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petrichor-han · 11 months

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the city that never sleeps; choi beomgyu

PAIRING | beomgyu x fem!reader

CAST | choi beomgyu, choi yeonjun, yoo jimin (karina), mentions of choi soobin, yang jeongin (i.n), shin ryujin, lee heeseung, kim minjeong (winter)

WC | 28.2k

GENRE | angst, smut, childhood friends to lovers, friends to lovers, neighbor!au, boy next door!au, right person wrong time (sort of)

WARNINGS | explicit language, explicit smut & sexual content, infidelity, toxic relationship, verbal abuse, mc has a present mom and dad, vaping & smoking cigarettes, marijuana mentions

SYNOPSIS | SEQUEL TO IDLE TOWN! // it’s been ten years since you last saw choi beomgyu in the flesh, but a high school reunion prompts you and your fiancé, yeonjun, to return to your hometown one last time. unfortunately, it seems like old habits die hard, and the harder you try to stay away from beomgyu, the closer he seems to get.

A/N | i was not planning on a sequel but sometimes the heart wants what it wants and i just had to write this. idle town readers, welcome back, and if you haven’t read the prequel then it’s linked in both the synopsis above and next to my masterlist below. it’s not required to read part one, but it’s helpful and provides context.

request to be added to current and future taglists HERE!

listen to the playlist here!

MASTERLIST | IDLE TOWN (PT. 1)

TEN YEARS LATER.

The day that you receive the envelope in the mail was the day that everything started going downhill. Now that you think about it, when was your peak? Was it as soon as you stepped foot in the city you’d always dreamed of living in? Was it when you met Yeonjun? Was it when you started working at that publishing company with amazing pay and benefits?

All in all, you’re not really sure. But if you had to pick a simple “best moment,” it would probably be your college graduation.

It was the perfect summer day. You’d aced your last semester of classes and had numerous colorful cords around your neck, showing off your accomplishments from the past four years. You sat between two people that you were semi-close with now, what with being almost forced to talk to them during rehearsals and all. They were alright, maybe you’d have even been friends with them in school if you met them earlier. Maybe being the key word. So instead, you sit between them, exchanging excited words in hushed whispers, making small talk, asking them what their plans are after the ceremony is over with. One of them invited the two of you to an end-of-school party that one of the frats is throwing; you had no clue about it. But as they explain the theme, saying that it’d be fun to end your last year with a typical college party—something that you’d probably never get the chance to do again—you start thinking, why not? What do you have to lose?

The ceremony itself is great. Nothing goes wrong, even though in these sorts of situations you always expect something to go awry. It doesn’t start raining, no one trips or messes up their words, the speeches aren’t too dull (as far as graduation speeches go), and the cheers for you as you walk across the stage are almost deafening. You can’t help the wide, almost cocky grin that spreads across your face as you turn to the crowd and wave once towards the area you know your loved ones are sitting in, spotting Yeonjun’s pink hair right away. He sticks out like a sore thumb, almost neon in the bright sunlight in comparison to the people around him. You hear his voice rise up above everyone else’s cheers, yelling your name amongst praise and sweet words. It makes you blush, how he’s not afraid to say such sappy shit in front of your parents, in front of your friends—in front of your entire graduating class, really.

The rest of the ceremony goes by in a blur. You can’t stop smiling even if you’re a little clammy underneath your cords and robe and cap, and your grin grows even wider once you’re able to toss your cap in the air and then go find your loved ones.

You see Yeonjun first, parting the crowd like the Red Sea. It’s kind of impossible to not see him. That’s something you’ve always equally liked and disliked about him—he attracted attention wherever he went. And not always from those who were sexually attracted to him, though that was, admittedly, a large portion of the attention that he got. No, he emitted this glow when he walked into a room. There was something about him that demanded your attention, even if you were unwilling to give it up. It was partially his looks—god, was he stunning—but also, the charm that basically oozed from his pores. You’d never known anyone that didn’t like Yeonjun. Even if they were apprehensive at first, no one could resist his genuinity, his kind nature that collided with his sharp visuals that sometimes made him come off as the cold or arrogant sort of attractive. But of course, no one ever thought of him as cold or arrogant as soon as he opened his mouth.

You liked this about him because it was easy. Everyone loved him: your friends, your classmates, and most importantly, your family. “He’s such a catch,” your friend Yeji said jealously, eyeing him as he walked away after dropping off lunch for you. “I wish I had a partner that would bring me a homemade meal.”

“And he drove half an hour to get here,” you bragged playfully, shaking your little dosirak full of food, still warm to the touch.

When he met your parents, your mother waited until he left the room before nudging you and smiling. “That’s a keeper,” she said happily, “I couldn’t think of anyone better for you.” The only issue with this was the fact that you noticed her stumble over the second part of that sentence, and it made you think of someone that you hadn’t bothered to think about in years.

But when Yeonjun was there, any semblance of thought towards that someone melted away almost immediately.

You run into his arms, almost crushing the massive bouquet of flowers that he’s holding gently. He holds it above the both of you with one hand and catches you in a tight embrace in the other, laughing and trying to speak through his giggles to congratulate you. “You are the most wonderful person in the world,” he says astutely, caressing your face gently as you part. Before you can get too far, he brings you back in to kiss you softly, his hand dropping to the small of your back to bring your body closer to his. Once he lets you go, he hands you the colorful bouquet that you almost squished. It’s beautiful. The entire thing is so heavy, full of flowers that are almost as big as your head. It hides the bottom half of your face as you hold it in front of your body and he laughs, pinching your cheek and calling you cute before everyone else arrives to congratulate you.

Is it selfish of you to think of that as your peak? Why do you consider it so? Your immediate answer to that is because of how you felt, how happy you were. You were so happy that you had no more room for any other emotion, save for perhaps excitement—but even that bled into happiness, blurring the lines between which was which. But maybe you think of that as your peak because of your achievements—no, that’s not it. You’ve achieved much more since then. Then the last conclusion, and the one that you dreaded to consider, must be correct. You consider it your peak because of everyone else’s reactions. They celebrated you that day, they all paid attention to you and how much shit that you’d done in those four years. And to be fair, it was a well deserved celebration—you worked your ass off in your undergrad years, so much so that sometimes Yeonjun would have to physically stop you from pushing yourself before you collapsed from exhaustion.

Your other option for your peak in life isn’t a singular moment. But it’s happier than considering yourself to peak in college. You consider your life as a whole since you moved out of your parents’ house to be your peak. That time frame between getting on the airplane to New York City and receiving that letter in the mail, that was your peak.

It has been ten years since you left your hometown far behind when you pull that letter out from between a catalog for lacy underwear and your electricity bill, and promptly spit your coffee all over your dinner table.

The address is from your home state, your hometown. It’s the address of your high school, and sure as hell, that’s your full name written across the front of the envelope. The stamp in the corner is of the school mascot—well, the same animal as your school mascot, anyways.

Hands shaking, you wipe your mouth quickly and then use a butter knife to cut a slit in the envelope. A single piece of dense paper slides smoothly into your palm, and you gnaw on your lip until you taste blood as you read through it, eyes following the dark print, chasing it as it registers in your brain. You swear you can feel your tongue dry and your heartbeat slow as the words “HIGH SCHOOL REUNION” echo in your head. You toss the invitation back on top of the opened envelope and busy yourself with wiping up your mess of spewed coffee.

Of course, this is when Yeonjun comes back.

You hadn’t expected him to be gone long; he’d just stopped by the local bagel place to get some fresh breakfast to pair with your coffee (though your cup is now half gone, spat across your dinner table).

“What’s wrong?” he asks immediately.

That’s another thing about Yeonjun—he can read you like an open book. It’s a little annoying at times, when you want to keep certain things private or hide surprises from him, but most of the time you appreciate his intuitiveness.

You don’t say anything, but point towards the invitation that’s still on full display, laying on top of the envelope it came in. Yeonjun kicks off his shoes and sets the box of bagels on the kitchen counter before walking over to you. He kisses you on the temple and picks up the invitation, leaning against the table as he scans it. Sucking in a deep breath through his teeth, he taps the thick piece of cardstock against the solid wooden surface of the dinner table and looks at you, concern clear in his eyes. He takes in your ashen face, bloodless and unsure.

“Well,” he says, “are you going to go?”

You groan loudly and slump forward in your chair, your forehead colliding with the table with a resounding clunk. Yeonjun coos, babying you like he knows you want him to, and drapes his slim frame over your back. His weight is a welcome comfort, like your very own weighted blanket.

“I don’t know,” you say honestly. Your voice is muffled, but he understands.

“If it’s stressing you out this much already, then…” he trails off, but you already know that he’s going to suggest not going. For some reason, this pisses you off a little and you nudge him off of you and pick up your head, scowling at him.

“What if I want to go?” you ask, frowning.

“Then go, of course,” he says, walking back into the kitchen to retrieve the bagels. His voice echoes through the hallway, preceding his physical return to you. “I just assumed that you didn’t want to because—“

“Because of Beomgyu,” you finish for him.

Yeonjun stops, freezing up at the sound of his name. You do too. It’s like you’ve been literally frozen—you feel so unbearably cold, and you can’t move an inch even though you’re the one that said it in the first place.

“I was going to say because of your reaction to the invitation,” Yeonjun says carefully. He still does not finish his route back to you. Instead, he stands there, halfway between the kitchen and you, very still. In his slim fit dark pants and sweater, he almost blends into the background.

There’s an uncomfortable silence that settles between the two of you, making itself comfortable atop all the surfaces in your home. Outside, it begins to rain. The only sound is the scattered raindrops that are beginning to pit-a-pat against the roof of your apartment building and the tiny fire escape.

After what seems like an eternity of stunned silence—you’re both still so shocked that you even uttered his name—you clear your throat to break the ice and say, “Well, I probably won’t go anyways. I hate that town.”

“Right.”

You both resume your day as usual, but the air is different. You’re both much more reserved and careful with what you say, something that’s rare for Yeonjun, who usually likes to speak his mind even if it comes off as a bit brash sometimes.

The reunion is not discussed any further until the week of, when you slide two plane tickets across the dinner table to Yeonjun, the destination being your hometown.

“Come or don’t,” you say, “but it’ll be uneventful either way.”

“I know this means a lot to you even if you refuse to say it out loud,” Yeonjun says knowingly. “I’m not an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot, but you’re also unusually good at reading my mind,” you murmur. This prompts Yeonjun to crack a smile.

“Well, since you already bought me a ticket…”

“I can get a refund,” you retort, but he knows that it’s a lighthearted joke.

“Not a chance.” He snatches up the tickets and walks over to you, slinging an arm around your shoulders and holding the papers up to the light. “High school reunion, here we come.”

—-

Maybe you should be more nervous.

Or maybe it just hasn’t kicked in yet.

Because the thing is, it’s not like you haven’t been back to your hometown at all since you left for college. You come home for certain holidays, for special days, for celebrations or times of mourning.

So far, it feels like another one of those times.

In your head, it’s just like you’re going home for Christmas, or for your mother’s birthday. Nothing has been really different just yet, so it has yet to hit you.

It’s only once you’re back in your childhood bedroom, with Yeonjun standing next to you, that you begin to feel uneasy. The only time you’d stayed in your childhood bedroom (after you’d moved out, of course) was for a long weekend during Christmas a few years back. Every other time, Yeonjun had come with you, and the two of you stayed in a nearby hotel. This time, before you could book a room, your mother had called you and demanded that the two of you stay in your childhood home.

“Cancel your hotel room,” your mother said cheerfully, once you’d picked up her call.

“Why?” you asked, stifling a yawn and blinking your dry eyes simultaneously; she’d woken you up from a late afternoon nap. Golden sunshine was pouring into your bedroom like honey, splashing across the length of your shared king-sized bed. It was the first real sunshine to penetrate through the thicket of fog and storm clouds, the last lingering signs of spring before summer took over. The air was warm and heavy, scented heavily with the spices Yeonjun was using to cook dinner in the kitchen. The bedroom door was slightly ajar, and of course this is why the smell of food was so strong. You sit up as your mother starts talking again, wrapping a soft throw blanket loosely around your shoulders. It’s only a few steps to the window, but your bare feet are quickly getting chilled from the hardwood floor as you peer out the window at the setting sun.

“You and Yeonjun can just come stay at the house,” your mother prompts, but her tone is a little off.

“You know I love our house, but it’s just too small for me and Jun to stay in my room,” you say, walking back over to sit down on the edge of the bed. “We sort of tried that one year at Chuseok, remember? We tapped out at around eleven after tossing and turning for like half an hour in that tiny bed.”

“I know, but still,” she says, trailing off.

You lean down to inspect a chip in your floor. “But still what, mom?”

“We’re selling the house,” she finally says. You freeze, heart skipping a beat as you lick your dry lips.

“You’re selling it?” you ask hoarsely.

“We can’t take care of it any more,” she explains, and you can hear the pity in her voice, sweet like cough syrup. “We’re going to move to a little complex a few towns over at the end of the month.”

“Oh, Woodbury?” you ask faintly, a flash of a memory of a Woodbury Apartments catalog sitting on your parents’ coffee table the last time you’d visited, around the winter holidays.

“We just thought that you might like to stay here for the last few weeks. We’re mostly cleaned up and starting to pack…”

Your head is swimming in the warmth of your bedroom, suddenly too hot for your taste. The blanket slides off of your shoulders as you mumble an excuse to your mother and hang up before she can even reply. You feel your phone buzzing in your hand and you know that your mother is texting you and asking if you’re alright, but you don’t answer her. You sit there until Yeonjun comes to get you for dinner, and once he sees your frail figure, shaking and clutching your phone to your chest, he scoops you into his arms and you listen to his heartbeat until the words come spilling from your lips.

You grimace, thinking back upon the memory of that phone call, as you yank the zipper on the side of your suitcase, trying to get out the bag that holds your toiletries. You packed it on top of all your clothes for easy access, for this reason exactly. The memory of your mother breaking the news to you wasn’t a good one, and the worst part was how stupid you felt for being upset about it at all. You were nearly thirty years old and you were having a breakdown over your parents selling their house?

“You grew up there, there’s a lot of memories. It makes perfect sense to feel the way you do right now,” Yeonjun had soothed, when you whimpered out your worries about sounding dumb. But you still felt shitty about feeling shitty.

But like you’d said before: nothing really felt different until you actually got back and you were unpacking in your childhood bedroom. You’d specifically asked your parents to leave it untouched so that you could pack things up yourself, and they obliged. Every other room in the house had been scrubbed clean and left simplistic, easy to clear out in just a few hours when the time came to leave for the last time.

Luckily, that wasn’t for a while yet.

First, you had to get through this damn reunion.

It took place the night after you landed, starting around eight thirty. You assumed that people would show up early, so you prepared yourself to arrive at crisp eight forty-five, just so that there was no chance of you being early nor late. You wanted to attract the least amount of attention possible from your old peers.

“If you don’t even want to see anyone, why did you decide to go?” your father asked sharply over dinner that night. A mixture of your annoyance, the tension in the room, and probably some of his pain medication for his back, was all building up. You watch through slightly narrowed eyes as your mother slips another few pills to him, a new wrinkle line appearing on her forehead. She’d tended to your father day and night since he fell off a ladder a few months ago. His tone made your head ache, and you sighed harshly—perhaps a bit too harshly, you realize, as you watch him flinch—before replying.

“I do want to see people,” you say, scowling into your dinner. Even though it’s delicious as always, prepared by your parents, you can’t seem to get much of it down before your stomach starts turning. You put down your utensil and rub your eyes, making your parents exchange an uneasy glance with an awkward Yeonjun. He didn’t really know what to do about the tension between you and your father, so he helplessly draped an arm over your hunched over frame and rubbed your shoulder comfortingly as he made a kind, somewhat pitiful expression towards your father. “It’s just that—I don’t want to see most of them, and I know that most of them haven’t ever left town. What if they ask me questions? What if they want to be friends? What if they expect something from me just because we were in the same class?”

“Woah there,” Yeonjun said, speaking up before either of your parents could offer a singular reassuring word. “Doll, if they didn’t care ten years ago, they probably won’t care now. At most you’ll get a few curious questions but it won’t be from a harmful place.”

“You weren’t there,” you glower at him, “you don’t get it.”

“Did something happen?” he asks, eyes widening. “I didn’t know… You never said anything about… Are you alright?” He stutters, trying to find the right thing to say to soothe you.

You kind of feel bad at this point, with both your parents and Yeonjun staring at you with the same concerned look written across their faces, the food in front of them untouched since the conversation started. You didn’t mean to be bitchy and bitter about it—after all, you were the one that chose to come back and go to the damned thing after all. But this was why you wanted to do it alone. As soon as it was over with, you imagined yourself returning to the playful, slightly more cheerful version of yourself that everyone knew and loved. You exhale loudly, then stand up. Your three loved ones mirror your actions, with Yeonjun straightening up to his full height beside you immediately, as if he could read your mind, and both your parents half-rising, mirroring out of pure empathy.

“I’m sorry,” you state, “I’ve just been stressed about this.” You want to say something more, give them more information about what the hell has been going on inside your head since it really clicked as you were standing there in your childhood bedroom, but your tongue feels glued to the roof of your mouth. Your jaw clenches and unclenches as the three of them stare you down, expecting more, but when they realize that is all you have to say, you watch your parents’ wrinkled faces deflate into a more relaxed expression. One that says, “my child has issues, but they’ll work through it themselves and there’s nothing we can do about it so let’s just stop freaking the fuck out.”

“It’s okay, sweetie.” Your mom says this solemnly.

When your eyes meet, you feel anger bubbling in your chest again. There is nothing but pity behind those old eyes. You know that your mom feels bad for you, her child that’s completely exiled from the hometown that they once lived in. The child that ran away to a big city and never came home again. The child that’s back home for the last time before they finally, really turn into an adult and let go of the last strings of childhood forever.

It settles, though, as she reaches over to place her cool, dry hand over yours. You look down, a little ashamed now that you’re calmer and can think clearer.

“I think I’m going to turn in early, so that I can… pack tomorrow before the reunion,” you explain, and your hand moves to pick up your dirty plate. Before you can lift it an inch off the table, your father swipes it from you and waves you and Yeonjun off.

“We got this. You two go get settled.”

You lock eyes with your father and you give him an appreciative nod. He smiles in return—yes, a sad one that is full of pity for you—and kisses you on the top of your head as he walks by you on his way to the kitchen.

You press your lips into a thin line, a slightly awkward silence emerging between the remaining people at the table. Your mother jumps up before anyone has the chance to attempt to rekindle the conversation, and brings both hers and Yeonjun’s dirty dishes to the kitchen, following your father and disappearing behind the cream wall of your dining area.

“I guess we’ll do what they say,” Yeonjun says, exhaling slowly and standing up. He pushes his chair in and tries to brush off imaginary dust from his place mat, and then looks to you for direction. Though he likes to take the lead, it seems that there is an exception when it comes to your childhood home.

You take the creaky stairs by two and slip around on the slick wooden floor, warped and smoothed down from years of sock hockey and communal use. Your childhood bedroom door is there at the end of the hallway like it always has been, illuminated by the ceiling light that’s clearly just been replaced by the sheer brightness of it. The door, which has faded crayon lines and your name in wooden letters, blue tacked to the wooden frame, is slightly ajar, just how you had left it when you went down to dinner.

The two of you sidle into the room, feeling a little claustrophobic. You spy an old purple bikini string overflowing out of one of your old dresser drawers, and your chest lurches a little as a memory of Beomgyu resurfaces. In the brief flash, Beomgyu is sitting in the middle of your bed, mud-caked high tops kicked off and laying on your shag rug. The browned laces are messy and askew, because of the haphazard way that Beomgyu had untied them messily and kicked them off carelessly. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and baggy, light colored jeans. His white socks have a hole on the left bottom and you can see pale flesh peeking through because of the way he’s laying, slumped onto his back with his feet sticking straight out in your direction. His hair is dark, long, and messy, with those white streaks that you loved so much. His brown eyes are twinkling in the dim yellow light, and just as he opens his mouth to say something to you you snap out of it.

When the image of Beomgyu dissipates completely, you realize that you’ve been staring at Yeonjun this whole time. His stature almost mirrors Beomgyu’s in the memory. But instead, Yeonjun is perched politely on the corner of your mattress, and his pointy-toed, shiny black boots are neatly lined up next to your teenage collection of shoes in your closet. Your own ankle boots had been kicked off and left in the middle of your old rug, just like the illusion of Beomgyu’s Vans had been. Yeonjun’s hair—it’s a mushroom-y shade of brown now, rather than pink—glows warmly in the light alongside his sharp, sparkling eyes, a stark contrast to Beomgyu’s midnight locks and rounded boba pearl eyes.

“Hey you,” Yeonjun teases, “where’d you go off to in Dreamland? I missed you for a few moments there.”

You realize that you’ve been fidgeting with your fingers this whole time, picking at your cuticles and peeling the surrounding skin. It’s a bad habit that tends to resurface when you’re stressed, and your fingertips burn now. You regret it, but it’s too late.

You chuckle. “Sorry, I got lost in my memories for a second.” You swallow hard, feeling choked up for some reason.

Yeonjun picks up on your watery voice and your inflamed fingers, and he smiles that goofy smile that always makes you feel soothed before he kisses your hands and starts rummaging for his own luggage to find a first aid kit. You let him baby you for a bit, jabbering over your wounds and gently rubbing in a medicated ointment to soothe the throbbing. He selects the worst wounds to bandage up, reassuring you that the other ones would be fine as long as you didn’t touch them again, but it was too late already. Your skin wouldn’t heal before tomorrow, and after that you hardly had a damn about anyone and what they thought of you. You mentally insult yourself for a moment before feeling weary, pushing Yeonjun away after he finished fixing your last finger but rewarding him with a long kiss.

He’s desperate for something more, for your attention to be solely on him. You again feel bad; your mind has been elsewhere for days now, and you know that Yeonjun can feel it.

So you relent even though you’re exhausted, and you kiss him with what you hope is passion, dragging your nails down the curve of his back to make him groan and pull you closer to him until your front halves are smushed together. Chest to chest, your bare breasts beneath your thin t-shirt brushing against his hard pecs, his groin grinding against yours. You wrap your legs around his slim waist, pulling him ephemerally closer, closer, closer. You suddenly desire him so much that it burns. It hurts in your chest and your stomach and your head and the burn can only be soothed by his touch. Slowly he pulls away from your lips though he feels intoxicated by them; if he could, he’d kiss them forever. He starts at your head, pressing light kisses to your forehead, nose, and lips. He lingers on your lips again, the feather light drag of flesh against flesh driving you insane when you were craving depraved, rough handling.

Maybe Yeonjun really did feel your desperation as you gasped aloud and clung to his frame. That faked passion in the beginning was so foolproof that you yourself feel victim to your own lying.

Yet, nothing more really happens that night. You both take off your clothes, locked in each other’s embrace, and you feel his hot mouth attaching itself to your neck, your chest, your clavicle. His wet tongue laves over the bruises he’s suckled onto your flesh, narrowed eyes looking up to you for approval. You stroke his hair, and the texture is even different from Beomgyu’s—you remember when he would lay his head in your lap during your sleepovers, and every now and then he’d shift and lock eyes with you, grinning foolishly like he always did. You didn’t realize how much you missed him until now, until you found yourself in a place that reeked of familiarity, that reeked of him. If you closed your eyes and tried hard enough, you think you could smell the cologne that he wore all those years ago. It’s musky, yet sharp, and he wore so much of it sometimes that you couldn’t ever hug him without your eyes watering and your nose wrinkling.

Yeonjun’s mouth parts from a particularly sensitive spot on your neck, a string of saliva from his lip connecting to your neck for just a moment longer before breaking. He places a soft, wet kiss on your lips, lingering there for just a little too long before he pulls away and smiles at you.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” he says quietly. You fix your gaze on your fiancé, his face smooth and soft in the warm glow from your bedside lamp. That’s the only source of light in the room apart from the slivers of pale moonlight that are barely creeping in through a crack in your dusty butterfly patterned curtains.

“I know.” You place a kiss on his forehead, which he receives gratefully, happy to have your attention. At least, some of it. More than he’d been receiving recently.

“Do you want me to come with you tomorrow?” he asks, following you to the bathroom.

You clutch at the plastic bag holding your toothbrush and toothpaste, along with other toiletries. “Do you want to come?” you ask, as he closes the bathroom door behind him as he walks in. You turn on the faucet, wetting your toothbrush and squeezing a blob of mint green toothpaste onto the bristles. Yeonjun reaches over to turn off the water.

“Do you want me to come?” he asks. “It’s your high school reunion, and if you’re more comfortable going alone then I understand. But if you want me to come—especially because he might be there—I would love to.”

You accidentally jab yourself in the gums with the hard plastic of your toothbrush at the mention of Beomgyu. Even though he didn’t say the name aloud, you knew that was who he was referring to. You groan, spitting out the mixture of blood and foamy toothpaste into the sink as you turn the water back on and watch the mixture go down the drain. “I know I’ve made it seem like a really big deal,” you said, choosing your words carefully, as to not offend your somewhat hot headed fiancé, “but it’s really not. I think I was just overwhelmed because of all the memories here, and the fact that my parents are selling the house. But really Jun, it’s not that big of a deal. I’ll be there for an hour, max.”

“Then you’ll be back and we can finish packing,” he says promptly.

A warm feeling washes over your body at the way Yeonjun always used words like “we” and “us” constantly. It always made you feel like part of a team, like a relationship should be. Such a simple gesture made you feel so safe and loved.

“Yes,” you said, pinching his cheek playfully, “then we can finish packing, and my parents can sell the house and we can go home.”

Yeonjun grabs your hand and plants a kiss on the back of it, making you blush as you pull it away. “I can’t even brush my teeth in peace,” you tease.

“What can I say? If you’re gone for more than five minutes, I start to miss you too much.” Yeonjun winks before leaving you to finish washing up in peace, and you sigh softly as he closes the door. You look in the mirror, and you look tired even though you’ve yet to start packing at all. Really, it won’t be a big job. What’s more exhausting to think about is the reunion.

You can almost picture a devil and an angel on your shoulders as you stare at your reflection in the mirror as you pat in your skincare.

Listen to everyone else, the devil-you scolds. She scowls up at you. Why are you even going to the reunion? You could just skip it tomorrow and help your parents pack up the rest of the house. Your trip home won’t be a waste, and you’ll suffer less. It’s a win-win situation, she pressed.

Because she has to prove to her old classmates that she’s successful now! the angel on your other shoulder pipes up cheerfully. And isn’t it nice to see old friends anyways?

The devil scoffs. If she has to prove that she’s successful, is she really successful at all? And what old friends are you even talking about? She had Beomgyu, and that was all. There is zero point in going to this stupid reunion.

Maybe if we see Beomgyu again, he’ll fall in love with her again and she can live the life she always wondered if she could have if she’d just forgiven him—

You throw a fistful of water at the mirror, washing away the hallucinations. Your eyes are rounded and panicked, from the angel speaking your greatest fear aloud. You always told yourself that if you never thought about it again, it wasn’t real. You didn’t really think or care about it; it was just an intrusive thought.

Now, it was too real. Your angel spoke the truth.

You may not be in love with Choi Beomgyu, but you sure as hell have laid awake many nights wondering what would have happened if you did love him back.

Even more so, what would have happened if you’d never gone to New York in the first place, and stayed with him like he wanted you to.

—

“That’s the last box of books,” you wheeze.

Collapsing on top of a freshly sealed box filled with your dusty collection of Harry Potter books, you stare up at your ceiling. Yeonjun’s sweaty forehead appears in your line of vision, a playful expression on his pretty face. “Tired already?” he asks, pulling you up. You groan loudly as you get back on your feet, squeezing his hand tightly.

“The books are heavy,” you complain.

“That’s your fault for being such a nerd and having ten million books crammed into one room,” he retorts, wiping his brow with his forearm. “But enough of that. We’re done with it now.”

You sit down on the floor, which is bare now. The first thing you two had done was roll up your old flower-patterned rug and take it down to the main floor so that the movers could easily pick it up with the rest of your parents’ stuff once they arrived early next week. A half empty bottle of water sits next to you, and you reach for it and chug the remaining liquid. A bead of sweat rolls down your temple and collects in the collar of your dusty t-shirt.

“We did a lot for just one day,” you praise, as you look up at your newly empty shelves. “It already looks so much emptier in here.”

“It really does,” Yeonjun says, sitting beside you and squinting at the empty bookshelves.

You pick up your phone, and your eyes widen at the time. You wanted to give yourself enough time to get ready without rushing and stressing yourself out further.

“You better get going,” Yeonjun said, noting your reaction to the time. “Don’t want to be late.”

“I won’t be,” you say confidently. You give him a quick peck on the lips before dashing off to take a shower and wash away all of the dust and sweat before getting dressed.

Besides stressing yourself out about going in the first place, the next big thing you worried about was what you were going to wear. You didn’t want to show up under or overdressed, and you’d done countless hours of research on what was usually proper. You even scoured some of your old peers’ social media to see if they’d posted at all about the reunion, any hints of what they would look like. Well, their outfits, at least.

Luckily, it seemed like a lot of your classmates still liked to over share, and you found out more about what others planned to wear that night. Turns out, you had stressed out over almost nothing, as usual. You picked out an outfit from the few choices you’d stuffed into your suitcase, finding something almost new and just fancy enough to put your old classmates to shame. Yes, you were definitely going to outdo your frenemy Shin Ryujin, and without looking tacky too, as Lee Heeseung tended to do. Lucky for him, he was handsome enough that people looked past his terrible sense of fashion and liked him anyways.

You almost tripped down the worn wooden stairs as you tried to multitask and double-check the location while pulling on your left shoe. It wasn’t like you even needed to look it up on your phone; you knew the way to your old high school like the back of your hand. You’d walked there every day for four years, and driven there countless times with other people. You could close your eyes and find yourself there in a matter of fifteen minutes (or less).

Yeonjun had insisted on driving you there himself, and he promised you that he’d pick you up as soon as you texted him as well. You felt your heart flutter as he insisted on escorting you, liking the feeling of being cared for. He played music from a decade ago and sang along, making you giggle and pushing your anxiety to the back of your mind.

Then before you knew it, with a quick kiss, you gathered up your things and left your parents’ car, and stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of your old high school. It’s littered with cigarette butts and old chewed gum, just like it was back in the day, and a wave of nostalgia fills you as you inhale the familiar scent of marijuana and crayons, a jarring juxtaposition that oddly made your heart ache for those years you spent on the cusp of adulthood and the cliff edge of childhood. The very same years that you spent suffering through high school in the very building you were staring at now.

The front entrance is decked out in colorful balloons and a long white banner that reads “WELCOME CLASS OF ‘08” in crooked black paint. You manage a tight-lipped smile at the staff at the entrance, and duck into the main hallway, where a few people are mingling by the sidelines. The gymnasium is booming with music, and it’s almost too similar to your senior prom (which you of course attended with Beomgyu).

You don’t recognize the few people talking outside in the hallway, so you prepare yourself to enter the gymnasium. You have to take a deep breath and look down at your outfit to make sure you’re not in your seafoam green prom dress. The watch on your wrist almost feels the same weight as your oversized corsage made of baby’s breath and small dyed blue buds. Your ankle boots seem to morph into dirty black Converse with scribbles on the toes. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the shiny reflection of the freshly repainted lockers, and your rippled reflection is ten years younger, with unblended green eyeshadow plastered up to your eyebrows and a brown-red lipstick on your lips. Your hair is very reminiscent of the time, and your nails are bitten but painted with matching green nail polish. Underneath your dress, your toenails are slathered with the same shade even though they wouldn’t show with your choice in shoes.

You feel ten years lighter, ten years dumber, ten years younger.

TEN YEARS BEFORE.

You’ve never had a panic attack before, but you think you’re having one now.

In the girls’ bathroom.

At school.

During your senior prom.

You’re breathing heavily, wheezing as your lungs seem to collapse in on themselves. Your manicured hands are gripping the sides of the porcelain sink so tightly your knuckles ache, and you’re staring at your reflection in the mirror. Your eyes are teary, but you know that if you let those tears fall your face will be streaked with metallic green trails for the rest of the night. You grit your teeth and will the wetness in your eyes to go the hell away.

Beomgyu was waiting for you outside the bathroom.

He’d never even asked you to go to prom with him; he just assumed that the two of you would go together. The week before prom, you complained about not having a date, and he’d turned to you with a surprised look, asking why you couldn’t go with him. For some reason, it hurt your feelings a little when he said that you were his best friend, but it healed the wound a little when he said that there was no one else he’d rather go with.

He was so handsome in his suit. You knew that his mother picked it up at Dillard’s and had made slight adjustments herself so that it would fit him perfectly. Even so, the white shirt underneath was wrinkled and his tie was crooked, veering to the right. It didn’t matter to you though, and you’d smiled nervously, blushing from your nose to your toes as he offered you a corsage and you held out the boutineer.

You felt like he was your boyfriend even though you walked the same way to school you did every day. The only difference was that you were all dressed up—and the simple fact that anyone who saw the two of you would assume you were a couple. Especially with the way he had offered his arm to you, and the way you were currently walking perfectly in time as you clutched his thin but muscular arm.

It was too much when you both got to the school and he kissed you on the cheek right before the two of you walked into the gymnasium. Choppy locks of his messy wolf cut fell into his big brown eyes as he grinned at you, cocking his head to the side innocently as you nearly sweat through your makeup.

Then, you ended up in the bathroom. A messy stuttered excuse to Beomgyu had to suffice, and you rushed away from him, clammy hands lifting up the train of your dress so that you didn’t trip as you ran away.

He’s your best friend, idiot, you murmur under your breath, staring at your ragged reflection in the mirror. Stop acting like such a freak. You have a month before you go to school an hour away, and then you won’t have to worry about these feelings ever again.

You place a hand over your heart, feeling the rapid beating start to finally slow as you take deep breaths and reassure yourself that it’s going to be okay. It’s been harder and harder to tamp down the weird bubbling feelings towards Beomgyu, and you’ve never been happier to be attending your back-up school in the fall. Anything is better than here, you think, grimacing. Anywhere away from Beomgyu will help me work out my shit without him interfering.

