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leyanas · 13 days ago

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WEAK FOR YOU — a PARK SUNGHOON story

SUMMARY 🖇️ you’ve been taught to keep your heart locked away, but what happens when someone keeps trying to pry it open? it’s only a matter of time before it unlocks and you let him inside.

sunghoon is dangerous; he’s involved in issues that involve fights and chaos, and he’s also your best friend’s older brother, which means he should be totally off limits. but when your worlds keep colliding, and the two of you keep getting each other into trouble, you find yourself drawn to him in more ways than you can imagine.

FEATURING 🖇️ sunghoon x fem!reader, wonyoung & jake

WARNINGS 🖇️ implied parental abuse, mentions of death, lots of fights, blood, passing out, cursing, PTSD & anxiety symptoms, yn has scars, SMUT, penetration, unprotected sex, semi-public sex (jake is next door lol) fingering, body worship(?), praise, biting (vamphoon 😫), oral (fem!receiving), use of pet names (pretty, good girl)

WORD COUNT 🖇️ 25,402 (oh…!)

NOTE 🖇️ yay ive finally posted it !!! PSA this is heavily based on the k drama WEAK HERO! sunghoon is like a blend between suho & baku and y/n is inspired by sieun 🙈 feedback is incredibly appreciated <3 (banner > @uzmacchiato )

You’re not so good at friendships. Here you are, sitting in your room, sparkling in glitter and glue, with a frown on your face. Is this enough? You think to yourself as you stare at the handmade banner for your friend’s upcoming birthday.

For the better half of your life, you have come to enjoy your own company. Being around others has always resulted in them leaving you. It’s made you a little overstimulated around large groups of people, and uncomfortable when they try to pick at already healed scars. You’ve learned to keep people at a distance, choosing to bask in loneliness rather than drown in pain any day.

But all that has changed in your last year at university. Somehow, you managed to defy all college expectations of meeting ‘your people’ for a good two years, until you met Jang Wonyoung in your last year. She was loud, fiery and nosy. Everything you weren’t. She forced herself into your bubble and sunk her glossy nails into your skin, hardly ever leaving your side. You refused to entertain her at first, walking away from her whenever she spotted you on campus, ignored all of her messages and even asked her to leave you alone at times.

Despite that, she never gave up. Her presence started to become familiar, and you found yourself looking for her in places you wouldn’t have even considered attending. The cinema, the park, the shopping mall, her student accommodation, your student accommodation. You’ve found yourself finding comfort in her outgoing nature and excitement in sharing new experiences.

The friendship isn’t all sunshines and rainbows, though. There are moments where Wonyoung tries to dig deeper and have conversations beyond the surface level, but you struggle to let her in. Whenever she asks a question that pokes even a little at your personal life, all you can do is stare and say “it’s fine”.

Here, now, you’re trying to make up for a recent argument the two of you had. Wonyoung was trying to develop the friendship again, and you really did try to open up to her about your parents, but there was something holding your tongue captive. Locking away the words in your chest, keeping you isolated in your own thoughts forever. She blew, upset that you knew so much about her but kept so much from her. You tried to apologise, but she walked off. That was three days ago, and you haven’t heard from her since.

Now her birthday is approaching, you’re trying to both make up with her and celebrate it with her. As she’s explained multiple times, twenty one is a big deal for her and so you want to put in a lot of effort. You’ve planned to decorate her bedroom in her family home while she’s at a modelling shoot and surprise her with cake, a gift and an attempt to deepen the friendship. But the thought of doing that, of opening up, is making you really uncomfortable.

You arrive at her apartment, having already contacted her parents to organise this. You’re shocked, to say the least. Considering Wonyoung’s glam lifestyle—her nails and hair always done, designer brands stamped across her outfits and the constant night outs—you assumed she’d live in a comfortably large house. Wonyoung grew up in a run down part of the city in an apartment block that looks like it’s standing on its last two legs. If anything, the sight makes you appreciate your friend more.

You’re almost finished with decorating her bedroom, but you realise you’ve forgotten to cut out the frame of the banner. Surely it’ll be okay for you to roam around the kitchen to look for a pair of scissors?

Heading out of her room, you nearly collide with a body that you did not expect to be there. You look up, and are met with a shirtless guy who looks only a little older than you, wearing headphones and looking down at you perplexedly.

“Who are you?” He asks, removing an earpiece as he scans you up and down with furrowed eyebrows. “What the hell are you doing in my house?”

Heat explodes inside of your face as you choke on your words. Wonyoung’s parents assured you nobody would be home. Who even is this guy? Wonyoung’s secret boyfriend? “I’m sorry, I was told no one would be here.”

The boy’s head jerks back as he raises an eyebrow at you. “Who told you that?”

You try to scan your memories for this guy’s face, but you can’t seem to figure out who he is. “I’m Wonyoung’s friend, I’m here to plan her birthday surprise.” To provide evidence, in case he brands you as a trespasser, you step aside to let him see the decorations you’ve left her in her room.

“Oh.” He scratches his chest, and his lips curve downwards. “Cool. Sorry about that.” Then he steps inside and begins to wander around the room, leaving you puzzled and flustered at the doorway.

He’s tall, slim and pale. His hair and brows are thick and his nose is strongly defined. His lips are pink and puckered. He looks like the male version of Wonyoung. He wanders around the room, studying all the little props you either made or bought, before his eyes land on the banner and a chuckle escapes his lips. “You made this?” He points at it and looks at you, to which you return with a nod, not sure what else to say. “It’s cute.”

“Are you Wonyoung’s brother?” You finally ask, not liking his intrusion into what could possibly be his own sister’s room, to which you find yourself wondering whether that makes it an intrusion or not.

He nods before taking one final look around the room and heading towards the exit. Finally, you sigh to yourself. As he walks past you he pats your shoulder, and your eyes bulge just a tiny bit at his casualness, but then you remind yourself that he is Wonyoung’s brother after all. “If you need anything, just call. I’ll be in my room. Actually, knock, I’ll probably be wearing these.” A cheesy smile breaks onto his face as he winks down at you, but you remain still as ever, waiting for him to leave.

“Okay.” You breathe out, body tense under his touch. Even Wonyoung wasn’t this forward when the two of you first met.

He nods again, his bottom lip puckering out as he pats your shoulder and heads off towards his bedroom. You stare after him, watching the muscles in his back curve as he walks away. Feeling a little uncomfortable, you try to wriggle off the sensation he left behind on your shoulder as you too leave his sister’s room to head to the kitchen.

It takes you a good few minutes to find the scissors, buried deep in the utensils drawer. Once you do, you’re about to step back into the room until the doorbell rings. Your head pops up at that, and you’re reminded that Wonyoung’s parents told you they weren’t expecting anyone. Deciding to play it safe, despite really not wanting to, you knock on Wonyoung’s brother’s door to let him know he has a guest. It probably is for him, too. You knock a few times, but there’s no answer. The doorbell rings again, followed by a few knocks and suddenly your heartbeat picks up a few paces. You knock again, this time a little louder. Still, no answer. The doorbell starts to ring back to back, and something coils in your stomach. You twist open his door only to find him sprawled out on his bed, a video still playing on his phone as he lies there fast asleep.

Boys.

Huffing and puffing, you make your way to the front door. The sound is booming through the apartment now, and now a voice joins it too. “Park Sunghoon!” A fist collides with the door, parking you in your place. “I know you’re in there, open up!” Bang bang bang bang. It’s starting to sound aggressive now. You can’t decipher whether it’s a friend annoyed that the door isn’t being opened, or an enemy desperate to attack. “Park Sunghoon, you son of a bitch! Open this door now!” Okay, definitely the latter.

You rush back into his room, this time throwing away your usual tendencies and shake the boy awake. He groans and twists and turns, but you continue. Hasn’t it only been a few minutes since he was awake? “Hey!” You poke his shoulder. “Hey, wake up, there are people shouting for you!”

Suddenly he jerks awake with a loud grunt and squinted eyes. You flinch back and stare down at him.

“What are you doing here?” He asks accusingly, lifting his arm to cover his still bare chest.

You don’t even need to answer when another hurl of roars powers through the apartment. “If you don’t open this door now, I swear I’m gonna break it!”

Something twists in Sunghoon’s face, and you shrink at it, knowing that this shouting must not mean good news. He stands up abruptly, throws on a white t-shirt and looks at you for a few seconds, as though conflicted on what to do with you. He uses his chin to point to Wonyoung’s room. “Hide in there.” He orders, and you don’t see a reason not to listen to him.

You close her door and press your back against it, not the least bit nosy about what that man must want with Wonyoung’s brother.

Wonyoung’s brother… She never even told you she had one. For someone who got so worked up about not telling her ‘important details’ of your life, you wonder why she failed to mention she had a brother. She’s told you about her parents, grandparents and even her cousins. But never once her brother. Maybe she’s embarrassed of him, you can’t help but think when you remember him knocked out on his bed. Maybe they’re not close. Well they must not be if she’s never brought him up before.

You shake your head. It doesn’t matter. She’s told you so much about herself. You’ve yet to tell her anything beyond your favourite movies and songs, and even then, when she asked why ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ was your favourite movie, you just shrugged and replied “The cinematics, I guess.” Who are you to question why she kept the existence of her brother a secret?

Something falls on the other side of the door. You hear grunts and swishes of air, and then the sound of glass shattering on the ground. You brush it off at first, thinking that men probably fight all the time, and you’re safe in Wonyoung’s room anyway. Until a force drives into your back and you’re tunnelling into the carpeted floor.

Your skin grazes the grey-toned fibre as you tumble onto it. Quickly, you turn to see that the fight has broken into your friend’s room, the two men beating each other with heavy handed fists just a few centimetres away from you.

Sunghoon, whose back is on the floor and is punching upwards, clearly at a disadvantage here, lifts his head to look at you. You feel like a small prey, curled in on yourself as you bat your eyes at the scene. In the battle of fight versus flight, you’ve always assumed you’d run away, but here you are, rock solid and unmoving.

“Stay back, I’ve got this!” He yells, before getting punched in the face. You cringe at the sight, not an ounce of hope in you that he will win the fight.

The man above him looks up at you with a smirk. “Who’s this?” He breathes, taunting Sunghoon who lunges at him. But the man is faster, grasping onto Sunghoon’s neck and whacking his head onto the ground. “Your girlfriend?”

Stay back where? Where could you possibly go? Wonyoung’s bedroom is about nine square metres big, meaning there is quite literally nowhere to go other than her bed. But that’s better than nothing, so you crawl onto it and try to blend yourself into the wall. “Should I call the police?” You ask.

Sunghoon manages to do something as he twists the two of them so that he is on the top. You let out a sigh of relief but suck it back in when he drives his forehead into the man’s beneath him. They both groan at the contact before Sunghoon squeezes the man’s jaw, a pained expression on his face. “I told you to keep my family out of this.”

The man beneath him cackles, “And he told you to meet him by Saturday. Guess we both don’t play by the rules, huh?”

Something shifts in the air and suddenly they’re pummelling into each other and communicating in punches and groans. The sight horrifies you, watching them split each other’s lips open and bruise each other's faces. You watch them, flinching every time another strike is thrown, unsure of what to do. Should you call the police? What if Sunghoon is involved in something shady and that’s why he’s getting attacked, so calling the police could actually land him in prison. That wouldn’t mend your issues with Wonyoung. But what if he isn’t?

Sunghoon seems like he’s losing now, the older man’s hand gripping onto his face as he slams it into the wall again and again and again. You shriek, noticing blood dripping down the back of his head at the contact. Sunghoon’s moans grow quieter with each bang against the wall and you spot his pupils flickering to the ceiling through the man’s fingers. He carries on like a feral monster, hammering Sunghoon’s head with no mercy again and again.

And again and again and again…

You don’t care. If not the police, the ambulance needs to get here. Now. Shoveling your anxieties to the side, you launch yourself off of Wonyoung’s bed and head to her desk to reach for your phone. With trembling hands, and cheeks that you didn’t even realise were soaked in your own tears, you dial the emergency number.

But before you hit the ‘ring’ button, an arm latches around your neck, tight enough to block the air coming in and out of your lungs, dragging you back and locking you in place. A scream rips out of you as your heart leaps into your throat. “Oh no you don’t.” The man grabs for your phone that you try to keep out of his reach but you fail to do so, resulting in a death grip on your forearm. You cry loud and hard, shocked and in pain. It’s been so long since anything like this has ever happened to you, you don’t know how to react.

The sound of Sunghoon roaring echoes closer and suddenly the grip on your neck is loosened. Your chest expands as you suck in a wheezy breath, crawling straight out of Wonyoung’s room. You don’t care what’s happening behind you, who’s winning or losing, what’s happening to Sunghoon. You just need to get out. The feeling of that man wrapped around your body lingers on you like a ghost and you try to dust it off of you as you stand up to head straight out of this hell of an apartment. Snot and tears dribble down your face and hiccups and sniffs clog your hearing, but you run. You run as fast as you can.

Wonyoung: hey

Wonyoung: i miss you

Wonyoung: can we talk?

You missed Wonyoung’s birthday. She never reached out, so you don’t know whether she even saw the decorations or not. You sit at your desk, staring down at her messages you opened hours ago.

It’s been two days since the incident at her apartment. Your mind has been haunting you with the image of Sunghoon’s head crashing into the wall relentlessly, to the point that you now feel uncomfortable standing too close to your own bedroom wall.

You feel bad, but you can’t bring yourself to reply to your friend. You just know that with one glance, she’ll notice the tension in your shoulders, your fleeting eyes and your quickened breaths. And having to explain to her why this has affected you so much is like tearing open a whole new scar, to which you have no intention of doing. So instead, you choose to lock your phone and look at yourself through your desk’s mirror.

Thankfully, the red around your neck is starting to soften. You twist your head to see it in its entirety and the fear still loiters. You’re reminded of how vulnerable being held like that had made you, crying and sobbing shamelessly like a child begging for attention. Wonyoung’s brother must have thought you were pathetic. It was him who suffered the real injuries, all you had was a jumpscare. Stroking the red marks, you make an oath to never let anyone see such a raw side of you ever again. Hopefully you won’t have to meet Sunghoon a second time, not knowing how you’ll act around someone who saw you act so recklessly.

“Aw man, we’ve run out of snacks.” Your gaze lifts to the boy sitting in front of you. This is your second time meeting up to work on your project, and this is the fifth time this hour he has come up with an excuse to avoid working. “Guess I’ll have to go buy some.” He shrugs, a knowing grin sitting on his face.

