen as he declared the same sentiment to the rest of the group.

Apparently the eye of the storm was supposed to come ashore within the next few hours and nobody knew how much sleep was possible with such a scary and loud event happening outside. Once through the doorway a click sounded out and your pathway was illuminated by a tiny flashlight she had in her hand. You knew for a fact that she hadn’t won that in the games and she gave you a knowing smile and a wink.

“Shhh, I got you one too. Nobody would dare search a pregnant woman,” she giggled and her brightness paired with the little metal cylinder she slipped into the palm of your hand brought your rotten mood up just a tiny bit.

You’d both made it all the way down the long hallway to the door of the bunks and you were thankful for the bathroom light Kyungsoo had left on before he left this room because it was empty, deserted, and quite spooky even with the lighting, you couldn’t imagine what it would be like at night when the lights were turned out. You looked all the way down to the end of this enormous room where his bed waited for him and you wondered just how many spiders stood between you and him in this big room.

“What happened? Did you two argue again?” She pleaded with her kind eyes, you could see the sincerity in her face and you sighed deeply as you unwrapped the new blanket and spread it out over the top of your bed. Something about your mood made this pretty, comfy thing feel just a little bit less than before.

“Yeah. No. Not really. I don’t know. I apologized to him for what I said. He neither accepted or denied it. I asked if he wanted to at least be friends and he doesn’t. So—” you lifted your eyebrows with a hopeless shrug.

“It’s the first day.” She said with a softening of her voice. She didn’t offer any promises or give you any more false hopes. All she had was a flimsy fact that you knew as well.

“I think I’ll shower before he gets here,” you grabbed your clothes and bath towels, also grabbing your swimsuit just in case the man happened to walk into that bathroom as you were sudsing your hair in the open layout wall of showers with no doors layout of this bunker style bathroom.

Sara said her good nights and you quietly changed into the solid black bikini you’d been toning your body and dieting for months to look amazing in and when you caught the reflection of yourself after rinsing the shampoo of your hair in the industrial mirror that was half rusted and cloudy with how old it was, you were thankful that at least you could still pull off a look this sexy even if your ego was thoroughly shattered by him.

That you could still look and feel pretty even after being rejected over and over again by the only man you’d ever agreed to be set up on a blind date with; the only man you’d ever been interested in enough to even consider deleting your dating profiles for and the man who you’d drive a solid hour facing the setting sun to reach the east side location of the swankiest restaurant in town to meet him that evening even if it meant braving rush hour traffic on the hectic and terrifying freeway to get there.

These showers worked on some sort of a timer. You pressed the button for a good amount of water pressure and flow and after several minutes the water would wind down, asking for another press of the button if you wanted more. You’d finished cleaning and rinsing and you were toweling off your legs after wringing all of the wet out of your hair. The water was still running noisily but had been winding down when you took your first steps out of the showering area and made your way toward the concrete tiled bench built into the wall where you’d left your folded clothes and the sound of the winding down trickle of the shower was replaced with a different and unexpected sound. It was the sound of a gasp, the quick intake of air made through the open mouth of an adult human being, a man. A man you knew.

The sound startled you enough to spin around and the towel you had over your head and nowhere near covering your bikini clad body slipped out of your surprised fingers and pooled down at your feet.

Burning into your skin was the deep brown of his eyes and he stood at the open space just at the foot of where his bed ended and the bathroom began with a true deer caught in the headlights look on his face.

He must have been pretty drunk. His eyes sank slowly down from your face, slipping lower and his mouth hung open, that same look of genuine surprise still spelled out all over his face.

“S-Shit, I’m,” he inhaled through his open mouth, using every last morsel of willpower left inside of him to pull his eyes up from where they’d been lazily lingering around your hips and with the single word he had left to squeak out you got the smallest, “sorry.”

You bent down to pick up the towel and spun around turning your back on the man. You weren’t in the mood to open up another hateful conversation with him right now. All you wanted was to have the strength to ignore that look you’d seen in his eyes just now so you could slip past him and go hide under your covers.

It was uncomfortable to put dry clothes over your wet bathing suit but the alternative was to strip down naked with him standing right there so you could dress yourself properly.

You felt too flustered and too much in a hurry for that and Kyungsoo was still very much frozen in place in the doorway. Drunk and slow. An immovable object.

You slipped on the silky nightshirt over the bathing suit. It would dry eventually. This nightshirt curved the shape of you and hung down to the middle of your thighs, it didn’t come with shorts and you didn’t usually mind. You hadn’t packed your bags with the idea that you’d be haunted by this bastard all night long and you might be better off sleeping in grubby sweat pants and an old t-shirt.

You needed to leave the bathroom. You’d made the requisite numbers of steps to reach the doorway and in any other situation with a normal, not inebriated, drunk or not, non-friend that he proudly proclaimed himself to be, the expectation was that he would bow his head, stop looking at you like he’d just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and move out of the damn way.