“Your shit” refers to these odd feelings. Obviously.

You finally let go of the sink and take a step back, relaxing your shoulders and looking at yourself one last time. You look normal. Your face is no longer scrunched up in a confused, panicked expression, and your chest isn’t heaving with shallow breaths. Your hands are less clammy and you feel more at ease. Right before you turn away, you fix the corner of your lipstick with your pinky finger, then spin on your heel and exit the bathroom.

Beomgyu is waiting there, slumped against the lockers, picking at a cuticle. When you come back, his face lights up, and you can’t help but allow yourself to love him more than a friend, even if it’s just for one night.

TEN YEARS LATER.

You practically relive your senior prom in that same bathroom, clutching the sides of the sink and staring at your reflection with a mixture of nausea and anger bubbling in your stomach. This time, all you have to do is take a long drag from your vape before the tension in your head starts to loosen. You exhale, a cloud of white slipping from between your lips as you stuff the little device back in your purse, between your lipstick and your box of cigarettes.

You feel like your old wallflower self again as you lean against the door before pushing it open to exit the bathroom again. For some reason, being in that bathroom again reminded you of the days where you’d skip class and eat lunch alone. You didn’t want to go back out to the crowd, something that you didn’t have any problems with after you graduated high school and came out of your shell for once and for all. But now, surrounded by your past, your hand hesitates a little before pushing the door open and leaving the confines of a place that’s seen you at your best and your worst for the better part of four years.

Then it starts to feel like things are moving in slow motion.

You’re hyper focused on the fact that the heavy bathroom door had dragged a clump of wet paper towels out of the bathroom and across the freshly waxed floors. You grimace as you step around the sodden mess, making a face and successfully avoiding the paper pile.

You look up, the ghost of a scowl still present on your face, and then you see him.

It’s been ten years since you’ve seen Choi Beomgyu, and it’s such a strange feeling that resonates through your entire body that you actually feel bile rising hot in your throat. You swallow hard, tasting bitter stomach acid, and can’t do anything else but stare.

It’s stupid really; you feel, again, like your stupid teenage self. The one who froze up in uncomfortable situations, the one who cried too easily, the one with seemingly permanently sweaty palms that no boy would ever want to touch, especially not when you were around other more radiant individuals. No, you felt like you hadn’t changed at all as you stared at Choi Beomgyu the same way you did when you were eighteen: with nothing but love and pure adoration in your eyes.

But that’s not to say it wasn’t terribly conflicting.

As soon as you saw him and it actually registered in your mind that it was him in real life and not some ghostly memory, you felt your throat tighten as you thought of the last interaction you had with him. Those old familiar feelings of softness and love faded as you remembered the full extent of what he did, and it was hard to just pretend like that didn’t happen. You would never forget that.

But god, was he gorgeous.

Ten years had nothing on him. Even though twenty-eight wasn’t old in the slightest, you could still see signs of aging in your other classmates. Some had hairlines that had receded much further back than they were when they were eighteen, some had the beginnings of smile lines and crow’s feet, and some even had some wisps of gray hair, though it was only a select few.

Beomgyu on the other hand looked exactly the same, yet so oddly different you almost couldn’t recognize him unless you looked very closely. You wondered for a moment how different he’d look in your eyes if you’d been by his side for the past decade and watched him age right beside you, rather than miles and miles away, both physically and metaphorically. Then, you attribute the weird unfamiliar feeling in the pit of your stomach to the fact that you haven’t seen him in years. Because really, you hardly know him any more. You can’t really call him your best friend if you have had zero contact for a decade.

His hair, which you remembered was always messy, shaggy, and unkempt, was cut shorter. Instead of the dark natural black with white streaks, it was a reddish brown. It was just short enough to be acceptable for a professional job, but long enough that it still looked like Beomgyu. His bangs still fell into his eyes the same way as he leaned forward to laugh, and your heart ached as you heard the tail-end of his goofy chuckle. He stood right outside the gymnasium entrance, talking with a guy whose name you think was Soobin. You distantly remember him at the graduation ceremony. He leans against the lockers nonchalantly, making you remember your senior prom again, but this time the way he does so isn’t in a cocky way. He looks genuinely relaxed as his shoulder rests against the cold painted metal, nodding along as Soobin chatters away to him.

This entire time, you’ve been standing right outside the women’s restroom. You’re kind of surprised that no one’s asked you to move out of the way, given how long you were standing there like an idiot with your mouth hanging open like a fish’s.

Luckily, no one really gave a fuck.

People were flying by, most of them on the phone and saying something like, “I was just there! You told me to meet you by the entrance! No, the front entrance!” Others were just standing around, either focusing way too much on their own conversations or typing aggressively on their phones without paying any attention to those around them, which included you.

You fight the urge to whip out a cigarette right then and there, feeling a headache coming on.

Taking out your own phone, you shoot a quick text to Yeonjun, who’s already asking you when you think you might be ready to leave. Unsurprisingly, you already feel exhausted and plan to just stop by the main room and then get the fuck out.

When you look back to the entrance of the gymnasium, Beomgyu and Soobin have disappeared, and you catch a glimpse of Beomgyu’s pale blue dress shirt and Soobin’s khakis rounding the corner to the men’s room, opposite where you’re standing. You breathe a sigh of relief and enter the main room, chewing on your bottom lip as you look around for anyone you know.

It really is like senior prom, you think grimly, as you sidle over to a table with drinks and snacks. You pick up a can of lemonade and pop it open with the little tab, taking little sips from it as you look around some more.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

You swallow a mouthful of lemonade and turn to the source of the voice, eyes widening a little in surprise.

It’s Karina, who looks as beautiful as ever. Like Beomgyu, she doesn’t seem to have aged at all, rather, her beauty seemed even more radiant. You knew immediately that she was the type to simply get better looking with age, and you couldn’t help but feel a little jealous at that thought.

She offers you a small smile and stands next to you, looking you over with a satisfied look. “You look really good,” she said honestly, “how have you been?”

You let out a long sigh, ending it with a bitter chuckle. “I’ve been good, finished school, got engaged. After I finish helping my parents pack up the house I won’t have a reason to come back here ever again, so I thought why not?”

“Right, I heard about them moving out. Where to?”

“Some apartment complex, I forgot the name.”

“Was it Autumn Oaks?”

You shake your head no, pursing your lips. “No, that’s not it…” you mumble. trying to remember. Then it comes to you, and you snap your fingers at no one in particular. “Woodbury!” you say, silently commending yourself on remembering the name.

“Oh! I must have been wrong then,” Karina laughs, and you’re again jealous of her because of how delicate and pretty she sounds. It’s like the tinkling of little silver bells. Her eyes scrunch up when she laughs, and your gaze washes over her pretty face. Her laughter subsides, and it becomes just a little awkward as she clears her throat. “So, engaged, huh? Who’s the lucky guy?”

You feel a blush creeping onto your face; your cheeks feel hot.

“Yeah, his name’s Yeonjun. I met him as soon as I got to New York and we’ve been inseparable ever since.” You feel a little sheepish talking about him for some reason, and you’re unsure why. You’re very proud to have a partner as loving, handsome, talented, and successful as Yeonjun. Yet, it’s still weird to admit your love for him. It’s like he doesn’t fit with this version of you. And then you wonder, for a brief moment, if that really matters—have you really changed that much since high school? So much so that Yeonjun doesn’t even fit into the world you used to live in?

Awkwardly, you show Karina the home screen on your phone for reference. It’s a cute selfie of you and Yeonjun from the past winter holidays. When the photo was taken, you and Yeonjun had been on an evening stroll when it started to snow, and heavily. The snowflakes were more like clumps, so many little particles gathered together all at once. In the photo you can see the snow clumps clinging to your winter clothes, your hair, even some resting on your eyelashes and eyebrows. Your noses are red from the cold, a single puff of breath escaping your mouth as you’re caught mid-laugh, mid-smile, permanently in the picture.

At first you hated that picture. You hated that Yeonjun took it when you were caught off guard, hated the way you looked in it. But the more that you looked, the softer your reaction got, and eventually you came to love the photo as much as Yeonjun did. At least, you loved the way he looked in it. With his eyes almost closed from his whole face being scrunched up with laughter, his exposed teeth in his wide smile, and his strong arm wrapped around your shoulders, he looked like the sweetest boyfriend ever.

Karina seemed to think so too as she audibly cooed at the picture. “You guys are adorable,” she declared. Then she stops talking, swiftly brushing a strand of hair behind her ear before she locks eyes with you and continues. “Honestly, and I don’t mean this in a bad way at all, I promise—I always thought that you and Beomgyu would end up together.”

There’s a pregnant pause, and it was like everyone in the room held their breath before you remembered where you were and laughed, a little too loudly to be natural. “That’s crazy!” you say between fake chuckles, feeling your stomach turn. You briefly wonder what Karina would do if you threw up all over her, and then pray to any higher being out there that it wouldn’t actually happen. “What makes you think that?” you ask quickly, before she can respond to your exclamation.

She flushes a dark pink. “Oh you know…” she waves a hand in the air. “You two were always together, like always. Everyone thought you were already dating, even if you never were. We all thought so.”

You get déjá vu, remembering the last time you talked to Karina—when she asked you to hook her up with Beomgyu. You get irrationally angry over this, pushing aside the fact that it’s been ten years since she liked him, and you have a fiancé who obviously isn’t Beomgyu.

You force a tight-lipped smile, squeezing your can of lemonade so hard it crunches in your fist a little. Karina doesn’t seem to notice, taking a long sip of her own lemonade.

“Well, it was really nice catching up,” she says, after it’s clear you’re not going to further the conversation. “Good luck. Not that you’ll need it.” She holds out her free hand to you, and you grip it firmly as you both shake. You both burst out into giggles at the odd formality, and the butterflies you get from laughing with a female friend is like nothing else. You wish that you’d had a friend like her in high school. Maybe you even wish that you’d been her friend back in high school.

“Thanks,” you say, “you too. It was so good to see you again.” You find that you genuinely mean it, and a fire roars in your chest. This was what you wanted. You wanted to come back for closure, and now you have it. You saw Beomgyu and he seemed to be doing just fine without you, mended things with the one person you weren’t on great terms with, and you’re folding it all up in your metaphorical box of childhood memories. You can just feel the satisfaction of tying the ribbon and moving on to the next chapter of your life without anything weighing you down.

How mature, you think, to be able to move on from childhood just like that.

You feel accomplished, and a weight that you didn’t even know about has been lifted on your shoulders. You feel lighter than air; you felt as if you could walk amongst the stars if you tried. There’s nothing more for you to do, so you gather yourself and take a deep breath before exiting the gymnasium, giving it one last look. Still, it felt like only yesterday that you’d walked these halls as a student. Those miserable (yet wonderful) years felt like a lightyear and a day away simultaneously.

You’re fumbling through your purse for your phone, to text Yeonjun when your keychain falls out from your vigorous digging. It lands with a loud clink, metal hitting linoleum, and you groan, moving to pick it up, but another hand snatches it before you do.

Standing up, you readjust your purse as the person holds the keychain out to you. “Thanks,” you sigh, reaching for it.

They tug it away then, and you jerk your hand back in surprise. “Where did you get this charm?” the person asks in an accusatory tone.

You finally get your purse back on your shoulder and look the freak in the eyes, but just as you’re about to give them a piece of your mind it clicks. Your breath is stolen from you; you feel like you’re shriveling up on the spot, no oxygen flowing through your veins.

Choi Beomgyu is standing in front of you, frowning at your old matching keychains.

Why hadn’t you gotten a new one, damn it? It’s not something that you regularly thought about; you always made a mental note to get a new one but it always slipped your mind. It was never important enough for you to write down.

You try to say something—what, you don’t know—but your mouth is so dry that you hardly rasp out a single word. Beomgyu finally looks up, dark eyebrows angry and scowling, but as soon as your eyes meet, he melts. You see the hurt, confusion, and warmth flow through his face like waves onto a shore. He drops the keychain again, eyebrows furrowed and hands shaking.

What are you supposed to even say in this situation? You have no fucking idea.

That’s why you run. You squat down quickly to snatch your keys up, and then sprint for the front entrance. The doors are wide open, and you can see the pink and purple sunset, just out of reach. You don’t look back, and you’re soon you’re half running, half tripping down the staircase and then slipping on the dirt pathway all the way back to your house.

It’s stupid. It’s juvenile. It’s immature. Why did you run from him like a maniac? Why didn’t you just say hello and then goodbye like a normal person? No, now things were definitely going to be weird.

Sweat is running down your back when you finally get back to your house. It’s not a long walk, but even though the sun had now fully gone down, it was still hotter than ever. You forgot how nasty summers in your hometown could be.

Musty, muggy air surrounds you as you wipe your moist forehead with your wrist. You feel suffocated in your semi-fancy outfit, and your dress shoes are killing your feet. All you want is to get home, take a shower, and forget that you ever saw him.

So that’s what you do. You don’t tell anyone that you saw him, even though you know they’re wondering. Especially Yeonjun, who was so eager to pick you up from the school and hear all about the reunion. You can see it written across all their faces as you eat dinner together—while they ate, at least. You still felt so sick that all you did was pick at it with your fork and push things around on your plate.

Afterwards, you kiss Yeonjun on the forehead and slip out the door. It’s too early to go to sleep just yet, and you want some fresh air.

Now that the sun had fully gone away, the air had cooled more, but just a little. It was thick and warm, and the buzzing of mosquitoes and other pests hummed in your ears as you itched an already inflamed bite on your ankle. Fireflies danced close to the grass, the flashing yellow lights illuminating the dark blades. Distantly, you could hear big bullfrogs croaking and crickets chirping, and you knew that it came from the small stream that you and Beomgyu liked to mess around in way back when. You lost a sandal there once, you think.

The road from your house to your school started off as black asphalt, but later turned into a winding dirt path, carved by human feet alone, through a small thicket of trees fondly referred to as “the forest.” There were multiple ways to get there though; you and Beomgyu just liked this one best. You stand where dirt meets concrete, staring into the forest, and puffing on a cigarette, exhaling plumes of smoke floating up towards the massive full moon. It’s still too hot out, but you somehow feel more suffocated inside the house. Something about Yeonjun and your parents staring you down, their eyes practically begging to know what happened. You don’t need their damn sympathy, you just needed to chill the fuck out.

“Big city girl needs her nicotine fix?”

Somehow, you knew this would happen. A part of you knows that’s why you came out here tonight.

“Only when I’m stressed.” You purposely take an exaggerated, long drag.

“Because of me? I’m flattered.”

Beomgyu finally stands beside you, heels on the asphalt and toes brushing against the loose dirt. You refuse to look him in the eye. You refuse to look at him at all. The only light is from the moon and your lit cigarette, flashing reddish orange every time you breathed in.

“What do you want?” There’s no softness in your voice despite your opposing feelings inside. You drop the remains of your cigarette onto the dirt ground and stamp it out with your shoe, which you now realize are an old pair of Converse, worn down and caked with dirt.

And, complete with faded Sharpie scribbles made by you and the cocky bastard standing next to you.

“You ran away from me earlier.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“You ran away from me ten years ago too.”

You groan loudly, wiping your face dramatically until the reds of your eyes showed. “I’m not doing this again,” you say, in a voice that’s much higher pitched than normal. You’re getting mad.

“What, you’re just gonna run away again? Very mature,” he said sarcastically. Your heart panged with hurt; there was venom in his words. Clearly, he was still hurting from you leaving. He hadn’t healed either.

“Say what you want to say, I’m only here until the end of the week anyways,” you snap.

Honestly, even though you’re still mad at him, a part of you still cares deeply for him, and it makes your throat tighten when you see the despair on his face. You know you did the right thing back then; leaving, and never talking to Beomgyu again. You never wanted to let him think that what he did was okay, and you knew that if you ever reached out to him and apologized he would assume that. Even so, there were so many nights where you sobbed into your pillow, restraining yourself from calling his number, not even knowing if he ever got a new one. Maybe that was another reason why you didn’t want to call; if you tried to call and couldn’t reach him, it’d be ten times more humiliating.

“You know I’m sorry, don’t you?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it okay,” you mumble, dejectedly. “Just because you said that you’re sorry, just because you are sorry, it doesn’t mean you didn’t try to purposely ruin my future. For selfish reasons too.”

He doesn’t reply for a minute, cocking his head to the side like he always used to do. Seeing him with his old mannerisms makes you feel sick.

“I know,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “I was a stupid kid. I didn’t want you to leave, even if it meant holding you back. It was so damn selfish, and I am so sorry.”

You swallow past the lump in your throat. “Okay. Thanks.” Again, Beomgyu doesn’t reply right away, and instead he turns to face you. The moonlight hits his face perfectly at this angle, and his features are lit up by the beams of silver. You can’t help but look over at him too, staring into his brown eyes that look completely black in the night. They’re so big and dark, but the moonlight reflects sparkles into them. Your scowl softens as you take in the slight signs of aging that you realize he’s beginning to show. His jawline is much more square now; his chin and nose slightly more prominent. There’s faint smile lines traced into his smooth skin, so light that you know you wouldn’t be able to see it in the daylight. The faintest whisper of stubble was only obvious on his chin, if you looked very closely. “Is that all you wanted to say to me?” you say finally, after what seemed like an eternity of you two staring into each other’s eyes.

“No,” he admitted. “There’s so much I want to say, but I’ll forget most of it before I even begin. But I missed you a lot. And I still love you a lot too.”

You wince at the declaration of his feelings, and you hope to any god out there that he means he still loves you as a friend, as someone he’s known for so long. But you know that isn’t what he means. You ask anyways.

“And by love… you mean…”

“I never stopped loving you,” he said fiercely, and his eyes look wet in the pale light. “I never will.”

“You’re crazy,” you say, but your voice cracks, and when you see Beomgyu’s pleading eyes finally spill over at the sound of emotion breaking through your rock solid facade, you shatter.

You’re leaking like a broken faucet; no sobs or cries, just silent tears streaming down your face non-stop. Beomgyu’s crying too, but he’s the opposite. His shoulders are shaking so hard from the force of holding his sobs in, and you can hear his little chokes as he swallows them down. Against your own better judgement, you mentally say fuck it, and walk over to him to take him in your arms.

You regret it and love it at the same time.

He smells just like he did back then; you can tell he uses the same cologne and it makes you smile into the top of his head, where your chin rests softly. And yes, the smell still makes your nostrils sting initially—but you find it doesn’t really bother you like it used to. His body against yours feels different physically but the same in memory. He’s broader, a little taller, a little more squishy now that he’s out of his teen boy phase where he grows faster than he can eat to catch up. But the way his hands clasp around your back, the way he buries his face in your neck, the shake of his left leg (you can tell he’s genuinely nervous because of this), it’s all the same.

You watch your own tears drip down into his red-brown hair, smoothing them away before they can soak in. You sit there on the asphalt in silence, stroking his soft hair and holding him close, as you both cry.

You almost press a quick kiss to the top of his head, but as soon as you look up you see Yeonjun standing there, flowery apron on and an oven mitt on one hand. Right, he’d been in the middle of baking dessert when you’d run out. You push Beomgyu away, a little too roughly, as Yeonjun looks the two of you up and down suspiciously. “Is that Beomgyu?” he asks sharply, and Beomgyu, upon hearing another man’s voice, turns around before you can even open your mouth to reply.

“I am. And who are you?” Beomgyu asks, rather rudely. You shove him again and stand up, walking over to Yeonjun and shaking your head. You bring your wrist up to your eyes and roughly wipe away any of the remaining tears. Yeonjun notices this and his expression softens as he bends down to try to look at your face.

“Hey, is everything okay?” he murmurs softly, rubbing your back gently. “This asshole didn’t try anything, did he?”

“What did you just call me?” Beomgyu asks loudly.

“I called you an asshole because that’s what you are,” Yeonjun snaps. He gently takes you by the arm so he can guide you back to the house, and you let him. “And just so you know, I’m Yeonjun, her fiancé. So fuck off.” He sends one last bone-chilling glare at Beomgyu before he wraps an arm around you and walks you back down the road. Beomgyu can see him leaning down to whisper in your ear, and he grits his teeth angrily, knowing that you’re both talking about him.

“It’s fine, Jun, really,” you say, between stuttered gasps for air. You’re crying again, harder this time. It’s embarrassing; you’re not sad, you’re angry.

“Are you sure? He didn’t try to pull anything? Promise?”

“Promise,” you choke out, and Yeonjun presses a swift kiss to your wet cheek as he closes the front door behind the two of you.

“Then… can I ask what was happening when I found you two?” he asks quietly.

You avert your eyes and stare at the ground. You’ve tracked in some dirt, and you know your mom will be pissy if you don’t clean it up before you go to bed. Yeonjun says your name, reaching over to tilt your chin up so you can look him in the eye.

“He started crying because he felt bad, so then I felt bad and… I just hugged him. He looked so pathetic.” You tell Yeonjun the truth, and he accepts it immediately. There’s no question about it; he trusts you completely.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that alone,” he says, sounding genuinely sorry that he wasn’t there with you. “I would have beat his ass.”

“And that’s why we walked away,” you said, laughing a little and wiping your teary eyes.

“That’s right,” he repeats, pulling you into a tight hug. An immense wave of guilt washes over you as you flinch; your first thought was something terrible.

You like Beomgyu’s hugs better, and you always have.

—

The next morning dawns hot and dry.

Unlike the previous day, in which the air held so much moisture you could feel your clothes clinging to your seemingly permanently damp body, this heat was unbearable in a different way.

You swear you can feel your skin cracking and drying as soon as you step into the direct sunlight, no matter how much sunscreen you apply. Heat waves are practically visible when you look outside; they’re distorting the image of the big tree in your backyard.

This morning, you’re sitting on your front porch with a paper plate and a steaming mug of coffee. On the paper plate is a blueberry streusel muffin; courtesy to your fiancé’s above average baking skills—and also the reason behind the flower-patterned apron he had been wearing when he came across you and Beomgyu having a weird emotional snot-fest. The muffin is a little soggy, as muffins tend to degrade to once they’ve been shut in a tupperware overnight, but the promise of a sweet treat first thing in the morning far outweighed the initial disappointment upon seeing a second morning muffin.

Chewing slowly, you dust off your streusel sticky hands, crumbs rolling off your palms and landing onto the peeling wood of your front porch. You watch one big crumb of streusel roll down the expanse of your thigh and down two, three steps until it lands in a patch of sunlight further down the stairs that lead to the street. It’s early enough in the morning that the sun isn’t directly overhead and therefore burning you as soon as you walk out the front door, and you’re grateful for the temporary shade. Your bare feet brush against the edge of the shadows, toes dipping into light and spreading across the sun warmed wood.

It’s a gloriously individual morning, and you breathe in the smell of trees and warm grass. If only you could freeze this moment in time and revisit it whenever you wanted. If only you had such an escape that you could return to when times got tough.

But really, that morning is the only peaceful part of your day. You’re arguing with your co-worker on the phone as soon as you down your last sip of coffee, which had by then cooled into a lukewarm liquid. You hate the last few gulps of a hot drink, because there is nothing worse than a lukewarm drink that’s meant to be hot. Then, irritable from your row with Jeongin, who fucked up your entire project and needed help restoring a few very simple documents, paired with the misery of living in a house with no AC during the hottest, driest summer months, you end up being snappy with Yeonjun.

Also, your mother made your least favorite dish for dinner, and as much as you appreciated your parents for cooking for you, there was no way in hell you were eating it.

Stomach growling, head aching, and fingers sore from furious emailing (thanks to Jeongin), you curl up on your side in bed. Your hair is still damp from your recent shower, and your face is shiny and a little sore from you taking out your anger on your face when you were washing it.

You’re plucking at a piece of your hair, just toying with it mindlessly, when you feel the edge of your bed dip down as someone sits on it. You freeze, sucking your bottom lip into your mouth to chew on it nervously until you taste blood.

“Long day, huh?” Yeonjun asked softly. You scoot over a little to let him lay next to you, but you don’t turn to look at him. He sidles in carefully, leaving just a little space between your bodies in case you’re not comfortable with too much contact tonight. You shrug in response, the only sound being your t-shirt brushing against your bed sheets as your shoulders move up and down in place of real words.

“I was just annoyed, and everything piled up so quickly after I had to fix Jeongin’s shit.” You spit out Jeongin’s name like it’s poisonous, and Yeonjun can’t help but chuckle at your petty behavior.

“He’s a kid,” he chided, “but he is a pretty dumb one, at that. I thought young people were supposed to be good with technology.”

“Doesn’t apply to clueless idiots,” you mumble, your words muffled from your lips being pressed to your pillowcase.

“It’s been a long few days for you, hasn’t it?” he asked, forgetting about Jeongin and his antics. “Are you sure you don’t wanna fly home early?”

Home. Fly home. Right, this wasn’t home any more, even though you always referred to it as that. I’m going home for Christmas. This girl I knew from back home got married last month. My hometown is a wasteland and I never want to go back. But I don’t want to lose it, either.

“I’m okay,” you start, and you can just picture Yeonjun’s doubtful frown without turning to look at his face. “Fine, I will be okay once this is all wrapped up and over with. It’s a stressful time but it’s something I have to do. I had to come back to my high school reunion for closure. I had to at least see Beomgyu one last time. I had to help my parents clean and sell the house.” You’re laying it out for him, word by word, and he pays attention to your intonation and serious tone, moving a little closer so that he could rest his head right next to yours. His nose poked the back of your scalp as he inhaled the scent of your shampoo, and underneath that, the scent of you.

You swallow hard, feeling all of the anger from your long, stressful day melt away. Yeonjun’s steady breathing and complete attention to your stupid rant had calmed you. Silently, you both stare up at the warm-toned walls, washed with a dim yellow light from the small lamp on your nightstand, the only light in the house left on at the moment. It was late, past midnight, and you two were the only two souls in the house that were awake.

Holding your breath, you slowly move closer to Yeonjun until your bodies are pressed so tightly to each other that you couldn’t wedge a single finger between where you two were connected. He breathes in harshly at the feeling of your hips connecting, flexing his hands into fists to try and control himself. Then, with a shaking hand, you reach over to find him, and once your fingers brush against his, you slip your hand into his hold. His fingers are warm, soft, familiar. Especially from the past few days of moving heavy objects. You bring your intertwined hands up to your chest, and then they part—you press his newly free hand against your breast, letting him feel your hardened, sensitive nipple. He groans softly, deeply, into your hair as he thumbs at the hardened nub over the thin material of your shirt.

You exhale, happy that he seems to have missed you as much as you missed him.

Now you feel his hard length pressed up against your backside, grinding roughly into you and making you slick with anticipation, though you were both still fully clothed. Momentarily, he let go of your tit, and before you could whisper a question he slipped his hand underneath your shirt to grope at them freely, without any barriers. He’s breathing heavier now, soft grunts escaping his lips ever now and then. You’re holding back a whimper as he sucks hickies onto your neck, his hot tongue making you squirm.

All in one quick fumble, you’re facing him now and your lips are pressed to his. Your neck is stinging from his teeth, your nipples burning from his calloused fingers pinching and teasing. Worst of all, your clothed cunt, grinding against Yeonjun’s hard muscular thigh, which he had pressed roughly between your legs as soon as you turned to face him, gasping.

You feel your teeth knock against his as you choke down a moan when your clit nudges against his thigh just right, and he reaches up with one hand to grab your throat gently, just enough to get your attention. He shushes you, and you whimper quietly as his fingers move up from your throat to inside your mouth. You swirl your tongue around the digits, sucking them deeper into your mouth, eager to please as you stare at his gorgeous face, half hidden in the shadows. His lips are swollen and red in the limited light, his eyes hooded and dark as he stares at you sucking on his fingers, desperate and longing. You haven’t felt this way in a long time. When was the last time you wanted to please a man this badly?

Yeonjun pulls his fingers out of your mouth, staring at the string of saliva that connects them to your bottom lip momentarily before it inevitably breaks, and then he reaches down into your pants, spit soaked fingers expertly finding your clit, as they have done for years and years. He knows everything about your body, and better yet, everything about your mind that makes your body react.

He’s going to give it to you exactly how you like it, exactly like he’s done for years and years. He’s never let you down before, and he isn’t planning on it now, even when it’s in your childhood bedroom.

He winks at you before ducking under the covers, and you feel his hands grabbing at the waistband of your pants. You lift up your ass, letting him remove your shorts and panties at the same time, and finally, you feel his warm breath tickling your inner thighs as he leans in.

He presses sloppy, wet kisses down your thighs as he works his way to the center, and finally you feel his fingers teasing you with light touches, poking and prodding just to get on your nerves a little so that you’ll pull his hair the way he likes it. And that you do, tangling your fingers in his brown locks as he smiles into your cunt, your wetness dripping down his chin.

Yeonjun reappears once he’s done his job, so well that you had to stuff your fist into your mouth when you came so that you didn’t wake up your parents with the loudest, most pornographic moan you’ve ever uttered. Your legs are shaking as he emerges from between your legs, your slick making his lips and chin glisten in the light. You reach up to grab him by the shirt, dragging him down to you so that you can taste yourself on his swollen, pouty lips. It’s salty, a little bitter and musky, and you can smell it all over his face as you messily make out with him, lips sliding over each other as you fumble with the bottom of his shirt to try and tug it up. Feeling your cold hands on his stomach, he reluctantly stops kissing you to rip it off his body, tossing it onto the floor with a flourish. It joins the pile of clothes on the floor, alongside your shorts and panties, which had made their way closer and closer to the edge of the bed before finally just falling in a sad heap, forgotten about in the heat of the moment.

You watch his muscles flex in the dim light as he tosses his shirt onto the floor, your eyes glowing with lust. He dives back in; kissing you like it’s the last time he’ll be able to taste your lips as he fumbles with his pants. You part once more to rid yourself of the remaining clothing items clinging to your bodies; your shirt and his pants.

You’re already reaching over with a spit soaked hand to grab at his dick before he even gets the chance to toss his boxers on the floor, and he sharply inhales at the feeling of you sliding your slick hand over his cock head. You feel it twitch under your touch and giggle. The effect that you have on him has never dimmed; you are the most gorgeous person in the world to him.

Before you and Yeonjun had officially gotten together, you had just been friends. He was two years older than you, an upperclassman already, and he didn’t want to hold you back with a relationship as soon as you got to school. No matter how much he liked you, he kept his distance just a little as he watched you grow and change as a person in those first few months as an adult. In this time, you managed to rack up a few sexual experiences, some better than others, all being below average at best.

It was hooking up, that’s all it was. That’s the only kind of sex that you had, the only kind that you thought existed. Fucking. Hooking up. Having sex. Such plain, brash terms.

Then, you were with Yeonjun.

Fucking had a different meaning with him. There was affection, an underlying softness even when he was being rough, an overflow of love pouring from his heart into yours every time he was inside of you. It made you feel weird at first, and you actually avoided him for a bit after you started crying during one heated night due to feeling so safe in his arms. It was so new that you got scared; you thought it was wrong.

It wasn’t just fucking any more, you later thought, he was making love to you. It was as simple as that. You had previously thought that fucking, having sex, making love, hooking up—it was all pretty much the same thing; they were all synonymous terms. No, the difference with Yeonjun was that he made love to you, and that was the missing puzzle piece in your previously deeply unsatisfying sex life.

You knew that this is what he was doing now, especially tonight when you were both feeling so vulnerable. His lips hardly leave yours, save for when one of you needs to take a gasping breath, and his hands roam your body, embracing and worshiping every single part of you. It’s driving you crazy, as you’re doing nothing but kissing though you can feel his hard cock brushing against your weeping slit every time he leans forward. To remedy this, you wrap your legs around his waist to pull him closer to you. Now he’s grinding against you, his length pulsating against your cunt with every movement either of you make.

“Please Jun, please just do it already,” you whine, over and over, crying in his ear.

He teases you endlessly, stuttering his hips to make your breath catch in your throat, smirking at your visceral reactions to him. In the middle of your begging, he angles his hips differently, and his head slips into you, a breathy moan leaving your lips. He bites down hard on his lower lip, resisting the urge to groan aloud and slap your tit to see it jiggle, and pushes the rest of his cock in, warmth enveloping him as he closes his eyes.

Your hands scrabble for something to hold onto, and his shaking hands find your flailing ones. He grips your hand tightly, pinning it above your head as he rocks his hips into you. The covers slip off of his narrow hips at the slow, constant thrusts, exposing all of you in the light. You look down to see where you’re connected, see the ring of your slick around the base of his shiny cock, and throw your head back with a whine as he pushes into you particularly roughly.

Yes, sex with Yeonjun is always full of passion, full of love. It elevates the experience for you, when you feel so deeply and wholly for the person that you’re having relations with.

You can’t help but pull him in for another kiss when he chokes out a quick warning, words spilling from his trembling lips. You’ve orgasmed twice already, from Yeonjun putting off his own orgasm in order to make sure you achieve yours. His neglected cock, edged multiple times, was red and leaking copious amounts of precum by the time his trembling hand directed it back inside of your swollen pussy after your second high.

You feel warmth erupt from his cock as he cries into the kiss, unable to tamp down the soft groans that escape his lungs. Slick, wet sounds are the only thing you can hear apart from the both of your labored breathing, as he keeps thrusting his softening cock inside. You feel his cum leaking down your ass cheeks, and your cunt clenches around him as he stills inside of you.

Somehow, the two of you fall asleep like that. It’s just so warm and fuzzy and sticky, and you’re so tired that when he lays his sweaty face in your chest, you close your eyes and don’t open them again until the early hours of the morning, when you feel like you’re about to piss yourself.

You leave Yeonjun in the cum-stained bed; it’s still just past two in the morning, but you know you won’t be able to fall back asleep now. At least, not while there’s rivulets of dried semen down your inner thighs and you smell like a mixture of saliva and sweat. After you flush the toilet, you stare at the reflection of your hickey covered neck in the mirror hanging on your wall, pressing against one lightly with your pointer finger and grimacing at the purple color. It’d be a bitch to try and cover. You want to shower again so badly, but first you need a smoke. You find a half empty box of stale cigarettes in your purse and a gas station lighter on your nightstand, and you open your window and step out onto the roof.