You sigh, frustrated. He’s already gone to the toilet, filled up his water bottle, called his mum to send a picture of his forgotten notes and asked everybody in the study centre for a laptop charger. Now it’s the snacks. “Can we focus, please? This project is important.”

“I don’t know about you but I can’t focus without snacks.”

An annoyed huff steams out of your nose as you glare at him. “Fine.” You say, standing up out of your chair. “Text me what you want, I’ll buy it. You continue the storyboard.”

You take a big whiff of the air as you step outside, basking in the scent of the rainy city. It’s pouring and you don’t have an umbrella, the perfect combination to calm your agitation. You hate working with other people; not only is it overstimulating, but it’s impractical, too. Having to find spare time in both of your schedules, sit so that both of you can see the screens and share the work evenly so that one person isn’t slaving away while the other one gets the credit for doing nothing.

Stepping into the convenience store, you bring out your phone to see what your partner wants.

Jake Sim (AMS Project Partner): chocolate biscuits, cheeto puffs, veg kimbap, chocolate milk, stringy cheese and cup noodles

You: You can’t bring hot food into the study centre.

Jake Sim (AMS Project Partner): well i thought you might as well get it while you’re there

Jake Sim (AMS Project Partner): thanks mate

Jake Sim (AMS Project Partner): ill 1000000% return the favour :)

Rolling your eyes, you grab a basket to search for his items. As you step into the snacks aisle, you notice a familiar figure restacking the shelves.

Wonyoung’s brother.

You freeze in place, breath catching in your throat. A bandage is wrapped around his head and faded scars litter his knuckles. The scene of him colliding with the wall replays in your mind and you drop the basket to wrap your hand around your throat loosely.

Sunghoon turns to look at you, recognising you after a quick scan. He turns around and lifts a hand, his lips forming a neutral sort of smile. “Hey.” You return it with a look of horror. Sunghoon winces and his hand itches the back of his neck, “You okay, there?”

Your eyes can’t leave the bandage, your mind won’t put the scene in your head on pause. You point a finger at it, unable to speak, the other hand still latched onto your throat.

“Oh, this?” He points at it, too, before laughing it off and shoving his hands in his uniform pocket. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“I saw what he did to you.” The words come out all scratchy, as though someone really had just strangled you.

An intense stare down grows between the two of you before he breaks it by stepping closer. His eyes drop to your neck, and you’re so distracted by your heavy breaths you just barely realise how close he’s standing in front of you. “Did you get hurt?” He asks gently. “I wanted to check up on you afterwards but you’d run off. And, you know, I couldn’t get my sister to do it. Can I see?”

A gear shifts in your head and you drop your hands to your side, sucking in the shocked face to remain neutral. Sunghoon is exactly the type of person your mother warned you to stay away from when you asked to move out for university. Of boys who are estranged from their family, who get involved with the wrong crowd and who flirt with any girl unashamedly. Boys who will try to creep in under your skin despite having known them for a good ten minutes. “I’m fine.” You swat his curious hand away, leaning to reach the basket you let go of earlier.

“Hey, I’m really sorry.” He calls out from behind you, but you ignore him.

Tears well in your eyes as you feel a hand ghosting on your neck, squeezing your airway and making it difficult for you to breathe.

You return with only two bottles of chocolate milk.

Wonyoung: hey y/n. I really wanted to say this in person but you’re a really hard person to find when you don’t want to be found

Wonyoung: reminds me of our old days

Wonyoung: look im really sorry for how everything has turned out recently. i shouldnt force you to open up to me. a good friend would give you the time to do it on your own accord. i really do appreciate you as a friend and i didnt mean anything i said i was just a little frustrated because our friendship is completely different from what im used to. but i should look beyond what you say, and focus on what you do because you truly are there for me

Wonyoung: seeing the unfinished decorations in my room really upset me, im so sorry y/n. i do hope we can make up and go back to normal <33

These past few weeks have been incredibly lonely. Despite being used to this before Wonyoung entered the picture, not hearing her bubbly voice or feeling her cuddle up on your arm is actually quite sad. You feel imbalanced, like you’re tiptoeing between satisfied and unsatisfied no matter what you do. This is what you were used to and yet, it feels gnawingly different this time.

And yet, you refuse to reach back out to her. You don’t know what it is. You’ve drafted over a hundred different responses, planned to show up at her apartment plenty of times but every time you’re about to take that next step your neck squeezes and Sunghoon’s head bangs against the wall.

This time is no different as you walk up the same tilted alleyway leading to her dodgy apartment block, not even sure if she’s returned back to her student accommodation or not. It’s late but after another rewatch of ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’, you found yourself aching to see your friend again. It’s dark and the afterscent of rain lurks in the air. The streets are dimly lit by dull, flashing streetlights and your heart swells at the thought of a flower as beautiful as Wonyoung spurting out of these awful, graffiti lined, weed stinking walls.

After you’d told her what your favourite movie was, Wonyoung asked you what type of flower you thought she was. You told her she was a Dahlia, a loud sunset coloured plant that demanded and deserved attention. If she were to ask you now, you’d probably give her a Sugarbush. A bold, resilient flower that can survive harsh climates such as this corner of town. And her brother. No wonder she’s never mentioned him.

You’re about to step into the lift but you just can’t do it. Not when what just happened recently is so obviously affecting you, and you’re not allowed to tell her. Before you can turn around and head back home, defeated, a hand cups around your mouth, another around your waist and you’re silently dragged away. Terrified, you try to claw and fist your way out of the grip, but to no avail. Your shrieks muffle through the hand, and your kicks don’t seem to be doing anything as your kidnapper tows you further and further away from Wonyoung’s apartment. Tears storm out of your eyes as your throat starts to feel like sandpaper from all your screaming. You hate that you’ve been reduced to a crying mess all over again.

After being hurled into a car with blindfolds on and some kind of restrictive fabric keeping you from escaping, you try to get a sense of what is going on. You feel like you’ve been thrown into a movie because what kind of life have you lived where you have made an enemy so vile they’re resorting to kidnapping? You try to press against the two large bodies beside you, but to no avail. They hold you down with their large, clammy hands while you silently cry between them.

Are you going to die?

After what feels like ages, you’re dragged out and escorted to somewhere open and cold, the blindfold ripped off your head. Whoever is behind you increases the pressure on your shoulder and knocks you onto the ground, forcing a moan out of you. Your eyes slowly trail their way upwards, and you have to use everything inside of you to stop yourself from fainting at the sight. It’s the same man from earlier. His hand print blazes on your neck all over again as you struggle to catch your breath beneath him.

“So you are his girlfriend, aren’t you…” He chuckles, before pulling out his phone to snap a picture of you. You try to picture what you look like, wide-eyed, hair pointing in all sorts of directions, lips wobbling and pathetically grovelling on the ground. How disgustingly uninhibited. “Don’t worry, this should be quick.” He smirks before tapping away at his phone.

You don’t know how long it takes for Sunghoon to arrive, but it definitely doesn’t feel “quick”. He rushes in, and when you see him you cower, the sight of his head pounding against the wall gushing back into yours. But this time, you choose to ignore that, to throw all of your instincts aside and choose yourself for once. Using every single muscle in your floppy legs, you stand up and sprint towards him, to which he accepts you with open arms. “Are you okay?” He pants, clutching onto you tightly, eyes scanning you. Soaking in everything you would never let another soul see.

You nod. “I’m fine.”

“I’m so sorry you’ve been dragged into this.”

“It’s fine.”

He stares at you long and hard, like he did at the convenience store a week ago, before an angry face consumes him and he lunges towards the man. They fight, you think. You’re too busy trying to block it all out by melting into the grey, concrete wall with hands latched onto your ears. Grunts and shouts seep their way through, followed by thuds and groans of pain, but not once do you look back. You’ve learned to choose yourself. Always choose yourself first.

The only time you lift your head is when Sunghoon calls from beside you, his fingers grazing your elbow. “Let’s go.” And you are forever thankful for the gentleness in his voice and the softness in his eyes as he hooks his hand around your arm and drags you out of the building.

Staring at the helmet he offers you, you stand in front of him awkwardly. “How am I supposed to fit?”

Sunghoon’s face contorts as a confused sounding giggle escapes him. “Into the helmet?” You don’t respond, or take the helmet from him so he steps closer and puts it on for you. The smell of him hijacks your nose, it’s that fiery, soothing aftermath of rain hitting an open flame. “See? You fit fine.” He smiles, tapping the top of the helmet before clipping the bottom of it. From this close, your heart stammers a bit at his features. At his thick damp hair, at his glowing pale skin now littered with more scars and blood and bruises, at the beauty mark resting near his nose. He looks ethereal, like how younger you would have pictured a guardian angel. Except he’s a guardian angel that keeps getting you into trouble just to get you out of it. “Now get on.”

“How am I supposed to fit?”

A pause. “Oh, you meant on the bike.” He laughs as he sits on it before patting behind him. “There’s plenty of room, come on.”

You don’t really have another option, so you squeeze behind him on his scooter. It’s uncomfortable. Especially when he tells you to hold on and your fingers scrape his shoulders, only for you to stick yourself to him like glue as soon as he steps on the accelerator. He drives fast, leaving you pressed against his broad back. Even with Wonyoung, you’ve never initiated any form of physical contact; with her holding your forearm and ruffling your hair, you’ve never needed to, so you’re incredibly overstimulated right now. You think Sunghoon tries to start a conversation with you a few times, you can feel his voice rumbling from his back to your chest and the sensation feels a little funny, but you can’t really hear what he says so you resort to staying quiet the entire journey.

When you arrive around the corner from your neighbourhood, you tap his back. He comes to a halt and you jump off quickly.

“Here? This is a park?” Sunghoon asks as you return his helmet and shake your head to fix your hair.

“This is close enough.”

“Are you sure? Let me take you home, it’s no big deal.”

You hate the way he stares at you. You two don’t know each other. He doesn’t even know your name, and you only know his because of a man who tried to kidnap you just over an hour ago. This is like Wonyoung all over again, breaking down barriers that took so long to build all over again. Except this wall is a lot bigger and sturdier.

Your home is completely off limits.

“I’m fine.” You protest, before turning around and nearly hitting the floor with your face. Of course it’s Sunghoon who catches you. Looking down, the two of you gasp at the sight of your leg, bottom half of your knee swollen and painted with bruises. How have you not noticed this? A pain bursts through your leg as you stare at it, as though it had been hit and you’d completely missed it while thrashing out earlier.

“Let me take you home.” His voice is so close now. His chest is pressed against your back, knee propping up your leg, lips hovering the side of your head. You know he is full of nothing but good intentions, but your home is completely off limits.

“No.” As you stumble out of his hold, clutching onto your aching leg, you know you’re being stubborn. You know you look utterly ridiculous right now, trying to hop on your good leg in the middle of the night, looking as rugged as ever. But if the other option is letting a stranger into your home, you’ll remain as stubborn as you can.

Too bad Sunghoon is just as stubborn as you are.

While you struggle your way home, Sunghoon surfs beside you on his scooter, his head darting between you and the pavement ahead of him. “Come on, you know you want to.”

Huffing, a fire is suddenly set ablaze within you, not wanting to give up even more now. You stomp faster, gripping onto your leg tighter, trying to flee him. “Leave me alone.”

The sound of his engine bubbles into your ear as he speeds (hardly, really) to meet your pace. “Look, I’m really sorry you’ve been tied into this mess. I just want to make it up to you.”

“Make it up to me by going away.”

“Can I at least have your number?”

You force yourself to a halt, taking Sunghoon by surprise as he presses the break abruptly, bobbing as he stops. “Is that what this is about? Getting my number?” Truthfully, you’ve never given your number to a boy before, so you’re a bit unsure how to act right now.

He scoffs, rolling his eyes to the side before looking at you again. “You sure are a piece of work, aren’t you? You’re a target now, it’s good for us to exchange numbers in case you get in trouble again.”

That’s a pretty good point, but you can’t back down now. “You won’t catch me anywhere near that part of town ever again, so I think I’ll be fine.”

He looks frustrated—his face similar to everyone else who speaks to you for more than a few minutes. You’re difficult and stubborn and emotionally closed off, you know this. But Sunghoon has seen slightly further than that, so to see him mirror the same expression everyone else has is a little disappointing. Why that disappoints you, you have absolutely no idea.

“These guys are serious. They could be tailing us right now.”

“Then that’s all the more reason for you to leave me alone.” You say, despite the blood pumping around you increasing a little at the thought of being followed.

Sunghoon finally gives up. “Fine, I won’t take you home.” You should leave at this point, you’ve got what you want so now you can go. But you wait. You wait because it looks like he has something else to say and a small part of you wants to know what. “I can’t ignore your leg, though. Plus I need to make it up to you for getting you in trouble..twice.” He lifts two fingers in the air.

You don’t even get a chance to breathe before you say, “Okay.”

He stands there for a moment, completely silent, before he throws the helmet over your head and clips it on, not breaking eye contact with you once. You don’t usually keep eye contact with others as you’ve found your staring can make people quite uncomfortable. But he doesn’t turn away, not once, so neither do you.

“What’s your favourite food?” He asks, knocking the top of your helmet.

“Bulgogi.”

He shakes his head cartoonishly, with closed eyes and a scrunched up nose. “That won’t do. What’s your favourite affordable food?”

You’re waiting to be dismissed by the nurse, all alone since Sunghoon dropped you off at the Emergency Department a couple of hours ago. They haven’t called home to let them know you’re injured, considering it’s only a sprain, which is good. You’d rather sit here by yourself than with your mother. A white hospital room with her by your side is not your favourite place in the world.

“We’re losing her.” Someone, probably a doctor, panics in the blurry void.

There are so many hands touching you. Some are pressing down on your chest, some are wiping something on your head, some are compressing your legs. It’s the most attention you’ve ever received in your life.

But it’s your mother’s strike that cuts through all the noise. “My baby! Save my baby! She’s all I have left!”

Somehow, a smile manages to break onto your face, sending everyone above you into a mini pause before they resume trying to bring you back to life. You feel your mother’s fingers curl around yours, but there’s no malice in the way she grips them. Only desperation, to have you in her life. Because you’re her baby.

Your notebooks and laptop are splayed out in front of you as you try to focus on your work. But you can’t. Not with the adamancy that Sunghoon had to look after you. He really is just like his sister. You fought him on it, and most people would leave, but not him. Instead of scribbling down title ideas for your assignment, you find yourself listing ways in which to repay Sunghoon’s kindness.

Buy a ‘thank you’ gift.

Write a ‘thank you’ note.

