defmaybe

[defmaybe]

Best Friends & a side of sex

MEOVV Gawon, Sooin X Male Reader

18+ smut 13k words t/w: a little bit of foot stuff (hurr hurr)

a/n: I forgot how to write but we still here!!!

PART 2 of I Never Meant to Memorize your Smile

‘You’ve got dried cum in your hair.’ Your lips brushed her shoulder blade. Gawon's spine stiffened. ‘What?’

‘Morning, sunshine.’ She twisted, fingers probing her scalp. ‘Tell me you didn’t ejaculate into my hair last night.’ ‘Wouldn’t dream of it. Though… Exhibit A - ’ You tapped a pearlescent streak on her lower back. ‘ - and Exhibit B.’ A glint near her hairline. [1] [1] 'Aim' undersells it. Last night was less a targeted strike and more a Jackson Pollock session across her skin. Stain #1 ended with her pressed against the shower wall as you sprayed load after load over her face. Stain #2: the final piece of the day; Exhausted beyond belief, you came across her back, and the both of you collapsed from exhaustion. It's really a miracle the rest came off relatively easily. She groaned. ‘It’s crystallizing. Like sea salt.’ ‘Adds texture.’ You nuzzled the nape of her neck, inhaling lilac and sex. ‘Stay. Five more minutes.’ ‘Your semen is petrifying on my skin and you want to cuddle?’ ‘Yes.’ Your hand slid down her stomach. ‘It’s proof.’

‘Of what? Your inability to control your own - ’ ‘That we wrecked each other so thoroughly last night.’ Your thumb circled her navel. ‘That’s hot.’ She snorted. ‘You’re disgusting.’ ‘Your disgust sounds suspiciously like pride.’ ‘Fine. But if this gluey patch near my ear isn’t coconut oil, I’m bleaching your favorite jeans.’ 'Of course.' 'Lay back,' she said, still facing away from you, legs curled and slotted against your knees. 'I wanna see something.' You gently rolled onto your back, sinking into the pillow. She turned, entering your periphery with sleep-gleamed eyes and pink lips. 'Try swallowing,' she said, moving closer. You swallowed. Her lips found your neck right in the midst: a wet kiss to your Adam's apple. The sensation lingered. 'Why'd you do that?' 'Why not?'

Why not. Those two words contained everything: why not when you're curled against her like this, why not when you're deep inside her, why not when you're breathing in the sweet scent of her skin. She shifted back, still within the circle of your arms, her hair tickling your forehead. 'I'm all sore. No thanks to you.' 'I was adjusting to your needs. And your needs... are an acquired taste.' You snuggled upward, her hair now feathering across your chest, almost ticklish. She had no defense. 'The champagne was a nice touch.' 'Which bottle?' She tilted her face up, eyes still heavy but alert. 'Don't pretend there weren't multiple bottles. I counted at least three.' 'Two and a half. The third was already open.'

'Because you opened it.' Gawon turned over completely, facing you now. Goddess. Goddess. You didn't say it aloud, but she probably knew what you invoked with each gulp, each strained touch, each unfettered breath. [1]

-

[1] The thing about thinking "goddess" repeatedly during sex is that it's simultaneously the most embarrassing and most accurate thought possible. Like yes, technically we all know about oxytocin and dopamine and whatever chemical cocktail makes you temporarily insane, but that doesn't explain why her particular face makes your brain short-circuit into worship mode. Modern therapy would probably have words for this - "idealization" or "projection" or some other term that completely misses the point that sometimes a person just is that magnificent and your brain is simply reporting facts.

-

A comfortable pause; No awkwardness anymore, just the luxury of looking.

'Details.' You brushed a strand of hair from her face and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. 'How's your head?'

'Fine. I switched to water after the first few toasts. Unlike someone.'

'You're a lightweight.'

'I know. But you didn't fare much better.' She laughed properly then, burying her face in your chest. 'Certified Chair Tester.'

The memory clicked into place. 'Ah. I made you rate the chairs.'

'Yup. And I rated them all tens because I was tipsy.'

'A flimsy critic in my bed. How appalling.'

She poked your chest. 'You were swaying. It was way too funny to focus on furniture evaluation.'