It’s a cool night. Your bare feet and legs—you only put on Yeonjun’s shirt and a fresh pair of panties when you woke up—scrape against the rough surface of the roof tiles. You’re clutching the box of cigarettes so hard you think you might have dented a few of them. Balancing one between your lips, you light it and inhale deeply, tossing the lighter down and leaning back before exhaling. You watch the exhaled smoke rise up to the dark sky before eventually dissipating.

“I seriously think you have a problem,” a disapproving voice states, and you curse aloud, almost dropping the lit cigarette off the roof as you sit up.

Again, Beomgyu stands there, looking wounded. “Why the fuck are you here?” you ask. Suddenly, the way that you’re dressed makes you extremely uncomfortable. Beomgyu seems to notice this too, eyes following the length of your bare legs, disappearing beneath the oversized shirt you have on. With disappointment, he realizes this is probably Yeonjun’s shirt covering your body. This is quickly remedied when you sit up in annoyance and he catches a flash of your panties underneath. He feels like a teenage boy when a simple glimpse of white panties makes his cock twitch in his pants.

“I wanted to be an adult and say I’m sorry,” he says indignantly, offended at your violent tone.

“At one in the morning?” You scoff, stubbing out your cigarette on the roof tiles even though it’s only half-gone. You don’t feel like smoking any more, not with Beomgyu’s judgemental eyes on you.

“He get you into that shit?”

“Jesus, Gyu,” you snap.

“Fine, fine! I don’t care. I’m sorry.” His lithe figure, bathed in moonlight, moves closer to you, but with a slight caution. You know he isn’t completely sure how you feel about him.

“Just sit down already.”

He sits.

“You called me Gyu again.”

His voice sounds thick, pained. You habitually reach up and touch your chapped, kiss-swollen lips. You hadn’t even noticed that the old nickname slipped out; it felt so natural to say even though it had been so long since you had. The closest you came to saying any variation of your ex best friend’s name was the silent mouthing of the vowels and consonants that made up one of the most beautiful names you’ve ever heard. The loneliest nights, mostly the ones that you struggled through right after you moved away, were spent with the ghost of his name on your lips. You were too cowardly to go any further, as if the simple singular utterance of his name might summon him from across the country and into your dorm room. The wound was so fresh that even the made-up version of Beomgyu that came with the memories was too much for you to bear.

“Remember all the nights we’d come out here and just look at the stars?” he asks suddenly, and all of a sudden you truly feel eighteen and heartsick again—staring up into the dark void of nothingness above you, rendering you and Beomgyu smaller than the tiniest ant, nothing more than two less than microscopic specks on such a vast planet.

“Yeah,” you manage to get out, though your voice sounds oddly strained.

“The night before you left—the last time I saw you—I was looking at the stars and thinking of us.” He laughs a little, and you can’t help but turn to look at him, your dry eyes burning with the possibility of tears. You’re on your side now, facing him; he’s still laying flat on his back with his hands clasped behind his head. His eyes are locked on the night sky, so focused that he doesn’t even realize that the girl he loves is staring at him with tears in her eyes. “And then, you just appeared. It was like I manifested you. You looked fake in the moonlight too.”

“Fake?”

“Yeah, you almost didn’t look like yourself. You were wearing this dress, a floaty looking one with flowers, and you looked so pretty that I thought I was imagining you standing in front of me. I thought I made it all up, until I grabbed your hand and you were warm and solid and real.” Now he turns to look at you and realizes that you’re facing him, paying full attention to his rambling. Slowly, he mirrors your pose, turning to look at you. Your faces were close enough now that if you both leaned in, you’d kiss. The very thought of that makes your stomach turn—with anticipation or dread, you’re unsure.

“Like now.” He whispers this last part, before looking down and taking your hand in his gently. His hands are different from Yeonjun’s; instead of being smooth and soft, they are dry and calloused. You can see how years of work in his dad’s old shop has taken a toll on his poor hands; the days where his hands were young and clean were long gone. You hold his hand up to your face to study it closer, to memorize each little line and freckle so that when you left for the last time you could remember exactly what Choi Beomgyu’s hand looked like, exactly how it felt to hold. Years from now, you will be sick and dying in bed, and you will wonder if the pale, slight freckles on the back of his hand will disappear amongst dozens of age spots. Will his fingers gnarl and twist like his grandfather’s did, falling victim to arthritis? Will his nails grow thick and yellow, like so many other elders’ do? You take in the cracked fingertips, the dirt and oil under his nails.

“Like now?” you ask thickly.

He nods, head slightly bobbing up and down. It was so subtle that you almost didn’t catch it, instead focusing on his full lips and how they glistened. How was it possible for a man to have such perfect, delicate features? You’d never seen anyone so pretty in your life. There’s something about seeing a beautiful man in the middle of the night; the moonlight will illuminate their face in a completely different way than sunlight does. It will make you see an entirely new side of him, and it will only make you fall deeper in love with this unattainable, gorgeous boy. Once you see a beautiful boy in the moonlight, you will never be able to forget about them, and this is when you know that you will never be able to let Choi Beomgyu go. More time could elapse—ten, fifteen, twenty more years—and you’d still think of him too often for it to be normal. You’d still hope that one day, you get another chance to try things again.

That is how you find yourself kissing Choi Beomgyu, nothing but a single pane of glass separating the two of you and your sleeping fiancé.

His lips are slightly chapped. They’re warm, but his tongue is hot and wet as it glides across your lips, begging you to open your mouth. You do so after only a brief hesitance, sighing a little into his mouth as he cautiously puts a hand on your waist. The feeling of his hands on you seems to snap you out of your daze, and you quickly pull away from him, sitting back up and looking at the window, panicked. It’s still dark. No one is awake but you and Beomgyu.

He reaches for your hand again. “Are you okay?” he asks. It’s a stupid question, you think—you just cheated on your loving, perfect fiancé—and he’s asking if you’re fine? Of course, he’s guilt-free in this—Yeonjun’s feelings mean nothing to him.

“I just can’t do this. Not while he’s sleeping right there.” You look away, guilt already melting away as you stare into Beomgyu’s gorgeous eyes. It’s like you forget all about Yeonjun as long as Beomgyu’s there in his place.

Beomgyu ponders your words for a moment, looking off into the distance and pursing his lips. “Then… let’s go somewhere else.”

You bite your tongue. Somewhere else?

“And that means…?” you ask.

“I know a place,” he says mysteriously. “Do you trust me?”

You know you do before you even say it. Before the incident, there was no one you trusted more than Beomgyu. And even after the incident, you know that you would be safe with him.

You quickly climb back into your room and snatch up a pair of shorts that are laying on the floor, pulling them on so that you’re not walking around in your panties. You also slip on some shoes, the first comfortable pair you see.

After you climb back out the window and shut it as quietly as possible, he motions for you to follow him. He shimmies down the side of your house, whispering directions to you when you try to mimic his moves. You slip a little more than halfway down, your panicked scream catching in your throat, reducing it to little more than an exhale, but you land in strong, firm arms. Beomgyu rolls his eyes at your clumsiness, not the least bit phased, but you have to calm your rapidly beating heart before you even think to thank him.

You feel a new fire burning in your chest, the thrill of doing something so daring, so wrong, waking up your hibernating rebellious side. You’re reminded of other moonlit walks you had with Beomgyu, years and years ago. You snuck out the same way, through your bedroom window—you just didn’t fall halfway down.

It’s only when you’re more than halfway there that you realize where Beomgyu is leading you. He helps you across a shallow stream, telling you which rocks are safe to step on and which are slick with damp moss, and then a memory pops back into your head. You land safely on the dirt ground, clutching Beomgyu’s hand, and you grin. “Are we going to Thomas?”

Thomas—the nickname that you and Beomgyu gave to the abandoned boxcar in a clearing in the woods. At the time, you were regularly babysitting a child in the neighborhood, who was obsessed with the animated show about a talking train named Thomas. For a few months, you and Beomgyu watched a little more of the show than you’d like to ever admit. You also both enjoyed it more than you’d like to admit. But something that you were more than happy to admit, you now had a good code name for the train car in the woods.

“You still remember!” he exclaims. “I was starting to think you seriously forgot about him.”

“I did, until we crossed the stream,” you admitted. “It’s been a while.”

“It really has,” he agrees, “since when, junior year of high school?”

“Something like that.”

You only have to walk a little longer before the trees thin out, and you spot the faded old car on the other end of the small clearing. You take Beomgyu’s hand, and you both run over, laughing openly and bumping into each other playfully. He boosts you up into the car first, and then hoists himself up and sits beside you.

The door had been ripped off the car since you’d found it, and it was now covered in moss and broken down into splinters behind the structure. This meant that there was a section of the car that was lit up by the moonlight, so you weren’t stuck in complete darkness. That was where you and Beomgyu sat, legs hanging over the edge, until he nudged you and got up, walking further inside the car until he sat down at the far end, motioning for you to come inside. You follow him, kneeling beside him, heart hammering in your chest as he slowly takes your hands.

“Can I kiss you again?” he asks quietly.

You swallow hard, but nod. You shut your eyes tightly before your lips collide, but as soon as he’s kissing you again you don’t care any more—there’s no more hesitation. You’re bringing his hands to your chest eagerly, sucking his tongue into your mouth.

He pushes you down, so that your back is flat on the floor of the car, and he’s slotted between your legs. He’s groping your tits over your shirt, pressing his knee into your cunt.

You pull out of the kiss, opening your eyes and studying him. His lips are swollen now, and he’s panting. “I want to see you,” you whisper.

“Then look,” he says sassily, cocking his head to the side, shifting his bangs into his eyes.

“No,” you whine softly, “I want to see all of you.”

He holds his breath once he realizes what you mean. You watch intently as he slowly sits back on his heels, taking off every item of clothing carefully. You do the same, making a neat pile so that you don’t lose anything.

You’ve seen him shirtless before, when you’d go to the pool or he’d change his shirt in front of you on the occasion. But now, he looked different. He’s more muscular, more solid. He’s still slim, but it’s clear that he’s worked on his body and grown into it more over the years. You can’t take your eyes off of him as he takes off his pants, gaze fixated on the bulge in his boxers. He flushes a dark pink when he follows your eyes, and gets back between your legs, staring at your naked tits. Your nipples are stiff in the cool night air, and he gently tweaks one of them, smiling when you inhale sharply.

“Is this okay?” he asks, when his mouth is an inch away from your breast. His warm breath ghosts over your skin, and you moan quietly, nodding and pushing your chest against his lips. He sucks your nipple into his mouth, grazing his teeth against it, and you can’t help but place a hand on the back of his head and lean into his mouth.

When he’s done admiring your tits, which he’s dreamed about for years, he places wet kisses down your body, until he reaches the band of your panties. “Okay?” he asks again, just as his fingertips curl underneath the elastic.

“Yes, please,” you gasp, and he pulls them down your thighs, tossing them into the pile of clothes in the corner. He places his hands on your knees, spreading your legs, eager to see you. He leans down, parting your glistening lips in the moonlight, and feeling prideful—you’re wet because of him. He did this, not Yeonjun.

It seems that the differences between Beomgyu and Yeonjun keep growing—the two of them eat pussy differently too.

Beomgyu’s messy with it, spit already dripping down your cunt and down his chin. He’s rough too, pressing his tongue against your clit until your thighs are shaking uncontrollably. His soft hair curls around your fingers as you pull his head closer to your cunt.

You cum, surprisingly harder than you have in a while. You’re whining and bucking your hips into his face, until he finally lifts his face. His lips and chin are wet, and he has a shit-eating grin on his face.

“What?” you ask, suddenly embarrassed at the way he’s staring you down.

“You’re so hot,” he sighs, and you feel yourself blushing at his genuine glee.

“Whatever,” you mumble, suppressing a giggle, but he doesn’t stop smiling to himself as he takes off his boxers.

You think it’s completely, wholly unfair how beautiful he looks naked.

Something about his skin makes him look extra luminous in the moonlight that washes over his body in pale stripes, slipping through the slats of the wooden walls and pouring in through the door frame. His auburn-brown hair looks dark cherry red in the limited light, so different from the fine black hairs that litter his arms, legs, and stomach. This is where your gaze dips lower, towards the one part of Beomgyu you’d never seen before.

His cock, hard and leaking, twitches as he feels you staring. You’re impressed—but really, you weren’t expecting to be disappointed. You’ve never seen him naked before, but you weren’t an idiot. After seeing him in his swim trunks that last summer, you couldn’t help but bring that image to mind whenever your fingers traveled beneath the elastic band of your panties. You swallow hard as he drops back down, hovering over you. He’s breathing heavily, nervously, as he tries to decipher the unassuming expression on your face.

“I hope I’m not disappointing you,” he can’t help but blurt out, not thinking straight.

You wrap your arms around his neck and pull his face close to yours again, kissing him long and deep. He melts into your embrace, quickly reciprocating your excitement. You feel the head of his dick nudge against your slit as he moves closer, and you unconsciously buck your hips up, slipping it inside for just a moment. You both shudder at the sudden closeness, the sensation of being closer than you ever have before, and you part—he stares so deeply into your eyes that you swear he’s staring at your soul. You feel more naked than ever; it surpasses your physical body. You’ve exposed your loves, your fears, your darkest secrets and the skeletons in your closet, before baring your tangible nudity—something you’d never done before.

His eyes drop to your neck and chest, and the adoring fuzzy gaze disappears as he takes in the dark marks left by Yeonjun. His hold on your hips tighten, so hard that you’re gasping from the tingling mixture of pain and pleasure, and he attacks the same spot on the side of your neck, the same one that Yeonjun had been nibbling at as he worked you through an orgasm. It’s sore, swollen—the skin is hot to the touch and bruised already, but Beomgyu’s hard teeth reignite the pain ten times over as he roughly rubs your clit. You cry out, thighs squeezing his hand as you come again, feeling over sensitive already.

He positions himself at your entrance, looking up to you for confirmation. Your chest is heaving as you pant, still woozy from your orgasm, but you know you won’t be wholly satisfied until you feel him completely. This time, you need him in a way you have never had him. You nod, and he reaches up to clasp your hand above your head, rough fingers pinning you to the wooden floor.

He enters you in one fluid motion, so smooth you don’t register it until he’s fully sheathed inside and the two of you let out a simultaneous deep groan.

“Does he fuck you as good as I do?” Beomgyu can’t help but spit out between moans, slamming his hips into yours so roughly that the slap of skin on skin echoes around the empty car.

You’re getting annoyed at how you keep comparing Beomgyu to Yeonjun, so when his thrusts differ from your fiancé’s too, you completely block the thought of your loving partner out of your head. You forget that he’s asleep in your childhood bedroom, cuddling with your favorite stuffed animal, surrounded by the smell of you. You forget that it’s too late to ever go back, to ever regain what has been broken. And you forget that you ever hated Beomgyu, because it was hard to hate him when your mind was so clouded by lust you couldn’t think of anyone else.

The last thing you think about before you fall asleep in the early hours of the morning with another man’s cum leaking out of your sore cunt, is how angelic Beomgyu’s face looked when he filled you up. It made you want to wrap your legs around his narrow waist and let him fuck it into you, so that he would never be apart from you again. You never wanted to see another face ever again, after you saw his delicate features scrunched up in pleasure.

You’re so exhausted by your sneaking around, so sore from the splinters and scrapes, that you curl up right next to Yeonjun without showering off your night.

It’s a pity, that when Yeonjun wakes, long before you do, he doesn’t suspect a thing when he sees a twig clinging to the back of your shirt, or fresh mud on an old pair of your shoes. He trusts you, so wholeheartedly, that he pressed kisses on top of your exposed hickies—though not without noticing that they looked a lot darker than they did the last time he saw them.

—

“Excuse us, ma’am!” Two children—no older than ten and twelve—squeeze past you in the crowded aisle, the younger one brushing against a box of uncooked pasta and knocking it to the ground. Without a glance backwards, they speed off towards a tired looking couple with a shopping cart full of sugary cereal and cheap plastic toys. It’s then that you register the name that one of the kids called you, and you’re disgruntled—do you really look that old? You catch a glimpse of yourself on the reflective surface of a colorful advertisement standee, and frown at your appearance, feeling older and more out of place than ever.

You toss a box of uncooked pasta into your cart and go forth, braving the chilly aisles of the grocery store without your jacket, which you stupidly left in the car, thinking that you’d be fine. You make a mental note to never trust the temperature again.

As you’re studying the nearly identical packages of grapes, a pale hand reaches for the same bag you were going for. The both of you spring back, surprised, and you lock eyes with Karina.

“Oh!” you exclaim. You try to make yourself say hello, but there’s already been an awkward silence after your surprised outburst.

She smiles, unaffected, and says, “Hello, (Y/N). How have you been?”

Damn her perfect ability to navigate a conversation.

“Hey, Karina!” you say, crossing your arms to try and mimic a comfortable position. “I’ve been good! Just busy, moving and stuff, you know. What about you?”

She laughs, the same delicate laugh that makes your stomach jump with excitement, before replying. “I’m good too! Trying to soak up the last few weeks of summer, then everything starts up again. This place really revolves around the kids, you know? When school starts again, it feels like the whole town just wakes up after a long sticky summer nap.” She pauses. “Oh, I’m rambling.” A little embarrassed even though you’re clearly not offended, she places a delicate hand over her chest. A pretty silver ring sparkles on her fourth finger.

You shake your head, assuring her that it’s fine, that she’s right anyways, but you’re staring at her ring the whole time. She notices, gaze following yours and quickly flickering down to her hand, and smiles broadly. “Oh! Did I tell you last time? I’m married now!” she exclaims. Her cheeks are pink, flushed with excitement. Clearly, she was very happy in her relationship, eager to talk about it. The very thought of your own relationship now made a rock appear in your stomach—a heavy, dark, massive boulder that weighed you down and made you sick.

“Congratulations!” you say, and you both share a little moment right there in the fruit and vegetable aisle—it makes you miss your girl friends from back home, and you again wonder if it would have been possible to be friends with Karina way back when. If that would have made things different. Better, even.

“Thank you, thank you.” She looks down, trying to hide her wide smile, and brushes a long lock of her dark hair behind her ear. “He’s the best.”

“That’s sweet, I’m really happy for you,” you say, and you find that you actually really mean it. You exchange goodbyes as the conversation naturally trails off, and head off in opposite directions—both of you carrying a bag of grapes, neither one being the initial same choice.

As soon as you get into the car and place your hands on the steering wheel, your phone starts ringing, and you groan and reach over to fumble around in your purse for the vibrating device.

“Hello?” you ask, answering the call, which you now see is from Yeonjun. You feel the rock in your stomach press down harder on the sensitive walls of your stomach lining, and you wince.

“Hey, babe,” he coos, “are you on your way back yet?”

“Yeah, just finished grocery shopping,” you say honestly, propping your purse back up. You work on tossing the mess back into the open mouth of the bag; you ended up spilling an expired container of Tic-Tacs all over the passenger seat when you tried to feel around for your phone.

“Good! I was thinking that maybe we could go on a drive tonight?”

You freeze up, a handful of fruit flavored mints falling from your hand. “Why?” you ask carefully.

“No reason, I just… I guess I just miss spending time with you alone,” he confesses. “As much as I love your parents, and this place, it’s not the same. I’m excited for us to go back home, and for things to go back to normal.”

Your heart aches at the melancholy, tired voice on the other end of the line. “We leave soon, babe,” you assure him, “we’re almost done here.”

“I know, I know—I’m sorry, I’m complaining. This is a lot for you, I shouldn’t be wrapped up in my own feelings.”

“No, no! I understand, I do, and I miss you too. Look, the drive sounds good. I’ll be back soon, and as soon as I finish putting the groceries away we can leave. Does that sound okay?” Your grip on the phone tightens, and you feel guilty. If not for the complete betrayal, then because you’d genuinely been neglecting him since you got home too.

“Yes, it does.” He sounds content, relieved even, and you smile to yourself as you say goodbye and hang up. You place your hands back on the steering wheel, and take a deep breath as you head home, away from Mr. Kim’s grocery store—which is now owned by his son. Another small change, another thing that makes you feel like you never knew this town in the first place.

Outside, the sun is setting. Orange and pink bleed through your cracked windows, painting warm stripes across your body. The air is warm and thick, almost soupy from the humidity, but it feels familiar and comforting.

Yeonjun is baking again when you return, the same flowered apron that’s too short on his lanky frame tied in a messy pink bow at his back. He’s pulling a tray of cookies out of the oven when you push the door open, hands full of groceries.

“Welcome back!” he exclaims, quickly putting down the cookies to rush to your aid. Gratefully, you hand off a few bags. Yeonjun bustles around the vanilla scented kitchen, putting things away quickly as you dust off your hands and sneak a cookie from the tray. Sweetness floods across your tongue as you bite into one. It’s still a little too warm, the center burning your tongue a tad and the rest of the treat falling apart in your hands. “They’re not cooled yet!” he scolds, finally noticing your struggle.

“Couldn’t help it, they looked too good,” you say around a mouthful of cookie, and he rolls his eyes before walking over and planting a peck on your messy lips.

“I’ll finish up here, you do what you need to do,” he says, kneeling down to sift through the remaining few bags. He shoos you away as you cram the rest of the cookie into your mouth, giggling.

Really, you don’t need to go off and do anything. You already had everything in your purse. So all you did was check your reflection quickly before walking back into the kitchen, where Yeonjun has finished putting the groceries away and is hanging up the beloved frilly apron.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Sure am.”

He grins, wraps an arm around your shoulders like he always does, and presses a kiss to your temple. The two of you don’t bother to close the windows or lock the door, because it’s a small town where everyone knows everyone. It’s still a bit unnerving for Yeonjun, who has always lived in the city. He was brought up sternly, always told by his parents that if he ever left a door unlocked or a window open, someone evil would surely get in. And in the city, that’s not too far of an assumption. That was probably Yeonjun’s least favorite part about you—if he had to choose. Though you were much better about it now, for the longest time he saw you as a little country mouse lost in a big city. You would leave the door of your dorm room open all day after leaving for class. You would often leave the windows unlocked overnight. One warm autumn evening while going out for dinner with some friends, you left your window completely open and Yeonjun was the one that found the intruder under your bed. To be fair, the intruder was a rather chunky squirrel who didn’t have the gymnastic ability to hurl himself back up onto the window ledge, but still. You remember all of this fondly, as you watch Yeonjun double check that the front door is closed in the rear view mirrors before pulling away from your house.

The sun seemed to be taking its sweet time, wanting to give a magnificent show to anyone who spared the time to watch. You stare down at the small clouds of reddish dirt being spit up by the wheels of your car, then refocus your attention on the splendid landscape before you. The warmth of the setting sunlight bled golden everywhere, turning the green grass a springy hazy shade and shining rays of sparkles onto any moving creature. A pair of songbirds flew by quickly, twittering and warbling a good night song as golden light danced across their waxy feathers. You squint at the tree that the birds have landed in, and you gasp as you recognize it. “Jun,” you plead, “can we stop by the blackberry bushes? It’s just the right time to pick them.”

“Blackberry bushes?” Yeonjun exclaims, “you don't have to tell me twice.”

“You sound like my dad when you say stuff like that,” you groan as he pulls off to the side of the road.

“I am honored. He is a fine gentleman,” Yeonjun insists goofily, watching you with adoring eyes as you leap out of the car and into the meadow.

“It’s just past this tree,” you claim, pointing to the very same tree that the two birds landed in earlier. “I used to come here with—I used to come here all the time,” you said, stumbling over your words. Your mouth feels dirty, almost saying Beomgyu’s name aloud, and in front of Yeonjun too.

If Yeonjun notices, he doesn’t say anything about it. He lets you lead him past the tree with the gnarled bark and further into a thicket of younger trees. Your grasp on his hand tightens as you spot the patch of bushes, their branches heavy with fruit. You bound ahead, letting go of his hand and plucking a few large berries, the dark juices staining your fingertips. Yeonjun walks up beside you, pulling a large handkerchief out of his pocket and holding it out to you. You pile on blackberries immediately, knowing that was why he was offering it.

“Your lips are purple,” Yeonjun says accusingly, using his free hand to point at your face. You feel your cheeks heat up slightly; you’re embarrassed for acting so juvenile and stuffing your face with blackberries.

“And yours aren’t,” you say in the same tone. His eyes flicker from your lips then back to your eyes. You feel your heartbeat speed up as he gently sets the handkerchief of berries down on the soft grass before scooping you into his arms and pressing his lips to yours.

“So sweet,” he murmurs against your purple lips jokingly.

“I told you it was blackberry season,” you retort, giggling as you feel him squeeze your hips.

You keep the handkerchief of blackberries in your lap for the rest of the ride, crying out when Yeonjun would reach over and slap your fingers away as you tried to sneak another berry into your mouth. “I want to use those in some scones!” he insisted playfully.

The lightheartedness of the banter and the gorgeous golden light painting your hometown in nostalgia was an escape. It was almost like you were back home with Yeonjun in your apartment, looking back on fond memories you shared together. The setting outside your window looked fake because of the dreamy haze, and you wished you could freeze in this perfect moment with the perfect man. Everything in the snapshot would be perfect; it wouldn’t capture the thoughts that plagued your mind as soon as you stepped out of the car and looked up at your childhood home. Guilt, pain, and hurt bloomed in your chest as Yeonjun parked the car and took you by the waist, so that the two of you could walk back inside together. You masked the guilt of another man’s touch behind a smile, but it didn’t last long. As soon as you looked up, your blood ran cold. An ambulance was parked right in front of your house, and the front door had been thrown wide open.

Yeonjun grabs your hand as you both run up the front stairs and into the house. You see your father sitting on the floor of the kitchen, an oxygen mask covering his lower face. Your mother sits a small distance away from him, her face gray and her lips pressed into a thin line. An EMT pats your father on the shoulder before mumbling something to your mother and nodding at you and Yeonjun on his way out. The ambulance pulls away, luckily without a patient inside.

“What was that?” you blurt out, running up to your father, who is having trouble standing up on his own. His face looks gray too.

Your parents exchange worried looks before they look back at you. “Sweetheart,” your mother coaxes, “remember when your father fell off that ladder a few months ago?”

“Yes, but you told me everything was okay. Isn’t it?” you ask in a small voice that sounds childish, naive, and stupid—even to you. You feel Yeonjun stiffen beside you, and you turn to look at him. He’s always been bad at hiding things, so you immediately know. “You knew this whole time,” you say to Yeonjun, pulling away from him.

“Doll,” he says pleadingly, his eyebrows furrowed with pity and regret.

“We didn’t want to upset you,” your mother clarified, “it happened right before you and Yeonjun got engaged, and we didn’t want to spoil anything.”

“That wouldn’t have spoiled it!” you say shrilly. “I would have come to help you and Dad if I knew!”

“We knew you would, that’s why we didn’t tell you. It took so much planning and time and effort for Yeonjun to plan things out for the proposal and we didn’t want to ruin the mood before or after, and by then months had already passed…” your mother trailed off.

“I’m your daughter, I’m supposed to help you when things like that go wrong,” you say, feeling your eyes starting to well up with tears, though you’re not completely sure why. “And why does Yeonjun know, and I don’t? It would have been his planning that got ruined, not mine.”

“It was an accident,” your father says abruptly, and you see that he’s been able to stand up on his own. He leans against the kitchen table heavily. “Your mother accidentally ordered my medication to your address and Yeonjun was the one that found it.”

“Autumn Oaks will be good for them,” Yeonjun pipes up, trying to help. “They’ll get all the help they need there.”

Your eyes almost bulge out of your skull. “Autumn Oaks? The assisted living facility in town?” you ask. You pick your brain for the moment you first heard the name, and then you get it—Karina. “Even Karina knew before I did?” you fret.

“Karina? Nurse Yoo?” your dad asks.

“You know her?”

“She works there. She’s actually the one that showed us around. Do you know her?” your mother asks. She seems very nervous now, clearly due to your building emotions.

“I went to school with her,” you mumbled. Your head absolutely aches, and you stare out the front door, still hanging wide open, into the dark night that had crept up on the four of you since you got home. “I need to go for a walk,” you say. Your parents again exchange looks. “I’m not mad,” you snap, “I just need a minute to process everything.”

You feel Yeonjun start to follow you timidly, but you look back at him with narrowed eyes. “Alone,” you emphasize, and he shrinks back and lets you go.

Luckily, you had the sense to hang onto your purse the entire time, and you fumble through it for your cigarettes and a lighter. You shove one into your mouth and light it, tossing the box and the lighter back inside the mess of your bag. You don’t know where you’re walking, but the night is warm and muggy and you can feel insects swarming. You want to go back home and take a long hot shower, especially as you feel a bead of sweat slip down your back, but you don’t want to face everyone again. You feel like an idiot for acting like an emotional child, and you don’t know why you have been ever since you got back to your hometown. It was like you were reverting back to the person you were the last time you stayed that long. As if simply breathing the air and drinking the water were enough to take away ten years.

You stop walking naturally in front of a house. A large, old tree stands strong in the front yard, casting a large black shadow over the whole space. Though it’s been repainted a new color—a light beige, instead of the misty blue it once was—it still feels like your second home. You’re very sure that Beomgyu doesn’t live here any more, mostly because he said he hated bland paint colors and you simply couldn’t picture the Choi Beomgyu living in a beige house of all places. But also because your parents had told you that his parents moved out years ago and retired somewhere sunny and warm, leaving the family business to Beomgyu, who was more than willing to take over it by then. They had no news about where Beomgyu had moved to.

You feel like a freak, just standing outside someone’s house like a stalker, so you turn on your heel and start to walk away, when someone says, “hey,” in a low voice.

The front door of the blue-turned-beige house opens, and Beomgyu stands there in pajama pants and a thin white t-shirt. “Why the fuck are you here?” he says, mimicking the voice you used when he appeared on your roof.

“Shut up.”

“I’m joking. Come inside already. Aren’t the mosquitos pissing you off?” He steps aside and opens the door wider, motioning for you to come inside.

So you do.

You’re not sure what you’re expecting when you step inside. Maybe, you expected it to look exactly how it did the last time you saw it, with his parents’ furniture and decorations and family pictures on the walls. There’s a few hints of the old decor as you look around and focus on a few minor details, but for the most part it looks completely different. New furniture, more modern and young, paintings on the wall that definitely weren’t there before. There’s even an entire wall missing, the one that separated the kitchen and the front room entirely. Something about an open concept, you think solemnly, recalling an episode of HGTV you watched when you were too drunk to get up and get the remote to change the channel.

“It looks different in here,” you say bluntly.

“Well, my parents don’t live here any more, do they?” he asks cockily. “Come on, let’s go up to the bedroom. The old house still doesn’t have AC, but my bedroom has a really good fan.”

The stairs creak the same way they did when you ran down them sobbing the last time you were there. It’s bittersweet, and you hold yourself back from rolling your eyes at your old dramatic self.

Beomgyu’s right about the fan, at least. The bedroom is much cooler than the rest of the house, and it’s cast in a cold bright light from the flatscreen TV mounted on his wall, facing the foot of his bed. “Nice place,” you say, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Did you get an interior designer or something to help you with all this?”

“Or something,” he says, shrugging. He gets in bed too, patting the spot beside him once he got comfortable. You inch forward, a bit awkwardly. Your heart is pounding in your chest, and you feel like a middle school girl sitting next to her crush at the movies or something equally as corny and butterfly-inducing.

Beomgyu doesn’t hesitate to wrap an arm around you and pull you in closer, so that your legs are draped over his and his hand rests on your waist. His big hand starts to slip under your shirt, toying with the hem and teasing you. He already knows why you came to him; he can see that you’re upset. He rightfully assumes that Yeonjun is a part of the reason, and he knows that you want him to take his place, even if it’s just for a night.

Boldly, you take his hand that’s teasing you and place it firmly over your breast. Beomgyu stops pretending to watch whatever is playing on his TV and looks at you, a crooked smirk on his face. “That’s why you’re here,” he says, wanting a verbal confirmation.

“‘Course it is. No one knows how to comfort me better than you do.”

“Not even Yeonjun?” Beomgyu can’t help but ask, venom lacing his words. He can’t hide his jealousy, even when he thinks he can. It always comes spilling forth from his lips like sick word vomit.

“Not even Yeonjun,” you whisper as he closes the distance between your lips, unsure if you’re lying or not.

It’s not as frantic this time, because you know you have time. No one is expecting you home anytime soon, and Beomgyu doesn’t seem to have anything going on either. It’s a sudden but welcome change; the soft sheets instead of the splintering wood of the train car, the cool controlled breeze instead of the sweltering mugginess, the silence of closed walls instead of the risk of open air.

You let Beomgyu take off your shirt and shorts, and you settle between his legs as he whips off his own top. You pull down his pajama pants and boxers in one fluid move, taking his cock in your hand and suckling on the head. The saltiness of his precum coats your tongue as you swallow it down, your nose pressing against his crotch as his hand gently presses on your head, wordlessly begging you to take it all. It’s better than you imagined, and you’d imagined it many times.

His breathing grows ragged as you start jerking him off, his dick slippery with your saliva, and you take one of his balls into your mouth. His eyes roll back in his head as you do so, and he groans loudly. “I knew you’d be good at this,” he pants as you take his length back into your mouth.

You make a noise of confusion, the vibrations making him whimper.

“I just wanted you so bad,” he babbles, “I knew—I knew no matter what, I’d never forget—” His eyes squeeze shut as he cums, and you hollow your cheeks and swallow, eliciting a high-pitched squeak from him due to the slight overstimulation. Shaking, he opens his eyes to look down at you, and you sit back up obediently, using a finger to push a small pearly rivulet of cum into your mouth; it had been dripping down your chin.

“You’d never forget?” you asked, crawling up to him on all fours. Beomgyu feels his cock jump again as he stares at you taking off your underclothes, and he grips your hips tightly, squeezing the flesh there and exhaling deeply.

“I won’t,” he says breathily, as if he’s making a promise to you, “I won't ever forget.”

You press your forehead to his, feeling his sweaty bangs stick to your skin. The two of you stay like that for just a moment as his heavy breathing slows, and then he slowly reaches up to caress your cheek and pull you in for a kiss. He shifts beneath you, his muscles flexing as he lifts you up and tosses you down onto the soft mattress so that he’s the one on top now.