Your pen freezes over your notebook. What would you even say in a thank you note? The two of you haven’t had a conversation for longer than two minutes, and the only reason why you know his name is because of the man screaming it at him. Wouldn’t either of those forms of gratitude be too weird for you to give him?

The door slides open just as you close your notebook, a smell of something warm wafting into the room. Looking up, you watch as Sunghoon saunters in with two plastic bags at his side. “What?” He chuckles, making himself comfortable beside you as he pulls the bed table over and unloads the bags onto them. Two bowls of soup. “You thought I was asking for your favourite food for fun?”

You stare at him. “You’ve been gone for two hours.”

A cold look flies over his face for a second. It’s fleeting, but you see it. “Had to deal with some things. Plus, the best gukbap takes time to cook.”

When you see brand new injuries on his hands and face, you know what he dealt with was something violent. But you don’t question it, you can’t when he went out of his way to bring you one of your favourite comfort foods. “What did you get?”

“Oxtail soup.” He almost salivates as he opens both the lids, and you find it entertaining to watch him make such funny sounds and facial expressions. “Come on, eat up.” Something warm blooms in your chest as you take your first sip of the soup. You watch as Sunghoon slurps from his own bowl and you can feel a ghost of a smile lurking on your face. How easy life must be to enjoy something as small as food. “What?” He asks, cheeks full, lips soaked and soup dripping onto his chin.

Without really thinking much of it, you grab a napkin and hold out your hand to him. His head drops to your hand and then shoots back up at you with a confused brow. “Are you always like this?” His hands (and his mouth) are full so you take the liberty of wiping his chin yourself, unable to ease the anxiety of watching the soup leak onto his lap.

A beat of silence passes as he stares at you as though there’s a huge question mark hanging over his head. Then he blinks feverishly, fisting his chest as he tries to swallow his food. “Uh..like what?”

You take a couple of seconds to scan him. “So animated.”

“I could ask you the same question. Are you always so… reserved?”

That word: reserved. It’s such a refreshing term to describe you. It conflicts everything you’ve ever assumed people saw when they tried to get to know you. In fact, the word throws you so off guard, a smile sneaks onto your lips. It’s not a ‘reserved’ one, either. It’s big and careless, with flashing teeth and creased smile lines. A laugh builds up in your throat too and you let it fall out, suppressing it with another spoon of your soup.

Sunghoon still sits there like he’s caught a ghost, making your laugh die out a little. “Wow. Did you just laugh?”

“If you’re about to say, ‘You should smile more, it suits you’, I want you to park that thought right now.” You glance at him, lips resumed back to their usual position.

“Well I wasn’t going to say that. But it does suit you.”

You can’t find it in you to be angry at him. Not when he went out of his way to rescue you, to try and take you home, to bring you food, to keep you company. So you just tuck into your food instead.

“Oh, by the way.” He starts, and you notice the dribble again, so you hand him the same napkin as earlier. He takes it and continues talking. “I don’t know if this is obvious or not, but please keep what happened a secret from my sister. I don’t want her to know I’ve got her friends involved in my shit.”

Because that’s all this is. That’s all you are. His little sister’s friend that keeps getting reaped into his business, that will forever be reaped into his business if you keep bumping into him. Tension grabs you by the shoulders as a shiver trickles down your spine. A pain shoots up your leg as you grab it, remembering how you were dropped onto the floor by someone who seemed twice your size. That must’ve been how the injury happened. You give Sunghoon a fleeting look, hoping your fear doesn’t transpire past your eyes, “Do you think I’m still involved?”

His eyes try to burrow yours as his gaze flickers between them. You nearly falter, having to break away the eye contact to take another sip of your food. “Yes. And I’ll apologise a million times over for it.”

Reality washes over you. Sunghoon being here only makes you that much more of a target, you realise as you sit up and push your food away. “You should go, then.”

“Hey, I…”

“Go.”

His head drops as he nods, hopefully in understanding. And when he leaves, an unnerving silence buzzes around the room. You didn’t realise how frightened you are to be here until he left. The walls creep in, and so do the memories.

As soon as the two of you are left alone, your mother’s warm gaze ices up, and so does the blood in your veins. Her hand rips from yours, like just touching you will infect her with some evil, incurable disease. You lie on your bed and soak up her stare, unable to move even an inch. The heart monitor picks up the increase in your heartbeat, beeping so fast you think it’s going to explode.

“The police will probably come in a few hours. What are you going to tell them?” The worry from earlier, the desperation that she was losing her ‘baby’ is gone.

“The bowl fell on me when I opened the cupboard.” Flat, rehearsed, empty. Your eyes are stuck to the ceiling and you can feel your mothers’ on your injuries. On the stitches and bandages.

“Good. Because I swear, if I get in trouble for you hurting yourself I won’t ever forgive you. You know that, right? A daughter, lying that her mother has hurt her. Do you know what kind of pain that is? If you even think about doing that to me,” She’s close now, so close that not looking at her will look disrespectful, but when you do look at her she’s nearly foaming. The heart monitor is booming now. “I will die. Right here in this room.

And it will be all your fault.”

Wonyoung has found you. She’s managed to corner you at your new go-to coffee spot, leaving you no choice but to let her sit across from you. The last thing you want to do is make a scene. “You look awful.” She’s right. You’re eating less, sleeping less and working more. You hardly talk anymore, leaving you with a scratchy voice and chapped lips. You’ve thrown on whatever you can wear and you don’t remember the last time you took a real shower. Her manicured, thin, soft hands come to wrap around your trembling ones. “Is everything okay?”

If she found you, there’s only so much time before someone else does.

You nod before tugging your hands out of her grasp. “I’m fine.”

“You’re clearly not.”

That tiny flame licks at you again. “How come you’ve never told me you have a brother?”

The question nearly shoots her eyebrows off of her head as she sits up, her hands retreating from you. “How did you…”

Your hands find solace cupping around your mug of steamy hot chocolate. “He was there when I came over to surprise you.”

She sighs, as though realising there’s no escaping the question. “We don’t get along. Like, at all.” Her gaze switches to her coffee as she swirls it around in her hand. “He’s deep into some bad shit and refuses to get out of it all. It’s his ego, like he can’t stand down as the best fighter in the area. We’ve offered him money to get out of whatever gang he’s in, but he won’t take it. He’s just a bum who thinks he’s cool because he gets beaten up all the time.” So he’s exactly the type of person you figured he is. “Why? Did you two speak?”

“No, it was just a bit funny that you fell out with me because you felt like I never really told you anything, yet you kept him from me too.” A bit daring for you to confess, but it’s better than letting her know the brother that she hates has, in fact, dragged you into his shit.

“Y/N…” Her eyes gloss and her eyebrows curl inwards, bottom lip dragging downwards. You’ve never made anyone look like this, never mattered enough to hurt someone. But instead of reveling in the fact, you feel your lips tugging downwards, too. “I’ve told you so much. I’ve invested so much into our friendship, I’ve told you things I’ve never even thought of telling anyone else. Sunghoon, he… It’s dangerous to tell people we’re related, you never know who’s involved with what these days. And plus, I never speak to him. We have no relationship. I’ve never felt the need to share him with you, only things that are actually important to me.” She blurts through sniffs.

You’re crying too. Your face is rigid, expressionless, but the tears are streaming down. Fast. They dampen and stomp on that stupid fire in your belly. You can’t deny it anymore; Wonyoung means so much to you. “I know. I’m sorry. I miss you.”

She’s shocked, and flattered, and just as emotional as you are as she switches to your side of the table to bring you into a tight squeeze. It doesn’t suffocate you the way it did with Sunghoon and you lean into the space between her neck and shoulder, the two of you sitting amongst a bustling crowd of students and business people, crying together like two little girls. It’s freeing, to be able to express yourself within the confinement of her body. To pat her arms and feel her squeeze even tighter.

To know that no matter what, your friendship is real.

The two of you separate at the bus stop, Wonyoung getting onto her bus first, but not before she gives you one last squeeze. As you wait for yours to arrive, someone sits worryingly close to you on the bench.

“I was waiting for when the two of you would actually start acting like friends.”

You whip your head to the side. It’s Sunghoon. It’s Sunghoon and you’re you, puffy face, swollen nose and bright red eyes. Instead of getting agitated by him again, you chuckle before facing ahead of you. The universe is incredibly funny, you think. It knows how much effort you put into building walls around you, but decides none of that matters in front of Sunghoon. That it’s a joke to sneak him into your life whenever you have your guard down.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re stalking me now?”

You spot him shrugging from the side of your eye. “Not really, just checking up on you here and there. You wouldn’t give me your number, so, gotta make sure you’re safe somehow.”

What Wonyoung told you replays in your head as you shift to look at him, tilting your head. “Why? I’m not your responsibility.”

“You became my responsibility the second that man laid his hands on you.” He says in a tone so serious it nearly knocks you out of your seat. Your heart skips a beat and your mind races to figure out why. “I feel really bad for what happened.”

“Me too.” You say before you can even think.

Sunghoon’s brows drop. “Why would you feel bad?”

You sigh. “I’ve become a liability to you now.”

“That’s not your fault.” He says, in that milky tone that lies somewhere between a whisper and a caress. With eyes that stare at you like you mean something, like you are someone. And those words, words that you’ve been aching to hear for years come from him so easily. You didn’t even need to ask. “I should’ve taken the fight outside, you’re not to blame.”

You suck in a breath before turning around again, a little overwhelmed. You’ve experienced a whirlwind of emotions today. You tunnel around your pocket before pulling out your phone and unlocking it. “Here.”

Sunghoon gets the hint and pops his number into your phone before using yours to call him. “How’s your leg?” He points to it with his chin.

You drag it beneath you, hiding it from him. “It’s fine.”

His whole body draws towards you like a magnet. “I saw you limping earlier-”

“I’m fine.” But you’re not, your heart is racing and you don’t know if it’s because you're overstimulated by him in a good or bad way. It’s hard to decipher when your body reacts the same way to both. “It’s just sprained.”

Sunghoon tuts and shakes his head at you, and suddenly a wave of shame washes over you. “You shouldn’t be walking on it then. At the very least you should be using crutches.”

You look at him, mirroring that same long and hard stare he’s given you before. You notice the matching bags under his eyes, the sickly paleness of his skin, and the almost transparent bruising on his face. This is a person who is in a lot of pain. Who’s shovelling that pain under a rug just to make sure a stranger is okay. You wish you could be like him. While you hide your pain to prohibit anymore, he hides his pain to protect others. An admirable trait that you know someone as cowardly as you could never imitate. “Thanks.” You mumble, so quiet you’re not sure he can even hear it. But his eyes don’t leave yours once, and something floats between the two of you. Something silent and heavy.

The sound of your bus’ horn tears that something apart as you blink and turn away from him, releasing a breath you didn’t even know you were holding.

Sunghoon calls from behind you as you stand up. “As soon as you think you might even be within earshot of danger-”

“Call you,” you turn around and offer a half smile before stepping onto the bus, “yeah, I know.”

You watch him through the window as you take your seat. He does that stilted wave with that funny-looking neutral smile again, the one that looks like he’s forming his lips into a straight line.

Waving back, a weird, swirling feeling begins to warp in your stomach.

You and Wonyoung are back to being tied at the hip. Before the distance, you never realised just how much time you spent together. But now that you’re glued together again, Wonyoung won’t stop ranting to you about her older brother. The two of you are sitting cross-legged on her bed in her student accommodation, using the small amount of time while her roommate is away to chat.

She munches on a sandwich as she talks. “It’s just so freeing to be able to talk about it, you know?” You nod as she squeezes your thigh. “Like, we used to be so close. I looked up to him so much and then he suddenly changed in high school. He stopped picking me up from school and going to cram school together, he stopped checking up on me, and started coming home late in these awful moods.” You try to picture the Sunghoon she’s describing, only ever having been protected by him whenever you two meet. He’s always soft and doting, which makes you wonder why he doesn’t act like that around his own sister. “And then one day he called me to help him,” her voice wobbles, “and when I show up I can barely even recognise him.” She’s staring into the distance, reliving her horror.

“He’s bleeding so much…” Your eyes blur as the image of the man screwing his fingers into Sunghoon’s hair to get an iron grip on his face resurfaces.

“There’s bruises all over him…” He pulls Sunghoon towards him and then hurls him into the wall, a loud crack ringing in your ears.

“One of his fingers is bent funny…” When he draws him close again, a small blob of blood remains on the wall.

“And I tried to get him to tell me what happened…wouldn’t let me call the police or our parents…just had to sneak him into his bedroom…” The man knocks Sunghoon’s head again and again and again.

“Are you listening?”

You focus on your friend again with an awkward cough, “That must have been awful.” Although you only voice your sympathy for your friend, you also feel something for Sunghoon. Except you don’t know whether it’s sympathy or empathy. Because that story makes him sound a lot like you; like someone who shuts off their feelings and problems from the world, and only works best when dealing with them alone. In silence and secrecy.

You think about Sunghoon looking through the decorations you’d made for his sister, how he took his time to swallow them, even reading the banner. About him making sure you knew he was available if you needed any help. About him making sure you were safe in Wonyoung’s room, away from his fight. About him showing up to save you. About him insisting on taking you all the way home. About him taking you to the hospital and keeping you company. About him following you around to make sure you were safe. About him asking for your phone number. About him worrying about your knee.

About him saying those words.

“That’s not your fault.”

In a way that felt like something warm had hugged your heart and unlocked one of the many chains strapped onto it. In a way that puts a very, very small smile on your face whenever you recount it.

“I need to go to the toilet.” You stand up and waste no time waiting for a response before locking yourself in there. Scrolling through your contacts list, you find him: ‘My saviour’. You roll your eyes but a tiny grin creeps on you anyway. How comical. You don’t know what it is that makes you want to talk to him, but you want to. It’s an intense feeling that’s developed over the past few days. Rather than replaying the traumatic incident that occurred in Wonyoung’s bedroom, you keep seeing his oddly attractive almost-but-not-really smile. You’re not silly, you’ve had crushes before, but most of them have been so far away. None of them have felt so close and real.

Before future you can regret it, you shoot him a quick message.

You: hey

Releasing a shaky breath, you switch your phone off and clutch it to your beating chest. You feel young and alive again. Like a teenage girl shooting her shot at her high school crush, it feels silly and fun. You’re smiling like an idiot on Wonyoung’s bathroom floor. You even took the extra step to use lowercase and absolutely zero grammar, trying to come off as casual as you possibly can.

Your phone starts vibrating and when you see ‘My saviour’ written at the top of it, you feel your heart plummeting to the floor. Why is he calling you? Do people not text anymore? Are you out of date? Panicking, you reject the call. All those dreamy feelings escape you and now you feel like an idiot.