When you reached him in this doorway; he did not move and his eyes remained fixed on you. Something must be wrong with him. The look in those eyes felt different from any looks he had shot you before and something warm and achingly slow tickled a path down the length of your spine starting somewhere in between your shoulder blades and landing softly and deeply, well inside of your belly.

Kyungsoo was not moving out of the your way, you had to touch his arm lightly to push against the warm weight of him and when you did it, his hand moved, his soft rounded fingertips reached forward and you felt the smallest brush of them over the back of your hand, you felt the smallest touch from his reaching fingers that sent the biggest jolt of electricity through your startled brain because this was not allowed. It was not expected and it was not something he would ever be caught dead doing to you.

Why? Why would he touch you here and like that when he in all other places was filled with so much disdain for you. The shockingly noisy thumping inside of your chest echoed inside the hollow of you and you felt the stickiness of the gravity that must have been holding him here in this place. That gravity grabbed ahold of your feet so tightly and the stubborn things refused to move. You could see your destination but his fingers were touching the back of your hand and there was a burning just below your eyelids pulling your lids open, demanding that you open your eyes and look into his face.

He was watching you with the slowest blinks of his eyes and his lips were parted as he breathed through his mouth. His breathing felt so light and careful you wondered if he could manage to get any oxygen from it at all the moment you were caught inside of his eyes you felt like a prisoner here.

That warmth that has spread over your spine flooded and surged inside of you, finding a home between your legs and you felt not only trapped but now helplessly compelled.

You were leaning. The breath from his lips smelled like liquor. You were leaning and the brush from his fingertips moved as he touched lightly at first over your waist and then his hot palm was resting just over your hip and he took the smallest step into you, taking what was left of your air from you when the heat from his body cascaded into your much colder skin. The silk nightshirt did nothing to insulate his temperature and you could not escape this. The moment he lifted his hand and laid a palm just over your jaw you felt too lost to keep your eyes open.

The millimeters of space that separated the two of you evaporated when the warmth of his soft mouth touched your lips and when he pulled your bottom lip into the space of his open mouth and sucked, his hands clenched hard into the flesh of your hip, slipping around to dig roughly over your ass, his hand slipped around behind your neck and his mouth devoured and demanded from you as that unimaginable heat you felt between his legs pressed into you, begging you to have mercy on him; have mercy on yourself; put both of you out of your miseries.

Your skin felt aflame. You couldn’t remember another time in your life when you’d felt so desperate and completely consumed by another person in such a short amount of time.

You wanted him. You’d give anything to have him and yet the small gasps for air from his lungs in between the kisses had the tiniest grunts of complaints under their tones.

Tiny curses came from deep within his chest. Your mind reeled and sharpened to the sounds he made and that same desperation reminded you of the very last thing he’d said to you. That he wanted nothing to do with you. That he didn’t even see the possibility of being friends with you. That you would always only be an enemy to him. Untrustworthy and unlovable. You felt it then, it broke through the rough nibbles of his teeth against the soft skin of your neck and you gasped in a breath to ask him a question — your conscience could not let you stand for this without asking.

“Kyungsoo, I thought — that you didn’t want this — what — what are we doing?”

You were an idiot. It felt like it had to be asked and yet your body clung tightly to him despite it all — just because of the possibility that he didn’t mean any of this, that it was just the alcohol driving this desperation, that this was the kind of mistake that would destroy the both of you in the morning — you simply could not let this happen if any of those were a possibility.

“Kyungsoo, is this — a mistake?”

Your questions pulled his face up and the darkness had built inside his eyes to such an extent that it took him several seconds of looking into your face for you to see the shift of understanding to break through. With the understanding came the painful and horrible when he pulled his hand up to cover over his parted mouth and mumbled the quickest “I’m sorry,” before he covered up any other terrible words he might have been about to say to you.

You felt his retreat with the temperature drop.

It had been what you feared. It was only the alcohol taking ahold of his body and making it betray his heart. For inside of his heart, there would never be a place for you. The crushing feeling you felt inside of your stomach pulled your shoulders down and you were sure the look on your face would be close to tears but he wasn’t looking at you anymore.

He had separated his body from you and your wounded feelings flared up hot, desperate for something to ease some of the pain. You found none.

Kyungsoo was shaking his head back and forth and another soft apology landed with a dull thud against your hollow chest. The echo sounded like the beat of a funeral drum.

“I — I’m going to bed,” you whispered with what last bits of your voice you could find to work and paused briefly to ask something else just for the sake of your own wounded ego, “Does this make us even?” His eyes pulled up from his dazed focus down on the floor and he looked into your face when you asked the question.

“And I know it didn’t mean anything, Kyungsoo. I knew it was just the alcohol. I was just drunk then and you were just drunk now.” You pushed the corners of your mouth up as hard as you could stand and they may have even moved up a tiny bit.

You hoped to God he was too drunk to have noticed the wetness that settled heavy inside of your eyes and you were suddenly and eternally thankful that your bed was as physically far away from his bed as possible.

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

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