“I was having fun up there,” you say, wrapping your legs around his waist. You can feel his dick, half-hard, nudge against your clit.

“I think you’ll have fun down here too,” he says with a wink, as he presses sloppy kisses down your neck. Your toes curl as his warm breath ghosts over your nipple; he’s making his way down your body, making sure to worship every inch of your skin with his slick lips. He can’t help but flick your nub with his tongue, watching your reaction as you flinch at the unexpected contact. He envelopes your nipple and the surrounding area into his mouth, suckling hard and making your toes curl with pleasure as he grinds against you simultaneously. His teeth graze against your skin, eliciting a low moan that erupts from deep inside, so animalistic you hardly recognize yourself. You realize that with Beomgyu, unfamiliar parts of you emerge and take charge—both parts that remind you of your youth, as well as parts that you’d never met before, or even knew existed at all.

A string of saliva, glistening in the faint bluish light, connects his lips and your breast for just a second before it breaks. He looks up at you with big doll eyes and smirks, a juxtaposition of innocence and naughtiness, before mouthing the valley between your breasts and kissing his way down to your navel, then between your legs. Beomgyu’s words echo in your mind as you flush with slight embarrassment, realizing he’s staring straight at your sopping cunt with great interest. The fact that you’d both been taking your time this time around made you much more aware that he was perceiving you just as much as you were perceiving him, and that thought was making you just a bit anxious.

After all these years, he can still read you like a book. He feels your thighs tense up as he gently slides a calloused finger through your slick, and though he thinks your pussy might be the prettiest one he’s ever seen, he stops, and makes eye contact with you. Your brow is slightly furrowed, your lips pressed together—a sure sign that you’re worried about something. “Everything okay?” he asks, wiping his finger on his sheets. “You look like you’re thinking long and hard about something.”

“More like I’m thinking about something that’s long and hard.” You catch his eye for a split second before you start to grin and he bursts out laughing.

“You had me there,” he admits, settling back between your legs. “I thought you were having your reservations.”

“What, you thought I wouldn’t want to double dip or something?”

Beomgyu shakes his head, trying to suppress a smile. “I’m trying to go down on you and be all sexy, and you’re making jokes that align with the humor of an immature thirteen year old boy.”

“Sorry, I do that when I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be. It’s just me.” You lock eyes with him, but this time it sends a real chill down your spine. Different from the chills that you got when you saw him at the reunion and he handed you your keys. It was so much more than just those five words that he spoke aloud—in that phrase, he cemented the fact that you two have history, and that there is so much meaning in the actions that you’re committing together. It’s just Beomgyu—but how can he be “just” Beomgyu when your feelings about him have been the exact opposite forever? It’s never been simple. He’s never been “just” Beomgyu.

Your clouded mind is suddenly cleared when you feel his lips connect to your clit and he starts suckling roughly, similarly to how he was attached to your nipple earlier. You can feel his teeth biting at your cunt, teasing it with little flashes of pain that make your back arch and your thighs start to close in on his face. He holds your legs apart, devouring you like he’ll never have the pleasure of tasting you again, and knowing that that could be the reality. You feel a mixture of his spit and your juices running down your inner thighs and soaking the sheets beneath you, but you hardly care. You want to leave a mark in his bed, in his house—in that moment, you want it to be known that you were there.

You finish as he plunges his thick fingers into you and curls them upwards just right, and your moan catches in your throat. You almost choke on it, a few stuttering gasps being the only thing that escape your lips as you come down from your high.

Before you can fully reorient yourself, Beomgyu’s sliding his cock against your slippery pussy, whining like a bitch. He’s too embarrassed to ask if he can fuck you, but you know he wants to. You want it too, but unlike him you’re not afraid to say it. “Please,” you whisper, just like you did in the woods, “please.”

Without another word, he’s pushing into you, which is quite easy given how much lubricant there is. He grips the headboard of his bed, his knuckles turning pale from the effort, as he waits for you to tell him to go on. You reach for him and he listens immediately, almost giddy as you pull him close. You want to feel his sweat on your skin, have his spit in your mouth, feel his stuttered breaths as he gets close.

He slips a pillow under your hips before readjusting himself, wanting to make sure you’re comfortable, before he starts drilling his hips into you.

The way he fucks reminds you a bit of your hookups in college, before you got with Yeonjun. The desperation, a bit of inexperience, and the quick but deep thrusts are all too reminiscent—but in a good way. It’s different, than the way that you’d been fucked by Yeonjun all these years, and you realize that you’ve missed it. The carnal urge to just fuck like animals, without caring about staining the sheets or worrying about someone hearing you.

You don’t realize just how far you’ve shifted until your head is hanging over the side of his bed, and your eyes are level with his nightstand. You can feel him getting close already—which you’re not surprised by, given how long he’s been waiting for it—and you’re getting close yourself until you lock eyes with a framed picture sitting beside his lamp. He groans loudly as he slams his hips into yours one more time, and you can’t help but gasp as you feel him filling you up, but your eyes are focused on the picture. It’s upside down, because of the angle you’re at, but it’s pretty obvious what it is. You don’t need to be right-side-up to know that it’s a wedding photo. And not just any wedding photo either—it’s a picture of Beomgyu and Karina.

It hits you like a ton of bricks. You’re the other woman, just as he’s the other man. You try to sit up, forgetting that he’s still hovering above you and trying to recover from having two orgasms quite close together, and smack your forehead into his.

“Ow!” he exclaims, pulling out of you and sitting back.

“You’re married!” you blurt out, scrambling away from him. His gaze drops to the photograph on his nightstand, and he wrinkles his nose guiltily.

“Well—yeah… But you’re engaged.” This time, it’s your gaze that drops—and you look down at the diamond ring on your finger. There’s a deep, gnawing pain that’s arising in your stomach, and you know what it is immediately. Guilt, so thick and dark you swear anyone who looks at you could see it seeping from your very pores, is tearing you apart. You feel yourself tearing up, which is somewhat ridiculous because you’d known this whole time that you were cheating. You weren’t an idiot and you weren’t manipulated either—you were a completely conscious and self-aware asshole that chose to cheat on her fiancé with her first love. And so was he.

You furiously wipe at your eyes with the back of your hand and stand up, crossing your arms over your chest as you scan the room for your clothes. You go around and pick up your garments one by one and put them on, and Beomgyu watches you solemnly. Neither of you say anything until you’re fully dressed and he’s at least pulled on his boxers and pants. You stand there at the foot of his—no, his and Karina’s king-sized bed, and glare at him. It’s hypocritical to be mad at him for cheating when you’ve been doing the exact same thing, but for some reason that’s how your brain is functioning.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” you asked, staring at the floor. You don’t know if you’ll cry or fall for him harder if you look into his eyes again. You fear that it might be both.

“I don’t know. It just never came up,” he says lamely. You narrow your eyes at his half-assed reply.

“I helped you cheat on her.”

“So what? I’ve been helping you cheat on Yeonjun. How’s this any worse than that? In the end we’re both just assholes.”

“Because I know Karina! She was the closest thing I had to a girl friend here in town!” you exclaim, “It's not like you know Yeonjun—you don’t care about hurting him. I care about hurting Karina!”

“But you don’t care about hurting your own fiancé?” Beomgyu rubs the back of his neck, confused, and stares at the floor. “I don’t get you.”

“That’s not the point,” you mutter, “but it doesn’t matter. Whatever. It’s already done, and like you said, we’re both the assholes in the end.” You can feel his cum leaking out of your cunt and pooling in your underwear. You want to go home and shower, without anyone seeing you or talking to you. You briskly walk over to his bathroom while rummaging in your purse for something to touch up your disheveled appearance.

You’re wiping at the makeup that’s started to slide off your eyes with a dry makeup wipe you found at the bottom of your purse when Beomgyu appears behind you in the mirror. He’s still shirtless, and somehow still beautiful in the shitty bathroom lighting. You stop your futile attempts to fix your appearance and stare at his reflection with weary eyes. He wraps his arms around you and presses a long kiss to the top of your head as he inhales your scent and takes it all in, knowing that you won’t return. You let him.

“I just got you back,” he mumbles, “and now you’re leaving again.”

“I wasn’t ever planning on staying. I wasn’t even planning on seeing you again,” you say firmly, though it’s obvious when your voice shakes that you hardly believe your own words.

“But you did,” he whispers. “Doesn’t that mean something? Doesn’t—doesn’t the fact that you’re standing here in my house, in my shirt, with my cum leaking out of you, mean something?”

You look down. You are, in fact, wearing his shirt. Somehow you must have pulled it on instead of your own. Even worse, you recognize it as an old band t-shirt that he used to wear in high school. You shake your head and pull it off, throwing it aside as you walk back to his bedroom and find your own shirt crumpled in a mess on his floor.

Looking wounded, Beomgyu appears in the doorway, clutching his abandoned shirt. “Are you really leaving?”

“Well, I don’t know when Karina will be back but I don’t want her to see me sleeping on her side of the bed,” you say coldly, “and I have a fiancé I need to get back to.”

“A fiancé who doesn’t know his future wife is a dirty cheater,” Beomgyu says, glaring at you. You see tears in his eyes, the hurt evident on his face.

“Don’t start that shit with me,” you snap. “And don’t contact me ever again.”

“I did a pretty good job avoiding you for ten years. What’s another ten, twenty, thirty more?” Beomgyu spits back, but his tears start to spill out and he turns away, not knowing you already saw them.

But you don’t care. You don’t want to care. So you gather your things and you go, slamming his front door so hard that the stained glass wind chimes hanging on his front porch fall and shatter on the wooden floor. You don’t even give the mess a second glance as you stomp down the stairs and down the path home.

The lights are all off, except for one. Your bedroom light is on, and you know that Yeonjun must have left it on. Whether he’s awake or not, he was waiting for you, and that makes the guilt sink into your stomach even further. You didn’t know it was possible to feel even worse than you did while you were laying in Beomgyu’s bed.

As quiet as possible, you unlock the front door and close it behind you, re-locking it and wincing as the heavy iron lock clicks into place. You creep up the stairs and peek around the corner, sighing with relief when you realize that your bedroom door is closed. You’re allowed to slip into the bathroom and wash yourself of all the evidence of Beomgyu before being confronted by anyone. Usually, you’re plagued with thoughts in the shower—whether that’s stress about work or dinner plans for the night, your mind is always running as you shampoo your hair. Tonight, it’s the opposite. You feel blank and numb as you rinse yourself and step out of the tub, toweling yourself dry before tiptoeing down the hallway and letting yourself into your bedroom.

Yeonjun is wedged against the wall in your childhood bedroom, leaving space for you in your little twin bed. You’re realizing just now how bare the room looks—everything is gone except for the bed and the little nightstand, where Yeonjun’s glasses and your cup of water live every night. He’s scrolling on his phone but he looks up immediately when he hears the door, and his face lights up when he realizes it’s you. “Welcome back,” he says carefully, not wanting to breach the subject unless you propose it.

You leap into his arms, feeling the guilt twisting your stomach into knots as he presses warm kisses to your clean skin. “I went to a friend’s house,” you clarify, “and we just smoked and sat there for a while. I just needed to get away for a minute.”

“Okay,” Yeonjun says, rubbing your arms comfortingly, “thank you for telling me.”

“It was an acquaintance from high school. Her name is Minjeong.”

Though he didn’t ask who the friend was, you can see relief flood across his face as he realizes it wasn’t Beomgyu—or even another guy. “I’m glad that you feel better now,” he says, pressing a kiss to your naked collarbone. You slide off his lap and get dressed, tossing the towel onto the floor.

“Come to bed,” he coaxes, “it’s nice and cozy.”

“I don’t doubt that,” you reply, sidling in next to him. As soon as you lay down, he wraps an arm around you and kisses your cheek. “I love you,” you say, desperate for him to say it back, even though you know he will—from his knowledge, he has no reason to doubt you at all.

“I love you too doll,” he mumbles sleepily, and then he’s gone. Asleep, dead to the world, no nasty thoughts plaguing his mind.

Unlike Yeonjun, you lay there awake for hours, unable to fall asleep for a multitude of reasons. Even worse, you know that most of these reasons are your own fault, and that guilt is eating you alive. Every single thought that you had managed to avoid in the shower was haunting you now, forcing your eyelids to stay open and keeping your heartbeat racing.

—

On the last morning that you will ever spend in your childhood home, you are awakened in the early hours of the morning by a massive moving truck trying to parallel park right beside your driveway. Yeonjun is already stirring, both from the noise outside as well as your movements, and he blinks hard as his eyes adjust to the bleary light. It’s so early that the sun hasn’t fully risen yet, and you can see from your window that the late summer has given birth to a smattering of dewdrops stricken across the greenery, giving it a haunting, blurred look. The palest of sunlight spreads across the land, a subtle “good morning” before the dry heat that’s sure to come once the quiet early morning hours wither away. Your parents are shuffling about downstairs, pushing all of the boxes and furniture into the front room so that the movers can have easy access and you can all hopefully be out by the designated time. The faint smell of dark roast coffee reaches your nose, and it reminds you of the youthful years you spent here, and how you got so used to that smell of coffee in the morning. When did you forget about it? When did you adopt a new norm?

Yeonjun presses a sleepy kiss to your cheek before climbing over you and claiming the bathroom first, and you hear the shower turn on. He’s always been a morning person, whereas you prefer to bathe during the night. It works out well in your apartment, where you only have one bathroom. You glance down at your phone, which has coincidentally given you an update on a few places the two of you had been looking to move. The crowded apartment, though now nostalgic and homey, is simply too small now. You’ve outgrown it.

You busy yourself with cleaning up a few stray clothing items scattered across the hardwood floor, your bare feet making small pattering sounds as you walk about. It’s hard to sort between your clothes and Yeonjun’s clothes—you tend to share a lot of garments, and you have a similar taste.

As soon as you zip up your own suitcase and sit down with a huff, Yeonjun strolls back into the room, a towel clinging to his waist and another slung around his neck. He uses one end to rub at his dripping locks, and you jump up to escape to the bathroom, suddenly very aware of where you were last night, as well as the fact that you’re unsure how to further explain yourself if anyone asks. “I’ll be down in a few,” you say to him, “I’ll help bring down our suitcases and everything.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it,” he says, shaking his head. “Take your time. Your parents have coffee on the table too if you need some.”

“When did you have time to go and say good morning to them?” you exclaim, your voice echoing down the empty hallway.

“I didn’t! I just know!” he yells back, and that makes your skin prickle. The ease of Yeonjun becoming a part of your family—it makes you feel that guilt even more. How could you take him away from your parents now? How could you take your parents from him?

Once you’re done washing the sleep away from yourself, you get dressed and frown at the room that’s now completely empty. You’d heard people coming up and down the steps, but you didn’t think they’d touch your room. Now, even the bed that you’d just slept in was gone. For a moment, you stand there in your bedroom alone. Though, you suppose you can’t even really call it that any more—you don’t possess it. How long has it been since it was really yours anyways? A decade? More? Less? You try to hold your emotions back, because it’s just a house, but it’s to no avail. You have to return to the bathroom and wipe your tears carefully with your sleeve while staring in the mirror and realizing just how much your reflection has changed.

“Are you sure? We can stay and help, it’s no problem,” Yeonjun’s voice echoes up the stairs. You sidle into the kitchen and stand in the doorway, looking at your parents and your fiancé. They’re standing across from each other in the kitchen, all holding steaming mugs of coffee.

“Oh, don’t worry about us. We don’t want you to miss your flight,” your mother insists, “the movers said they could help us just fine. They’ve been moving a lot of folks into Autumn Oaks lately.”

Your chest clenches a bit at the thought of your parents in assisted living—were they really that old already? They seem perfectly capable, aside from the incident with your father. You suppose that’s reason enough to consider assisted living.

“Okay, but call immediately if you need anything,” Yeonjun says warily, placing his empty mug down on the kitchen counter. “I’m going to call a car.”

He ruffles your hair when he notices you standing in the doorway, and then walks out. This leaves you with your parents, the both of them standing there and smiling at you. You know it’s because of Yeonjun. You know they wholeheartedly think you’re safe with him, and that he’s your forever. Who are you to say he isn’t?

“We really can stay and help you guys,” you offer again, but your father shakes his head.

“And we told you we can handle it,” he says softly, “you have a flight to catch.”

Your shoulders sag as you sigh. Perhaps, you weren’t only wanting to stay for your parents. You don’t want to let go of the house, of your aging parents, of Beomgyu. You don’t want to let go of your hometown, even though you hate it so much. And even though Autumn Oaks was just a drive away, hardly even separate from your hometown, it still felt like the end of an era, a disconnect, a severing of the last attachment you had to your childhood and everything that came with it. You got your closure, and that was what you wanted—so why did it feel wrong? For the first time in so many years, you feel like you’ve made bad decisions that you cannot come back from.

“Okay,” you say. “It was really nice seeing you. And I guess—to see the house one last time.” You will your emotions to stay under control. “I’m going to miss you.”

“We always miss you too,” your mother says, pulling you into a hug. “But we’ll see you come Christmas, won’t we? Maybe we can come and visit you and Yeonjun in the city this year.”

“That would be really nice, Mom,” you whisper as she lets go. She stands back, still holding onto your arms, and looks at you.

“You’ve grown so much. We’re so proud of you,” your dad says, and it’s like he’s reading your mother’s mind as a tear trickles down her face. The three of you briefly embrace, a final wordless reminder of every memory that you had together in that house, and then you blink and it’s all gone.

Yeonjun comes for you when the car pulls up outside, and before you know it you’re staring out the airplane window, looking at all the miniature houses down below. You’re finally going back home, but you know you left a piece of yourself in your hometown, and you’ll never see her again.

Maybe that’s for the better.

EPILOGUE.

Yoo Jimin, known most commonly by her nickname Karina, is fucking exhausted.

It’s the first snow of the year, she’s worked two double night shifts in one week, and she’s trying her damn best to get the household ready for the holiday season. She’s a woman who knows what she wants, and though this means she takes charge and gets shit done, it also means she burns out. Fast. And frequently.

Her vision is slightly blurry on her drive home from Autumn Oaks, where she’d been busy tending to two new residents. They had made sure to try and shoo her away, claiming that they were just fine on their own and getting settled in, but it was her job to check in on them every now and then. She groans aloud in her car, thinking about how much she wanted to sink into a hot bath and just be alone for a while.

The windshield wipers obediently push the fat snowflakes gathering on the glass away and out of sight as she pulls into her driveway. At least it looks cozy from the outside, as she’d made sure to tell her husband to put up the Christmas lights outside. He did, and they were twinkling warmly at her as she stepped out of the car.

She knows that Beomgyu is sleeping. He sleeps a lot, and not just because she tends to work nights and he always works days, but because he’s been avoiding her.

It was a natural conclusion that she came to, and that would be just fine with her because she knows that marriage isn’t some perfect fairytale, but there’s something that’s been nagging at her for months now. Beomgyu had been acting normal until the end of summer, after the reunion. It was quite popular amongst the gossipy folks, mostly because of a certain quiet individual who had become vastly successful in her market after leaving town about ten years ago. She was by no means a celebrity, but her success and emerging personality was a pleasant surprise to a lot of people—Beomgyu included.

This was worrying for two reasons.

One, because everything lined up pretty perfectly with the last time she was in town.

And two, because she knew damn well, more than anyone else, of that individual’s history with Beomgyu.

Maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. Everyone who knew Beomgyu knew about her too. Everyone thought they’d get married and stay in town forever, so it was quite a shocker when they ended up fizzling out and she left for New York so abruptly. It’s a little odd that everyone’s still so obsessed with their failed love story, but small towns tend to hold onto any bit of drama they can get. When tornadoes bring in people from the past, it’s inevitable that a rainstorm of gossip will come along with it.

The house is quiet when she walks in. She sees Beomgyu asleep on the couch in front of the fireplace, which is only dying embers now. They glow a faint red, barely sparking, but are still exuding a fair bit of warmth. The entire house smells like firewood and sugar, the latter scent being courtesy to Beomgyu’s newfound hobby. Baking, of all things! Karina simply didn’t understand where it was coming from. This too began at the end of summer, when he declared that he was sick and tired of store bought treats (he’d never had a problem with them before) and that he was taking on the task of providing the two of them with fresh baked goods whenever they wanted.

He was horrible at it, for a while. He’d never baked anything edible in his life, and he went through a fair bit of money buying ingredients because of how often he would mess up and want to try again. If anything, his determination was what linked banking to his other interests. He had always been a stubborn asshole, especially when it came to working at the auto shop, previously owned by his father, and before that his grandfather.

But eventually, he got better. He liked to make muffins, and he would leave them out for Karina when she returned from her night shift, still warm to the touch—he’d often be awake well into the early hours of the morning to try and get a new recipe right. It was enough overlap that Karina, who got home around four in the morning, was able to get to them while they were still fresh. Eventually, this was the only was she ever felt warmth from her husband.

She walks over to the couch quietly. She had slipped off her shoes as soon as she walked through the door, wanting to keep the floors clean.

Beomgyu looked peaceful when he slept—a facial expression that never occurred naturally around her any more. She smoothed a lock of reddish brown hair out of his eyes, and he winced at the contact. She removed her touch from his face, but the damage was already done. Her husband opened his eyes, one before the other, and frowned in the firelight. “What time is it?” he asked. “Did you just get back?”

“Four fifteen,” she confirms, “what did you make tonight?”

“Blueberry streusel,” he replied, sitting up and yawning. He did not, however, move to go to sleep in their bed, with her.

“Muffins,” she said quietly, staring at the muffins, still steaming from the oven.

A silence settles upon the couple, in which nothing is heard but the howling winds outside and the faint crackling of the dying embers in the fireplace.

“I think I’m gonna head to bed—“

“I can’t live like this any more—“

The two of them stare at each other, both cut off by the other. “What do you mean you can’t live like this any more?” Karina asks sharply, any semblance of sleepiness immediately gone from her body. “What does that mean?”

Beomgyu rubs the sleep from his face and groans into his own grasp. “I just—I don’t think I’m happy like this.”

“With me,” Karina says, though it’s more of a question than anything. She already knows the answer.

“Just with everything. I feel like I’ve done nothing with my life,” he explains, ruffling his own hair. Her fingers twitch, wanting so desperately to run through those soft locks.

“What does that mean for us?” she asks in a small voice. She hates how meek she sounds.

Beomgyu shrugs, as if she’s simply asking him what he wanted for dinner. “I don’t know.”

She’s suddenly angry more than sad, but she feels tears coming to her eyes either way. “It’s because of her,” she spits, to which Beomgyu’s eyes widen. He already knows who she’s talking about.

“Who?” he asks, eyes darting around wildly.

“You know damn well who.”

Beomgyu doesn’t respond to his wife, and instead they stare at each other as a frigid cold settled over them. She couldn’t undo what she said, and he couldn’t undo what he did—that was that.

Silence ensued for the rest of the night, and in the morning when Beomgyu awoke again his wife was gone. He had a voicemail left by one of her friends, stating that she’d be around every now and then in the coming week to pick up Karina’s things little by little. Karina, it seemed, did not ever want to see Beomgyu again.

He understood that decision—honestly, he did. He felt guilty after he realized just how much warmth and love she had provided him, even if he never picked up on it before and surely took it for granted. There was a cold void left behind, and it was slowly overtaking the entire house.

Beomgyu didn’t know what else to do—what else could he do? With his wife gone, his auto shop mediocre at best, and no one important left in his life? Other than his parents, who had already retired and moved away years ago, he had absolutely no one left. All he had was shattered remnants of past relationships—and in grasping onto those shards desperately, not caring whether or not they cut into his flesh, he sold the house and used his funds to move to the city that never sleeps, in the hopes that someone somewhere would be able to wake him out of the waking nightmare he’d been living for the past decade.

DIVIDER CREDIT | @firefly-graphics

#kflixnet #k-labels #k-vanity #beomgyu x reader #beomgyu smut #txt x reader #txt smut #txt imagines #tomorrow x together imagines #beomgyu imagines #txt hard hours #beomgyu hard hours

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silantryoo · 2 months

Text

BONUS [ LIKEALOOK ] — around sounds nice

FINALS: Seoul's Univeristy of Multi-Arts (SUMA) VS. Yonsei University

WARNINGS ; suggestive(ish), mentions of revenge p*rn (4.1k)

for the first time in a while, jang wonyoung was excited to play volleyball.

it was an odd feeling, in retrospect. volleyball, at least for the past three or so years, weighed on her back like her last name. it was full of expectations, of goals that she didn't set (or was forced to, anyway).

it was suffocating, humiliating. the sport that proved her comfort, that provided her safety, was one of the causes of her stress as of late.

yet suddenly, now that yoo jimin was out of the picture...

wonyoung was glad that the locker room didn't seem like a battlefield anymore.

"i see the hickeys haven't faded." yujin snickered, her face now littered in fading bruises, and the cut on her eyebrow and lip healing nicely.

wonyoung blushed. as much as she hated jimin, part of her wished that she would pop up to shut yujin up.

"do you have to mention that every time?"

her fingers traced over the marks on her neck, wonyoung's face burning as she remembered the hours with y/n, alone in her dorm room. she knew it was a goodbye, the older girl's fleeting touches a reminder of y/n's worsening mental state, and wonyoung's inability to do anything.

wonyoung shook her head. now wasn't the right time, not when yonsei was here.

yujin nodded as if what wonyoung said was already a known fact. "absolutely."

"you shouldn't even be talking to me, unnie." wonyoung mumbled. "coach said no talking with the members."

yujin pouted, slumping down next to gaeul who was currently listening to her pregame playlist. the taller girl wrapped her arm around her girlfriend, trying not to sulk.

she knew that she was single-minded. all of her thoughts were about volleyball and gaeul. although she finally got to talk to her girlfriend again, yujin was dying to play.

besides, she was the captain.

"well," she huffed, gaeul rubbing her back to calm her down. "coach said me and jimshit can sit on the bench today, so i think i'm off probation."

wonyoung shook her head as she laced up her shoes. "is that what you told gaeul-unnie?"

yujin sulked more, and wonyoung couldn't help but wonder how gaeul managed to put up with her for her entire probation.

(wonyoung always seemed to have found yujin outside the building right after practices, quite literally kicking rocks.)

the door swung open, coach seulgi glancing around as the girls huddled. everyone knew who she was looking for, a certain raven-haired, rage-fueled demon nowhere to be found.

seulgi knew what to expect. the season was tough on her star players and the inner conflict between her team, but she hoped that jimin was still that girl she had heard about so long ago.

after all, she accepted this position to work with yoo 'the ace of korea' jimin.

"girls," she smacked her coach board as she sat, garnering their attention. "i know you all probably have nerves, especially since two of our players are gone-"

"nothing we haven't dealt with before, coach seul." yena puffed out her chest, and everyone could see the uncanny resemblance between her and a certain semi-aquatic bird.

"don't call me that." seulgi shook her head, watching as chaeryeong hit yena's shoulder. "look, we've played against yonsei. we know that they're the only team this year that has a good roster with great plays and a good coach. we've went through their playbook, their rotations, and i know we're down two, but we have something they don't have."

jinsol's hand shot up in the air, an aura of seriousness clouding her. "the power of friendship?"

hikaru, thankfully, lowered the taller girl's hand.

"do any of us look like colorful horses?" hanni couldn't believe that jinsol was her best friend.

"they were ponies, actually." haewon interrupted, her voice monotone. the words flew out of her mouth, but the stares of her teammates made it register almost immediately. "what?"

like usual, seulgi ignored them. she was used to their liveliness, anyway. "we have resilience. we have brains and brawn."

yunjin pointed to her left. "jinsol has a 2.0 gpa."

"enough about my gpa."

"don't let your nerves get to you out there, okay?" seulgi scolded, pointing at all of them (but more specifically, wonyoung). "i know it's easier said than done, but you need to look out for each other. remember that it's my job to yell, and yours to play."

"aye, aye, coach."

seulgi rolled her eyes, yena's voice loud and clear. she was gonna miss the older girl, but she hoped that this year, she'd pass her classes so seulgi would never have to see her again.

that is, unless yena decided to pursue volleyball beyond university.

a shiver went down her spine.

shaking the thought off, her gaze moved to wonyoung. her eyebrow raised at the faded marks on her neck, but the coach was just glad that wonyoung had enough decency to try to hide it (unlike other members on the team).

"any words for us, cap?"

wonyoung looked at yujin, who stared back at her. she frowned and looked around the room before remembering that she was the fill-in.

"oh." she cleared her throat. wonyoung wracked her brain for anything she could think of, but she was never the leading type. she never understood how yujin could do it so effortlessly. "um, i know this year has been hard for us, more than others... but we've gotten this far. even if we don't win, we've learned from this. our team is smarter than theirs, stronger."

she didn't think they would win. they needed yujin, and although she hated to admit it, they needed jimin. aside from herself, they had lost the top two scorers on their team. they had lost yujin, their all-rounder, and jimin, their star player. sure, yunjin was back, but with her being out for sixty percent of the season, it wasn't enough.

yonsei had everyone. they had the fifth and eighth-ranked hitters on their team, and a competent setter with an amazing playbook. their defense, from what she remembered last game, was near impenetrable. even their coach was an olympian, much like seulgi.

they had barely won, and that was with yujin and jimin.

yet with all the odds stacked against wonyoung, she couldn't help but feel excited for what was to come.

with a soft smile, wonyoung spoke.

"it's a win either way for me."

y/n thought the drums during the last suma versus yonsei game was bad, but somehow, this was so much worse.

everything was brighter, louder than before. the crowd littered with painted faces, a distinguishable divide between red and blue. the signs were bigger this time, and from where she stood, she could see at least a dozen shirtless men on the yonsei stands.

('what's wrong, suma? scared? jealous?')

behind her, loud yells could be heard, chants of 'vicky' and 'yawnsei' being shoved into her ears. y/n didn't mind the 'yawnsei' part. in fact, if she weren't so busy dying from overheating, she'd join in.

she just wished those stupid 'vicky' fangirls would stop chanting wonyoung's name over and over again.

the lights dimmed, the first few players coming out, wonyoung being one of them.

suddenly, the shrieking got louder, and y/n couldn't help but roll her eyes.

she was thankful for uchinaga aeri, and y/n was genuinely excited to sit next to wonyoung's long-time friend. aeri was caring and was the reason why y/n was even functioning at this point.

she just wished aeri didn't pick a spot close to the 'vicky' fanclub, even if her friend was in the group.

y/n took a sip of her water, her eyes never leaving wonyoung's figure.

she couldn't help but smile as the volleyball player looked her way. it quickly faded, however, the fan club behind her suddenly begging for wonyoung's hand in marriage.

y/n grumbled. "so annoying."

aeri and alex glanced at each other, their eyes meeting knowingly.

aeri snickered, nudging the young actress. "you only think they're annoying because they're holding cardboard cutouts of your girlfriend."

"no!" y/n tried to deny it as best as she could, but she knew her face betrayed her. it didn't help that she remembered some random girl with a 'vicky' necklace.

she took a breath, the atmosphere of the gym heightening her already intense emotions for wonyoung. y/n didn't have a right of feel this way, to act as if her love meant something when she herself didn't mean anything to wonyoung anymore.

"she's not my girlfriend."

still, wonyoung was a past that y/n would live over and over again if she could.

yuri, who hadn't been listening much to whatever the hell was going on, scanned the team as they gathered at the bench. she could see yujin clear as day. the girl looked taut, obviously frustrated but keeping sane.

"damn it." yuri groaned, fishing out a thousand won bill. "jimin's not on the bench."

"told you that ass wouldn't show." alex took the bill out of yuri's hand, smirking lightly as she high-fived aeri.

"wait a second." chaewon took a closer look at wonyoung, noticing some... odd shadows. "are those hickeys on wonyoung's neck?"

all of them: rei, jiwon, yuri, minju, chaewon, alex, and aeri, glanced at y/n. most of them already knew what happened, being told one way or another. it was just funny to focus on the evidence instead of the truth.

"what?" y/n covered her neck. it felt hot, a blush creeping up. "what?"

minju rolled her eyes, turning her gaze back onto the sea of blue. she was proud of y/n decision. it just took her by surprise that the younger girl wasn't jumping at the chance to get back with wonyoung.

ever since she's known y/n, she was always wonyoung's. her l/n y/n. minju's impression never changed, even when y/n was with jimin.

the stands across from them moved in unison. it looked like an optical illusion, their blue shirts, sweaters, and face paint making it hard to distinguish one from another. the only thing minju could differentiate from the crowd was the cutouts of the yonsei players.

the crowd moved to stand as yonsei's captain began to speak.

almost immediately, minju's eyes shot to the top left, a hidden corner that no one would notice. that is, if they stood up.

minju nudged yuri from beside her, gesturing to where she was looking at.

they could see it, them. a pair of bored, hatred-filled eyes stared into the court, into wonyoung while another scoured through suma's stands, searching for something.

jiwon followed their gaze, landing on the couple(?).

"is that jimin?"

rei rubbed her shoulder as the younger kim flinched at her own words, not used to the lack of formality. it wasn't that jimin deserved respect, of course not. she knew that jiwon was too nice for her own good.

maybe that's why she loved her so much.

"with her hand on minjeong's waist? yeah." yuri muttered, huddling closer to the kim's and away from y/n. she didn't want to remind her of jimin, after all. "that freak is insane."

minju looked at her girlfriend, the reminders of what she and jimin did lingering. she told no one what she woke up to the night after they confronted minjeong. she didn't even tell chaewon.

even though she deleted it, the videos were still engrained in her mind. it was a copious amount of videos, all of which she watched through.

she knew that her and chaewon weren't together then. minju knew they had technically broken up. yet, as irrational as it was, she just wanted chaewon to wait for her to get better.

she shook her head. minju didn't want to think about that, but would rather listen to her girlfriend's conversation.

"so," chaewon smiled at y/n. sue her for being nosy. "since you and wonyoung have matching love bites, i'm guessing that means you two are back together?"

"no." y/n shook her head. "we aren't."