My saviour: You can’t call?

My saviour: Where are you

My saviour: Share your location

My saviour: I’ll be there as fast as I can don’t worry ok?

Oh. He thinks you’re in danger. Which is totally valid because why else would you be messaging him at 3PM on a random Tuesday? The fact that it wouldn’t even cross Sunghoon’s mind that you would want to talk to him outside of begging him for help or thanking him for saving your life again stirs you the wrong way. Your cheeks burn, not knowing what to do now. You did kick him out of your hospital room and insinuate you want nothing to do with him again, so it’s not really his fault. That stubborn fire gurgles in your stomach, but how petty do you have to be to pretend you’re in danger just to avoid embarrassment?

You: Sorry, I messaged you by mistake.

My saviour: Oh thank god

My saviour: You scared me ahahaha

My saviour: Make sure you stay safe ok?

Now the fire is roaring, swiping at the bottom of your heart that nearly just melted at that last message. It feels so intimate. If someone snatched your phone out of your hand and read it, they wouldn’t understand why he would say that. But you do.

“Y/N?” Wonyoung calls out and suddenly you feel like a child caught watching something they shouldn’t be. Because that’s exactly what’s happening here. Wonyoung has just expressed how betrayed she feels being isolated by her only brother, and here you are, swallowing giggles over his text messages. What kind of a friend are you? “Hey, are you okay?”

You delete all the messages and switch your phone off, tucking it away in your pocket before flushing the toilet. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay, come on out because I haven’t told you the Jungwon tea yet.”

You don’t know how you got stuck with Jake Sim as your project partner yet again, but here you are, at his apartment, researching together. While Jake is a little annoying and is addicted to procrastination, he isn’t nosy. He’ll whine and moan and question things out loud, but he doesn’t make a fuss when you don’t respond. It’s comforting to be able to go mute around a person and not be interrogated for it. People tend to ask whether you’re upset, offended or not feeling well, and when you respond with none of the above it’s usually taken the wrong way.

You’re not stupid. You know how you’re described by people who’ve met you. Rude. Antisocial. Miserable. Depressing. Stubborn. Annoying. Unnerving. Creepy. Awkward. Pretentious. Obnoxious.

While you do agree with stubborn and antisocial, the rest really jab at you. People also whisper about how you’re friends with Wonyoung, and that you must be her sugar mommy, because why else would she possibly want to hang out with you?

In fact, it’s comments and interactions like those that have made you even more reclusive. University is supposed to be this life changing experience that encourages you to come out of your shell and make as many friends as possible. But it’s been the total opposite experience for you.

While Jake is on his third toilet break of the day, the door rings. You’re pulled back to when the door rang at Wonyoung’s family apartment a couple of months ago, and your heart speeds at the memory.

“Y/N! Can you get that?! It’s our lunch!”

You huff, wondering why he ordered for the two of you when you clearly arrived with a packed lunch. Getting up, you feel your knee throb and your throat close in a little—symptoms that arise whenever you’re reminded of that day. You stand a few steps away from the door, a new habit of yours. “Who is it?”

“Delivery!”

A sigh of relief flies out of your mouth as you open up the door. Keeping your eyes on the food, you take the bag from the delivery man, but your eyes fly up to him the moment you see fresh scratches on his knuckles.

It’s Sunghoon.

“Oh.” A sound escapes him as he recognises you, too.

“What happened to the convenience store?”

His face unfurls into the widest smile you’ve ever seen him make, flashing all of his pearly white, perfectly aligned teeth. His eyes disappear and his nose scrunches, as though he is genuinely amused by what you said. You find yourself breathless in front of him. “Two jobs. I’m a busy man. Three if you count, you know.” He says as he flexes his injured knuckles.

It’s supposed to be a joke, you know that, but your eyebrows furrow at his words. “What does that mean?”

His smile reduces as his eyes flicker between yours, seriousness settling in them. “Nothing, it was a joke.”

“Are you in a..” You realise where you are mid-sentence, before shooing him out and closing the door behind you. You’re not nosy, that’s not what this is. This is the perfect opportunity to see whether Wonyoung’s anxieties about what her brother’s involved in are irrational or not. “Are you in a gang?” You whisper. His smile returns despite the shift in the conversation. You draw your head back, “What?”

Sunghoon tries to hide his smile by containing his lips, but you can see it squeaky clean. “You’re cute when you’re nosy.”

If humans were any similar to water, you’d be a piping hot puddle of water right now. But you try to regain control, that flame being the only thing keeping you upright. “I’m being serious.”

“Oh, even better, you’re worried about me.”

You can either play into his flirting, which you know you would definitely mess up at, or you can pull him down to reality with you. “No, Wonyoung is.”

Something switches inside of him as his smile completely disappears. “You told her?”

“No. But she told me. That the two of you used to be really close until this.” You point at his knuckles with scars so thin they could fall right off any second. And instead of hiding his pain through a joke or something flashy, Sunghoon shoves his hand in his pocket, like he’s ashamed. You feel like you’re staring at a mirror all of a sudden, his actions hitting too close to home. “She’s worried about you, about what you’re getting yourself into.”

He rolls his eyes, something distant beginning to form in them as he looks to the side. “She doesn’t need to worry about me, I’m-”

“‘Fine?’” You finish his sentence so easily because you’ve said it yourself over a million times. The easiest lie to tell. The loneliest truth to others who understand it. And Sunghoon understands it very well as his eyes find you again and you both stand there in the middle of the hallway, staring at each other breathless.

“Exactly.” His voice. That sweet and syrupy voice that sends tingles all over your body.

Your heart yearns to escape its chains and snap off Sunghoons’, to intertwine with him as you both let your hardships fade into the background. You wish you were like any other girl, who could hold him and tell him it’ll all be okay and then open up yourself and let him cradle you. But you can’t. You know you can’t when he turns around to walk away from you and you don’t stop him.

He’s everywhere. He’s in the childhood stories Wonyoung feels relieving to share with you. He’s in every ring of a doorbell. He’s in every loud bang. He’s in every smudge of blood. He’s in your knee when you stare at the elastic bandage. He’s on every rainy street. He’s everywhere.

You thought escaping him would be easy. But you can’t, mind possessed by his vampire teeth, his fidgety brows, his bleeding head, his odd smile.

You’re someone who can achieve anything you want. You’re focused and driven, excelling at your studies and all of your side hobbies. You’ve tried burying your head in your work, exercising the thought of him away and even watching movies. It’s the movies that are the worst, though. A fight scene? Sunghoon. A romantic scene? Sunghoon. An argument? Sunghoon. A moment of friendship? Wonyoung, who is Sunghoon’s sister so, Sunghoon.

Wonyoung has noticed a change in you, too. You’re quieter, quieter than usual. Something no one other than her would notice. You don’t lean in when she cuddles you, you don’t hold eye contact with her anymore and your already short sentences have been reduced to mumbled words.

“What’s going on?” She asks as you pull your arm away from her. “Have I done something?”

You’re quick to look at her with wide eyes as you shake your head, “No.”

“Then what’s wrong? I won’t force you to tell me, but just know that I’m here for you if you need anything.”

It’s guilt. You’re burdened by the guilt of liking the one person on this planet you shouldn’t. For every time you feel consumed by the thought of Sunghoon, a wave of guilt crashes onto you and washes away all the traces of him. Wonyoung is the only person who accepts you for who you truly are, who isn’t creeped out or irritated by you, yet you betray her. Every single day. “I think I’m just really stressed out for the upcoming exams.”

“Is something distracting you? You’re usually really confident around exam season.”

You hate how much she cares about you while you break her trust every second you spend thinking about her brother. “It’s home stuff.” It’s the only thing you can think of that will get her to shut the conversation down. Wonyoung knows something is off behind the doors of your family’s house, it’s obvious when you become clingy during breaks. Well, your definition of clingy, anyway.

But she knows that the topic is completely off limits, so the only thing she can offer you is a look of sympathy and affection. “You know that I’m here for you.”

“Always.”

You let yourself soak in the rain on the way back to your house. It’s winter break which means you’re returning to your family home and not your cosy little apartment just a five minute walk away from you friends’. Your steps are slow, the front of your feet grazing the concrete as they drag behind you. Your coat is hardly protecting you, the wind sliding your hood off every time you pull it over your head, the rain attacking you from every angle. There’s comfort in the rain, though. The cause and effect is simple. The clouds soak up all the evaporated water, go through condensation and release them. You’re not the cause, rain is a never-ending cycle of its own fault. No one can twist anything and make you seem at fault for getting doused in cold, dirty water. It is so obvious you are the victim that you can’t help but enjoy the rain.

And then suddenly he’s there. In grunts and groans emerging from just around the corner. At first you think it’s your imagination. It’s raining, and Sunghoon is often tied to the rain, so it mustn't be real. But then you hear it—him—moaning in pain, the loudest you’ve ever heard him. Your feet move before your mind does, sprinting around the brick wall only to freeze at the sight before you.

It’s two against one, with one pinning him down and the other smashing something against his arm.

What can you do? Will calling the police get him in trouble?

Sunghoon erupts into a shilling scream every time one of the two men bash something against his arm. It sends you back into freeze mode. You want to help, but every time your foot hovers in front of you your neck tightens again. His screams are so loud and unfiltered, his voice cracking alongside his bones. A terrible headache forms between your brows as you contemplate what to do, but when you see the man position the item in his hand so that it hangs above Sunghoon’s head, you launch yourself right into the scene.

He can’t die.

Shallow, aching breaths blow in and out of you as your body vibrates with each leap you take. You have no plan, no brawl and no idea why you’re doing this. But one thing is sure: Sunghoon cannot die.

A hungry, animalistic groan emits from the man with the weapon, that you now see is a sturdy chunk of rock as he rotates his arm with the intention to harrow the rock into Sunghoon’s head.

And before you know it, your shoulder collides into his, the adrenaline making you strong enough to knock him away. The impact throbs as all your blood rushes to the right side of your body. The second man, who’s been pinning Sunghoon down, glares at you like you’re a piece of meat fresh out of the oven.

“The girlfriend..” He purrs with a smirk.

You don’t think. You tear your jacket off and throw it onto him before thrusting your bad leg into his gut, hammering him into the cold, wet ground. There’s no time to celebrate or check on Sunghoon when the first man gets up and grips onto the back of your hair, sending a shockwave down your body. You can feel his hand, the pull on your scalp, but there’s no pain. There’s no time for pain. Twisting your body, you latch your own hands to the side of his head as you lower it to drive your forehead right into his. The two of you cry out in pain but when you stumble backwards, a body lingers behind you.

The man swaddles your neck with his arm, and everything blurs as your airway gets cut off.

“Do you know how I got these marks on my neck?” Your mother asks as she sits across from you on the floor of the living room, her soup cold. She swivels her neck around to show you all sorts of blemishes and scars; some old, some new. “Hm? Have I ever told you?”

Shaking your head, an unsettling feeling crawls its way into your bones.

“I got them,” an eerie beat of silence, “because of you.”

Her finger is unwavering. It somehow reaches beyond the long dining table and nearly grazes the tip of your nose. It grows eyes, dark criticising eyes and very downturned lips. You try to look up at your mother but everything else aside from her finger is blurry. It’s 3D almost, like it’s a few centimetres away from poking your brain.

“Getting pregnant with you made me weak. It made me fat and undesirable, therefore easier to punish. There’s less guilt when you hurt something that doesn’t look human, anyway.”

All the bruises on your body attack you at this point, gleaming and glowing in pain. But still, the finger doesn’t move. Its eyes grow larger, stopping you from tearing your eyes away from it.

“It’s all your fault. Everything. I’ll never forgive you.” She says so plainly. As though it was the most obvious thing in the world. As though every bad thing that ever happened to the two of you—your father, your step father, the homelessness, the hunger, the beatings, the loneliness—is of course, without a doubt, entirely your fault.

You manage to look at her neck again. “I’m sorry, Mummy.”

Slurping on her soup, she refuses to meet your stare. “Don’t be sorry. I’ll never forgive you anyway.”

There’s no use in being sorry. In tears and begging for forgiveness. Because it’s all your fault anyway. You put yourself in this fight, so you’re sure as hell going to get yourself out of it. With some new found strength pocketed away in a secret chamber of your heart, you bite down on the man’s arm, strong enough to draw blood from it. He bellows behind you so you bend yourself forwards only to throw yourself back. Again and again and again, until his back is against the wall and his head batters into it again and again and again.

He was screaming at first, you think, but there’s no screaming anymore as you continue to use the momentum in your body to hit him again and again and again. The image of this happening to Sunghoon flashes in your mind and oh-

Sunghoon.

“Stop, it’s over, they’re gone! What are you doing to yourself?!” He’s wailing at you, gripping your sides like you’re some kind of crazy person.

You furrow your eyebrows as you turn around to show him that you’re saving his ass, that’s what you’re doing, but there’s nothing there. Just a large streak of your own blood dribbling down the wall in the rain. A pain shoots in your head as you realise what you’ve been doing to yourself for who knows how long.

“God, are you okay?” Sunghoon sounds so concerned as he strokes your wet hair out of your face, searching for something in your eyes. “We should take you to the hospital.”

“You, too.” You try to say but your voice is all croaky even though you don’t really remember shouting.

“Okay.” He nods, short quick nods. “We’ll both go, okay?” His soft, cold hand cups your face, and a thumb strokes your cheek. It’s so stupidly intimate. You’re two strangers bleeding out and standing in the freezing cold rain, staring at each other like nobody else exists in the world. You bring your hand to cup his, intertwining your fingers together, before everything turns black.

A white hospital room. Again. How many more times will you end up in this place?

You feel your mother’s fingers curl around yours, but there’s no malice in the way she grips them. Only desperation, to have you in her life. Because you’re her baby.

When you regain focus, it’s not your mother clutching your hand this time, it’s Wonyoung. She looks at you with such large, wet puppy eyes, like you mean everything in the world to her, like losing you would hurt her. What can you do but cry? And instead of berating you for your tears, or blaming you for getting yourself injured, Wonyoung cries with you. It’s a bit of an awkward stretch when she leans over to cuddle you, but you find a way to lean your head against her to let her know you appreciate it.

“Your mum’s just gone to grab a drink by the way.” She sniffs. You tense. “I’ll leave when she comes in.”

“Thanks.” You say as she pulls away from you. “Thank you, Wonyoung. Seriously.”

“You know what’s funny?” She chuckles as she tugs the blanket closer to your chin, tucking you in nice and warm. A sign of affection you’ve only ever experienced in fiction. “I’m only here because Sunghoon called me. What are the odds?”