"huh?" yuri's head perked up. y/n, like always, never updated the group chat when she needed to. granted, yuri was throwing every threat under the sun at minjeong at any given moment, but she would've paused to catch up with her friends. "that's stupid as hell."

minju elbowed her. "yuri."

"what?" yuri glared at her friend. "those idiots love each other."

y/n burned a bright red once more. her love was plain as day, as clear as snow. it burned proudly, even to the point where it was willing to consume anyone in its way.

"it was my decision." y/n wasn't gonna let it burn wonyoung, not if she could help it. "i wasn't gonna put wonyoung through all my hurt."

"you two could've worked through it, like me and yena."

"maybe." y/n looked onto the court, smiling as wonyoung goofed off. she hadn't been like that since the beginning of freshman year. "but i'd rather miss her than hurt her, even if it's by accident."

minju looked at chaewon.

oh.

wonyoung didn't know how long that stupid ball had been up in the air.

it hadn't even reached the first kill, yet somehow, yonsei had managed to get a rally going. their libero had managed to barely receive chaeryeong's jump serve, giving suma a free ball.

gaeul immediately knew that wonyoung wanted it. she could feel her demeanor change, but it was something she's never seen before. it was ravenous, just like jimin had been. wonyoung seemed to have the sharpness that she's always lacked, the ferocity.

yet this was different from jimin's.

the ace was bound by her rage. her obsession with being the yoo jimin, of having something to prove to her dad everyone weighed on her like chains.

wonyoung seemed free.

gaeul set the ball.

it was too high. her nerves got to her. the lack of yujin's presence, of her lover and of her captain, got to her. she felt it the moment the leather left her fingertips, her arms too taut. the numbness turned cold as her fingers buzzed.

still, wonyoung somehow managed to reach it.

the ball rocketed, nearly straight down. it hurled and before wonyoung could blink, yonsei's libero managed to get under it, tossing it up into the air.

another free ball, in favor of suma.

yet again, they did the same thing. this time, gaeul had set up yunjin.

received again.

a setter dump.

received again... and again, and again.

suma couldn't keep the energy up, and soon, by sheer exhaustion, the ball was spiked out of bounds by wonyoung herself.

she could practically hear jimin taunting her in the crowd as the whistle blew. the chants to her left got louder, the sea of blue ridiculing her.

wonyoung took a breath.

they weren't losing too badly.

after the first set went to yonsei, suma managed to bounce back with two in a row. although close, 25-23 and 27-25 respectively, a win was still a win.

unfortunately, yonsei had switched to a different setup. from all the footage they had watched, yonsei had never fully committed all their best defensive players at one time until now. they had always been known for their attack, even with their amazing defense.

they had managed to lock wonyoung down, always ensuring that three blockers were in front of her at all times. somehow, they jumped higher than before, but that only meant one thing to wonyoung.

she had to jump higher.

still, it took an entire set to adjust, to find her rhythm once more.

2-2, suma and yonsei tied.

wonyoung listened to the ball as one of the yonsei players (one she's sure gaeul had hooked up with multiple times) dribbled, getting ready to serve. the outside hitter glanced at the score, sweat dripping down her neck.

29-30, in favor of yonsei.

she glanced back onto the ball, digging her feet into the ground as a loud smack permeated the crowded gym. wonyoung's heart was pumping, her nerves somehow more tired than her legs.

the ball went over her head, straight into haewon's arms. she could see the bruises starting to form on her teammate's forearms.

she felt sluggish, yet she still took a step back. her feet were firmly placed on the attack line, arms back and ready to jump.

gaeul, despite the soreness accumulating in her shoulders, set wonyoung a bit higher than usual. she knew that she could reach it, that she was willing to. wonyoung wasn't gonna go down without a fight, even if that meant ripping her muscles apart.

wonyoung slams her hand onto the ball, feeling it rip through yonsei's trembling hands.

it was perfect, it should've been, but that stupid libero, the one that always seemed to bait out wonyoung's most powerful spikes, reaches out for it. it barely touches her flat hand on the ground, sending the ball flying on the very edge of the net.

both sides watch as it threatens to fall. both sides pray for a break, for a second to gather their thoughts. they want - need - it to drop on the other side.

the ball tips, and everyone scrambles to get it up.

but they were too tired.

the whistle blows, and a heaviness enters wonyoung.

29-31.

she'd never tell the girls, but wonyoung had fun losing.

of course, she'd prefer to win. all the pain and hard work made it worth it, and she would've loved to hold the trophy up with her teammates. sure, it would've been made of cheap plastic, but at least it was shiny.

still, the lack of expectation: a place without her parents' watchful eyes, without yoo jimin hounding her for every mistake she made...

wonyoung had forgotten how fun volleyball could be.

(she also forgot how emotional it could get. an example: hanni currently crying in the change room as coach seulgi tried to console her.)

wonyoung stepped out of victor's hall, trying to ignore the stares that some of the suma body was giving her.

"unnie!"

wonyoung turned around, a slightly shorter girl, one with the same smile as her, approached. she carried a baby blue banner, her face plastered onto it haphazardly.

'go wonyoung-unnie!'

she smiled, waving at the older woman with puppy dog eyes that followed behind her.

"hyunseo." wonyoung hugged the younger girl, warmth spreading through her chest. "you came."

hyunseo nodded, waving her arms animatedly. "yeojin-unnie managed to convince our parents as long as she gives me a good word to snu's dean."

"of course they did." wonyoung smiled at yujin's sister. "hi, unnie."

"hey." yeojin patted her shoulder. it was weird seeing wonyoung look so grown up. "great game, wonyoung. i'm sorry that you lost."

surprisingly, wonyoung wasn't as upset as she thought she would have been. she was used to the guilt and incompetence brewing in her stomach, but whether it was the joy of her baby sister watching or the fact that she was still reeling from the goodbye with y/n, wonyoung didn't know.

"it's okay." the volleyball player shrugged, ruffling hyunseo's hair. hyunseo pushed her off. "we would've won if the circumstances were different."

"yeah, if yujin wasn't getting in random fights." yeojin couldn't believe her little sister. "where is that loser anyway?"

"with her girlfriend."

yeojin paused. yujin never mentioned a girlfriend before.

"she didn't tell you?" wonyoung tilted her head as she wiped her face. "gaeul-unnie-"

"kim gaeul?!" yeojin's eyes widened. her nearly failing, jock of a sister was dating the daughter of two of the most renowned lawyers in korea? "how the hell did yujin manage to pull her? she's got the brain of a mutt! yujin's gonna water down her brain cells!"

wonyoung didn't want to agree (but deep down she did). "yujin-unnie's gotten better, i think."

"whatever." yeojin shook her head. "where are they?"

she blushed, not wanting to think about the fact that they were most likely in some stall a mere ten meters away from them.

"just, um..." wonyoung cleared her throat. "give them a moment to themselves."

"oh."

hyunseo looked at her older sister curiously before wonyoung shook her head. hyunseo was bound to learn it in school if she hadn't already, wonyoung was not about to teach her.

"wonnie."

wonyoung spun around at the speed of light. her brain registered the voice before she did, but she didn't mind. she'd never pass up an opportunity to not speak to y/n.

"y/nnie?" wonyoung grinned, her heart fluttering. "hey."

she wondered throughout the game whether y/n was watching. after all, she had never missed one of wonyoung's games. granted, she was dating someone on the team, but wonyoung had the right to be a little delusional.

it didn't help much now, though. they both knew it was over (for now).

"you played amazing." y/n handed her an ice pack. "for your knee."

some things never changed.

"right." wonyoung grabbed it gently, awkwardly holding it as hyunseo pushed past her.

"y/n-unnie!"

hyunseo had met y/n a couple of times, wonyoung introducing her as her 'friend'. she wasn't stupid, she saw the heart eyes they gave each other, and the subtle hand holding.

"hi, hyunnie." y/n squeezed her lightly, pulling back. last year, hyunseo was only a centimeter taller than her. now, she was nearly wonyoung's height. "wow... you've gotten tall."

"i have." hyunseo smirked, glancing at her older sister. wonyoung rolled her eyes. "the doctors say i'll be taller than wonyoung-unnie one day."

"i can see it."

the actress glanced at wonyoung. even after everything, y/n couldn't help but notice how adorable the taller girl was.

"hyunseo, me and y/n are gonna talk, okay?" wonyoung looked at yeojin for help, the older ahn nodding and ushering hyunseo away. "i'll meet you guys out front after."

"okay."

hyunseo gave her one last hug before wonyoung moved her and y/n back into victor's hall.

y/n stared at the ice pack, the athlete leaning against the wall as it melted in her hands.

"you played well," she whispered, fiddling with her fingers.

"you say that every time." wonyoung could feel the water forming inside the bag, albeit slowly. "we lost, y'know?"

she didn't know what she was talking about anymore, but it certainly didn't feel like it was volleyball.

"i know." y/n smiled, and she felt as if this was the last time she would ever smile at wonyoung. "but that's not on you. you did your best."

her best didn't get her the girl back.

no matter how hard she tried, so many things were out of her power. she didn't have control of how people perceived her, of how people felt about her. she couldn't control her teammates' conditions, nor their injuries.

in some way or another, she was always gonna be imperfect.

"did i?"

she hoped that somewhere in the future, she could live with it.

"you did." y/n was always so sure of her. she never doubted wonyoung in the ways she doubted herself. "you did amazing. you're amazing."

the actress looked into her eyes, watching her as if she were an old video. a tape that she finally found once more after months of searching.

the air tasted bittersweet. it smelt stale, and sweat clung to both their backs like the lingering hope they both felt for the future, for them.

it was familiar, wonyoung's red sweater, y/n's loving smile.

maybe wonyoung needed a break from familiarity, too.

"y/nnie, why are you here?" her voice came out scratchy, her throat parched from both nervousness and exhaustion. "i thought you said no to us dating again."

the ice pack continued to melt, wonyoung's hand stinging so cold that it felt warm. the trophy case reflected her image, her eyes clear as they looked back at her.

her gaze moved back to y/n, tiredness tingling up her spine.

she was sure y/n could feel it too.

"i just wanted to cheer you on one more time." for the last time, they both knew. "give you ice for old times' sake."

wonyoung felt something different wash over her. it wasn't heartbreak, she had felt that before, nor was it love.

it felt like... gratitude. that wonyoung was grateful for y/n, for teaching her how love felt like. for hurting her, for loving her, for hating her.

it felt like the end.

"thank you for the ice, y/nnie." wonyoung smiled. "i'll see you around?"

"around sounds nice."

masterlist | next

taglist (CLOSED)!!

@moontealemonpie @rikisgeef @cutieseo @limbforalimb @ahnneyong @yumtooki @lcv3lies @sserajeans @jiwoneiric @blue4hour @trsrina @xyxlyn @misumiausworld @awkwardtoafault @d7dream @slowlyturninggay291 @perfectsunlight @juhyunsthirdwife @uzumakioden @txtbrainrot @rosiehrs @wlwgirlsworld @skisk1 @bzeus28 @deeznutzryu @jisooftme @jihyostolemyheart @li0ilthecxnt @eggomi @ddoxhan @zhivaxo @sweet-dhrafts @bearseulgs @marimo-anura @wonyoluvr @serenitygrace24 @ddeonutz @noiacha @livelaughchoerry @yunnybunnyy @ivy-aurora

#jang wonyoung x reader #ive x reader #iz*one x reader #izone x reader #silantryo #silantryoo #wlw #kpop x reader #idol x reader

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makethosenarratorsfight · 1 year

Text

UNRELIABLE NARRATORS; SEMI FINALS

*NOTE; propaganda is out of order due to the post length!

Eugenides Propaganda:

the entire plot hinges on a detail he lets the reader (and every other character) assume is true. I don't want to spoil it because it's a really fun reveal but he is lying from the first second he appears on the page and you can't trust him to tell the full truth about ANYTHING related to himself and his goals. he mostly does it to keep his advantage and not have other characters be suspicious of him but it's just so fun when you realise he's been lying the whole time

Kim Dokja Propaganda:

I haven't read orv but he's fucking gotta be from what I've osmosised

He tries to remove his emotions out of the narrative soooo much, literally the most repressed guy ever. Okay so for context orv is about how this guy, Kim Dokja, has been the only reader of an obscure post-apocalyptic webnovel for years and the novel suddenly becomes reality. And at first you'll probably get the weird impression that his behavior is pretty strange for, you know, a literal apocalypse happening in his world - like yes, he is concerned with survival but he doesn't seem all that scared and he kinda treats it like a video game where he has to grind to make himself stronger and he also treats his companions like a party in an rpg. Then there's also the way he approaches the protagonist of the webnovel, from the start he just kind of describes him as a ruthless psychopath and jerk that is unfortunately a pretty useful ally. And also there's the fact that he carefully omits any mention of his past and when somebody asks if he's worried about his family when the apocalypse starts he just kinda... brushes it off? Anyway so yeah, this bastard is definitely traumatized, although I don't know how much of spoiler territory that would be, considering the fact that literally when he first reveals his trauma he's also unreliable about it. And turns out he does indeed, care A LOT about this world and the people around him. Because well, he kinda didn't care to mention that this webnovel that has become reality was like... literally his whole world before it literally became his whole world. Like, it was the only thing keeping him going for 10+ years and the protagonist that he likes to call a stupid jerk was his comfort character who he pretended to be when he felt like he couldn't handle something in his life by being himself. The protagonist is also canonically the person he loves the most according to a prophecy and he literally can't fathom the thought of him dying, even the timeline versions of him that directly oppose him. And I haven't even mentioned the Fourth Wall yet but I feel like this propaganda is a little long already

misreading the intentions of his companion (yoo joonghyuk) so many time.

YOU DON'T UNDERSTANDDD DOKJA IS SUCH A UNRELIABLE NARRATORRRRRR GOD I COULD WRITE AN ESSAY BUT I KNOW YOU LOVE DOKJA TOO BUT OMG HE'S JUST SO AAAAAAAAAAAH

Rest of Propaganda under cut!

he is the worst like actually. he starts the story talking about how normal and average he is. he is not. he is constantly mischaracterizing his friends and he's so good at lying to the readers that you don't even realize it at first. almost every single time he cries we have to be told by other characters because he never says it himself. there is literally a scene where his narration says "i wasn't crying" and then the in-universe entity that narrates the actions of people (orv is really weird and meta) says that he was, in fact, crying. honestly genuinely anything he says about himself (or doesn't say) cannot be trusted. he is just so frustrating. he drives me mad. i love him dearly. but he drives me so mad.

Dictionary definition of unreliable narrator. Does not tell the reader anything and then things happen and he's like oh yeah btw there was also this and this earlier but i just didn't feel like mentioning it. There's even a thing called the "Fourth Wall" that is able to see through kdj's bs so occasionally you get gems like,

Kim Dokja: I didn't cry

The Fourth Wall: [Kim Dokja was crying]

Imagine being so unreliable as a narrator you need a more powerful narrator to call out the actual narrator.

^ same submission, just spacing it out

This goes into spoiler territory, but; Kim Dokja is in possession of a skill called the Fourth Wall, which on the surface seems like it appears because he read the book that reverse-isekai’d into his own. However, as the story goes on it becomes clear that it’s pretty much a souped up version of his pre-existing dissociation. You cannot trust him to be honest about his feelings, his past traumas or his feelings about his past traumas, not to mention his tendency to just outright omit information that only gets revealed later on either when it becomes relevant or when an outsider POV reveals what’s actually happening.

Exhibit A: he says (in 1st person POV) that he’s not crying. The Fourth Wall immediately contradicts this (as it is literally words of the novel) by saying (in 3rd person POV) ‘Kim Dokja was crying’.

Exhibit B: Fails to mention entire actions when it shows him emotionally honest even in the slightest; we had to read from another character entirely when Kim Dokja was being physically affectionate with his companion. It’s so bad that there’s this entire paragraph about Kim Dokja describing himself hiding his eyes in his hands in jerky, weirdly specific detail and just AVOIDING EVERY WORD THAT MIGHT SHOW HE’S CRYING. The brilliance of ORV is that when you re-read the entire thing you get hints that ‘yes, this WAS hinted at the entire time’ but you have to dig it out of Kim Dokja’s repressed, depressed self-hating internal dialogue with your own two hands.

^ same submission, spacing it out (i really should've done this earlier.)

i am a simple man (not a man). i see a tumblr text post with the words “unreliable narrator in it”. i read nothing else. i reblog & tag #kim dokja okay but in all seriousness i’m just going with the musty basic example: so there’s this moment where he sacrifices himself to save this guy. as he lays on the ground bleeding out, he says “hey, you don’t like me, right? you should kill me to get some money” the guy says “no kim dokja i cant do that (going through the five stages of grief except there’s only one and it’s anger)” the constellations (twitch viewers irl) are like omg he (the guy) doesn’t want to kill his companion (kim dokja) and shower him (the guy) with money kim dokja: oh, he’s not killing me for the money. smart!

as i quote a brilliant youtube video (all of omniscient reader’s viewpoint in 6 minutes) “yoo joonghyuk sees kim dokja as a c_____”

yoo joonghyuk: companion

kim dokja: cunt

^ same submission, once again. spacing it out.

Hides his true feelings, tells the readers what he thinks is convenient for the plot and that his own personal feelings don’t matter or are not so significant. Has unreliable thoughts abt his companion and is a liar. And is also an omniscient reader.

Kim Dokja always perceived his companions in this like nonchalant way like “oh yeah we get along but really we’re just fighting to survive (apocalypse setting) it doesn’t run that deep” when they all do genuinely care for him and he does in turn. He just, doesn’t think of it as an equal relationship? Dokja’ll sacrifice a lot for them but will get seriously flabbergasted if they do the same thing, so fricking problematic. Not to mention Yoo Joonghyuk, his “Life and Death Companion” (read: husband). Kim Dokja always seems to think that Joonghyuk has it out for him, which is kinda true, but he is literally blind to the fact that he’s attached to him. Like, it’s so obvious??? Also they have hella sexual tension but that’s another thing entirely

se get some many pov changes where kdj in his pov just assumed things based on what he knew the characters would do. however because of his interference the characters have changed and he wouldn’t know that if it hit him in the face

He's an unreliable narrator because he lies to himself and thus the audience. He literally rewrote his own childhood core memory. If someone says, "this guy is my friend!" He will go through so many hoola hoops in his mind just to rationalize it. Because he fundamentally believe that no one could love him and even if they did they couldn't know him and he's just gonna hurt them. He cries sometimes in canon but a lot of those times it's not even mentioned as crying he's that unreliable of a narrator. No joke, one time this guys he has a gay thing with called him his "companion" to someone who had just killed him (long story) and this bitch thought "oh wow he's doing it for the coins (another long story) he's so smart i wish I'd thought to that. He's terrible. He literally has an exchange with something called the Fourth Wall (an even longer story) where it said "you're crying" and he said "no I'm not" but he was crying. He makes me insane because the reader is supposed to project onto him. He made me see how much of an unreliable narrator I WAS. ORV is just like that tho.

#kim dokja #kdj #orv #omniscient readers viewpoint #once again #if kdj gets this poll blacklisted again im blowing him up #eugenides #the queens thief #queens thief #unreliable narrators battle #unreliable narrators #polls #semi finals

607 notes · View notes

shintaru · 3 months

Text

characters I’ll write for + tags ~ prompt list

Who wants to be tagged for which characters when I post the finished project?

Fic REQUESTS CLOSED

Windbreaker:

Juwan Jang 🦈 TJ

Yumi

Kazuma Takeda

Sung kwon Monster @jesusownsme @cozyunderworld

Mahon Jo

Humming bird

Jo Jay @ankita607

Junsu Lee / June Lee

Minu yoon

Shelly Scott Dom kang @cozyunderworld @samuelseowife

Sabbath

Hyuk Kwon @inosukehana Wooin yoo @cozyunderworld Vinny hong @ankita607Joker (Hajun) @cozyunderworld @inosukehana

Light Calvary

Owen knight @catsrkool @rossesnd Camilla Nelson

Harry shepherd

Chris D’ Char ~ @rossesnd @cozyunderworld @inosukehana

Noah Austin

League of street

Sangho Choi @cozyunderworld @koiiiiijiii Hwangyeon Choi @koiiiiijiii

Juwon ryu

Kazuma

Kenji ikusaba

Kaneshiro Takeda Ryohei Hachijō Hyōma Nagase

Lookism:

Daniel Park @koiiiiijiii Vasco @koiiiiijiii Jay Hong @koiiiiijiii Zack Lee @koiiiiijiii Jace Park @koiiiiijiii Jiho Park @koiiiiijiii Mary Kim Vin Jin @koiiiiijiii Jaegyeon Na @koiiiiijiii Samuel Seo @vynnyll @samuelseowife @koiiiiijiii @dessmq Eli Jang @koiiiiijiii Johan Seong Jong Gun @vynnyll @koiiiiijiii Joon Goo @koiiiiijiii Jake Kim @vynnyll @koiiiiijiii DG @eugueen @koiiiiijiii Eugene @koiiiiijiii Ryūhei/Nōmen @koiiiiijiii Magami kenta @koiiiiijiii Seonji Yukcho @koiiiiijiii Cho Yisu @koiiiiijiii Cheon taejin @koiiiiijiii gongseob ji @koiiiiijiii gapryong Kim @koiiiiijiii jinyeong park @koiiiiijiii

Jinx:

Jaekyung Kim dan Heesung Yoon gu Baek Junmin

Kuroko’s basketball:

Tetsuya Kuroko Taiga Kagami @cozyunderworld Junpei Hyūga Teppei Kiyoshi Ryōta Kise Yukio Kasamatsu Shintarō Midorima Kazunari Takao Daiki Aomine @cozyunderworld Shōichi Imayoshi Atsushi Murasakibara @cozyunderworld Tatsuya Himuro Seijūrō Akashi Reo Mibuchi Makoto Hanamiya Kotarō Hayama Katsunori Harasawa Chihiro Mayuzumj momoi satsuki Alex Garcia

Naruto:

Gaara @aishabbbb kankuro Sasuke @aishabbbb itachi @aishabbbb Kakashi hatake jiraiya Sai Pain sasori orachimaru

blue lock:

Michael Kaiser shidou Ryusei Meguru Bachira Rensuke Kunigami Yoichi Isagi Ryosuke Kira Zantetsu Tsurugi Reo Mikage Seishiro Nagi Rin itoshi Sae itoshi Jinpachi Ego pablo cavazos ikki Niko Akira Endoji Jin Kiyora Jingo Raichi Oliver Aiku

one piece:

Luffy @ydkm00 Sanji @hi3431 Zoro Law @nah-idwin Eustass Kid Boa Hancock Nami Nico Robin Shanks Portgas D’Ace Vivi Nefertari Crocodile Smoker Donquixote Doflamingo Paulie Dracule Mihawk Koby Pell Hina Sabo Katekuri Koala Perona corazon

Bsd:

Osamu Dazai Chuya Nakahara Saigiku Jouno Atsushi Nakajima Doppo Kunikida Ranpo Edogawa Poe Bram Stoker Ryuunosuke Akutagawa

Hell’s paradise:

Gabimaru Aza chobe Aza Toma Yamada Asaemon Shugen Yamada Asaemon Sagiri Yamada Asaemon, Tenza Yamada Asaemon, Shion Yuzuriha

Haikyuu:

Miya atsumu @cozyunderworld Miya osamu Aran ojiro Semi Eita Suna Ushijima wakatoshi Tendou Oikawa toru Tanaka Mad dog kyotani Kentarou Kunimi Akira Bokuto Koutarou Akaashi Keiji daishou suguru Nishinoya Kuroo tetsuro Kenma Kageyama tobio Hinata shoyo Tsukkishima kei Terushima yuji Kita Hoshiumi Yamakoto Lev haiba Haiba Hiroo

jjk:

Gojo Choso Toji Yuta Sukuna Naoya that one hot guy with the mask Nanami

Hsr:

Boothill

Genshin:

Aether Childe ZHONGLI scaramouche Kaveh alhaithum

Windbreaker anime:

Burning kabaddi:

@duaajpeg Tatsuya Yoigoshi Kei lura Masato ojo Shinji date Ren takaya Manabu Sakura Yu eikura Yuuki hitomi

Bleach:

Grimmjow Ichigo Renji

Black clover:

Langris vaude Leopald Julius Vangeance Yuno Nozel Asta Luck Magna Klaus Jack Zora

Outer banks:

Rafe JJ Pope

Batman:

Bruce Wayne (bale) Dr. crane (cillian)

Harry Potter:

Draco Voldemort Fred George Harry

Suicide Squad:

Joker (Leto) Harley (Margot)

Jojo’s bizarre adventure:

Dio

Narancia

Anasui

Giorinni

Josuke

#windbreaker webtoon #windbreaker x reader #windbreaker #lookism webtoon #lookism #lookism x reader #jinx #jinx bl #kuroko no basket #knb x reader #Spotify

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bytedykes · 6 months

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[ID: Colorful ORV sketches, drawn with a semi-opaque marker brush so the colors layer. The first drawing is Han Sooyoung smiling, cheekily holding one of her hands on her cheek. The second is a 3/4 sketch of Yoo Joonghyuk with a neutral expression. Both drawings use only red, yellow, and blue. /end ID]

i love women 🥰

#ok this is the last thing im posting tn <3 #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #han sooyoung #yoo joonghyuk #kind of obsessed with sooyoung here shes soooo #nik art #misc #eyestrain

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yukkoarts · 1 year

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Dear Reader

#semi realistic art #omniscient reader point of view #kim dokja #orv kim dokja #orv fanart #yoo joonghyuk #orv kdj #orv omniscient reader's view point #digital artist #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv yjh #kdj x yjh #yjh

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chunghasweetie · 4 months

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𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍 | P.JM 2

— pairing | femceo!oc x ceo!pjm

— summary | yoo jangmi (oc aka you) is a highly successful independent ceo of YooMi Beauty, one of the most popular beauty brands of the century. jamgi’s rival company Park Enterprises owned by the even more famous park jimin. her and park jimin were enemies from the start. (but after each argument he’s lowk hard lol and he has a lil crush on her). only thing that’s stopping jimin from making a move on her is her boyfriend, minhyuk. but he’ll take care of him real soon.

— warning | bad writing, slow burn (i’m annoying), secret relationships (oc’s bsf has the hots for jk), cruel humor (oc acts hard to get), fluff, cheating (jimin won’t give up on this girl), relationship abuse, abuselight stalking, lying, toxic relationships, smut, aggression, irrational behavior, misogyny, derogatory comments (oc’s bf is a DICK), rudeness

— smut | pussy eating, light dirty talk, unprotected sex, semi public sex, semi rough sex

— word count | 8.04k words

— song suggestion | dream of you — chungha

Jangmi, Minhyuk, and a guest of her choice had been invited to a gala tonight hosted by none other than Park Enterprises.

He didn't mention anything of the sort when they hung out, so it was a bit of a surprise when her secretary read out the email.

"Are you ladies ready?" The driver asked the girls, seeing that they were making final touches on their hair.

"Yes!" Yeri clapped her hands together, grabbing their purses. "Did you bring your extra lip liner?"

"It's in my purse. I kept my compact in your purse if that's fine." Jangmi and Yeri headed out of the van, thanking the driver on their way out.

The girls walked towards to entrance of the venue, arms linked together.

The inside was gorgeous, almost like how you'd imagine the inside of a castle.

"Is this what it's like on Bridgerton?" Yeri gasped, looking around.

"This could almost pass as the Paris Opera House" Jangmi looked around, almost every detail catching her eye.

The scenery was beautiful and she felt as if Jimin really took the concept of a gala so serious.

"Imagine if we never read the dress code." Yeri laughed, swaying her dress back and forth.

It was required of the girls to participate in ballroom etiquette. The big dresses and the excruciatingly painful heels.

Jangmi wore a black ball gown, sequins colored gold with gold trimming. She looked ravishing. All eyes were on her and Yeri, who wore a beautiful yellow gown.

"Wait." Jangmi stopped in her tracks. "Minhyuk."

"He's not coming." A soft voice spoke, startling the girls.

"My apologies!" Secretary Jeon bowed to them. "I couldn't help but overhear. Mr. Lee rejected our invitation, unfortunately. I came to inform you that Mr. Park is actually running a bit late tonight. He shall join us momentarily."

He couldn't be serious. Minhyuk had told Jangmi he'd meet them there.

Could've been the wrong Minhyuk. There are plenty.

He did say Lee.

Secretary Jeon bowed once more, then went on his way.

"Hm, he's a bit on the softer side." Jangmi spoke out.

"Wow." Is all Yeri could mutter out.

She was love-struck. The guy had approached them even though there were hundreds in the room. Sure he was ordered to, but he did it!

"Yeri."

He was exactly like she remembered. A bit nerdy, but a very cute man.

"Yeri."

His voice was like paradise. Such a soft voice for such a beautiful man.

"Kim Yeri!"

"What?!" She shrieked, causing some heads to turn in their direction.

"There's no way you're really already fantasizing about him." Jangmi snorted, teasing the girl.

"Like I told you before." Yeri huffed. "It's love at first sight. Of course, he didn't see me this time but he will by the end of the night. I'll make sure of it."

"Whatever you say. Let's drink!" Jangmi cheered.

༊—

"This is disgusting."

"You're telling me. I thought the more they aged the better they were." Yeri made a sour face. "Maybe we're just not mature yet."

The girls had no idea the only drinks being served would be aged red wine with fancy European names.

Something about Minhyuk's sudden bail bothered her. It wasn't unusual for him to skip events at the last minute.

Usually she'd get some sort of message ahead of time. Even if it was just a few minutes before.

She knew he didn't want to come in the first place. Both him and Jimin felt neutral about each other. Galas just weren't his thing.

He wasn't much for the party life like she was.

"I'm about to sit here and sip water for the rest of the night." Jangmi winced. She couldn't bear to take another sip of the wine.

"You're telling me. I say after this we get iced coffee." Yeri smiled cheekily, even though it wasn't the brightest idea.

"I'm sorry to bother you both but, do you think I could have a dance miss?"

Secretary Jeon.

Yeri's smile somehow grew. A deep pink blush crept up on her face as her ears burned.

She simply nodded, being put so off guard she couldn't utter out a word.

Linking his arm with hers, they strutted off together on the dance floor.

Yeri had the biggest grin plastered on her face. Throwing up a thumbs up at Jangmi, she couldn't help but chuckle.

"How cute." She mumbled to herself, scrolling on her phone.

Jangmi

Where are you?

Secretary Jeon said you didn't accept the invite

Minhyuk

Something came up.

I'm in Jakarta for a bit for work

I'll see you in a few days

Jangmi was furious. There was no way he was serious. No communication, nothing.

Just "I'll see you in a few days" As if it were nothing. As if it was a town away.

Jakarta? He can't be serious. He just left in total disregard for her. Couldn't even notify her. She had to ask him where he was.

This was getting out of hand. It's like she was begging him to communicate with her. He had no problem tracking her but when it came to him, he couldn't say shit for himself.

"You don't look happy." Jimin spoke, coming from behind her. He took a seat at the chair Yeri previously sat in. "Talk to me. What's up?"

"I don't want to talk about it." She mumbled, a irritated look on her face.

"I can already guess." He looked at her. "Considering you brought your assistant when I invited Minhyuk as well. Who from the looks of it, didn't show up."

Usually Jimin's pushy demeanor would've set her off, but not this time. He announced the obvious a lot, but she knew it was just to get her to open her mouth.

"He's just busy." She replied under her breath, defending him once more.

"Come with me, Jangmi." He reached his hand out to her. "I have a feeling you're ready to leave."

Jangmi looked up at him, holding her hand out to him hesitantly.

She couldn't just leave Yeri alone by herself.

"Don't worry about her." Jimin watched as the girls eyes scanned over her best friend. "She's in good hands, believe me."

"Are you okay if I go?" Jangmi mouthed to Yeri, who urged her to just leave already.

She wasn't too sure about going off with him, but she definitely needed some clarity. The air was getting too thick for her there.

"Just trust me." He smiled to her.

That's all she needed.

She took his hand in hers, and off they went.

༊—

"Shh! You're going to wake up my neighbors." Minhyuk helped the mysterious woman out of the car.

Minhyuk was going to Jakarta, yes. But of course it wasn't for work.

Yoona was one of the women he'd been sleeping around with. The main woman he'd spoil and crawl to in a state of lust.

Who knew states of lust lasted for months.

She was just what he liked. Unlike Jangmi, she was an obedient woman. With a high sex drive at that. Willing to do anything he'd ask. He knew well she was money hungry, but that didn't stop the growth in their relationship.

Reliable. She was there. A single message and she'd rush out the door to meet with him.

He'd stay with her for days on them. Even start meaningless fights between him and Jangmi just to go see her.

He knew well he couldn't just separate from his girlfriend. His reputation depended on her. His company was on the rocks, and the only person able to get his name out there was Jangmi herself.

He was going to use her just long enough to be stable again. Maybe propose to her if he had to. He needed the publicity.

"I want you so bad Minnie." She clung onto him. "We need this vacation so bad. How'd you manage to get so much time away from her?"

"I was lucky to even escape. She's clingy as hell." He chuckled alongside her, giving her kisses all over her neck.

Once, Jimin had been exiting his home, standing out on his porch. The loud sounds from a woman's lips startled him.

The voice came from the left side of neighbor's home. That being where Jangmi lived, he naturally looked over.

It was her boyfriend Minhyuk. But the woman he was arriving home with, was not his girlfriend.

She wasn't Jangmi.

She was taller, much slimmer. Her hair was brown, short. It wasn't the same woman he had seen him with at the club, but she had a similar style.

Bringing the mistress home is a new one. Jimin thought to himself.

A brave man was he. It's almost as if Minhyuk had no shame in bringing another woman to his used to be sacred home.

Often, he'd hear the two get into it. Random bursts of insults back and fourth.

Jangmi would scream. Begging Minhyuk not to go. To just apologize and talk it out.

Minhyuk would scream at her even louder. Insulting her. Humiliating her in front of the entire neighborhood. There were some instances where Jimin thought he'd put his hands on her.

They fought so often. He could tune it out after a few minutes. Here and there he'd watch their other neighbors approach their door, asking them to keep it down.

One called the cops.

It was clear Minhyuk had paid them off to avoid anything being leaked to the outside media.