Your heart stammers in your chest as you try not to give anything away in your face. “What do you mean?” It all comes out in a rushed breath.

“He somehow got his arm broken and saw you get pulled in by paramedics and let me know. While you were sleeping, I actually went to visit him.”

“Did you two talk?”

Something nostalgic washes over her. “A little. He didn’t tell me how he hurt himself, though.”

“You seem happy.” You squeeze her fingers.

“Can’t let him know that.”

Your mother walks in at that moment, and you notice the venom in her eyes when she looks at you. Wonyoung has never met your mother before, so she wouldn’t notice it, but it’s there. Her index finger wrapped around her papered mug is already stretching and growing them two, beady, accusatory eyes. You have to clear your throat, “Wonyoung, I’ll talk to you later, okay? You should go to Sunghoon.”

You can tell she wants to protest, but she knows your house and your family are off limits. So she leaves with a small, polite bow to your mother.

As soon as the door slides shut, you’re left alone with your mother.

My saviour: Wonyoung said you're with your mum and she's not allowed in

My saviour: Am I an exception? 😏

Despite your mother’s hatred for you, she never leaves your side. She’s sleeping on the guest bench beside your bed while you giggle at your phone. You hate Sunghoon. You hate that you put so much effort into forgetting him yet he still found a way to sneak into your heart. You can feel him, poking the locks on your chambers with a funny shaped key, trying his best to squeeze it through the keyhole and open you up.

You: You’re whatever the opposite of an exception is.

You: My mother will put two and two together if she sees you injured, too.

My saviour: Aww

My saviour: How are you anyway?

My saviour: You’ve been out for hours

You: I’ve just got the world’s biggest headache. No biggie.

Yeah, the world’s biggest headache from whacking your own head against the wall like some kind of psycho. Heat surfaces your skin at the memory, especially at how Sunghoon looked at you afterwards, like a monster that had been unchained. And yet, despite all of that, he’s still checking up on you. He’s still speaking to you like you’re a normal person. And he hasn’t said it, he hasn’t said those awful words that your mum couldn’t even wait until the ghost of Wonyoung’s footsteps had disappeared before throwing them at you.

“This is all your fault. I told you to focus on your studies and here you are, getting yourself knocked out like an idiot. How did you even get such a stupid injury? The doctor said it looks self-inflicted. Self-inflicted? What’s wrong with you? You know you’ve taken that from your father. You’re sick, like him.”

My saviour: That’s good

My saviour: When can I see you? I have so much to say :(

That silly little pouty face. You can almost picture his own lips tugging downwards like that, puffing outwards as he makes the cutest sad face in the world.

You: Sorry, she won’t leave until I’m admitted. After?

My saviour: Don’t say sorry

“Don’t be sorry. I’ll never forgive you anyway.”

My saviour: Don’t ever say sorry to me

My saviour: This is all my fault. Im so sorry for getting you in trouble again Y/n. You dont understand how grateful I am for you saving me back there. It means so much to me that youd put yourself in danger for an idiot like me

My saviour: By the way when I saw you standing in front of me after you just side knocked the life out of that guy, soaking wet and panting, I felt like Id just been saved by a superhero. I swear there was light shining behind you in that moment

A few seconds of typing and stopping and typing and stopping go by.

My saviour: You also looked really hot

A thunderstorm of emotions crashes onto you. How can a few words on a tiny screen make you feel so much? You’re breathless, cheeks sore from smiling too wide as you read his messages over and over again. There’s something so enchanting about the way he speaks, something that makes you feel like you’re floating towards him in the cloudy sky, where no one else exists besides you and him

You: Can I see you now?

He types and he stops again and again.

My saviour: Thought I couldn’t come?

You: I’ll sneak out.

It takes a lot of effort to sneak out of your hospital room. When you get up, you realise you’re naked under your hospital gown, and your arms are wired up to a few too many machines. Where are your clothes? You think to yourself as you rip the wires from your skin, only wincing slightly at the pain. But then you start to bleed a little and one look confirms the thought that you look like a vampire’s victim. This is just awful. You’re dizzy, cold, naked, bleeding and you have to sort all of this out while your mother sleeps in the room.

You manage to do it in the end, rummaging around the backpack your mother bought for some clothes, peaking into some drawers for some plasters and stealing some paracetamol from your mother’s bag.

It’s all worth it. It’s all so worth it when you arrive at the rooftop and Sunghoon is there waiting for you, the wind threading through his hair, the cold, nippy air leaving a thoughtful look on his face as he appreciates the view from this high up. You stay at the doorway for a while, admiring the boy in front of you. There’s no denying that you find him attractive but there’s something more about all of this. There’s something laying in the fact that he’s seen some of the worst parts of you and still chooses to be kind to you.

But then something twists in your gut when you see his index finger grow. It extends downwards, slithers across the ground like a snake and lifts just to point at you with wide, hawk-like eyes. What’s wrong with you? In all that time you spent ignoring Sunghoon, not once did he reach out. He only wants to see you because he feels indebted to you for saving him. And before all of that? He was just looking after some friend of his sister that he doesn’t even like, because the wrong people keep mistaking you as someone precious to him. He doesn’t care about you, not like that. There was no graceful meaning behind the words that crippled something in your chest. The cause and effect is simple.

He got you in trouble. He feels bad. He’s trying to avoid getting you into more trouble so he doesn’t feel bad anymore.

He gets into trouble. You save him. He’s thankful.

That’s it. There’s nothing more to this. His heart doesn’t run a marathon whenever he sees you, he doesn’t crave just a glance of your face when you’re not there. You’re no one to him. Just a liability. He’s just a good person.

You slam the door behind you and quietly stomp down the stairs, trying to control the wetness behind your eyes.

But he’s behind you, of course he’s behind you. Because he’s so good. Because he can see that you’re upset and in this moment of time, it doesn’t matter who you are, he would chase after anyone who was crying. “Hey, hey, you okay?” He stops you in your tracks with a truly concerned look and it takes everything in you not to lean into his hold on you. “What’s going on?”

“I’m..” You can’t bring yourself to say it. For the first time in your life, you can’t make up that lie. Because saying that will mean that there is a barrier between you and Sunghoon, but you don’t want there to be. You desperately want him to break the chains on your heart, to climb into it and settle there. To be reminded of him whenever you see that stupid finger hovering above your nose. So you choose to tell the truth instead, no matter how scary it may be. “It’s this.” Sunghoon’s brows furrow as he tries to piece together what you’re saying. “It’s this endless cycle of being indebted to each other; I hate it.”

He shakes his head, “You don’t owe me anything, you save-”

“Saved your ass back there? So now you feel like you owe me?” His eyes never leave yours as you speak to him, clearer than you ever have before. “That’s all this is. That’s all it has ever been.”

He watches you for a second and you think that he’s finally going to realise how silly this all is and let you go. But instead, his grip on your forearms tightens, and your chest follows. “Yes, that’s how this all started. But that’s not how it has to continue.”

For some unearthly reason, Sunghoon’s features warp into your mothers. You don’t know whether it’s the grip on your arms…

“What have you done to me?! You’ve turned me into a monster!” She screams, her voice like fireworks being shot into your ears, as she rocks you back and forth by your forearms. A pounding headache bursts in your head with each violent shake.

Or the sad look in his eyes…

Your breath is short and rabid, trying to suck in as much air as possible before you’re dunked into the water again. Blinking, you try to find your mother through all the blurriness. To try to use her guilt to reason with her into stopping this madness. But when you do, there’s no guilt in her eyes. Just a sad, faraway look before she pummels you in again.

Or the false promise of something good happening in the future…

You’re tucked in her arms as she strokes your hair. Her voice is soft and creamy, lips stuck to your warm cheek. It’s moments like these that make you wish pausing time was a real thing. “And when you’re older, you’ll go to the best school in the world. You’ll study hard, graduate, and get a job. And then you’ll earn so much money, we won’t have to rely on Minjae for anything. We can escape, just me and you. We can go to Disneyland, on endless holidays. We can do whatever you want, baby. Because you’re the smartest girl I know.”

And then she turns back into Sunghoon. As though it never happened. But it did, in some twisted way, because Sunghoon is acting like your mother. He’s acting crazy.

“What is wrong with you, Sunghoon?” Your voice cracks, because you would never talk to your mother this way. “This is nothing. There is nothing between us. And if you want something to potentially happen in the future, then that’s just straight up selfish. Just face the truth, I am a liability to you. And that’s all I will ever be.” You’re crying now. You don’t know how many times this boy has seen you cry, but you don’t care. Not if it means putting yourself first.

His mouth opens and closes. His eyes roam yours. His hands slip from your arms. A cloud flies over his eyes and hides those open and bleeding emotions of his that you love to watch, replacing them with eyes that mirror what yours usually look like.

Empty.

And that makes you sob. Loud and hard. Because it doesn’t suit him at all. Because the Sunghoon you know is unashamedly vulnerable and alive. Because Wonyoung never gets to see how caring and protective her older brother is, and gets this side of him instead. Because you had access to his honest and raw side, but you’ve pushed him so far away that this is all you deserve.

But he breaks, too. His grip on you returns as he bends to make eye contact with you. You watch the flurry of emotions hit his entire face all over again. “You’re right. You’re right, Y/N. If a liability is all you will ever be, then protecting you is all I will ever do.”

“You promise?” A barely-there whisper.

“With all my heart.” His voice has never been fuller.

It’s nearly Spring. The season of graduation and new beginnings.

Since crying your heart out like a baby to Sunghoon a couple of months ago, you feel rebirthed. Even though you haven’t needed to see him since then, that small moment helped you break so many boundaries. It helped you realise your heart is so much bigger than you thought. That there is so much room for joy and love in your life. That what your father and step-father did to your mother weren’t your fault, and you don’t have to live the rest of your life in vain because of it.

You’ve moved out, permanently. You and Wonyoung now live in your own, non-student accommodation apartment. You’re paying most of the rent with the inheritance that had been hidden from you by your mother, but Wonyoung is now working part time to pay her share. You opened up to her about your mother. About the abuse and the loneliness and the reason why you struggle to let people in. She didn’t cower at the story, she didn’t talk you back into moving in with your mother, she didn’t do anything your mother told you would happen if you told someone about her. Instead, Wonyoung hugged and cried with you.

You’ve also gotten closer with Jake, who’s contact name is now “Jake :)”. He still does most of the talking, but you enjoy tailing him around campus as he greets all of his other friends with high-fives and side hugs. The two of you now meet up solely just to procrastinate, which is something that you find is actually quite thrilling.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Jake grabs your phone and stuffs it into his pocket. “We agreed no school, no work, nothing!”

You huff, “I was just checking if the textbook I’d ordered-”

Jake cuts you off with a fake gag, “Textbooks are a trigger word. They remind me of uni.”

Shoving him, you can’t help but laugh at his antics. “How did you even make it into your third year of uni?”

He laughs, too, before wrapping his arms around your shoulders and whispering. “A master never reveals his secrets.”

You lift a hand to his face and push him away from you. “Because you have no secrets to tell.”

Jake’s eyes widen as he lifts a hand to his chest, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The two of you laugh again, and when it fizzles out you sigh. What have you been doing for the last twenty one years of your life? Why haven’t you been able to just exist? This feels so freeing. The chilly air in your face, the smell of flowers spurting from the ground, the faint sound of music from the late night clubs and bars. And here you are, a tiny spectacle amongst it all, doing absolutely nothing with a big, fat smile on your face.

Suddenly you feel Jake wrap his arm around you again, but it feels different this time. It’s not on your arm or your shoulder, but quite low on your waist as he tucks you into his side. Your brows furrow at the change in atmosphere. Nothing has ever been romantic between the two of you, at least not on your side. Not with Sunghoon constantly on your mind. You look up at him, but he beats you to it. “Act normal.”

“Why? What’s going on?” You question him, but you still whisper, a sense of danger jabbing at you.

A feeling of anxiety stirs up inside of you, something you haven’t felt in a long time. Something that you once lost sleep, weight and nearly Wonyoung over. A feeling you’d like to never experience ever again.

But then Jake points ahead of him with his head, and you spot some drunk-looking thugs sauntering your way. Your eyes scan them for that man, the one whose arm still sometimes curls your neck in your sleep. Thankfully, he’s not among them, but that doesn’t ease the tension in your body as the men narrow down on you, eyes not leaving your face. It’s when they get close that you spot a picture of yourself, the one of you from that day you were kidnapped, on one of their phones.

“Jake?”

“Mmhmm?”

“We need to run.”

“What?” He looks at you, and you realise you’ve distracted him as a heavy punch lands on his face.

“Jake!” A scream rips from you as you watch him land on the floor, before two arms hold you back. One on your waist, and one around your neck. Not tight, not with the intent to strangle you, but it’s still on your neck.

It’s Sunghoon all over again. Except it’s not two men, it’s five. The fear of Jake dying in front of you snaps something inside of you as you writhe against the man. But Jake drags himself up, and you hardly recognise the look he’s pulled onto his face. Slowly, he lifts one fist to his chin and another in front of his chest.

And it all goes haywire from there. Jake draws his fist back and slams it into one man’s face, before elbowing another again and again and again…

And again and again and again…

Sunghoon’s head bangs again and again and again…

Everything goes hazy. Jake’s winning, you think. Men keep dropping around him as he ducks and punches and kicks and whatever else. The only blood you can see on him is splattered across his knuckles. Then he’s walking up to you and he looks so scary, so scary that the man behind you completely drops you and tries to run away. But Jake doesn’t let him. He grabs the man by his collar as you watch in fear, and hurls him close.

“Who are you people?”

“Union. We thought you were Sunghoon.”

Your eyes widen at the name.

Jake looks confused. “Park Sunghoon?”

“Yeah. Look, we’re sorry man, let me go. It’s because of her.” You watch with a stuttering chest as the man’s finger points at you. A sight you haven’t seen since you moved out from home. The finger is unnaturally long, with eyes bulging out of it, squishing against your face. Everything hollows out as you almost go cross-eyed staring at it. “She’s his girl, so we thought you-”

No. You weren’t going to let this snake of a finger control your life any longer. If you managed to escape your mother, you can escape this. That pit of fire you haven’t felt in so long engulfs you as you grind your teeth to try and contain it, before grabbing onto the finger and snapping it backwards with an anger so hungry you nearly rip its head off.

The man shrieks in agony, and probably shock, too, as Jake looks at you with an unreadable expression. “Get our names out of your mouth.” You say to his finger, bending it as far as it’ll go.

“Okay.” Jake rests his hand on your back. “Let the man go, Y/N.”

You’re shaking, seething from the raging fire inside of you. You glare at the whimpering man before letting go of his finger, watching him cup it to his chest before he runs away.

It’s only once he leaves that you let out a shaky breath and the tears begin to form. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise.” He says, rubbing your back. “Let’s just find somewhere safe for you to explain what’s happening.”

You: Hey.

You: We need to talk.

“Does Wonyoung know about this?” Jake asks, the seriousness still not leaving his face.

You switch off your phone, hoping Sunghoon messages you back any minute now. “No. She doesn’t know anything. She thinks we only met in the hospital once.”

He nods, and you feel like a child caught doing something naughty in school. Jake’s whole demeanor is different, but it suits him in an odd way. You’re not surprised that someone of his build was able to easily batter down five men. “Do you know what the Union is?”

“He never told you?”

“We didn’t talk much.”

“Well, it’s a collective of different gangs within the area. Like, the head of each mini gang comes together to form the Union. In simple terms.”

“So what’s their problem with Sunghoon?”

Jake scratches his head. “He has some history with the leader of the Union, Lee Heeseung. Apparently they grew up together or something. They’ve been trying to recruit him since he was in high school, and it’s just been push and pull since then. Until recently.”

Something shifts in the air at his words. “What?” An uncomfortable look spreads across Jake’s face as he struggles to make eye contact with you. You wave your head into his line of vision. “Jake? What does that mean?”

“Well, he’s gone off the radar. I assume that’s why those guys attacked me, thinking I was him. He’s high on the wanted list right now. Lee Heeseung can’t stand not having Sunghoon on his leash.”

Your breathing shallows as you sit up. “How do you know all of this? Are you in the Union?” Jake cringes. You nearly fall off the sofa. Standing up, you find yourself backing away from him. “You’re with those men?”

Jake Sim. Someone you’ve unlocked a chain on your heart for, is involved with a man that nearly took your life.

He’s quick to stand up and step in your direction, to which you have to step away from. “Not really. I’m not that high up, I’m not involved with the men that hurt you. I didn’t even know you were his girlfr- the girl associated with him. I just run errands for them every now and again.”

“But you know that they hurt people.”

“Yeah! Including me! You don’t just choose to join a gang, Y/N!”

“You’re stronger than Sunghoon, I’ve seen you fight. If he can choose, why can’t you?”

Jake looks hurt. “He has the privilege of being Heeseung’s friend, or ex-friend, or whatever. Heeseung shows mercy to that guy. If he was anyone else, he’d be dead.”

Dead. That word rings in your head like a broken alarm. Hurriedly, you snatch your phone out of your pocket with quivering hands and press on Sunghoon’s contact. You ring, but his phone is switched off. You look back up at Jake, “What if he is?”

“Dead?”

You shrink at the word. Why is his phone off? Why has he disappeared? Without really thinking, you call Wonyoung.

“Hey.” She answers cheerily.

You stare right at Jake, who keeps making warning faces at you, as you speak to her. “Have you seen your brother recently?” Your nail finds its way between your teeth as you gnaw on it, that anxious feeling returning.

A silence passes before she replies, “No, why?”

“When.. Uh, when was the last time you saw him?”

Jake grabs the phone off you, putting it on mute. “You said she doesn’t know!”

“That doesn’t matter now! He could be in danger!”

“Telling her will put her in danger, too! Why else do you think he hasn’t told her anything?”

You hate that he’s right. But you need to know whether Sunghoon is safe or not. You try to grab your phone, but Jake keeps it way out of your reach before hanging up on your friend. “Well, what’s your plan? Even the great Lee Heeseung can’t find him!”

“I’ll think of something, okay! For now, go home and get some sleep. We’ll talk about this later.”

“I can’t, I live with Wonyoung.”

“Oh, just great then.” He rolls his eyes, flapping his arms around.

“Are you angry at me?” You ask, and suddenly Jake comes to his senses as he sighs, defeated.

“No.. No, Y/N..” He walks close to you, and this time you don’t step back as you notice his usual warmness sink back into his body. His hand pats your forearm. “I just don’t want this all to escalate. Maybe Sunghoon’s just hiding. Maybe he… I don’t know, really likes you, and is just getting some space since you rejected him.”

Your bottom lip wavers. “But he promised.”

“Promised what?”

“To protect me.”

Jake’s hand turns into his arm and eventually all of him as he scoops you into a hug. “Hey, don’t worry, okay? I can protect you, too.”

You unravel all over again. No sleep, no food, no school, no Wonyoung. She’s resorted to contacting you through emails, since you’ve switched your phone off to avoid her endless calls and texts.

[email protected]: No subject

so you know my brother right? a lot more than just bumping into him at mine and at the hospital. I should’ve known. how else would he have recognised you if you were being rushed into er?

i feel cheated y/n. he’s my brother why didn’t you tell me? you know how awful he is to me. how could you do that to me? do you know how much this hurts? to know that it’s easy for him to cast me aside but he has no problem caring for random girls.

he’s an asshole and i hope you come to learn that very soon. i thought you cared about me more than this im really and genuinely so confused and upset right now. even worse that you’re ignoring me? why aren’t you coming home? are you the victim here?

You’ve read the email so many times you have it memorised. Whenever you shut your eyes to try and get some sleep, you see the words ‘Do you know how much this hurts?’ flash brightly amongst the black, keeping you awake, followed by a strike of intense guilt.

Jake is barely home, out every day at either his classes or hunting down Sunghoon.

You don’t know what to do. Leaving the house could put you in danger, with your photo splattered on all of those men’s phones. But staying here, locked up in your house doesn’t feel any better.

“Mummy, I’m thirsty.” You call out with a croaky voice, face pressed against the door.

No answer.

Wood has been hammered onto the windows, leaving you in complete darkness and no sense of how long you’ve been locked in this room exactly, but it feels like days. Days of no food or water or any sign of life beyond the door.

“Mummy…” You can’t even cry anymore, no liquid left in your body to produce any tears.

All you did was show a friend a drawing you did on your arm, you didn’t think a bruise would show up. You didn’t think the police would arrive at your house and accuse your mother of anything. You didn’t mean to cause any trouble.

“Mummy, I’m sorry.”

The memories give you headaches but you try to push through by doing anything that will distract you. Cooking, baking, cleaning (you’ve found there is a lot that needs doing in Jake’s apartment, why are men so gross?), watching movies, using his PC to scroll on the news.

Despite all of that, your mother’s voice still lingers.

“You don’t get it yet?” Her finger slithers through the bottom of the door and stretches all the way to the far corner of the room where you’re bundled up at. Its eyes aren’t wide but narrow and eerily similar to your mother’s. “You chose to be locked up in here. You have the choice to leave. You know what you need to do to get out of here.”

While you hate to admit it, this time she’s right. It is your choice to stay locked up in Jake’s apartment. There’s no lock on his door or wood covering the windows. There’s food and water and a bed.

What on Earth have you been doing?

The fire returns as you haul yourself up off the floor and storm to Jake’s kitchen. You grab a spoon and take a large scoop of the meal you cooked for him and launch it down your throat. Before you’ve even swallowed it, you fill up a cup of water and fill your mouth up to the brim. You choke for a few seconds, bringing you back to reality, but the fire in your belly overpowers the near-death experience and you suck in a deep breath.

After getting ready and packing your bag of things that Jake had to bring from your apartment (in which he returned sulking because he had to argue with “a pretty girl” for it), you stand at the front door.

Somehow, this is scarier than tearing those wires from your skin when you were at the hospital. Your hand hovers over the door handle, frozen in the air. There are a million snake-fingers behind you, their eyes ramming into your back, squeezing you against nothing. You feel compressed, like you’re stuck in a tiny box and there’s nowhere to move. But you can’t let the fingers win.

“You chose to be locked up in here. You have the choice to leave. You know what you need to do to get out of here.”

You need to grab hold of that handle and face your fears.

You need to whack open the door and smell something other than Jake’s clogged AC.

You need to step outside and prove those fingers wrong.

You need to find-

“Sunghoon.” You gasp.

There he is, standing on the other side of the hallway, covered in a black cap and clothes that don’t really fit him. With bright, rainbow coloured bruises littering his face and fresh blood layered on top of bandages wrapped all over his hands. With a chest rising up and down so fast as though he had run up here in a frenzy.

And with those big eyes of his that give everything away.

“Y/N.” He pants.

Your feet act with a mind of their own, backpack dropping onto the floor as you run up to him. Your hands fly to his face as you try to figure out whether he’s real or not. “Is it really you?”

His hands cup your face too as his eyes scan you worriedly. “Are you hurt? They told me they attacked you and some guy they thought was me.” You shake your head in response, holding onto his hands as you shut your eyes to let the tears fall. He sighs audibly before pulling you in for a hug. The tightest hug you think you’ve ever received in your life. “Thank God. Your phone was off, so I thought-”

“I’m sorry.” You hug him back. Like, really hug him back. You’re not patting his back or leaning into his touch, you're clutching him, nails digging into him to try and bring him as close to you as possible. “I’m sorry, this is all my fault.” You didn’t even realise the fingers had followed you into the hallway.

Sunghoon pulls from the hug, his hands steady on your shoulders as he stares down at you with watery, angry eyes. “Stop saying that. None of this is your fault. That day in the hospital… You were right. I’m dangerous, being around me-”

“I don’t care.” The words shoot right out.

Sunghoon’s jaw drops slightly. “But-”

“I know what I said, but I don’t care.” Your cheeks flush and the heart monitor from the hospital rings in your ears as your heartbeat roars in your chest. “Don’t leave again.”

So many emotions mix in his eyes that it becomes unreadable. His lips open and close, his eyebrows furrow and lift and his chest won’t stop zooming up and down.

It’s so unlike you to try and fill the silence, but there are so many things you want to say to Sunghoon. So many things you’ve wanted to say to yourself, but too scared to say out loud. Because saying them out loud will only make them real. “We.. I..” Your eyes flicker between his, and you realise that on the outside, you probably look crazy. For telling him that he’s always on your mind and you’re constantly craving his attention, and that you want him to pry you wide open and dig himself deep inside. Won’t that be weird? The two of you aren’t dating, and you wouldn’t describe your relationship as romantic. But it’s the truth and that’s all you have right now. So you can do nothing but put on your big girl boots and confess. “I want you to let me in, Sunghoon.”

He seems to melt at that, his whole body turning to jelly above you. “There’s nothing there I want you to see.”

And your heart aches, because that sentence sums up the entirety of your life so seamlessly. “Sunghoon, you saw me nearly crack my head open on a wall. You think I wanted you to see that?”

And then his face cracks. His top lip trembles and his chin wrinkles and his hand comes to hold where your head bled two months ago. “I’m tired.” It's so quiet, barely even a whisper. You don’t know when it happened but you’re standing so close to him now, his arms are curled behind your neck and yours are fisting his warm, black jacket. “I’m tired of the people I love getting hurt. I don’t want to join this stupid Union, but Heeseung hasn’t stopped harassing me since high school. He ruined my dad’s business, threatened to hurt my sister, messed up my grades so I couldn’t go uni, got rid of all my friends.. I just want it all to stop.” His hands move, one to cover his face and another drops to his side. You have no advice to offer him, no words of comfort could ease this many years of pain, so you just imitate what Wonyoung did when you finally opened up to her. You wrap your arms around his neck, drag one hand to the back of his head and direct it to your neck and let him cry. He sniffs into your neck, arms finding your waist as he hugs you back just as tightly. “I don’t want to drag you into this, Y/N.”

Your lips find his ear, “I’m already in it. And I wouldn’t want to be out of it for one second if it means not seeing you ever again.”

Sunghoon doesn’t respond. He just squeezes you tighter and rubs his forehead across your neck.

“Well, now I’m holding the two most wanted people in the Union in my house. That’s just great isn’t it? Just my luck.” With his arms crossed and a foot tapping on the floor, Jake glares at you both.

“I’ll pay for the rent. It’s just until this whole thing blows over.” Sunghoon tries to reach out to pat Jake’s shoulder, but the latter dodges it.

“‘Blows over’?! Do you even hear yourself?! It’s not just going to ‘blow over’, you idiot! This is the fucking Union we’re talking about! We are all going to die if we get caught!” You’ve never seen Jake so angry before.

“Oh come on, man, Y/N said you took down five Union guys all on your own. If we team up-”

“Ohhhhh, yeah. Let me just do the maths real quick.” Jake lifts up his hand. “Me,” he raises one finger, “plus you,” another finger follows suit, “against, hmm, let me think. A million fucking Union members!” He yells as he throws his hands in the air.

Sunghoon huffs. “Look, with or without you, I’ve got a plan.”

Jake nods sarcastically. “Is that why you came waltzing in here looking like you’ve been nearly beaten to death?”

“I came here for Y/N!” He says, pointing at you. Jake goes silent, his eyes landing on you, too. “If you’re uncomfortable with me staying here, I’ll leave, okay? I understand that my presence-”

Jake brushes Sunghoon off as he turns around. “No, whatever. Just make sure you’re actually looking for somewhere new to live, though. I’m not keeping you here forever.” He mumbles before walking into his room, slamming the door behind him.

“Thanks, man! I’ll repay you one day!” He yells before turning to you, “Do you think that went well?”

You feel so unlike yourself, possessed almost, when you lean closer to him like a magnet drawn to another. Your body is so close to immersing into his, just a few millimetres away from touching him. “Well, if it means staying with you..”

A loud, pleased sound releases from Sunghoon as he laughs at you, wrapping an arm around your shoulder to tuck you into him. The scent of sweat and deodorant hits your nose as you try to stop yourself from sticking your face into his jacket, scared it’ll never leave. “You know I thought you were cute when I first met you. Now you’re just downright adorable.” He says so casually, and you feel transformed. Like the two of you aren’t a pair of broken people who found each other amongst violence, but two college students flirting in their friend’s apartment. Like you’re just a regular girl and he’s just a regular boy.

You try your best to play into the fantasy as you lead him to your bedroom, still folded into his side. “You were…half naked.”

Sunghoon snorts, his head not moving from his craned position. “You should feel lucky. Not every girl has had the privilege of witnessing what’s under this shirt.”

He flirts so naturally. You’re not a girl of many words, a girl not used to being spoken to so casually. You don’t really know what to say back, and suddenly you feel a little insecure. You plop onto your bed as you look up at Sunghoon. His fingers slide into yours as he stands in between your legs, smiling down at you. He’s stunning—incredibly attractive, tall, with strikingly dark hair and shoulders so wide anything could hide behind them. He’s chatty, friendly, and so full of life. His eyes talk for him, simmering with everything his lips can’t say.