Most likely with Jangmi’s card.

How could Jangmi put up with all of it?

It wasn't any of Jimin's business. But if his plan was going to work, he needed to watch every second.

Jimin was going to be the one for her. Although she most likely wasn't aware of Minhyuk's behind the scenes work, he was going to take care of her.

He couldn't explain the attraction he felt for her. Even since day one. He'd been denying himself of it.

The two didn't get along. Business was all they knew of each other, and that was enough to disagree with one another.

It's when he started to look forward to their arguments. He started looking up if she'd be attending the same events he would be.

She'd insult him. How it was such a turn on. Her attitude aroused him to a great extent. He was always hard after their interactions.

Jangmi was a taken woman. That was a major obstacle. She would never drop her boyfriend for a guy she was competing against.

Now that Minhyuk was openly cheating on her, it was finally his time. The moment he seen Minhyuk kissing another woman, he knew it was time to put his plan into action.

༊—

"Let's talk." He poured Jangmi a glass of rosé from his newer bottle.

Jimin offered to have Jangmi over for the night at his home while Minhyuk was away and since Yeri would be occupied with his secretary.

She could wrap her mind around her own actions. Why the hell did she feel the urge to say yes to him?

He knew she needed to rant. Just talk out all of her issues and concerns. He was a great listener, and he loved hearing her speak. So why not?

Jangmi changed back at home into her pajamas. She packed a small bag for the night and decided to take Jimin up on his offer.

Although it may have seemed like a bad idea, she was desperate.

She already felt guilty that she would constantly complain to Yeri about her issues. Yeri was all ears, but it was the same problems over and over again.

"Here's how we're going to do this." He set the bottle down. "You're going to talk my ear off and I'm going to listen. Then I'll give the best possible solution. Sound good?"

"Why do you care?" She asked him, "I haven't done anything to be rewarded with your compassion."

"You're troubled. Anyone can see it. I want to help you out because it's hard to watch you be so miserable over some guy." Jimin answered honestly.

"It bothers you?" She looked up at him.

He nodded. "You'd be surprised. I also have a degree in psychology, and I feel like using it. Now talk."

"I don't know where to start."

"Alright then." He leaned back on the couch. "Just give me a rundown of your guys's relationship in the past couple of months."

"He's been unreadable." She began, "Even the most easy going conversations end in fights. He raises his voice and I raise mine. Then he leaves before we can even resolve the issue."

"He leaves? How often?"

She sighed. "Every time. Usually he'll spend the night at a friends or his sisters house. Sometimes he'll go without warning. Like earlier— He was supposed to meet me at the gala. He let me know he was in Jakarta for a last minute business trip after I arrived. No heads up or anything."

Jakarta? He can not be this stupid. Jimin thought to himself.

Jimin knew damn well Minhyuk wasn't on a business trip. Jimin's reasoning behind his lateness earlier had something to do with Minhyuk anyway.

But he couldn't tell her that.

He couldn't tell her exactly everything just yet. It wouldn't fit into the plans he had.

"Why do you think he can't communicate with you?" Jimin questioned her.

"I tend to over exaggerate. I ask too many questions. He doesn't give me any details, so I'm left to assume." She sipped on her glass.

"As anyone would." He added, "Now is there anything he says— when he does talk to you in particular that seems to set you off?"

"I'm embarrassed to say." Jangmi swallowed, eyes rolling over to the floor.

Jimin sat up from his relaxed position, scooting closer to the girl.

"I said talk to me. Tell me the good and the bad, I want to hear everything."

And so she rambled.

"My body. The way I look." The girl breathed out. "He doesn't like it. Well he does— but only when it's convenient to him."

"Go on."

"He doesn't like the way I dress. Everything I wear is revealing. It's a problem. An embarrassment. I could make eye contact with someone that isn't him, and he could think I'm trying to seduce them. I could wear a hazmat suit and he'd accuse me of trying to show off myself. It's not fair to me. I've tried to hard."

Shit. With a body like that, showing off just came naturally. Her body was perfect, and anyone could tell no matter what she wore. But it was nothing to blame her for.

"I like to have fun. I love to party and travel whenever I can. I like to drink too. Socializing and discovering new things is something I love most. Exploring what the world has to offer is something that exites me. But in his eyes, it's just a problem. I need to grow up, think about our future instead of trying to be out running wild."

With the way she was talking, you could tell she’s been sitting with it for a minute.

She continued. "That morning I came over to your home for breakfast. He called me his whore-ish girlfriend when I got home. A daytime drinker too. I hadn't even told him I was over at another man's house either."

"And the sex. Don't even get me started on that shit. I've never came! Because of him at least. It's the same shit every time. He doesn't listen to what I want to do. It's all about him! So many nights I end up having to finish myself off."

Jimin swallowed. At least she was comfortable.

She could laugh. Hearing herself talking about her boyfriend out loud made her release how many issues the couple had.

"It's not fair to me. Why do I feel like I can never be myself in front of my own boyfriend? You're probably sick of listening. I'm sorry." The girl set the empty glass on the small table in front of them.

Jangmi felt so vulnerable in front of him. Venting to Jimin made her realize she was hurting a lot more than she thought she was.

"Has he done that much damage to you?" Jimin uttered, focusing all of his attention on her.

"I told you when we started. I'm allowing you to communicate with me as much as you need to. I may be a guy but I'm not him."

"I'm sorry." She mumbled.

"Stop apologizing." He chuckled into her ear. "How about we move the conversation somewhere else? You seem to be a bit shaken up by him, and you don't need unnecessary anxiety."

She nodded.

"You still don't look at me." He smiled.

She couldn't attempt to convince herself any further.

The Park Jimin she had loathed for year after year, was sort of attractive.

In this short span of time, she found herself checking him out. How could she not? He looked strikingly handsome.

He had a different look than Minhyuk. Obviously they weren't the same person. But it was like a different vibe.

Jimin had a dark exterior. A boss-like look if you will. The type of guys young women would write mafia fan fictions about. The type you'd make scenarios about before you slept.

She had a boyfriend. But she couldn't stop her wandering eyes. He was so tidy, so well kept. He was so clean.

Jimin was such a man. He made Minhyuk look like a shrimp.

She thought she still didn't like him, but how could she? He had listened to all of her worries without complaining. He asked her questions in relation.

Sure, it was the bare minimum. She'd been so used to below the bar treatment that she forgot what it had been like to really talk to someone. Someone who wasn't her best friend.

"I thought you said I didn't need any unnecessary anxiety." She breathed out.

Why did I just say that? I practically just confessed that he makes me nervous. She thought.

"I make you anxious?" He leaned in closer to her, staring deeply into her.

"N-No. Just forget I said that." She laughed nervously. "This wine was very good!" She rose up her empty glass from the table.

"You're cute." Her sudden nervousness made Jimin chuckle. "Can I tell you something, Ms. Yoo?"

Her ears perked up at the familiar name, nodding afterwards.

Jimin leaned his body closer to hers, making sure their legs touched. Bringing his mouth to her ear, he whispered.

"I'm very attracted to you."

"W-What?!" Jangmi hiccuped.

She had to be dreaming. There was no way Jimin could've possibly said that. It had to have been some sort of mishearing.

"Minhyuk isn't the man that you need him to be." He licked his lips. "You need an escape. A euphoria. And I am more than willing to fulfill that."

"You can't be serious." She backed away from him. "As many problems as we have I still have a boyfriend."

"A boyfriend who's not doing what he needs to. A relationship works both ways, but to me it looks so one sided."

"I'm not going to cheat on him because of a few lousy mistakes." She crossed her arms.

"I never said anything about you being a cheater." He answered immediately. "Think about this carefully Jangmi. All I'm offering here is to be your fantasy."

"Fantasy?" She swallowed.

"I'm offering to do everything he's not doing. You're not happy and it's obvious. I'm willing to cater all of your needs. I'll be the attentive, communicating, adventurous man you fantasize about." He explained.

"I don't know..." She trailed off.

"I can give you time to think about it. I'm not looking for an answer right on the spot. I know it's a lot to take in." He spoke softly, making sure not to pressure her.

It was a bad idea. A terrible one. A stupid decision that was up to her to make. Truly.

But she needed a break. An escape was exactly what Jangmi was lacking in her life.

Minhyuk was supposed to be her escape from reality. He was slacking in the boyfriend department and he wasn't doing what he signed himself up to do.

Jimin desired to fulfill her wishes, so why not let him?

He already had done more for her then Minhyuk has in the past three months. If her boyfriend wasn't willing to put out anytime soon, why would she wait on him?

Jimin's proven that he genuinely cares for her well-being. He actually considers the words that come out of her mouth. Whereas Minhyuk does the opposite.

It wouldn't hurt to try it out.

"Can we kiss?" Jangmi asked Jimin boldly. She leaned closely to Jimin, like how they were moments before.

She was nervous as hell. She was a confident woman but in front of Jimin she crumbled. She was a shy, anxious mess.

She hadn't sensed the feeling since her first meeting with Minhyuk. This time, it was much more intense.

"I thought you'd never ask." Jimin smiled, reaching for the back of her neck as he pulled her in for a kiss.

Jimin's lips were even better than she imagined. Opposed to Minhyuk, Jimin had very plump, big round lips.

The kiss was sensational. The two started out slow but the kiss got heated quickly. They were desperate to try the other out.

They yearned for their mouths to be so much closer. They needed to feel one another closely.

Jimin was powerful. He displayed dominance over her mouth, wanting to show her how bad he wanted her.

The kiss was wet and loud. Jimin's kisses were getting less innocent by the second. Jangmi couldn't help but do the same. Her lips smacked together with his messily.

The couple pulled away from each other to catch their breaths.

Jangmi looked at him, speaking through her gasps. "I'll do it, please."

Jimin smiled, grabbing her once more into a sweet kiss.

He couldn't help but cockily smirk into her mouth, knowing damn well he had her wrapped around his finger.

He knew she couldn't turn back now. She was enjoying herself all too much.

All he could wonder was, ‘Why am I still hard?”

༊—

"Only one? You can not be serious."

"It's true. I know its hard to believe but I've only had one serious girlfriend. I've messed around a couple times but I don't feel like that really counts you know." Jimin explained, "What about you?"

Jimin and Jangmi had enjoyed the takeout Chinese food he brought for the both of them.

In the plastic container, Jimin had given her a batch of homemade kimchi he had made and fermented in his home.

The two were drinking white wine on the bed Jangmi and her boyfriend shared. Cracking jokes and telling stories in their pajamas while a useless film was playing in the background.

"I've only ever been with Minhyuk. Aside from some flings before but it was only a few times. I'm inexperienced I'd say." Jangmi laughed.

The last part of her sentence peaked Jimin's interest. "Inexperienced? I know the other night you said you guys didn't do as much as you'd like but I'm sure you and Minhyuk have done plenty. You've been together for quite some time."

Jangmi was wearing a two piece pink and black velvet pajama set she had bought online. It was a cropped tank with shorts and it would be a lie to said she was showing off just a bit for Jimin.

And he definitely was invested. Her slim waist and glimmering figure was on display just for him to see.

She couldn't say she wasn't staring at him either. The sweatpants he wore to bed definitely peaked her interest.

His dick print was extremely prominent. Her eyes would casually drop to below sea level.

"You're willing to talk about my sex life with my boyfriend?" Jangmi laughed as she rose her eyebrows. "I feel like that's the last thing you'd want to know about."

"I'm more than willing to talk about anything with you." He replied. "And besides, anything he can do I can do better. Or in this case, what he doesn't do."

"Well for starters, he's very self centered. There's no foreplay and there's no edging of any kind. I can't suggest anything he hasn't tried before. Strictly giving him head and missionary. That's the farthest we've ever gone." She began.

Jimin almost spat out his wine. "He won't do absolutely anything but those two?"

She shook her head. "Not a damn thing. He doesn't like talking about possibly trying something new either. It upsets him."

"Does that not frustrate you?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "It used to. Not so much anymore. I just gave up."

His eyes softened as he looked at her. How could she be so oblivious? She was clearly discouraged. It was obvious Minhyuk only cared about his own pleasure. She shouldn't feel hopeless in her own relationship.

"Well if it was up to you what would you like to do?" He asked her curiously.

"Well" She paused. "I want something steamy, hot and rough. I want to be surprised. To be dominated and told what to do. I want to feel hot and bothered, unknowing of what's to come next for me. Oh my gosh I want to be talked to! I want to be desired and needed. Not used as someone's fleshlight. Something exciting and new."

Minhyuk's screw up was Jimin's perfect opportunity.

Jimin swiftly swept the glass of wine from Jangmi's grasp, setting their drinks on the nightstand.

"What're you—"

Jangmi's words were cut off by Jimin crashing his lips onto hers. Her lips immediately reacted, the blissful feeling coming to a return.

Jimin didn't kiss her like he did the other night. He was rough, and his mouth powered over hers.

He was handsy, his fingertips roughly skimming all over his waist and ass. He pulled the two in closely, making their body's touch.

Jimin found himself getting too far ahead. He quickly pulled away from her mouth. To his surprise the girl's lips were still attempting to cling to his, making him chuckle.

"Jangmi" He grabbed the back of her neck, making her face him. "I want you."

The two stared into each other. Seeing into each other.

She finally made eye contact with him. His eyes burned into hers.

"Let me have you." He spoke out, waiting for her approval. His gaze made her heart race. She knew he was after her. She was the one he craved.

"Please." Jangmi nodded.

He smiled before kissing her once more.

Even if she didn't know much about what to do, she followed his movements well. Minhyuk never kissed her how Jimin did, with such desire and passion.

Her boyfriends kisses never left her feeling needed. Often she felt that Minhyuk seen her as some sort of chore he was forced to do.

"So pretty" Jimin innocently fondled with her clothing, before slipping the two piece right off her body. She wasn't wearing a bra underneath the top, leaving her in her panties alone.

"Did you wear those for me? You looked fucking amazing." He whispered as his mouth traveled from her lips to the nape of her neck.

"Jimin" She softly called out, moving her neck to give him more access. "N-No hi—"

"No hickeys. Don't worry I got you." He breathed out against her skin, lips trailing further and further down her body.

His mouth lathered her body with pure admiration, no part of her being untouched.

His lips came to a halt below her stomach. He looked back up at her. "Are you ready?"

"I've actually never—" She answered hesitantly. "I've never done this before. But I'm ready." She halfway mumbled.

She was embarrassed. 28 years old with no experience of being orally pleasured down there. It truly was nothing to be ashamed of, but her own conscious was turning against her.

"I understand, Jangmi. I'll take care of you." Jimin flashed her a reassuring smile.

She nodded, sending him the approval he needed.

He stared into her as he shifted her panties to the side with his teeth. Her glistening slit in front of him made his mouth water.

As much as he wanted to immediately feast on her, he needed to take his time. It was her first time and he was going to make sure she was never going to forget it.

She needed to think of him. If Minhyuk ever wanted to try to eat her out, Jimin wanted her to only remember how he did it.

He started slow, soft innocent licks against her clit. As he began, he caressed her thighs in order to relax her for comfort.

Jangmi flinched at the sudden wetness on her clit. How she dreamed of someone going down on her, and it was finally the day.

“Oh wow,” She exhaled.

And it felt better than she had imagined.

The small licks eventually weren't enough for her, she moved her hips upwards in attempt for her to get more of herself in his mouth. “M-More.”

"Desperate aren't we?" Jimin smirked against her heat. “I thought this was your first time?”

“J-Just shut up and do more”

With that Jimin's soft, precious licks turned into rough and desirous ones.

“Jimin I—“ Jangmi's body naturally retracted. Her legs closing shut as her clit throbbed due to the stimulation.

“Tastes so good.” He hummed. “Never had pussy like this before.”

Jimin used one of his hands to hold her shaking body in place. He was in great need of her juices, and a few licks weren't going to do it for him.

Boy was he addicted.

He buried his mouth into her heat, flicking her clit with tongue.

"S-Shit Jimin" She moaned out breathlessly, her fingers running through Jimin's luscious silver locks. “Fuck— feels too good.”

Jimin chuckles at her words, looking up at her with a smirk. "I know I am, baby. I think I love eating your pussy." He says before diving back in, licking and sucking on her clit until she moans out his name once again.

“T-Think I love having my pussy ate.” She breathed out.

He moaned into her heat causing the vibrations to shake into her. He quickened up his tongue, traveling all over her with his mouth.

"Jimin— I feel it!" Jangmi arched her back as the rise in her stomach began to grow.

"Fuck I'm cumming"

"Cum for me beautiful."

༊—

"I have something for you." Jimin approached his secretary's desk, as chilidish grin spread upon his face.

"Sir I'm rather busy" Secretary Jeon answered as he typed away on his computer.

His work was piling up on him. He could handle it, but he needed to stay focused on what was assigned to him.

"Alrighttt" Jimin balanced on his heels before turning around to leave. "Guess you didn't want Ms. Kim's number."

"What?!" Secretary Jeon stood up from his seat. "No— you really were able to get it?!"

"I'm hurt you doubted my skills." He touched his heart. "But yes, I was successful. Successful enough to get you lunch plans."

"Lunch plans?"

"You're going to meet Ms. Kim for lunch at that sushi place on the corner. Yeah, you're welcome."

He hugged the man tightly, squealing like a girl "Oh my gosh! Thank you! Thank you!"

"Anything for my best employee." Jimin pat his back. "Now get back to work. The harder you work, the faster time will go by."

"Yes sir!" He saluted him, making Jimin laugh.

He exited his secretary's office, entering his own office next door.

Taking a seat at his desk, he set up his IPad in front of him, using it to FaceTime Jangmi since he got her number the night before.

It rang and rang until she finally picked up.

"Hey beautiful." He smiled into the lens. "How's work so far?"

Her striking visuals immediately captivated as soon as the camera came into a clear view.

She was in her office, doing some work on the computer. Her IPad was on a stand by her desktop, so he could see her from the waist up.

"Stressful. I'm ready to be home already. I miss the Chinese food we ate yesterday."

She could get used to this. The cold man who resented her was gone. He was admiring her and she soaked in every second.

"Well I miss you." He chuckled. "Should I let you go? You seem busy."

She shook her head. "No, don't. It'll be nice to have you on the phone while I work. I'm usually all alone unless my secretary comes in."

"Same here."

She paused. "Speaking of secretaries, how did Secretary Jeon react when you told him?"

"He jumped up out of his chair. Gave me a hug too." He laughed. "What about Ms. Kim?"

"She screamed in my ear. She went on and on about him and what she should wear. It was cute." She smiled, thinking about how her friend jumped for joy at the news.

"So when are we going to go on our lunch date?" He rested his chin on his palm, staring at the screen. "Unless shrimpy is going to take you out."

"He never does. I'm not doing anything for lunch today, if you'd like to come pick me up." She winked at the screen.

Interrupting their conversation, one of her assistants knocked on the door.

"Ah give me a second." She told Jimin before speaking out to her employee. "Come in!"

"Ms. Yoo, you have a delivery." She held up a rather large bouquet of flowers.

The flowers were roses painted deep yet bright purple, wrapped in black florist paper.

The roses were arranged in a heart shape, tied together with a ribbon in the same color.

"Let me help you." Jangmi got up from her desk chair, seeing as the roses almost threw her assistant out of balance.

Taking the bouquet in her hand, she thanked her before her assistant left her office.

Hearing the door close, Jimin spoke up. "What was your delivery?"

"Here, look." She took a seat back on her chair, showing off the bouquet she was delivered.

"They're beautiful. Who sent them to you?" He leaned closer to the screen.

"I don't know. There should be a card or something." She set the bouquet on her desk, turning it over to look at the card.

Roses for my rose

PJM♡

Looking at the card attached to the ribbon, she smiled seeing what it read.

"You got me good. Thank you so much." She blew a kiss at the screen. "They're so gorgeous"

Minhyuk had given her flowers before. So why was her heart beating quicker than when he got them for her?

"You're welcome beautiful. Like I said, I'm your fantasy. So anything he wouldn't do, I would. And better." He licked his lips, staring at her.

The nickname, 'beautiful' rolled off his tongue so elegantly. Like it only belonged in his mouth.

"Anything?" She leaned in, fondling with the material on her blouse.

"Anything my rose." He answered back, leaning into the screen like she did.

"I don't want to go out for lunch. I think I'd much rather stay in my office and have you join me."

"And what exactly would we do in your office?" He rose his eyebrow.

"Why don't you come over and find out?" She responded.

He didn't need to think twice about his next move. "I'm on my way."

༊—

"Honestly, I'm really glad to see you again." Secretary Jeon exhaled, his faint dimples on full display in front of her.

"Me too. I didn't think we'd end up meeting like this." Yeri shyly responded. "This was sudden. Not that I mind at all but I thought we wouldn't see each other for quite some time."

The two had met at the nearby sushi place, just like how Mr. Park arranged. At first Secretary Jeon was a shy mess, but he was easily able to adjust.

Yeri wasn't any better. Spamming Jangmi's inbox moments before she entered the building.

"Me too. But Mr. Park assured me he could get your contact information. Considering I forgot the last time." He laughed.

"I'm glad he was successful. I'm surprised he was able to get it out of Jangmi. They hate each other." She added on.

"I'm not so sure about that." Secretary Jeon sipped on his iced water. "It's some petty rivalry. Who knows, they could become good friends."

Yeri nodded in agreement. "The whole rivalry thing is just childish. It's been so many years since they broke out in the industry. If anything they'd be more powerful together."

"I agree." Secretary Jeon nodded. "But let's not talk about them. I came here to talk about us."

"Us?" She rose her eyebrow. "I didn't think we were there yet Secretary Jeon."

"I don't mean to be too forward with you. My apologies Ms. Kim."

"Call me Yeri."

"Hm?" He tilted his head.

"Calling me Ms. Kim makes me feel too professional. And if you don't mind I'd like to call you by your name, Jungkook."

He nodded, a stupid smile plastered on his face. "I'd like that Yeri."

The couple sat in silence for a second, simply just soaking in each other's presence.

Yeri wouldn't take back what she said previously. It was true love at first sight. The way they were so comfortable with each other so soon.

He undeniably felt butterflies around her. His fake confidence was adorable to her, seeing how he was so shy and cutesy.

"Before I forget," Secretary Jeon cleared his throat. "Saturday there's a gathering at the company's office. I-I was wondering if you'd want to go as my date? It's nothing too extravagant. I'm pretty sure Ms. Yoo and Mr. Lee were invited as well. There's drinks, food, and music. Of course if you don't want to go you—"

Yeri laughed, cutting off his rambling. "I'll go with you Jungkook."

He couldn't help but smile. "I'll pick you up tonight at 8 then?"

༊—

"If I got to see you in that skirt everyday, I'd never miss a day at work." Jimin locked the door to her office behind him as he approached her desk.

"Shut up." She shook off the sensual compliment, standing up from her chair.

#jungkook smut #jimin fanfic #jimin angst #jimin fluff #jimin fic #jimin and jungkook #jimin x reader #bts smut #bts jimin #bts #jimin #smut #park jimin #kpop #kdrama #jimin bangtan #jimin smut #park jimim #pjm smut

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lee-hakhyun · 9 months

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um. side story

yjh tells lhh that they'll go to gwanghwamun in an hour, and lhh leaves and checks his phone. seems the app is shared over star relics too. dkos peeks at the app and figures out his skill. seems it really is only serialized while he's awake ... who is serializing it??? han sooyoung? lhh asks dkos. sure, she may have died in front of lhh but.. is she really gone? wouldn't kdj know, being the oldest dream? wait. if kim dokja was split up, and his sponsor is the 'demon king of salvation',... lhh asks what grade dkos is. myth grade, right?

dkos ignores the question, and tells lhh to use his free comment passes. not myth grade, then. the first two comments aren't anything substantial ("demon king of salvation! demon king of salvation! demon king of salvation!"), but the third one,

"that's not the demon king of salvation i knew."

kdj unexpectedly agrees. and starts talking about yjh in twsa. joonghyukie was softer in the ealier regressions, joonghyukie is still very loyal, etc etc until he asks if lhh is actually listening

checking the last comment, the commenter mentions they feel sorry for lhh being on the verge of death again. uh oh. lhh tells kdj that the latest chapter describes the near future, to which kdj compares the skill to anna croft's precognition. lhh confirms that the chapters' progression is pretty slow, so dkos says the danger probably wouldn't be related to a scenario then. so what's the problem this time?? lhh did avoid dying to yjh...

dkos asks if 'that' has started yet. ??? lhh asks him to elaborate but dkos tells him, you know, it's not easy for constellations to give out information—

the smartphone sparks, and an error in midday tryst occurs. hello?? there's no indirect messages either. dkos probably got hit by a probability aftermath, they were chatting in real time after all... and oh! shin yoosung!!

the last time lhh had seen sys, she definitely wasn't the 41st. but looking at her now, there's no golden glow in her eyes. if 3rd sys is gone, did something happen to kimcom..? lhh asks if sys remembers taming the ancient nagak, and she says she does. but that it wasn't her. ...she was aware? lhh asks her to elaborate, and after hesitating to figure out how to explain it she says it's like a [taming] bond with her from another world? does that make sense? lhh tells her he believes her. sys says then that the other her had said she could trust ahjussi, and that she wouldn't be able to come for a while...

lhh doesn't know what happened with sys, but until she left she had cared for lhh. sys asks one more question.

"who is kim dokja?"

ah? where did she hear about kdj? lhh starts to answer, but stumbles. sys grabs him but points to his neck. there's blood? no, it's... story fragments? lhh pushes sys away as sparks begin to fly throughout his body. the star stram has determined the grade of the story he got for defeating the outer god. his feat has given him a story, but. not all stories are beneficial to the owner.

lhh was given a story with a temporary judgment of semi-myth-grade, 'heir to the eternal name'.

what yoo hoseong of the island of reincarnators had said came to mind. those who could not control their story would end up being consumed by it. this story was too much for lee hakhyun.

「if y ou are sup pos ed to be 49%, then yo u shou ld al so ha ve th is」

lhh remembers what 49% was like. 49's story gradually broke down. lhh's body is suddenly unstable. this was his price for declaring that he would be 'kim dokja'.

system messages tell him that he is currently an incomplete 'kim dokja'. to survive, he had to collect additional kim dokja fragments. if he doesn't collect a new fragment in 50 minutes, he'll die.

dansu ahjussi, kyung sein, and killer king are seen rushing to him, but he couldn't greet them when his story was commanding him.

become the singular kim dokja, by eliminating all the other kim dokjas.

[time remaining until death: 49:51]

#responses to asks will be delayed #<- headache ^_^#orv side story #orv spoilers #side story spoilers #side story lb

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howlingrush-krp · 6 months

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We are searching for: TAEYANG

Howling Rush is an application designed to help celebrities find connections! All the while keeping their shifters at bay. Whether it’s to make friends, heat/rut partners, or more - there is definitely something for everyone!

𝒲e are a 21+, mewe based, a/b/o-idolverse gen roleplay. All Asian celebrities are welcomed. Into semi-literate or literate writing? It is a must at our roleplay! We strive to be an active, welcoming community that feels safe enough to create a warm, mature environment to help grow and develop your muses character. Our activity checks are every week. We also have prompt and community events! So come join us for some new adventures!

⠀⠀ ≫ 𝗀𝗎𝗂𝖽𝖾𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖾𝗌 ☽ 𝗅𝗈𝗋𝖾 ☽ 𝗆𝖺𝗌𝗍𝖾𝗋𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍 ☽ 𝖺𝗉𝗉𝗅𝗂𝖼𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇 ☽ 𝗋𝖾𝗌𝖾𝗋𝗏𝖾 ≪

#krp ads #krp promo #krphub #krpv #find krp #mewe roleplay #omegaverse krp #a/b/o verse #kpop roleplay #general roleplay #semi literate roleplay #literate roleplay #kpop #SF9 #yoo taeyang #Taeyang

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iibonniee · 11 months

Text

What's My Name?

Pairing: Yoo Kihyun x Reader

Genre: Smut, Non!Idol AU

Warnings: Warnings: non-idol!kihyun, sugar daddy!kihyun, unprotected sex, age kink, daddy kink, oral (male receiving), cock worship, bondage, spanking, semi-masterbation

Rating: R

Word Count: 5.5k

Summary: Their agreement was something Kihyun had always made sure was followed to the very T. After all, their agreement was signed in ink.

Masterlist | Tags: @beautifulworldandmore @kyunnielove @iamkyunie @doveslittlekpoparchive @dessianna1

Yoo Kihyun was the type of man who did things by the book and followed everything to the letter. He thrived on a well-structured and methodically planned routine. His approach helped him maintain balance in his otherwise chaotic lifestyle, granting him a semblance of serenity amidst the whirlwind of his everyday tasks.

Given his detailed nature, he had the habit of deliberating about every single detail before making decisions. While some might rush in, he took the time to consider every angle, every potential outcome, and every possible risk. This meant he was often slower to act, but his actions were thoughtful and precise.

However, his strict observation of rules and regulations had its disadvantages. While it lent him discipline and structure, it often kept him from exploring uncharted territories, testing innovative solutions to problems, or unleashing his creativity. The fear of stepping outside his comfort zone limited his experiences and sometimes resulted in missed opportunities.

Regardless, Kihyun maintained his orderly existence, content with its safety and predictability. He was the epitome of diligence and consistency—qualities that, for better or worse, came to define his life and career.

And with Kihyun being so by the book and the letter, it also meant that he followed their agreement to the signature. He followed each rule as if it were the law. But she saw the contract as similar to wonder, the lines resembling more suggestive guidelines rather than stipulations carved in stone. Her spirit was wild, seductively erratic, and unpredictable, which was a sweet temptation that she found hard to resist. She often strayed in this spot of their strange relationship, toeing the lines of their carefully designed accord.

Townhouse dinners turned into late-night city escapades. High-profile parties morphed into impromptu starlit picnics. She was the mistress of sly evasion, transgressing the rules in ways that gave her an intoxicated thrill.

Every transgression, however, did not go unnoticed or unpunished.

Kihyun was not oblivious to her playful disregard for their agreement. His commitment to the harshness of the contract was final, starkly contrasting her rebellious behavior. And his response was always swift. He would always ensure that there was no such thing as going behind his back for an enjoyable time out with friends. The friends he strictly disapproved of and made sure were a top rule to not be broken.

Their defined rules were there for a reason, he would tell her. Each rule broken correlated to a conversation—firm yet understanding—trying to drive her back within the lines she’d willingly agreed to. The repercussions for her disobedience were unyielding, yet not harsh unless he wanted them to be; they served as a reminder of their initially agreed-upon terms. The extravagant gifts would be limited, and the exclusive invites would become less frequent, cutting back on the luxuries she held dear. And, of course, if she pushed his buttons just enough, he’d make sure the punishments were much harsher.

Each rule broken meant double the punishment. The punishment only became harsher as one got closer to the top. Kihyun wasn’t sure why she enjoyed pushing his buttons so much. He gave her everything she wanted in favor of loyalty and good dick. So why exactly did she feel the need to push and push?

The house was unnervingly quiet as she returned home late from yet another unapproved escapade. Stepping through the doorway, a sense of unease enveloped her. The house was hushed, a stillness echoing through the lavishly furnished rooms, only disturbed by the ominous ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.

As she traveled deeper into their joint space, an isolated figure sat in wait in the dimly lit bedroom. Kihyun was a wraith of discipline, his silhouette imposing against the soft glow of the moonlight filtering in. His usually friendly gaze was replaced with a stern disapproval that filled her with a heady blend of remorse and exhilarating anticipation.

He rose from his chair that sat in the corner, moving with a rigid grace, the tension in the room mounting with each calculated step. He didn’t need to speak for her to know she had broken not one, not two, but three rules in their agreement. Three was the magic number that triggered more severe consequences.

“Three rules,” he said, his voice like ice. His disappointment hung in the air, heavy and tangible, yet there was an underlying concern that she couldn’t miss. The loyalty and affection he held for her were strained but not broken. “Three rules you broke tonight, Y/N? Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

Though sharp and methodical, his words were filled with a weight that made her reconsider her actions. Nonetheless, she held her ground, ready to face the consequences of her boldness. And though each punishment was harsher than the last, she wouldn’t change the person she was, not for all the riches Kihyun showered her with.

She realized she lived for thrill even as she stood in his disapproving shadow. And genuinely, Kihyun was catching on, learning the untamed woman standing before him wasn’t looking for an authority figure but an equal. Only time would reveal the depth of their understanding and the capacity of their adapted routines.

“I need you to answer me, Y/N.” Kihyun spoke up the moment he realized that she wouldn’t answer him. She studied his face carefully. The glow of the moonlight illuminated his stern gaze, casting stark shadows that hinted at the mounting tension.

She held his gaze unflinchingly, watching as understanding flickered within his eyes before morphing into unmistakable exasperation. Heaving a sigh, Kihyun groaned, pacing the room with growing agitation. The somber atmosphere seemed to pulse with his restrained anger, filling the space between them with sticky anticipation for the punishment she knew was imminent.

Eventually, he moved towards the bed, his figure outlined in the moonlight. Sitting down on it, he kicked off his shoes and glanced up at her. The stern set of his mouth and the cool detachment in his eyes sent a thrill of fear coursing through her. Yet, a part of her relished this nerve-racking anticipation, thrilled by the promise of consequences she was likely to face. She took a deep breath when he spread his legs and silently pointed toward the open space between them.

“Since you think it’s okay to break the rules time and time again because you feel like it, let’s make one thing clear. You are not above the consequences,” Kihyun’s voice was firm, not a hint of negotiation available in his tone. His eyes held a grim determination that made her heart pound. “Get on your knees.”

Her breath caught, but she complied, kneeling between his legs. The severity of the situation rolled off Kihyun, an almost palpable aura of authority enveloping her. She steadied herself, forcing down the electric thrill that sparked through her at the prospect of what was to come.

Their dynamic was evolving, growing more complex and layered with each confrontation. What started as a primary order was morphing into an intense game of power and dominance, with her defiance against his authority fueling their relationship’s rising tension and intensity. These encounters electrified her, luring her further into the depths of this thrilling power play. As she knelt there, waiting, Kihyun’s stern gaze rested upon her, promising a lesson she wouldn’t forget.