And you? You’re dull, quiet and terrified. Speaking used to get you into so much trouble as a child, making silence so normal for you. With Wonyoung and Jake, they tend to fill the silence, and they seem content with what you have to offer. But you want to give so much more of yourself to Sunghoon. You want him to know everything about you with the ease of a simple click. Like inputting a file into his brain named ‘The Entire Timeline of Y/N’s Life and Why She Is the Way She Is’.

“I wish I was more like those other girls.”

Sunghoon’s brows lower as he pauses swinging your hands in the air. “What other girls?”

Your lips form into something like a pout, “You know. Ex-girlfriends, girls that you flirt with.. Those types of girls.”

“What makes you different from them?” What a stupid question. There are so many things you could answer that with but they all freeze in place when Sunghoon’s finger starts brushing your hair out of your face. Then his hand cups your cheek as he brings a warm, soft thumb to caress your lips. The air knocks out of your chest as you gawk up at him with wide eyes. “Hm? Why can’t I flirt with you?” He asks the question like there is obviously no answer, like it would be ridiculous to view you as anything but a regular girl.

“You chose to be locked up in here. You have the choice to leave. You know what you need to do to get out of here.”

Your mother is right, again. Why can’t Sunghoon flirt with you? Why can’t you flirt back? Who cares how different you are? He certainly doesn’t, so why should you? Why can’t you enjoy this moment as a girl who has undoubtedly fallen in love with Park Sunghoon?

Shaking your head, you lean into his touch, allowing a faint smile to bloom onto your face. “Nothing, I was just being silly.”

Sunghoon tuts, shaking his head before craning your face upwards by your jaw. “Very silly. How could I not flirt with a face like this, huh?” And suddenly he’s leaning down, hands pressed against the mattress on either side of you as his face stops right before yours. “Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to kiss those pretty lips of yours?” He asks, eyes not even on yours as he stares at your lips.

Your heart nearly stops. Your stomach is doing backflips. Your hands are dripping in sweat. You deserve this. You deserve to feel like this, so you join in, holding his face in between your sweaty hands. “How many?”

There’s no flashy smirk or any sign of arrogance on his face. The top of his eyebrows pinch together as he looks at you like you’re the only girl in the world. “Too many.” Your faces are inches apart now, breaths mingling with each other as your heart leaps to release itself from the hundreds of chains piled on top of it. Something twists in your stomach, body aching to feel more of him as you bring your face closer to his, wanting nothing but to close the distance between you.

And then he does it. His lips land on yours and something breaks inside of you. It’s scary to let someone in when all you have ever done is keep them out. Everything your mother said about men—how they use and cheat on women, how they don’t have any room for love in their black, twisted hearts—flies out of the window as soon as his lips move against yours. You move yours too, the kiss blossoming from awkward into something soft and gentle. Sunghoon tilts his head and your heart tries to climb out of your chest and into your throat, trying so desperately to get his attention as you part your lips open to let him inside.

Sunghoon’s lips follow your direction, the kiss growing more intimate as his hand finds your waist and the weight of him pushes you back a little. A soft sigh of contempt slips into his mouth at the touch, drawing him away from your face. Your heart wails, begging for him to return and relight that fire within you. His eyes race between yours as he pants ever so slightly. “Don’t do that.” He whispers, words blowing onto your face like a dreamy wisp of air, as he shakes his head at you. “I don’t know if I can control myself if you do that.”

Your heart is writhing now, its hands stretching beyond your lips to pull his back onto yours, wanting him in ways you’ve never even imagined. You want him. So bad. All of him. From his endlessly deep eyes to his magical lips to his bruises to his heart that’s so, so close to yours..

You want it all.

“What if I don’t want you to control yourself?”

The invisible wall keeping you apart suddenly crumbles as a shaky breath spills from his lips. “Fuck, Y/N..” Is the last thing he says before he crashes onto you, fully and wholly. In every way you want him. Your back is pressed onto the mattress as he lowers onto you, his wide shoulders and broad chest enveloping you in a way that makes your skin crawl, forcing you to latch your legs around his waist.

The kiss is different now, it’s all tongue and teeth clashing against each other, hands gripping onto his hair to pull him closer, his hands squeezing the skin on your hips. You feel his tongue curl around yours and everything inside of you tingles. He takes over, sucking on your tongue, nibbling on your bottom lip, claiming everything in your mouth as his. You could kiss Sunghoon forever, so when his lips leave yours a whine follows as you drag his mouth back to you, wanting to print the taste of his lips on you for eternity.

He smiles and chuckles into the kiss, sending a funny feeling all the way down to your pants. “If I knew” he kisses you again, “you wanted me this badly” he breathes, tilting his head in the other direction, sucking on your bottom lip, “I would’ve kissed you the second I laid my eyes on you.”

“You should’ve.”

He lifts his face back a little, lips pink and swollen, cheeks flushed bright red, eyes hooded with a quirked brow. “You would’ve let me?”

You stammer at the question, looking at the ceiling before looking back at his face, unable to take your eyes off him for even a second. “Well- no, but-”

Sunghoon laughs, the laugh where his eyes disappear and he shows off his teeth, before returning to your lips. “You’re so cute.” His voice is low, but still has that syrupy feel to it as you lean into the push of his body against yours. And while you’re kissing him, his hand moves upwards, inching slowly towards your ever-beating heart, stopping at your breast. You can feel the hesitance as he ghosts you, fingers barely grazing the fabric of your shirt. He beats you to breaking the kiss first, staring at you like he’s a starved man and you’re shining jewel. “This is okay, right?”

“Sunghoon…” You breathe his name. “I want all of you. Every part of you. Of course this is okay, I..” The words are so close, just scraping the tip of your tongue. Sunghoon must notice something is stopping you as he brings his forehead to rest against yours. And that’s when you feel his heart. His unashamedly loud and beating heart, knocking against the skin of his chest, the rhythm of it matching yours. And suddenly, nothing else matters. Because your heart has finally reached his, bare and free, chests pressed and breathing against each other.

“I trust you.”

You watch as his eyes gloss over and his bottom lip wobbles and you can’t help but smile at the sight. Because he’s doing it, slowly, he’s letting you in.

And so are you.

Your lips collide again as his hand cups your breast, making you gasp at the size of his hand. It’s large and unwavering, gripping you like it’s second nature to him. Like the two of you have done this a thousand times. His fingers move down again, and when you realise he’s trying to take your shirt off, you arch your back to let him. He slides your shirt off his head and his face contorts as he stares down at you.

You remember what’s on your body all of a sudden. The scars are healed but they burn under him, pain shooting at you all of a sudden as you rush to cover your stomach.

Concern is written all over his face as his hand, faster than yours, rests on your skin. His thumb brushes over one of the scars, so gentle it cools down the burning sensation. “What’s this?” He mutters, eyes not leaving the sight.

Something catches your words, the fire inside of you completely burns out as you try to sink into the bed as far as you can. “They’re old. My step father.” To be honest, you don’t really remember getting these scars specifically. You just know that anything visible on your body was not the work of your mother. Her scars were different. They were carved into your soul instead.

Sunghoon’s head whips up as his eyes scan yours. “Does he still live with you?”

You shake your head. “He left years ago.”

“Your mother? Does she hurt you? Wonyoung mentioned something when she had to leave your hospital room.”

“She did. I left her. Moved out.”

He nods, tongue peeking out to lick at his lips. “You’re safe now?”

You’re crying now, tears streaming down your temples. “I don’t know.”

His face comes to cup your cheek, “Hey, Y/N, I’ve got you, okay? You’re safe with me. I’ll always protect you.” And then he kisses you, again.

You swallow him, wanting to feel every single inch of his mouth. Because you’ve never felt safer in your life, you decide there is no backing out now. Your mouth parts instantly as his hands stroke each and every scar on your stomach. He leaves your mouth, breathless again, but quickly attaches his lips to your temple, kissing away your tears. “No one will ever hurt you again.” Which is funny, considering how many times you’ve been hurt because of him, but the thought is thrown away the second you feel him sucking on your neck. His tongue swivels around your skin before his teeth, his long, vampire teeth sink into your neck. You moan, hips bucking up into him as your hand finds his hair, pulling him in deeper. He pulls back, his head lifting to make eye contact with you.

And the first smirk of the night makes its way onto his face. “You like that? Me biting you?” You nod, the fire inside of you nowhere near as strong as your desire. Sunghoon chuckles, before returning to your skin, kissing a little lower each time. Biting a little harder. And when his lips hover over your breast, your chest is stuttering. “Look at these.” His voice is like honey, drowning out everything else as his hand slides behind you to unhook your bra. The thin (and frankly, completely useless right now) piece of clothing disappears and is replaced with his nose circling your hardened nipple. “Look at how much you want me.” He mumbles right onto you, words stamping onto your skin like he’s marking you. “Can you say it? Can you use your words for me?” He asks while looking up at you with rounded, innocent eyes, like he isn’t a few seconds away from sucking your tits.

What a tease. Your lips tug downwards in disapproval.

He chuckles, every breath of his lining up the goosebumps on your skin. Then his face twists into an overexaggerated sulky one, making your legs clamp into his sides. He is so hot it hurts, like physically hurts as he refuses to touch you. “Please? Please can you say it, pretty?”

Pretty. Oh shit. He’s got you; no one has ever called you that before. It does something to you as you have to throw your head back with a huge sigh before whispering with your eyes closed shut, “Need you, Sunghoon. I need you so bad. Please.”

“Pretty please?”

You have to bring your arm to cover your flaring face before giving him what he wants, hating how easy it is for him to break you down. “Pretty please.”

He wastes no time latching onto your nipple, the warm wetness of his mouth pulling a moan out of your mouth as you lift your head to watch him. He suckles on it, jaw moving like a staved man as his tongue presses against it. You writhe under him, hand instantly moving to his hair to push him further. A groan escapes his lips and the urge to please him takes over you, wanting to hear that awfully hot sound come out of his mouth again.

After what feels like forever and not enough, his lips leave your breast, a trail of spit keeping you connected. His head moves down and his eyes follow afterwards, struggling to leave behind the mess he’s made. Then he’s right above your biggest scar, and before your hand can cover it, his nose grazes it softly. “Don’t hide these from me. Ever. Don’t hide anything from me anymore.” He says before leaving a sloppy kiss on it. He repeats this, his lips trailing down your body with hot, open mouthed kisses, replacing every single scar and blurry memory with a tingly sensation between your legs.

Then he’s there. Right below your stomach and above your thighs. You watch his eyes, nothing in them to hide the sheer desire and want in his eyes. For you. Your thighs rub against his head, trying to pull him in closer. He laughs, making eye contact with you again after what feels like ages. “Don’t you worry, pretty, just gotta get this off you first.” His big, veiny hands wrap around your thighs as he pulls you off him. “Hm?” He quirks his brows. “How am I gonna touch you with this..” His fingers seamlessly pull them down, with the aid of you lifting your hips, “..What even is this? Pants? What’s the point of this, anyway? We don’t need it.” He jokes, throwing it away.

You roll your eyes and giggle at him, before jutting your chin at his pants. “Wha.. What about yours?” You blurt out.

Sunghoon can’t hold in his surprised laugh. “Aren’t you needy today, huh?” He lifts himself so that his lips are back on yours with a small peck. “Let me take care of you first.” You can’t even respond when his hand finds your underwear, the heel of his palm digging right where you need him. “You feel that? Do you feel how wet you are for me? I can’t leave you like that, can I? That wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me, would it?” You know he understands the effect of his words when the corner of his lips curl up from watching your face.

Then he’s gone, head already in between your legs as he pulls away your underwear, slick making it stick to your skin. Sunghoon groans at the sight and you arch at the sound of it, so deep and real. A sound that needs no words of affirmation: he is truly infatuated by you even at your rawest state. “Fuck, baby, I didn’t realise you were this wet for me. Haven’t even really touched you yet.”

“Stop teasing.”

He chuckles right onto your open pussy. “You never let me tease you.”

You crane your neck at him. “What are you talking about?”

His fingers intertwine over your bikini line as he rests his chin on top of them, staring up at you with a pouty grin. “I always try to tease you but you cut me off with that bluntness of yours.”

You feel defensive all of a sudden. “No I don’t.”

Sunghoon rolls his eyes playfully before detaching his fingers, distracting you from pressing his thumb against your clit. You gasp, hands fisting the sheet beneath you. “I’ll let you off just this once.”

You don’t even think about continuing the conversation as his thumb circles your clit. The urge to feel him inside of you grows desperately with each stroke of your clit. “Sunghoon…”

“Yes, pretty?”

“I need you.”

“What’s the magic word?” Two fingers hover over your hole, tantalising you. “Hm?” He hums, kissing your thigh.

“Pretty please.”

“Good girl.” He praises under his breath before pushing his long fingers into you as deeply as he can. It’s a slow, tight push, but it rocks you. Your teeth clamp down on your lip, trying to stop the endless moans from spilling out. Sunghoon doesn’t even shift his attention from your hole as he says, “Don’t stop moaning. I told you not to hide anything from me, didn't I?” You listen, allowing yourself to unravel while he pushes his fingers in and out of you, speed picking up.

Something inside of you begins to coil and you gasp at the unfamiliar feeling. “Sunghoon, I think..” You try to say, because you want to please him as much as possible and he told you not to keep anything from him. But it’s so hard to speak when his fingers are ramming against your flesh and he won’t stop thumbing that sensitive spot on your clit, muffling everything coming out of your mouth. “Think I’m..”

And before you reach that finish line he rips his fingers out of you, pulling an embarrassingly loud wail for you as your hands try to grab for him like a cat in heat. Sunghoon doesn’t say anything before he replaces his fingers with his mouth and- oh… He drinks you up, tongue filling your hole, nose coddling your clit, lips sucking every drip of you they can. You buck your hips into him, unable to handle all the stimulations on your body right now. His hands hold your thighs in place before you can squeeze his head off, and when you feel his two left fingers touch your bare skin, soaked in your own wetness, you break. “Sunghoon, I’m gonna..”

He pulls away just enough to mutter, “Do it,” before diving right back in.

You orgasm right onto his face, hips stuttering to push him in as much as you can as he groans into you, meeting your desire.

When he pulls back, your eyes can’t help but stick onto the slick all over his face. Sunghoon looks up at you. “You wanna wipe it off like you did that day in the hospital?”

Your heart backflips at the memory—back when you were just his liability and not a girl sprawled naked beneath him. Sitting up, you nod at him before cupping his face with one hand and wiping his chin and lips down with your forearm. It’s not really the time to worry about a mess, especially when there’s one right under you, but you can’t help it. The thought of it dripping off him itches at you so you wipe it all away before it gets anywhere.

Sunghoon stares at you through it all. “So fucking cute. Can I kiss you now that I’m all clean?” He asks with a fat grin on his face, before finding your lips again, wasting no time to suck your tongue into his mouth before propelling you back onto the bed. This time his hands fly to his pants, easily tugging off the much too large fabric right off of him. He hooks his hands under your thighs aligning you to his hard on. You shyly take a peek at it, and Sunghoon catches you. “Worried it won’t fit?”

A chuckle of disbelief blows out of you as you playfully roll your eyes. “When did I say that?”

“Well,” he teases, hovering his cock right above your entrance that is quite literally sopping for him. “You should.”

“I should what?”

“Worry.” And then he lunges his hips forward, knocking all the air and arrogance out of you, dampening that stubborn fire of yours. A long, bashful moan drags out of you as your hands fly to his arms, digging your nails into his skin. He was right—fuck—he was so right, you can’t help but think as his cock struggles to pierce through your tight skin. Something washes over his face as he shifts his attention away from where the two of you are connected to your eyes. “Y/N.. Am I..? Is this your first time?”

Your eyes meet his and your heart surges. This is as physically close to Sunghoon as you could ever be. You’ve given him everything you possibly have to offer, hands crawling to wrap your arms around him. You trust him. This man, who threw everything away to save you. This man, who even though he was hiding from some very dangerous people, ran for his life to find you. This man who didn’t let your tall and sturdy brick walls stop him from barging through to clutch onto your heart. Your heart that was his long ago, from the moment you threw yourself against the person who tried to hurt him.

You nod. “Yes.”

His hips pause and his eyes rake you like he’s truly looking at you for the first time. “Really?”

“Is that so crazy?” You whisper, face so close to his.

“I just didn’t realise.. how much I meant to you, I guess.” His voice is so small.

Your heart nearly shatters at his words, banging against your chest in hopes that it rips open so it can grab onto Sunghoon’s and hold it forever. “Sunghoon, you mean everything to me.”

He smiles, tears returning to his eyes before he closes the gap between with a kiss and a slow, but deep thrust. “I love you.” He whispers onto your lips before pistoning inside of you again. “I love you,” followed by another thrust, “All of you,” and another.

He pushes himself inside of you again and again and again and for the first time since you’ve met him, the memory of his head whacking against the wall doesn’t come into your mind, the pleasure of his cock digging inside of you, rubbing against your walls and hitting that sweet spot under your belly distracting you from any painful thoughts.

The two of you are a loud, moaning, sweaty mess as he picks up his pace. “You’re doing so well, pretty. Holding out so long for me.”

“I’m so close…” You are, something tightening in your stomach, nearly snapping with each impact of his length pummelling inside of you.

He quickens, “Me too, fuck, me too. Try to wait for me.” He moans, lips grazing your cheek.

You shake your head against him, “I can’t-” Your words are cut off when he sinks those stupidly sharp teeth of his into your skin again, in the exact same place as last time, sucking on it hard enough you know you’ll see the mark tomorrow. With the sensation of his mouth and his length riding up and down, you feel like you’re falling off the edge.

“I’m there. You can let go.” His voice is barely audible as you take that last step and allow yourself to unwind with him. His groan rumbles onto your neck as he moans onto you, his voice sending waves all through your body as the two of you finish together.

A comfortable silence filled with nothing but heavy breaths passes for a few minutes as the two of you try to collect yourselves. Sunghoon kisses where he bit you before leaving an upward trail all the way to your cheek. “You okay? Nothing hurts?”

Looking down at him, you don’t know if it’s a post-sex feeling but your heart just bursts at the sight of him practically cuddling you. You shake your head with a lazy smile on your face, “No.”

“Good, let’s go get you cleaned up.”

You: Hey Wonyoung, can we meet up?

Wonyoung: no

Wonyoung: ive been trying to reach you for days

Wonyoung: were not solving this just because YOU want to be friends again. what about when i was trying to resolve things? didn’t my effort matter? im sick and tired of this this is all too exhausting for me. ive just had to come to terms with the fact that we are two entirely different people. youre secretive, you like to work things out alone, you don’t care who you hurt when you want something for yourself. im not like that. i like to be around people when im upset

Wonyoung: you scared the life out of me insinuating that my only brother, who u know despite everything i still love and care for, was in really bad danger and then GHOSTED me while i was freaking out about it. i thought you both died or something only to see jake come in and ask for your belongings?????

Wonyoung: i dont care what kind of fuck ass apology you have. ill never forgive you.

Wonyoung: we’re over

You stand on the balcony, staring into the night sky. Despite how small it is, the view from Sunghoon’s new apartment is stunning. You can see almost all of Seoul from here.

Your graduation date is coming up in two weeks, something you used to look forward to but now you feel anxious about. At the start of the year, it was so obvious who would show up to cheer you on that stage. Your mother and Wonyoung. But now? Neither of them will show up. Sunghoon can’t either, he’ll probably be with his parents to celebrate Wonyoung.

Sunghoon has been gone for two days and for the past few hours, you’ve been stuck to this balcony with your phone clutched tightly in your hand. He left yesterday to finally put an end to his conflict with Heeseung, and called this morning to say he’ll update you by the evening to assure you he’s fine.

It’s 11:57PM.

It’s 11:57PM and Sunghoon is MIA, Wonyoung doesn’t want anything to do with you and Jake wants to stay apart until he’s positive it’s safe to associate with you again. You’ve never felt so alone.

Your stomach growls and your tears are dry, but you can’t stray away from this balcony. Not when it gives you the perfect view of the walk up to the apartment. Your eyes scan the area desperately, but he never shows. You don’t even have the energy within you to cry anymore, so you just curl in on yourself and wait for the world to turn dark.

The cold sun slowly pulls your eyelids apart as you wake up the next day, your back flush against something warm.

Gasping, you sit up to find Sunghoon in your bed. Awake. Smiling. Breathing.

He has an arm under his head and another that looks like it was beneath you before you sat up. He’s all bruised up with new scars forming all over him, but he’s alive and that’s what’s important right now.

“How did everything go?”

He twists himself so that he’s resting on his side, bringing a hand to massage your thigh. “We won.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me, Jake, everyone else who was sick of Heeseung’s shit.”

“And the Union?”

“Disabled. Gone.”

You draw a shaky breath. “You?”

Sunghoon’s lips pull wider than you’ve ever seen before, the smile reaching all the way to his eyes. “I’m free.”

Your eyes flutter to try and stop the tears but it’s to no avail, so you throw yourself at Sunghoon instead, hiding your face in his shoulder. The two of you stay like that, laughing and crying breathlessly, allowing your hearts to melt together, for a while.

Until Sunghoon retracts his face slightly, looking a little more serious. “I went home last night.”

You freeze. “Like…your family home?”

He nods. “Wonyoung’s home since uni’s over, so some could say it was a family reunion.”

There’s something about the look in his eyes. “What happened?”

His fingers play with the hem of your shirt as he talks, eyes everywhere but on you. “I told them everything. From Heeseung, to the Union… to you.”

ill never forgive you. we’re over

You wonder how Wonyoung must’ve felt at that moment. To hear from her brother who she believed had abandoned her, that he was protecting her all these years, and that the person he found comfort in wasn’t her, but her best friend who she also believed had betrayed her. “How did Wonyoung react?”

“I think you should talk to her.”

You trace the outline of Sunghoon’s face, knowing you’re about to touch a sensitive topic. “What about you two?”

“It’s gonna take time, Y/N. We haven’t really spoken since she was in middle school.” And the two of you are graduating university in two weeks.

“What about us?” You have so many questions. You find you’re always so curious around Sunghoon. It’s so unlike yourself but you aren’t burdened by it all. You want to know everything there is to know about him.

A smile breaks out onto his face as his forehead comes to lean against yours. “Well, thankfully, that’s the easy bit.” He whispers before joining your lips together, sending your heart into an infinite spiral. As though he’s already memorised your body, Sunghoon’s arms wrap around your waist, fingers digging into your skin. You kiss him back, your hand automatically running through his hair. He sighs, hot air toasting your face. His lips pull away from you slightly, “Hate to break the news to you, but you’re mine.”

Wonyoung has agreed to meet up with you. You suspect it’s because of the conversation she had with her brother yesterday, but you don’t question it.

You sit on a bench in the middle of the park, wrapped up in a woolen scarf and a light grey puffer coat. The Spring air weaves through your hair and bites at your skin, making you tuck the lower half of your face into your scarf. Wonyoung walks up with two paper mugs, leaving behind a trail of hot steam behind her.

Your heart warms when she silently hands you a drink. “It’s cold.” Is the only explanation she offers, muttering it underneath her breath.

How lucky are you to have a friend who, despite everything, despite keeping hurtful secrets from her and abandoning her, still gives you a hot drink to warm you up on a chilly Spring day? Her nose is pink and her eyes are glossy as she stares ahead of you both, at the children playing on the swings and the slides, their voices easing the tension. A part of you wonders whether she sees herself and Sunghoon in those children.

“How are things between you and your brother?”

A cracked sigh. “Getting better. It was weird to hear how he actually felt after all these years. And it’s hard to separate what I thought was happening from reality.”

You budge up on the bench, testing the waters. “He really cares about you,” you whisper. Her bottom lip wavers, and then disappears behind her scarf as she ducks her head. “The first time I met him, he was really invested in the decorations I’d made you.” A shaky chuckle escapes her, and you have to bite back your tears.

And suddenly, her head lifts up with a sad look on her face. “Y/N, I’m sorr-”

You’re quick to shove your gloved hand into her face. “No. I’m sorry. Even though I had to keep secrets from you for your safety, I should never have abandoned you. And what I did when I asked about your brother? That was selfish. I know, I know you heal best with people you care about, so I should’ve been there. We should’ve both been worried about Sunghoon together. And I miss you, Wonyoung. You easily top Sunghoon as the better sibling,” she laughs through her tears, “because you’re my best friend.

And I love you.” It hits you at this exact moment that this is the first time you have ever said those three words out loud. It’s not to your mother, or to Sunghoon.

But to Jang Wonyoung—the Sunflower, the Dahlia.

It’s Graduation Day.

It’s Graduation Day and you’re locked up in some tiny storage room, fingers wound tight into Sunghoon’s hair as his mouth swallows you whole. The two of you are tangled into each other, the press of Sunghoon’s thigh rubbing up in between your legs as his hands hold you steady by the heap of your ass. His tongue swipes over your bottom lip, asking for entry before you open up and let him in.

Because that’s all you do now: let Sunghoon in again and again. In more ways than one.

“Sunghoon,” you pant into the kiss, trying to create some distance between the two of you but failing as soon as you feel him squeeze your backside a little tighter. “Sunghoon, the ceremony starts in a few minutes.”

“Exactly,” he’s just as breathless as you are, twisting his head so he can kiss you deeper, “just enough time to keep you all to myself.”

You whine and chuckle into the kiss, “You’re going to ruin my makeup.”

He pulls away at that, but the friction at your heat never disappears, and it takes all your strength not to grind down onto his leg. His eyes scan yours with a panting, wet, swollen smile on his lips, before he brings his hands up to thumb your cheeks. “You look better like this.”

Smacking his chest, the two of you burst out laughing. “Maybe to you! But I’m supposed to look professional here!”

“You do look professional,” his voice drops as his hands snake around your waist, thigh pressing deeper into your core, making your eyes roll back a little bit. “Professionally sexy.”

“You’re such an idiot,” you say, before meeting his lips yet again.

You never thought your graduation would be like this. You always imagined it as a solemn day: you’d receive your certificate, snap a few selfies with Wonyoung, be forced to take some formal photos with your mother and go home.

You never thought you’d be giggling on the stage, makeup a little ruined, heart pounding, with the widest smile you think you’ve ever made on your face. You never thought you’d hear shouts in the crowd and turn to see your best friend, your boyfriend, their parents (and Jake, sat a few rows above them) standing up and cheering for you as loud as they can. You never thought it’d bring tears to your eyes as you wave at them, proud of your hard work.

You never thought this day would be so full of love.

After the relentless picture-taking is over (relentless, because Wonyoung needed a photo with every single one of you in every single angle with every single pose), you ask Wonyoung’s dad to record a video as you pull her and her brother into the frame. Sunghoon looks at you, dumbfounded. “I thought we were finished?”

“There’s just one more thing we need to do.” You grin, before removing your graduation gown, eyeing Wonyoung to make sure the two of you are in sync. She flashes you a toothy smile, mirroring yours before the two of you dress your boyfriend in your gown and her hat.

When he realises what you’re doing, his chest stutters and his eyes round but his smile grows just as wide as yours’.

“This degree is just as much as yours as it is ours.” Wonyoung enunciates so that the camera can hear her. “I would never have been able to graduate had you not protected me from the Union.”

He pulls her into a side hug, kissing the top of her head.

“Neither would I.” You whisper, unable to make your voice louder or finish your rehearsed line like you’d practised.

Sunghoon pulls you under his other arm before rubbing his nose in your hair.

Then he looks at the camera, squeezing you both super tight, “Aaaaah! We’ve all graduated!”

Jake comes into the frame all of a sudden and photo bombs the video, before Sunghoon kicks him behind his knee with a laugh. All six of you, including Wonyoung and Sunghoon’s parents, fall into a fit of loud, boisterous laughter as Jake fake-whines and grabs his leg.

The scene blurs out as a memory fades into your brain.

“What?” Your mother asks, a cooking spoon dangling from one hand as the other rests on her hip. “Stop staring at me like that, you know it makes me uncomfortable.”

“Well, I just- It’s my homework.” You play with your fingers, standing at the other edge of the kitchen.

“What about it?”

“We have to write an essay on ‘What Family Means to You’. I just wanted to ask what I’m allowed to write about.”

Your mother chuckles dryly before returning to her cooking. “Family..” She mutters under her breath. “You can write about how family is nothing but a false promise. Nothing but a group of random people forced to live together. Family!” She’s shouting now, waving the spoon all over the place as she yells at the wall, her back facing you. “Family doesn’t exist!”

You smile at the memory. Because when your vision clears and you watch Wonyoung’s and Sunghoon’s mum hug her daughter, and their dad rub his son’s hair, and Jake walk up to you to give you a hug, too, you realise you’ve proven her wrong.

Family does exist. And you have one, too.

TAGLIST 🖇️@wonyorama @jaykezs @somuchdard @sourkiki

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