A chill shot through her body as his cold hand cupped her cheek. What she thought to be a loving smile quickly turned sour as his hand grabbed a fist full of her hair, jerking her head back so that she was forced to look at him.

“Don’t beg me or even think about using the safe word. Tonight, you pushed me to my limit. I have had it with you running around acting like a whore. If you want to act like a whore, I can treat you like one.” Kihyun growled, his voice filled with an edge of frustration and disappointment she had not expected. His usually warm voice was gone, replaced with a harsh tone that made her heart pound painfully in her chest.

The heated fury of his gaze bore into her, and she was pulled back from her thoughts by his fingers tightening around her hair. She gasped in reply, the surprise and pain mingling with a strange sense of anticipation. Seeing him out of control this way was almost exhilarating, even if it was at her expense.

Despite the fear coursing through her, a part of her felt oddly fascinated by this sudden change in him. However, she understood that he was not playing now. This was the punishment he had warned her about. The silence in the room was palpable, the tension thick and suffocating. She found herself swallowing hard, bracing herself against the impending storm she had unconsciously been courting.

She recognized the dangerous glint in Kihyun’s eyes. The moment of heated confrontation was here, a punishment waiting to unfold. It was clear that the evening was about to take a turn down a path she had not entirely anticipated. This was not their usual game; it was something far more intense and real. Steadying her determination, she held onto the strength within her as she prepared for whatever came next in their volatile battleground.

“Take my cock out and suck on it like a good little whore. Don’t even think about not choking on it, either. I want you crying and worshiping my cock. Got it?”

In response to his stern command, she reached for the waistband of his pants, her fingers trembling slightly. Her heart pounded in her chest as she unzipped them, revealing the hardness beneath the fabric that served as a reminder of his dominant authority.

She met his stern gaze directly, signaling her understanding and compliance. Then, slowly, she extends her tongue, running it teasingly along the length of his turgidity. Warm, soft hardness met the cool of her moist tongue, eliciting a responsive shudder from Kihyun.

His hand tangled in her hair, guiding her movements, setting a relentless and satisfyingly sinful rhythm. She could hear the raspy moan reverberate from his chest as she took him deeper into her mouth, his thickness pushing at the back of her throat. His pleasure manifested in the tight grip on her hair and the ragged pants he fought to control.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she fought her gag reflex, the strain evident as she struggled to accommodate him. But there was an intoxicating thrill in the act of submission, the intense satisfaction of being the source of his pleasure.

Embracing the discomfort, tolerating the burning lungs and the ache in her jaw was part of the game, a punishment she was willingly ready to bear. Her dedication firm, she continued, tears streaking down her cheeks, her eyes locked onto his, promising undying obedience in this unvoiced power play.

She gladly took his length into her mouth once more, feeling its hardened pulse against the flat of her tongue. The movement was slow and enticing, her purpose clear in every glide and press of lips against the hot, rigid flesh.

“That’s right,” He hissed, rewarding her with a rough card through her hair, the action making her look up again, an unvoiced affirmation of her obedience. “Just like that… worship it.”

Each word, each command echoed sharply in the charged silence, stirring a heady cocktail of dread and excitement that coiled tight in her belly. Her rhythm faltered just once, but she quickly found it again, the need to not disappoint outweighing physical discomfort.

Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked him deeper, the lingering taste of his skin intoxicating, irresistible. Her digits traced the veins on his cock with awe, a testament to his masculinity. Her eyes remained locked on him, an explicit display of submission that reeked of an erotic surrender that suffused the room. Every groan, every twitch of his was duly noted, encouraging her to continue in the act of dutiful worship. It was her testament, her tangible loyalty to his authority wrapped in the veil of the unspoken. The journey to heavy surrender, etched in silence and measured in rhythm, was sinfully unforgettable.

She swept up his length, her lips tight around him as she climbed, a close, slow motion designed to draw out the sweet torment. “Good girl,” Kihyun rasped, his fingers threading through her hair, reinforcing her act of submission. “Worship my cock just like that.”

Her tongue swirled around the swollen head, relishing his salty taste. Her fingers massaged his balls tenderly, adding another layer to the sinful act. With every idle, messily passionate bob of her head, she continued her worship, continuously tracing the tattoo of veins on his shaft, symbolizing his raw strength and power.

His low, throaty moans and how his hands gripped her hair fueled her motivation, seduced by the intoxicating power play. Her eyes lifted to meet Kihyun’s gaze, their raw hunger a testament to her success. The salacious taste and the feel of him in her mouth became her world; nothing else mattered.

She could feel him tense, his breath hitch, signaling his impending release. However, she didn’t relent, determined to see this through, to bring him the ultimate pleasure. Her eyes, glossy with tears, communicated an unspoken promise. She was here, willing and resolved, engaged in the act of intimate worship, refusing to back down from this gloriously revealing power play.

And so, she carried on, her hand firmly around his base, her tongue gliding over the throbbing veins and swollen head with devout veneration. His hissed curses and praises echoed in her ears, mingling with his ragged breaths in a wanton symphony of power and surrender. Her mouth, moist and warm, served as a temple of sinful pleasure dedicated to his satisfaction.

His hips jerked abruptly, his grip on her hair tightened to the edge of pain, and he moaned out a guttural warning. Then, his release’s first shot filled her warm and salty mouth. She swallowed instinctively, not daring to break from her worship.

The next few moments were a blur, his body locked in ecstasy and she, the devotional priestess, accepting his offering. Each pulse of his release marked a victory in their battle for dominance, a testament to her submission.

He gasped her name as the last spurts of his climax hummed in the back of her throat, his figure jerking in the aftershocks of pleasure. Even then, she didn’t break away, carefully cleaning him with her tongue, not letting a single drop of him go to waste.

When she finally pulled away, her eyes met his, mirroring the raw intensity that had fueled their power play. Kihyun, with his dark eyes gleaming in the dim light and his chest heaving, looked every bit the dominant figure he was.

As the tension hovered like an aftertaste in the aftermath of their carnal rendezvous, she savored the victorious satisfaction of a game well played, a testament to the authority she had deliciously delivered.

“Don’t think we’re done just yet.” Kihyun finally spoke as the moonlight showed just how dark his eyes were. “Stand up and strip in front of me.”

She stared at him for a moment, trying to process his words carefully. Her breath hitched in her throat, her cheeks flushing with a powerful mix of embarrassment and anticipation. Always, it had been him who undressed her, but not tonight. Tonight, he was making her bear herself in front of him, leveraging the power dynamics of their encounter.

Unsteadily, she rose to her feet, her legs shaking slightly from the intensity of their previous play. Her hands moved up to the buttons of her shirt, each one coming undone with a tremble of apprehension. Despite the heat still coursing through her, she felt a chill as the cool air hit her skin, immediately making her nipples harden.

Kihyun, always the keen observer, watched her intently. His darkened eyes objectified her unshielded vulnerability as a predator about to pounce his prey, a wolf relishing a moonlit hunt. Feeling his gaze tracking her, she unzipped her skirt next, the piece of fabric sliding down her legs to pool around her ankles. She was a sight to behold in her plain white lingerie, the soft glow of the moonlight casting shadows on her nude body.

Meanwhile, Kihyun had not remained idle. His hand had gripped his once again hardening length, the distinct movement of his arm signaling his self-pleasure as he started masturbating. He groaned, his eyes never leaving her, the sight before him acting as a sensual trigger.

This exhilarating combination of thrill, embarrassment, and vulnerability formed a novel chapter in their explicit dance of dominance and submission, one that she was learning to navigate with each passing second. The silence echoed with an unspoken dialogue of unspoken understanding, transforming their room into an arena of charged intensity. Each pull of Kihyun’s hand, each discarded layer of her clothing, was a pledge, a promise of the pleasures awaiting them in the impending thickness of the night.

“I know you’re trying to figure out what I’m going to do next so you can play off on it,” Kihyun grunted, his eyes traveling over every inch of her body. “Tonight isn’t about you. You’ll be lucky if I even let you cum once.”

Finally standing, Kihyun towed over her. His eyes narrowed at her. Her breath was caught in her throat as she watched him approach, anticipation prickling on her skin. Suddenly, in one swift movement, he gripped her arm, pulling her towards the bed with a force that left her breathless. She landed on the soft mattress, her heart pounding against her rib cage.

She barely had time to adjust before he was unlocking a drawer by the bed and retrieving something shrouded in darkness. A second later, she recognized them as a pair of handcuffs, glinting menacingly in the dim light. Her breath hitched, a mix of fear and anticipation washing over her.

He leaned over her, his hands pinning her down, a devilish smirk playing on his lips. “Remember, tonight, it’s all about me,” he said, his voice a delicious growl that made her squirm. He held her wrists above her head, locking one handcuff after the other swiftly, leaving her restrained and exposed before him. “Your body is mine to use. Mine to punish. Don’t forget that.”

Kihyun sat back, taking a moment to appreciate the sight. His gaze traced the curve of her body, bound and ready for his pleasure. His hand, slick from his efforts, resumed its motion, stroking himself leisurely as he continued to drink in the sight before him.

“Stay put,” he commanded, his voice rumbling with raw desire, “I’m going to enjoy this.”

Fear and arousal danced in her stomach, a tempting mix of emotions that heightened her anticipation. She was there, vulnerable and at his mercy, entrapped in one of the most exhilarating games of dominance and submission she’d ever played. Tonight, she realized, would indeed be a night to remember.

Kihyun, engrossed in his self-indulgence, continued his passive strokes. His dark eyes never left her as he pleasured himself, his intensity creating an aura of raw dominance that was as captivating as it was daunting. His touch on himself was familiar and practiced, eliciting throaty groans that filled the room.

Her gaze was drawn to his hand, which played a close rhythm on his hardened length. His response to the entrancing sight before him was a testament to her effect on him; every twitch and gasp he made only fueled her anticipation and her own growing need.

Kihyun’s dark gaze seared into her, making her squirm under his inspection. He was shameless, knowing just how powerful the sight of him touching himself was. His erect length, slick with his arousal, glistened under the soft light, making her mouth water with the need to taste him again.

After a time that was simultaneously too long and not nearly long enough, Kihyun’s strokes started to slow, his breathing growing ragged. He briefly closed his eyes, savoring the thrills of self-pleasure before opening them again. His gaze was predatory, filled with an insatiable lust that made her shiver in apprehension and arousal.

Purposefully, he propped himself above her, smirking down at her restrained figure. His hand left his length, reaching for the handcuffs to unlock them. However, just as she thought he would finally give in and take her and release her from the handcuffs, he instead guided his pulsing dick against her thigh, reminding her of her undeniable desire for him.

With a devilish grin, he leaned closer to whisper in her ear, “Not yet, sweetheart. Be patient. The night is far from over.” His husky voice promised an avalanche of pleasure that left her throbbing with anticipation for what was to come. She was truly at his mercy tonight, and there was no place she’d rather be. “I want you to beg to touch me, and I won’t even give in. Just like you refuse to listen to the rules I set in place for us. Unfair, isn’t it?”

A devilish chuckle vibrated through her as he unlocked her handcuffs. She sighed in relief, feeling the blood flowing back to her hands, but the respite was short-lived. Suddenly, Kihyun placed his hands on her waist, effortlessly flipping her onto her front.

He adjusted her, positioning her onto hands and knees until she was just as he preferred — her backside on full display for him. Underneath him, his dominance, she felt a twinge of humiliation coupled with a raw, throbbing anticipation. She felt the edge of the bed dip slightly as he moved behind her, allowing her a few precious seconds to regain her composure.

Then, the coldness of the cuffs again, a stark contrast to the heat of her skin, announced their return, this time locking her in place on the bedposts. She was re-stripped of her freedom almost as fast as she’d been granted, a play on her sanity that sent another gush of arousal through her body.

His labored breathing filled the room as she felt him settle behind her, the mattress dipping under his weight. Her body arched instinctively, seeking him out, but he held back. She felt him there, his cock teasing her entrance, yet he made no further move. It was pure torment. Every brushing contact sent bolts of desire shooting up her spine, leaving her panting and desperate.

“Please,” she gasped, her voice trembling as she finally surrendered to his relentless game, begging him for release. But his reply was a deep, throaty laugh that held a promise: the night was, indeed, far from over. His reply echoed in the room, an intoxicating mix of amusement and desire she could almost taste.

“Begging already?” he teased, running his fingers delicately along her entrance. The feeling sent electrifying waves of pleasure through her, her breath hitching at the contact. “You never fail to amuse me.”

He leaned over her, his body heat radiating onto her skin. His breath tickled her ear as he whispered, “The rules are simple. I touch, and you feel. You cum when I say so. Not a second before, understand?”

She could only nod, her mouth dry, her body tingling in anticipation. His finger trailed further, stirring a whirlpool of desire that made her want to break the rules he just set. But she refrained, knowing it would only lead to more teasing, more torment. She could feel him grinning against her shoulder, his pleasure palpable in the room.

Then, just when she thought she couldn’t stand the anticipation any longer, she felt him push inside her, slow and relentless. All the air left her lungs as she was filled, the sensation overwhelming her senses. She let out a scream that was swallowed by the emptiness of the room, her body finally succumbing to his dominance.

Kihyun grunted with satisfaction as he buried himself in her, a dark chuckle escaping as he felt the quiver of her body beneath his. He relished her shuddering gasps as he began to move, the initial slow pace quickly escalating into a maddening rhythm that set their bodies on fire. “Look at you, being so obedient,” he taunted. Each word was punctuated by a merciless thrust, the sounds of their bodies colliding, echoing in the space surrounding them. “It’s surprising how obedient you are when you have my cock deep inside you, huh? I find it amusing.”

His unsparing last thrust drew a whimper from her lips, the sensations rippling inside her too intense to bear. “Please,” she gasped. She could barely put the feelings into words; it was overpowering, raw, and intoxicating all at once.

Much to the surprise of her stinging senses, Kihyun’s hand landed a hearty smack on her backside. A loud gasp ripped from her throat, the sudden rush of pain igniting another wave of pleasure. His handprint burned on her skin, underscoring the game of dominance playing out between them.

“That’s right,” he praised, tone smooth as velvet, “You’re doing so well.” The sound of another slap resonating from their entangled bodies only added to the symphony of their pleasure - a raw reminder of his control over her. “Taking Daddy’s cock like a good fucking slut.”

He drove into her relentlessly, his grip on her hips bruising yet somehow comforting in its firmness. The sting of his hand on her ass had her gasping, chasing the peculiar blend of pain and pleasure that radiated from the point of contact. His voice echoed in the room, lacing her mind with a hearty dose of satisfaction.

“That’s it, baby,” he growled in her ear, his voice husky. The words vibrated through her, his praises a turn-on that enhanced the sensations coursing through her. His next thrust was particularly fierce; a resounding smack filled the air as his hand collided with her ass again. She yelped; the unexpected collision sent electrifying jolts of pleasure straight to her center.

“You love it when I spank you, don’t you?” he taunted, another hard slap punctuating his gravelly tone. The sharp sensation was swiftly followed by the gentleness of his hand, fingers tracing the tender area, soothing the ignited skin.

He resumed his pace, a relentless rhythm that promised to tip her over the edge. His name spilled from her lips, a prayer amid moans that echoed around them, bouncing off the stark walls and diving into the abyss of pleasure they were entangled in.

Her anticipation soared as his thrusts became more forceful and urgent, a testament to his nearing climax. As her body trembled on the precipice, he leaned over to whisper in her ear, his voice saturated with desire, “Beg for me, sweetheart. Show me just how much you need to cum.” The sinful request echoed in her head, the edge she was balancing on becoming more precarious. “And maybe Daddy will be kind enough to let you cum.”

Desperation clawed at her as she writhed beneath him, each thrust driving her closer to the precipice. A broken, needy sound slipped past her lips, “Please, Kihyun.”

He merely chuckled at her plea, his fingers tracing a burning path down her quivering stomach. His face was a study of lust and control, pupils dilated, and lips curved ever so slightly. “That wasn’t begging, sweetheart,” he chided, the tips of his fingers dancing tantalizingly near her overstimulated clit. “If you want to cum, beg for it correctly.”

Overwhelmed by the whir of sensations, every nerve in her body screamed at his restrained touch. She felt her walls tighten around him purposefully, trying to draw him deeper. Still, he resisted, merely grinning at her feeble attempts to control the situation.

With a whimper, she tried to plea once more, but the name came out wrong. “Kihyun, please,” she murmured, her voice shaky in the dim room. The moment the words tumbled from her lips, she could see it was not what he wanted to hear. He arched an eyebrow at her, a silent prompt for the correction he awaited.

Swallowing hard, she corrected herself, her cheeks flaring with a mix of embarrassment and arousal. “Please, Daddy,” she corrected hastily, her voice desperate in the quiet room. The shift in her address was a tangible submission, an acceptance of the sinful game they were entangled in. Her begging voice, the plea laced with an innocent rawness, filled the room, emphasizing the control he had over her. “Let me cum, please.”

His next thrust, directed with surgical precision, rubs against her sweet spot that sends pleasure-like sparks through her. Her desperate moan filled the room, her body bowing as if struck by an electric shock. His hand tangled into her hair, pulling back her head as he hushed her gently, “Begging now, are we?”

She nodded, cried out, lost in the intoxicating blend of pleasure and anticipation. She felt his grin against the pulse point on her neck, a sinful promise of a climax that was just out of her reach. “Beg me properly,” he continued, his voice sending shivers down her spine. His firm hands propped her hips for a deeper angle, stoking the flames of her desire.

Give and take, push and pull. Kihyun was the master of their sordid game, drawing puckish pleasure from her desperate pleas. Defeated, she surrendered to her erupting desire. “Please, Daddy,” She whined, her voice desperate and raw, “I need to cum.”

Before the echoes of her words had faded away, he buried himself deeper into her, his pace meeting her every wish. “Daddy’s giving you what you asked for,” he growled, his words broken by gasps of pleasure, “Cum for me, sweetheart.”

And like a dam breaking, her world exploded in colors as he kept true to his promise. His ruthless thrusts drove her higher and higher until she spiraled in an endless roll of pleasure. It was sinful and wild, a testament to their passion burning raw and relentless.

“Sweetheart, I’m…” His voice was gravelly, strained with his nearing climax. His grip on her hips tightened, his body tensed, and he pushed deep inside her in one final, powerful thrust. Lunging deep, he held himself in place, releasing a guttural groan that reverberated throughout the room.

His warmth filled her, his release marking her from within, causing her to gasp at the unexpected but welcomed intensity. His climax came like a tidal wave, crashing over them with a force that was both tantalizingly torturous and delightfully sinful. Milky evidence of his fulfillment lingered within her, satisfying proof of his passionate surrender.

After catching his breath, he uncuffed her, their bodies still intertwined. Despite the rawness of their encounter, his weight over her provided a reassuring warmth. Their breathing, while sporadic, began to synchronize - a fitting epilogue to the frantic rhythm they had shared just moments before. Their intermingled sweat painted a canvas of carnal desires and unrestrained satisfaction. The tangible presence of their shared climax remained engraved on their bodies, a trophy of their primal dance. In the quiet, he craned his neck and, with a tantalizingly slow pace, brushed his lips against her pulse point, making her shiver. His voice, now husky from their shared exertions, sent a new wave of warmth rushing down her spine.

“Look at you, so content,” He murmured, tracing her curves with a possessive touch that echoed their sinful indulgence. His eyes glinted wickedly in the dim room. “Such a well-behaved girl when you know Daddy has control, aren’t you?”

He let out a soft chuckle, his breath fanning against her, causing her eyes to flutter open. Beneath his gaze, she felt cherished, adored, laid bare by his sinful words. It was a promise, whispered in the silence of their shared satisfaction - a promise of more such sinful nights, testing their boundaries and losing themselves at new heights of ecstasy. And amidst the lingering haze of lust, she eagerly looked forward to nights that awaited them.

His voice deepened as he leaned in, his words a husky whisper against the shell of her ear. “I promise you, sweetheart, if you dare to break the rules again, the punishments will be much more severe.” A visceral thrill ran through her at his promise, a shudder of anticipation rippling through her body.

His hand gently traced her lower abdomen; his fingers danced lightly over her skin as his eyes held a sinful glimmer. “Next time, I might just breed you,” he murmured, the implications of his words causing heat to rush to her cheeks. “Imagine that, you running around with my baby inside you. Won’t that be a sight?”

His grin was wicked, a vulture biding his time. “Your friends they will be curious, no doubt, about who got you pregnant. They’ll ask who the father is, and you?” He paused, his thumb rubbing small circles on her warm skin, “You’ll know it was the older man that had you crying out his name until the dead of night.”

His words trailed off into a low, satisfied hum, his fingers lazily drawing patterns on her flushed skin. The implications of his sinful promise hung heavy in the air, a tantalizing prospect she was not sure she was ready for. He had marked her tonight in the most intimate of ways, and as she looked at him, a silent understanding passed between them.

“You are mine.”

#kvanity #monsta x imagines #monsta x x reader #monsta x smut #kihyun imagines #kihyun x reader #kihyun smut #monsta x kinktober #kinktober

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petrichor-han · 1 year

Text

red desert; hwang hyunjin

PAIRING | hyunjin x afab!reader

CAST | hwang hyunjin, yoo jimin (karina), kim minjeong (winter), mentions of felix lee, uchinaga aeri (giselle), ning yizhuo (ningning)

WC | 10.2k

GENRE | angst, fwb, college!au

WARNINGS | explicit language, casual marijuana usage, alcohol consumption, sexual references & jokes

SYNOPSIS | inspired by the song “red desert” by 5SOS. // you won't admit that you're in love with hwang hyunjin, and he won't admit that he's in love with you either. instead, he asks you to accompany him on a trip into the desert, where everything comes to the surface in between grains of red sand and fractured sunlight.

A/N | this is aggressively american and also loosely based off of the camping trip that i went on with my fwb last october. let’s just say that a 6 hour car ride and three days in the desert with him solidified some things and we haven’t spoken since. (same note as the teaser)

request to be added to current and future taglists HERE!

MASTERLIST | RAIN’S PLAYLIST

The day that he asked you to go with him, his hair was red. You remember because he’d been blonde for so long that you couldn’t remember how he looked with his natural color. He was the type of person to dye it so often that his roots hardly ever showed any signs of growth, because he claimed that he hated when people let their dyed hair grow out, even though that was normal and quite frankly, what ninety-nine percent of the population with dyed hair tended to do.

You’d run your fingers through his split ends and dry blonde locks, telling him maybe he should give the bleach a rest. But he shook his head, shook off your hold, and firmly said that he liked how he looked blonde. Other people liked how he looked blonde.

You liked how he looked blonde.

And it was true—his hair was the reason he caught your eye when he walked into the room that night. His silvery locks caught the neon lights bouncing off the disco ball drilled into the ceiling and made you turn your attention away from the semi-hot, semi-lame guy you were chatting up, hoping to get laid after a particularly long dry spell. You’d excused yourself, shaking your empty red Solo cup in his face, making his eyes cross slightly as you yelled, “I need another drink!” over the loud music. You didn’t bother to wait around for a response, cutting through the crowd and feeling sticky skin and damp fabric clinging to you as you pushed past people to try and reach the boy with blonde hair.

He’d settled against the wall, right next to the kitchen so that people were constantly pushing past him and putting him in an awkward position. Clearly, this wasn’t really his scene. But as you gasped, nearly toppling over as you escaped the tightly knit crowd into the outskirts, you looked up and saw him passing a loosely wrapped joint to his friend, lithe fingers carefully handling the badly wrapped object, as if it could fall apart at any moment. And honestly, it looked like it could. He turned his attention to you as you straightened up, blowing a cloud of smoke to the side as he looked you up and down, one side of his mouth turning upwards. He seemed to like what he was seeing as you walked over and perched yourself on the wall right next to him. His friend seemed to feel the tension before either of you two did, and edged away, busying himself with another person that had escaped the crowd.

“Is it always this busy here?” he asked you, shoving his hands into the pockets of his loose jeans.

His voice. He had the most gorgeous voice you’d ever heard, and you practically melted into a puddle on the sticky, beer-covered floor.

“I mean, free alcohol and hot guys? Who wouldn’t come here on a Saturday night?” you ask. You realize now that you’ve lost your cup somewhere, probably back in the crowd. Your throat is dry, and you wish you had a sip of something to take away your nervousness—you weren’t quite tipsy yet.

“The guys at TKE are gross,” the guy said, wrinkling his nose. “Trust me. I used to be friends with some of them.”

“All guys are gross,” you counter.

“Fine. But take my word for it—the ones at TKE are especially gross.”

“And how can I trust what you say?” Your words are accusatory, but your tone is flirty, and the guy picks up on it as you move closer to him, mostly to edge further away from the kitchen entrance as a pair of extremely drunk girls stumble towards the guy passing out drinks.

“Maybe my name will provide some credibility?” he says, nudging his friend with the badly wrapped joint as he passes by, hand in hand with someone in leather pants. The friend rolls his eyes but hands him a cart, which the guy accepts and hits once before offering it to you.

You start to decline, but the way he wiggles it enticingly makes you change your mind for some reason, and you mimic him, taking a big hit before handing it back to him, coughing a little as you turn your head and blow the smoke away. “Alright, so what’s your name?” you ask, eyes watering. You can already feel the high settling in as your eyes twitch a little—but it’s a comfortable high. You can tell it’s not too strong.

“Hwang Hyunjin.” He sticks his hand out to you, and you smirk and shake it.

“That name means nothing to me,” you admit.

“Not yet.”

And that’s how you end up breaking your three month streak of getting zero bitches—having the most mind blowing sex of your life in the back of Hwang Hyunjin’s bright red car in the middle of buttfuck nowhere.

It’s not the first time, and it’s certainly not the last. You and Hyunjin, though you wouldn’t consider yourself friends—not really—are closer than most people would be comfortable with getting to their disposable orgasm machine. Which is a nice way of saying that you had a hopeless, dopey crush on your friend-with-benefits, and he seemed to be completely oblivious.

Such obliviousness was worse than flat out rejection, in your mind. At least if he straight up told you to go fuck yourself, you wouldn’t feel bad about stalking his mom’s Facebook posts from 2013 to find pictures of a pimply, flat haired Hyunjin to save to your blackmail folder. Nor would you feel bad about downing endless cartons of ice cream while you put off showering for a week and a half.

But this—this limbo that you two were seemingly stuck in? It’s agonizing. It’s fucking excruciating. You think you have a chance when he’s fucking you from behind, one hand clasped around your throat as he tells you “how fuckin’ beautiful” you look as you’re getting your cunt destroyed. But then you feel like a dirty whore when he gets up right after he finishes and starts checking his dating apps right in front of you.

“Have some fucking self respect,” your friend said to you firmly, after you cried in her arms after one of these fuck-and-dumps happened. It was too much seeing him match with this gorgeous girl and slide into her DM’s with a really bad pick up line. If the jealousy because of this random girl’s beauty wasn’t enough, the corny shit he thought would get her in his bed did it for you.

You throw back the covers, the sticky stale air hitting your naked skin. Hyunjin barely glances at you as you stand up and start pulling your clothes on roughly. He only notices when you’re tying your shoelaces and picking up your tote bag that you’re actually leaving.

“Where are you going?” he asks lamely, blinking slowly at you. The stupid pothead had taken two long hits from the dirty orange bong sitting on his nightstand right after he came on your tits, and it was clearly getting to him.

“Home,” you say, trying to keep your tone light.

“Oh. Okay. See you later.” He turns his attention back to his phone, where you can see that the pretty girl has responded. You feel a tug in your chest as you gnaw on your bottom lip and turn on your heel to stomp out of his room. The aged wooden floors creaked and moaned beneath your harsh steps; you were sure that Felix, whose room was also in the basement, now lived in fear that the ceiling would collapse onto his head.

“Bye, (Y/N),” one of his friends called as you rushed by. You feel your face warm with embarrassment; when did everyone get back? Hyunjin told you they were all out seeing some classically boring hetero male film in theaters, and would probably go bar hopping afterwards. Nope—all seven of his housemates were crowded into the cramped living room, watching a chick flick from 2004 where the attractive female main characters were at a nudist beach. You tried not to let your eyelid twitch at the incredible amount of male energy in the room. That, and the entire house just reeked of pot, more so than usual.

You manage to mumble out a goodbye before slamming the front door behind you. You have to take a moment to breathe in the fresh air and recollect yourself, letting the pieces that Hyunjin metaphorically broke off of you find their way back home. You’re a strong person—you know that he can’t really hurt you, not really. Especially not when you agreed to something casual, nothing serious. Not now, not ever.

It’s autumn, and campus is starting to look like it. You’re lucky enough to study somewhere with the most gorgeous scenery—it’s pretty year round, but when the leaves change colors in the fall, it’s impossible to look away. There’s a slight bite to the breeze that sweeps through you suddenly, blowing the few fallen crispy leaves across the sidewalk. They rasp and crinkle underneath your boots as you walk down the oddly steep stairs that leads to their front door, and you can feel your spirits lifting with each step you take away from his house. You barely even glance at the bright red car sitting in the driveway, amongst at least four others.

You pull your sweater closer to your body as your teeth chatter. The wind had more of a slight bite now—there’s a full on chill that rattles you down to your bones.

At least, you think, Jimin’s apartment isn’t too far from here.

Jimin lives right off campus, a few streets down from Hyunjin and his roommates. Though you enjoy Jimin’s place a lot more, you can’t help but prefer the mornings when you wake up at Hyunjin’s, simply because the walk to class is so quick and easy—you can see the edge of campus from Seungmin’s bedroom window.

As you walk up to her apartment and pound on the door with a tight fist, you can’t help but crack a smile at the corny wooden sign that’s hanging on it—it’s covered in chunky orange glitter and says “IT’S FALL, Y’ALL” in curly brown letters. You assumed that Aeri, one of Jimin’s roommates, bought it—mostly because you’d seen her post a picture of her autumnal shopping haul on her Instagram story. It was cute, in a specific kind of way. Only someone like Aeri could pull it off.

Jimin opens the door quickly, and scans your slightly disheveled appearance. “You have to stop this,” she says immediately.

“Please. I could stop whenever I wanted to, but I simply don’t want to.” You nudge her aside and walk in, and she crosses her arms and scowls at you. She’s mad. Not because you waltzed in like you own the place—you were practically their fifth roommate—but because you kept letting yourself get hurt by this douchey guy, and she was left to pick up the pieces. As much as she loved you, your denial was driving her insane.

“Don’t lie,” she snapped.

You wince at her tone. “Rina…” you mumble, using a nickname. Her expression softens. She guides you to the couch, where her other roommate Minjeong is asleep on one end, only her feet sticking out from a plush green blanket. You know it’s her because you were there when she painted her toenails dark blue and spilled the rest of the bottle onto the beige carpet in Jimin’s room. It left a massive dark stain, but after shifting Jimin’s dresser a few inches over, you and Minjeong got away with it. Until they moved out at the end of the school year, at least.

You sit down on the free side of the couch. The slight movement jostles Minjeong ever so slightly, and she snorts a little in her sleep before curling up in a ball underneath the blanket, pulling her feet back underneath. Now, the only sign of life was the gentle, slight rising and falling of her breathing. You couldn’t see her moving at all unless you looked very closely.

Jimin re-enters the room, holding two steaming mugs in her delicate, pretty hands. She hands you one of the mugs before sitting down on the chair—the one next to the couch, that desperately needs to be thrown out—and sinks into it uncomfortably. Her knees are almost touching her chest because of how far down she slid. She watches you carefully until you take a sip, and you sigh contentedly—it’s mulled wine, with just a splash of cream.

“What happened this time?” she asked, taking a sip of her own wine. You can hear the disappointment in her voice and it makes your insides squirm with guilt.

“He was on Tinder again.”

“Oh?”

“Right after he came on my tits.”

“Oh.”

Jimin sucks in a deep breath through her teeth, and you can tell it’s bad. Her gaze drops to your chest, though it’s covered by your sweater.

“Stop,” you whine, placing your arms across your chest. Your wine almost sloshes over the ceramic rim of the pale blue mug.

“I just feel bad,” she groans, putting her mug down on the coffee table and massaging her temples. “There’s nothing I can do, but you just feel like shit all the time.”

“Not all the time!” you say, feeling defensive.

Jimin stares you down. “Fine,” she sighs. “Not all the time. But anyways—you can’t keep doing this. I love you, and this is why I have to tell you: it’s getting pathetic.”

“You think I don’t know that?” you snap. You slam your mug down. Dark red splashes over the edge and onto the slightly dusty surface of the table. Jimin’s gaze snaps to the mess, her eyes flashing.

You burst into tears.

“I know, I know it’s stupid. I know he’s stupid. I know I shouldn’t be crying about him, and I know that it’s getting on your nerves.” You sniffle loudly. “I think it’s time. I can’t keep doing this.”

You feel a small but comforting hand on your shoulder. You look over, and find that Minjeong has awoken. Her eyes are slightly puffy, and her short black hair is mussed. But she retains her beauty, her cute features blurred only slightly by grogginess. “Good for you,” she says before yawning widely, “he’s an asshole.”

“He is an asshole,” Jimin says sorely. But she nudges you a little so she can sit on your other side. She puts a comforting arm around you. “We’re here for you.”

You start to cry again.

---

Your phone is ringing.

Bright blue light fills the small dark room, and your eyes snap open immediately. You cover the screen with your hands, looking around wildly to make sure it didn’t wake up anyone else. It’s to no avail; the room is pitch black and you can’t see shit. But you can hear Minjeong’s little snuffly snores, Jimin shifting around in her silk pajamas, Aeri letting out a little groan, and Yizhou smacking her lips all in different corners of the room.

You yawn silently, stretching your arms above your head and picking up your phone in one hand, walking over and opening the door with the other. The short hallway is dark and the floors are creaky and cold on your bare feet. When you reach the main room, you finally lift up your phone, which hasn’t stopped vibrating this entire time. Your heart stops for a moment when you realize who’s calling you.

Hwang Hyunjin.

The name glows in bright white letters on your phone screen. His generic, blank contact photo—you refused to put a real picture of him there—glares at you. You gnaw on your thumb nail nervously but ultimately decide to pick up.

“Hello?” Your voice is cold and thin in the thick black darkness of night. You walk over to the window, and push aside the curtain. The silky material washes over your fingers, cooling their clammy surface.

“Hey. I’m outside.” Hyunjin’s voice is rich and thick in contrast. It’s sort of raspy, like he just woke up. Then it registers—he’s outside?

“What do you mean?” Your mouth is dry.

“I’m outside your apartment. Can you come out?”

“I’m not there right now.” Your heart is pounding in your chest. You can only imagine what your roommates would think of some guy waiting outside for you. Luckily, they were both out of town at the moment. You hoped no one else saw or recognized him, but who were you kidding—he wasn’t fooling anyone with that damn bright red car.

“Oh.” There’s a brief silence. “Where are you, then?”

“Um, I'm over at a friend’s place. Jimin’s. Yoo Jimin.”

Why did you give him her full name? You didn’t know.

“Oh, yeah. I think I know her. What’s the address? I can be there soon.”

You bite down too hard on your nail and taste blood, from where you ripped it from the skin. “What? Why? Why are you—why are you looking for me right now?”

Again, there’s a brief silence before he replies. “I’m… leaving for a little bit. I’m going camping, and I was wondering if you would come with me.”

You stare blankly out at the clear night sky. “Are you serious right now?” you ask, chuckling in disbelief.

“Yeah, of course I’m serious.”

“You realize how sketchy this sounds, right?”

“Don’t you trust me?” he drawls, sounding defensive. “If you don’t tell me where you are, I can’t come pick you up. And I will be forced to knock on every door in your building until someone can tell me this Jimin’s address.”

“Do not do that,” you hiss, “I’ll give it to you, just… give me a second. I’ll text it to you.”

“See you soon,” he managed to get in before you pressed the red END CALL button roughly. You quickly type in Jimin’s address, your clammy fingers sliding all over your slippery phone screen. You then sneak back into Jimin’s room, where you keep at least half of your wardrobe and a few spare self care items. For the amount of time you spent there, it would be weird if you didn’t keep some of your personal items there. Using your phone to light up the room, you stuff a few clothing items into a spare backpack and toss in a few other miscellaneous items. Camping, he’d said? He better have extra gear for you, or else he can count on dropping you off at your place.

Your phone lights up again just as you close the door to Jimin’s bedroom. It’s just one word: Here.

You quickly type out a text to Jimin, telling her the truth even though you knew you’d get your ass beat when you got back. It ends with you promising that this is the last time, that this is the closure you need. It’s half bullshit, half what you truly believe, and you just hope that she doesn’t see through it completely. You sigh, and exit the apartment.

You’re still dressed in your pajamas, an old t-shirt and sweats. Your previous outfit from the day is somewhere at the bottom of your bag. The night air is crisp and cold, and you can see your breath in the air when you exhale. Your fingers are starting to slow due to the cold as they grip the handles of your backpack.

As soon as you round the corner, you can see Hyunjin’s car. The engine is roaring, loud. Exhaust clouds around the car, pale white in the cold. He sees you as soon as you see him and rolls down his window, a wide grin on his stupidly handsome face. And his hair is red. Bright crimson, the color of something sweet and artificial.

You can’t hide the shock on your face as you walk over, cupping a hand over your mouth. “Your hair!” you exclaim softly. You reach his window, and he lets you touch his silky scarlet locks.

“What do you think?” he asks smugly.

“It’s different. Looks nice,” you say honestly. You walk over to the other side of the car and toss your backpack in the back before settling into the passenger seat. The heated seats are nice on your chilled skin, and you hold your numb hands up to the warm heat that’s blowing from the vents. Hyunjin reaches over, his big hand gripping your cold thigh through your thick sweats. He squeezes the flesh there.

“Missed you,” he admitted. He keeps his eyes on the road.

“Did you now?” you ask, staring at the neon green number on the dashboard. It reads 4:47 AM, blinking in the darkness.

“I did!” he insists, “that’s why I’m here now.”

“What is this?” you blurt out.

You watch the muscles in his jaw tense as he clenches. His skin looks green from the light of the glowing numbers. “It’s a camping trip,” he says thickly, nodding to the equipment stuffed in the backseat. At least that answers your question of whether or not he brought stuff for you.

“You know that’s not what I mean.” You sound firm, sure of yourself. A lot surer than you actually are.

Hyunjin has stopped smiling completely. “Can we not talk about this now?”

“Then when? I’ve waited months. I’ve tried to bring it up. And all you do is dodge it and change the subject. If you don’t answer me right now, I’m jumping out of this car.” You’re yelling, your voice filling the expanse of the vehicle.

He slams on the brakes, then takes a deep breath and properly pulls over. He turns off the car, and the two of you are left in darkness. The only thing you can hear is your own blood pumping through your ears; the sharp nervousness and reality of what you just said sinking in. Finally, he lets out a short breath, an attempt at a laugh. “I don’t know. It’s what we said it was when we met. Isn’t it?” His voice is low, and you’re unable to decipher any feeling in it.

“Well, yeah…” you trail off. Your voice sounds small and pathetic. Your request only sounds more pathetic.

“Then that’s what it still is,” he says carefully, “nothing serious.”

“Of course,” you say quickly. There’s so much more you wanted to say—you wanted to slap him in the face for even daring to say that, for shutting you down and playing stupid. Is it a little over dramatic? Maybe, but you can feel your anger bubbling in your stomach, salty tears burning the rims of your eyes. For once, you’re thankful for the cover of night.

That’s when the sun starts to rise. When Hyunjin starts the car again after you both refuse to break the silence, the sound of the engine starting up does the job for you. It roars to life, tiny neon lights flashing in your face as he pulls back onto the road and continues the drive. You know he knows—he isn’t an idiot. If he didn’t know before, he knows now that you’re hoping for something more from him. He knows that you want him in a different way now, that obviously other things in your relationship have changed which led to your feelings changing.

Warmth finally breaches the seemingly eternal darkness of night. Black turns to dark blue, which turns greenish at the horizon with the arrival of the sun, which exudes warm rays of orange and yellow and pink, expanding as the sun reclaims its spot in the sky. You watch silently as your surroundings start to appear before your eyes; other cars on the road in all different muted colors, a stark contrast to the colorful wildflowers that are growing by the side of the road. uncontained and free. Fluorescent signs are staked into the ground every so often, telling you that there’s construction ahead or that you need to slow down. You peer out the window at the car next to you; a couple sits in the front, laughing together at some presumed inside joke. You’re jealous, watching their mouths move in unison. Are they singing the same song? Their song?

At the next stoplight, Hyunjin quickly picks up his phone, scrolling through it while trying to keep an eye on the lights.

“I’ll tell you when it changes, just hurry up,” you say, nervous as you watch him do exactly what you shouldn’t do when you’re behind the wheel.

He shoots you a withering look but finds what he’s looking for. The catchy constant of his playlist cuts suddenly, and you hear a song you love playing over the speakers. He turns it up just a little so that the lyrics are clearer, and he tries to watch your reaction—subtly, or so he thinks. You can’t help the warmth that blooms across your face, the surprise at his tenderness. He remembers, you think, that I showed him this song all those months ago.

The gentle voice of the singer warbles in your ears as you sigh happily, leaning back into your seat and drifting off into a calm sleep, visions of plentiful wildflowers and red haired princes filling your dreams.

---

It’s not like you’re asleep the whole time—you wake up when he stops at a gas station, about halfway there. You come to when the car slows to a stop; you open your eyes to see Hyunjin getting out of the car and squinting at the gas prices in disbelief. He had noticed you stirring and grins at you, somewhat sheepishly.

“If you need to use the bathroom or something, now’s the time.” He pulls out his phone, looking at a colorful map, and points out the long, winding road ahead. “We won’t hit another stop until we get there.”

You stifle a yawn and rub your eyes, nodding. It’s warmer here—you’re further south, and the sun is high in the sky. You guess that it’s a bit after noon, and when you check your phone that only confirms it.

The lights inside the gas station are just as harsh and white as they are at midnight. One of the long, exposed bulbs flickers at the far end, near the ice cream that’s probably expired. You’ve never really disliked gas stations—really, you just never thought about it—but now, as you stare at the hostile face of the cashier, their beady eyes watching your every move, as if they suspected you already, you want to get out of there as soon as possible.

The bathroom is somehow worse. There’s a singular shred of toilet paper left on the barren brown roll, and there’s no replacement in sight. There’s stains everywhere, both fresh and old, which makes you wonder about the last time it was properly cleaned. You leave as quickly as possible, scrubbing your hands roughly with the nameless neon pink hand soap and trying to kick the door open with your foot—the handle is crusty, and you don’t want to touch it.

The cashier is still watching you when you walk out, and they continue to eye you as you try to ignore the stare and pick up a bag of pretzels. You pay, avoiding eye contact, and speed walk out of the doors.

It’s actually hot outside now, even though it’s well into autumn. You’re grateful that you kept your t-shirt on and denied when Hyunjin offered you one of his hoodies. Your forehead already feels damp, and you dab at it with a hand as you walk back towards the red car.

Hyunjin stands beside it, watching his tank fill up and bopping his head to music. He’s put his own playlist back on now, much to your disappointment, but you weren’t about to let him know that. He notices you as soon as you walk up beside the car and get back into the passenger seat, leaning back and opening your bag of pretzels.

“You really trust any of the food from that gas station?” he asks. His voice is muffled, so you roll down the window and shrug in response. He leans over, and opens his mouth, wordlessly asking for one.

“Hypocrite,” you mumble, but you shove one in his mouth anyways. He catches it with his perfect pearly teeth, and gives you a toothy smile, showing it off.

“Thanks,” he says around the dry mouthful. The crumbs that sprayed from his mouth as he spoke probably should have turned you off, but you only found it endearing—another piece of evidence that suggested you were hopelessly pining for this man.

Finally, he himself gets back in the car and you’re back on the road. Some might call you cynical, but you think you can only appreciate the scenery for so long, and it doesn't take you long to fall asleep again. The constant movement of the vehicle puts you to sleep easily, and the several late nights you’d been pulling because of looming midterms only added to it. It’s only when you feel yourself lurch to the side heavily that your eyes snap open, but you feel safe and secure. A strong arm pins you to your seat, and when you look down at it you realize that you’ve also been covered with a hoodie, draped over your front like a blanket. It’s dark green, and it smells strongly of Hyunjin’s cologne. “Sorry,” he says, and you turn to look at him, confused, as he takes his arm off of you. “Some idiot cut in front of me and I swerved a little. We’re almost there though, so it’s good that you’re awake now.”

“Thanks,” you say shortly, your mind still fuzzy from sleep and the two kind gestures.

You watch as the winding road ahead slowly turns to a dirt path, pebbles getting caught in the tires as Hyunjin grimaces and tries to steady his precious car. He pulls off of the path when you reach a small clearing, only a few trees and dry bushes to cover you. You stiffen, looking around for some sort of bathroom—really, any building—but to no avail. “Where are we?” you ask nervously, “this feels like the plot of a horror movie.”

“I come here a lot with my friends, it’s a really nice campsite,” he says, almost defensively. “And I wouldn’t murder you. If I wanted to, I would have a long time ago.”

“Yeah, because that’s reassuring,” you mutter, to which he casts a withering look at you in response. “Just saying…” you say under your breath, though you’re fairly sure he hears you regardless.

He parks the car, but not before giving you another sour look as he gets out and starts unloading the camping supplies from the back of his car. You help, but soon wander off in search of something more interesting. You leave him to struggle alone with the new tent he’d bought—apparently, it didn’t come with directions, and he didn’t take it nicely when you suggested that he’d probably just misplaced them. You can still hear him cursing as he struggles with the poles as you walk over a small hill and peer at all of the desert flora and fauna. Upon first glance, the landscape is literally a barren desert—there’s nothing but sand and a few scrappy plants amongst the rocky, pebbly terrain. But as you crouch down to stare at a singular crispy looking bush, you see some light green buds on the branches, and the beginnings of perhaps some blossoms. Small insects crawl over the new life, seemingly anticipating its arrival. Momentarily, you think of the possibility of larger, more dangerous wildlife, but you brush that thought away as you admire a massive brown cricket leap out of your way.

“Thanks for all the help,” a sarcastic voice calls from behind you. You stand up, emerging from the squatting position you’d been in, and chuckle at Hyunjin as he approaches you, bare feet sinking into the warm sand.

“It seemed like you had it under control,” is your cool reply while you shift around awkwardly, trying to ignore the heaps of sand pouring into your sneakers. His gaze drops to your covered feet, and now it’s his turn to chuckle.

“It’s a lot easier if you just take off your shoes,” he says matter-of-factly, and you bite your tongue to avoid mocking his tone, trying to bend down to reach your shoelaces without falling onto your face.

Wordlessly, he walks over and kneels in the sand to do it for you, making you feel guilty for being bitchy again. He slips them off your feet, and you peel off your socks as well, feeling immediate relief as your skin touches the sand. Hyunjin dumps out your shoes, the sheer amount of sand in them making you both giggle. “Isn’t that better?” he asks triumphantly, waiting for praise, and you shrug, trying to hide your smile from him. He notices this and walks over, grabbing your waist and kissing you until you break into a grin and you’re laughing aloud, pulling away so you don’t literally laugh into his mouth. “You’re so cute,” he sighs, pulling you into his side and ruffling your hair. You appreciate this much less—it makes you feel like a child. So you squirm out of his grasp and take a few steps away, in the direction of his car.

“Did you finish setting everything up?” you ask, clearing your throat before to at least attempt to provide a conversational transition between his compliments and your question.

He seems a little offended that you pulled away so fast, but his facial expression remains unchanged; he isn’t going to let you know that it bothered him. Is it even within his rights to get annoyed at that? That’s more boyfriend status, he thinks, and then he opens his mouth to reply. “Only the tent, everything else is still just in a pile right next to it.”

“I’ll help now,” you say with false brightness, speeding off in that direction. You clutch your shoes and socks in one hand, the other clenched into a fist. You can hear his footsteps a short distance behind you, but you don’t stop to wait for him. You don’t stop until you’ve reached the campsite again and you see exactly what he was talking about, with all of the bags haphazardly piled right beside it. “You didn’t lie,” you say, scanning the equipment.

“Why would I?” he counters, but playfully.

Slowly, the two of you unpack the necessary things, rolling out your sleeping bags, organizing toiletries and taking out hiking equipment—to which you firmly denied going on a hike in the damn desert. Hyunjin pouted, but brushed it off by saying that he liked hiking alone best anyways, and that you could have fun at the boiling hot campsite by yourself while he explored trails deeper into the site. Keeping up your act, you tell him to have fun, and leave it at that. Surprisingly, you don’t notice the way his face falls slightly as he realizes that you really don’t mind not spending time with him.

The late afternoon sun is blazing, unbearably hot. You retreat to the tent, which provides little to no comfort—there were no trees around to set it up in the shade, and Hyunjin insisted that you weren’t supposed to pitch a tent underneath trees anyways. Especially here, he said seriously as he smoothed out his sleeping bag, the branches are all so dry that they could fall on our heads any time. You fought the urge to say that you’d prefer a crispy branch falling on the tent over sweating your skin off in the direct sunlight.

A bead of sweat rolls down the back of your neck. You can feel the hairs that gather at the nape of your neck and how they’re plastered to your skin from the damp heat. You pat the area gingerly with your hand, feeling it come away wet. Your phone is charging, but you’re trying to stay off it to preserve the battery life on your portable charger. Instead of scrolling endlessly through random apps and social media, you’re grumpily sitting on top of your sleeping bag with your legs criss-crossed, slowly chewing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Luckily, Hyunjin had brought a lot of food—more than enough to sustain you for the duration of the trip. It shouldn’t be that long anyways; you both have to be back on campus by the time the weekend is over.

“The sun’s setting now, so it should be cooling down soon. Might want to get that hoodie back out,” Hyunjin says, entering the tent. He nods towards the hoodie that he’d draped over you in the car earlier, and you chuckle.

“I’ll put it on if I need it. It’s way too hot to be wearing pretty much anything right now,” you say, trying to fan your moist face with your hand, both of which are sticky with jelly.

Hyunjin touches the back of his neck too, pushing up the small low ponytail that he’d gathered his bright red hair into. You can see that the dye is so fresh that it’s bleeding into his sweat, leaving scarlet rivulets across his skin that look like scars. “Sorry I didn’t warn you about the temperatures out here. It’s kind of crazy sometimes,” he says softly.

You shrug, finishing your sandwich and flopping onto your back, which you regret a little; the slick thermal cover of the sleeping bag sticks to your skin immediately upon contact, and the entire surface is warm. Hyunjin mirrors your actions, falling back on his own matching sleeping bag. “That was some hard work we did,” he says, with an approving tone. “For someone who’s never gone camping before, you didn’t do too bad with the tent and everything.”

“Thanks,” you say, somewhat dryly, but only because you don’t know what else to say. A slightly uncomfortable silence ensues, before Hyunjin clears his throat again to speak again.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

You turn your head to look at him, the movement creating a swishing noise against the sleeping bag. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, you’ve just been acting kind of weird recently. Especially today,” he admits, doing the same and turning to face you. He props his head up with his hand, his elbow sinking deep into the plush sleeping bag from the weight.

It’s hard to swallow the last bite of your sandwich, because of both the thick peanut butter and your suddenly dry throat. “Well…” you trail off. For a moment you think you want to be honest with him, because truthfully, he’s a good guy—sure, he has his moments, but he never really intends to hurt you with his actions. He isn’t obligated to coddle you.

“You can tell me anything, you know that… right?” he asks. “Like—I’m here for you, even if we’re not…”

This time, he’s the one to trail off, but he doesn’t avert his gaze. You feel it on you as you stare down at your hands, fiddling with your fingers nervously. “That’s the issue,” you blurt out, “we’re… not.”

“Not?”

“You know what I mean.” You’re embarrassed, so you turn away from Hyunjin so you don’t have to look at him or cringe at the shocked expression spread across his handsome features.

“You—you want to be…”

“I mean… yeah. Not at first, but now… I guess I feel differently.” Your voice grows softer.

“Since when?”

“Sort of recently. Maybe a month ago.”

He says your name with such gentleness, such care, that you feel your eyes starting to water. “If I knew… I wouldn’t have been so…”

“Such an asshole?” you ask scornfully. You can’t help it. This was why you didn’t want to ever have this conversation with him. You knew that there was resentment, even though he didn’t really do anything wrong. You knew that by bringing this up, you’d be breaking down your own walls that you put around the feelings you had for him, locked away deep deep down.

He exhales loudly, clearly not pleased. “Well, I don’t know if I’d say that.”

You don’t reply, because you know that if you do your voice will break, and then he’d say something about you crying. Something nice, probably—he’d want to comfort you, which makes everything worse. You wished that instead, he’d laugh in your face or say something douchey, just to give you a reason to hate him and get over it already. Quickly, you wipe away a tear that’s threatening to spill from your eye, and you get up and leave the tent.

You have nothing with you: no shoes, no hoodie, no water or food. The remnants of the peanut butter taste in your mouth turns sour and dry as you take deep gulps of air, sprinting away from the tent. You run further than you did when you were exploring, faster than you’ve moved in years. You stumble a few times, your cheeks flushing with embarrassment every time the sand trips you up, but eventually you think you get far enough away from Hyunjin that he can’t see you any more. You come to a stop when you reach the only somewhat memorable landmark you’ve passed on your run—a medium sized rock that has been flattened at the top to create a seat out of the natural material. Panting, you sit down on it, the hot surface crackling across your skin. It’s not hot enough to burn you, but it’s hot enough to be slightly uncomfortable. Yet, you stay there, hands gripping your itchy thighs, which burn from the rock and from the exercise, as you try not to choke on your own breathing.

Wiping the sweat from your eyes, you feel a sudden chill in the air that makes goosebumps rise on your arms. You look around to see the sun starting to sink below the horizon; you have the perfect view across the long, flat landscape. The campsite seemed to be in a sort of valley; a lower part of the ground that did not allow you to see across the land.

It would be dark soon, and you were in the middle of nowhere with nothing.

“Why couldn’t we have had this talk when it was still warm out?” you muttered aloud, angrily. You wrap your arms around yourself, starting to shiver as the warmth disappears along with the sun. There’s a cool bluish cast on everything now; the sand looks gray and the rock looks black, in contrast to the constant reddish warmth that the desert had embraced during the day. You again wonder if there’s any dangerous wildlife here, and curse yourself for pulling such a stupid move. You curse at yourself for a lot of things—the main one being that you actually came here with him and expected everything to be fine.

Perhaps that isn’t true though: but isn’t that worse?

Deep down, even though you’d never admit it, you came on this trip because a small part of you still yearns for his love. You don’t like to change the way you act for a guy; that’s lame and pathetic. But that small part that disagrees seems to have more power over you than you previously thought. You came here because you thought that there was a chance, no matter how small, to get him to love you. Maybe, he would realize just how beautiful you were in the orange light of a sunset. Maybe, doing things that he enjoyed would make him relate to you. Maybe, you would be able to impress him with some secret hidden skill that even you didn’t know about until you showed it off for him.

You have no tears left, only anger at yourself for being such an idiot, as you pull your legs closer to your body and stare into the darkness of the night.

You couldn’t have been there long, but you can’t be sure when Hyunjin finds you. By that time, you’d run through a million possible things to say to him when you saw him again, but you end up saying none of them. He too is silent, and the only thing he does when he sees you is hand you the same green hoodie, which you take without hesitation. You’re too cold to give a damn about your dignity any more.

The walk back is silent. Your toes are freezing, because the sand is completely cold now that the sun isn’t there to warm it. You shuffle behind Hyunjin, who takes wide, reaching strides with his long legs that easily eat up the desert terrain beneath him. He looks beautiful in the moonlight, as he always did, and you think of the first night you met him at that party, when the very same thing captivated your attention and refused to let go. The only difference now is the red—his hair, still burning and bright in the darkness, rather than the silvery blonde that made you do a double take. It’s no less mesmerizing though, to see it bob and sway as he walks, leading you silently back to safety.

“This is why,” he says, his voice shaking. The raspiness breaks the quiet, disrupts the still air.

“Why…?”

He stops suddenly, and you almost crash into his back. He turns to face you, his brow furrowed, his lips pressed into a tight, small line. He says your name again, tenderly as always. “This is why we’re stuck like this.”

The campsite is in view, and your gaze drifts from his pained face to the lonely, singular tent that’s sitting in the sand. “Because I’m a fucked up person?” you ask bitterly, knowing damn well that isn’t what he meant.

He just shakes his head. “That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“(Y/N)...”

Dawn breaks, warmth spilling back over the hills and valleys, turning the sand a bright orange. You watch as the light washes over Hyunjin’s tall frame, a mile long shadow being cast by his lanky body. Neither of you says another word, and then he just shakes his head again, scoffing so quietly you can barely hear it, and turns to walk back to the tent. He doesn’t look back, and then ducks inside. The rustling sounds stop, and you’re left standing there alone, clad in the dark green hoodie, when your tears finally overflow.

---

Men.

You want to blame Hyunjin. You always want to blame him, because honestly, it is partially his fault, just as much as it is yours. Once, Jimin had muttered something about men always being disappointing, especially men around Hyunjin’s age. His personality and looks didn’t help either; he knew that he was attractive and desired, and he took advantage of it. That’s the worst part about pretty men, you thought, their own fucking self-awareness.

Or maybe that’s not the right term, because there’s a lot of shit about him that he was just blind to. He never understood why you got mad when he said something insensitive, thinking that he was just being honest and communicating. His naturally flirty personality attracted a lot of people, who he messed with for fun instead of taking it seriously. Here, you were torn: you genuinely could not tell if you were just another body to him, or if he actually cared about you and thought you different from all the other losers that he’d mess around with.

You feel nothing but guilt when Jimin pulls up to the campsite, an unreadable expression on her pretty face. She stares you down as you pick up your bag and trudge over to her car, your furrowed brow and frown a clear indication of your emotions, the complete opposite of her. She doesn’t help you into the car, instead staring straight ahead and gripping the steering wheel so tight her knuckles are pale and bloodless.

You’re about to shut the door when Hyunjin peeks out of the tent and notices that you’re leaving. He gnaws on his plush bottom lip for a moment, as if he is pondering whether or not to do what he thinks he should, and then he stumbles out of the unzipped flap and walks over to you. His nose is scrunched up, his eyes narrowed a little from the effort. “Are you leaving right now?” he asks, somewhat stupidly.

“Obviously,” Jimin spits, venom lacing her words.

Hyunjin looks surprised at her hostility, and his gaze flickers between you and her for a moment as you avoid eye contact with both of them.

“Can I say something to you before you go?” he asks. His voice sounds unnaturally rough, like he’s struggling to speak.

Jimin looks at you, and you realize that she’s letting you decide for yourself.

You stare up at Hyunjin, at his gorgeous face that looks almost hopeful as you stare into his deep brown eyes.

“No.”

“N-No?” he repeats, stumbling over the first syllable, pathetically—a first for him, straying from his usual graceful, cool tone.

“You heard her,” Jimin snaps, and she reaches over you, snatching the door handle and slamming it shut in his face. He looks appalled, shocked, as you drive away. The wheels on her car spin in the dirt before they finally get a grip, and she pulls away from the campsite, away from the lone brightly colored tent in the beige landscape, away from Hyunjin and all of his unspoken emotions.

“I’m sorry, Rina,” you say immediately, looking down at your hands shamefully. “I should have known better.”

“What happened?” she asked, “What did he do to you?”

“He didn’t do anything. Honestly, that’s kind of the problem,” you say, scoffing at the end at your own foolishness.

Jimin presses her lips together until there’s nothing left but a thin pink line, showing her exasperation with you. “Well, let’s hope he doesn’t ever get to do anything to you,” she says, stepping on the gas as her car finally touches the smooth paved road again, escaping the rugged, bumpy terrain of the dirt pathway you’d been traveling on thus far.

“One can only hope,” you mumble, just a little sarcastically.

Jimin cracks a smile, and you feel your guilt melt away as she covers your hand with her own, a small gesture of comfort. You sigh aloud, and wonder why you bothered to get yourself into such an emotional situation in the first place. You were done being a doormat, done being the other woman, and done with Hyunjin.

---

Fuzzy socks, a mug of rose (chilled, but you felt as if you looked fancier and more seasonally appropriate drinking it out of your cute hand painted mug), and a Halloween movie marathon on your laptop. That was the medication that Dr. Jimin had prescribed when she dropped you back off at your place. She didn’t say anything about the long drive there and back and how you really just wasted away half of her weekend, and she gave your cold hand a last comforting squeeze before she left. You didn’t realize how much you didn’t want to be alone until her car disappeared around the corner, and you realized just how quiet your apartment was. All of your housemates had gone out for the weekend, with one of them away visiting family and the other at their partner’s, and the silence seems to sting your skin as you walk around mindlessly for a few minutes.

You toss your backpack onto the floor of your bedroom, not even wanting to think about unpacking it even though there’s hardly anything in there. You peel off your clothes, watching stray grains of reddish orange sand spill onto the hardwood below. A trail of clothing items leads from your bedroom and to the bathroom, where you sit down on the floor of your shower and let the hot water run over your skin until steam rises off of it and it’s fevered to the touch. Only then do you bother to wash yourself, scrubbing away the last day with Hyunjin, peeling away his touch little by little.

You don’t feel raw when you step out of the shower, like you probably should. Your skin is irritated from the temperature and the friction, and you wrap yourself in a clean towel and trudge to your room, ignoring the puddles joining the trail of clothes on the floor.

You follow Dr. Jimin’s prescription, getting reluctantly dressed in clean and comfortable clothing and turning on a movie marathon. You pour yourself a full mug of wine, the pink alcohol slopping over the rim of the ceramic container. Though you wince at the mistake, you don’t bother to clean it up. You make a mental note to clean before the weekend is over, so that your housemates don’t return to a dumpster fire in the apartment.

You lay down on the couch, your warm laptop acting as a heat source on your stomach. You’re facing the one big window in the entire apartment, and the curtains are parted, allowing you to see outside. It’s raining heavily, with fat droplets slapping against the glass almost angrily, mirroring the emotions you’d been feeling lately. Everything is gray, the once bright autumnal foliage now dampened and soggy as the season begins to transition into the next. This is the worst part of autumn in your opinion: the decay that comes after the bright happiness. It’s so fleeting, but so beautiful that you can’t help but stick around even though you know nothing but desolation awaits you once the flame dies. You laugh to yourself at your dramatic nature, comparing the changing seasons to your relationship with Hyunjin. It’s almost cathartic to be so wholly passionate and silly about it all, to let yourself feel all of your emotions at once and not worry about what people will think. The movie playing on your laptop drones out the steady pattering of raindrops against the window as you chug your wine, beginning to feel fuzzy as you drink more and more.

You’re not drunk enough to hallucinate—you know that for damn sure. Does alcohol even do that? You’re not sure but you think you’ve been blackout drunk enough to get there, if it was a real thing. Then you realize that it’s real—he’s real. Through the blurred window, you can see a bright red car parking in front of your building, and an individual with the same lanky frame as Hyunjin stepping out of it. His hood is pulled up over his head to keep out the cold rain, so you can’t be completely sure, but you’re pretty positive that no one else you know drives a car like that. So really, who else could it be?

You have to pretend like you weren’t secretly hoping this would happen as you walk over to the door, expecting him to knock at any moment. Sure enough, a sharp knocking reaches your ears, and you unlock and open the door immediately, staring directly into Hyunjin’s eyes. You glance upwards ever so slightly and see the dark black bangs hanging in his face—his hair has been cut and dyed.

“What?” you ask dryly, the implications finally getting through your muddled mind. Simultaneously, you try to ignore the new changes to his hair. You wonder what Jimin would do if she knew he came to your door. Probably beat his ass, which at the moment you thought was quite deserved.

“I do like you,” he says hastily, the statement escaping his lips plosively and suddenly. You watch a raindrop slide down the tall bridge of his nose and fall. His damp, short bangs peek out from beneath the hood of his gray sweatshirt. The entire garment is spotted with rain.

“Okay…” you say, feeling your heart catch in your throat. You try to sound nonchalant, ignoring the pounding in your chest and the way your head starts spinning.

He ignores your response, continuing in a desperate voice. “I do like you,” he says hastily, “but I don’t think I can be in a relationship right now.”

“You came all this way in the rain to tell me that you don’t want to date me?” you ask, raising your eyebrows at him.

“No!” he protests, and you step aside to gesture to him, letting him inside. He shivers in his damp clothes, and you roll your eyes as you toss him a throw blanket that was laying around. It definitely isn’t yours, and you add “laundry” to your checklist of chores to complete before your housemates come back. He wraps himself up in it, fuzzy pink fluff surrounding his face, which is wetly streaked with raindrops. “That’s not what I was saying.”

“So you do want to date me?” you ask bluntly, picking up your mug and taking another massive gulp. He eyes the nearly empty bottle of wine sitting on your coffee table.

“Are you drunk right now?” he asks. “Where did you get this from?”

You wave him away. “Someone left it here after a house party a little bit ago, we needed to use it up so here I am being resourceful and eco-friendly.”

“That’s not what that means,” he says, cracking a small, crooked smile.

“Whatever!” you say, rolling your eyes yet again. “What did you have to say to me?”

“You’re honest when you’re drunk. And sassy,” he comments.

“That’s what you have to say?”

“Give me a minute!” He huffs, sitting down uninvited on the edge of the couch. “Listen, I do really like you, but I’m really busy and it wouldn’t be fair to you if we were in a weird half-relationship just because I don’t have time.”

“And is that all that different from what we do now?” you ask crossly. “Only you have zero commitment right now, and you’d maybe have like… fifty percent commitment if we did that.”

“You’re drunk,” he states, as if it weren’t obvious as well as previously established, multiple times.

“And you’re an asshole.”

He stops, the playfulness completely gone from the banter.

“That’s a bullshit excuse and you know it,” you say slowly, “I’m not mad any more, I’m just saying. And what I’m saying is that that’s the exact bullshit guys say to you when they don’t actually want to date you, but want to fuck you.”

Hyunjin blinks slowly at you, in disbelief. “You really think I’d do that to you?”

“Why not me? I’ve seen you do it to so many people—even when I’m out with you. You think that messing around with all these people has no effect, that everyone can just brush it off like you do. But not everyone’s an asshole like you are.”

“Stop calling me that.” His voice sounds small, wounded even.

“Stop being one, then.” Your voice is cold, but pain creeps through the cracks and shows your true emotions. You’re tipsy and you’re crying in front of him, and you’ve never felt more pathetic.

“I’m sorry, I really am,” he says softly. “I should have been honest with you from the start.”

“You had a lot of chances to do that,” you reply.

“So did you,” he reminds you—not out of malice, but out of honesty.

“Yeah. I wasn’t perfect either,” you admit, though your ego takes a bruising from that single statement.

“People aren’t meant to be perfect…” Hyunjin says, trailing off at the end, like there was something else he wanted to say. You wait for it, studying him as he picks at the fuzzy corner of the blanket. “So can’t we forgive each other and try?”

“Try what?”

“Try… us. Try being together, even if it doesn’t work out in the end.”

You know what you want to say as soon as you hear him say that, but you also know the ending already. As much as you didn’t want to admit it, you and Hyunjin weren’t exactly compatible. There were so many arguments, even though you were never officially together, and you had little to nothing in common. Though those weren’t dealbreakers on their own, when put together, and along with all the other little things you picked up on as you got to know him, you knew the real answer, the right answer. You reach out to caress his face. His skin is warm now, and his hood slips off of his head to reveal the full haircut. It’s short, as you presumed, only the top layers left somewhat long. His bangs tickle your fingers as your hand drops.

The rain only pelts against your window harder as you take his cold hand in yours, intertwining your fingers for the last time, and press your lips to his knuckles. Hopefully, he looks at you, awaiting your answer.

You smile sadly; the moment is bittersweet. Goodbye moonlight, goodbye to our song, goodbye to your stupidly loud car and your soft hair, you think, goodbye.

“No,” you say simply. “We can’t.”

DIVIDER CREDIT | @cafekitsune

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