'It's important information. What if we need to know which one's most comfortable?' 'At two in the morning?' 'Especially at two in the morning. That's prime chair-testing time.' 'You're ridiculous.' 'You helped.' 'Someone had to make sure you didn't fall off the balcony furniture.' 'I was perfectly stable.' 'You tried to serenade a potted plant.' 'It looked lonely.' She propped herself up on an elbow to study your face. 'What did you even sing to it?' 'I don't remember.' She blew at your face. You blinked. 'Liar. You remember everything.' 'Only the important things.' 'So what's important about last night?' You pretended to consider. 'Well, first, the sex - ' 'Hey.' Her hand found your shoulder in mock protest. 'Alright, but… come on.' You made the face that said you know it was, and she buried her face in your chest again, giggling. 'Fine. It was…' 'The best.' Another gentle smack. 'Then champagne in blankets. Plant serenading - ' 'You serenaded the plant.'

' - chair testing. When's the next time, anyway?'

'Never happening.' 'Come on.' You caught her hand, interlacing your fingers. Her skin was smooth, like heated marble. 'The way you looked in that dress…' 'Now you're just being smooth.' You traced her hand - the knuckles, the flesh between finger joints, her careful nails. 'Is it working?' 'Maybe.' She leaned in for a soft kiss. 'What else?' 'The way you insisted on ranking every wine from the minibar.' 'Research purposes.' 'On hotel stationary. With ratings out of ten.' 'What do you have against proper documentation?' Her eyes gleaming. Cute. [2]

-

[2] There's something deeply unhinged about making someone rate wines at 2 AM, but it's also exactly the kind of thing that seems brilliant when you're three drinks in and she's wearing your shirt and everything feels possible. The fact that she went along with it - actually took notes, actually assigned numerical values to '$8 minibar Chardonnay' - is probably why you're doomed. Anyone who matches your weird that precisely is either your soulmate or your downfall, and honestly… what's the difference?

-

'Nothing. Found it adorable.' You chased her as she dodged your kiss. 'What was the winner again?' 'The Rosé. Obviously.' 'Mm.' Your fingers found their way into her hair. 'We should probably get up soon.' 'Why?' 'Sooin's coming at 11:30.' She reached for her phone, squinting at the screen. 'That's… two hours away.'

'Exactly. Soon.' 'Your concept of time is broken.' The phone dropped back to the nightstand as she curled into you. 'Five more minutes.' 'You said that twenty minutes ago.' 'Did I? Must have been someone else.' 'In this bed?' 'Could be anyone. Very large bed.' 'True. I should check.' You shifted theatrically. 'Excuse me, mysterious person, have you seen my girlfriend?' She pinched your side. 'Stop.' 'About this tall, beautiful - and I mean beautiful - and makes spreadsheets about minibar wine?' 'I hate you.' 'Makes terrible threats?' She kissed you longer this time, a proper good morning. 'Better?' 'Getting there.' 'Impossible.' But she smiled against your mouth. 'What would make it better?' 'Hmm. Maybe if the mysterious bed person knew where my pants went.' 'Bathroom door.'

'How - ' 'You hung them very carefully while explaining the importance of wrinkle prevention. Very drunk. Very serious.' 'I was thoughtful.' 'You were tipsy trying to be responsible. It was cute.' 'Just cute?' 'And amusing.'

'I'll take it.' You caught her hand, kissed her palm. 'Though I notice your dress made it to an actual hanger.'

'I'm efficient even when compromised.'

'Compromised?'

'Slightly… influenced. By alcohol. And you.'

'Me?'

'You kept doing that thing.'

'What thing?'

Pink crept into her cheeks. 'The thing where you look at me like…'

'Like?'

'You know.' She hid her face in your neck. 'Stop making me say nice things. Too early.'

'It's past 9:30.'

'Weekend rules.'

'Since when do you follow weekend rules?'

'I'm adopting them. Selectively.' Her breath warmed your skin. 'Rule one: no embarrassing admissions before coffee.'

'After coffee?'

'We'll see.'

You wrapped both arms around her, content in the absurd luxury of this hotel bed. The room still held last night palpably - an empty glass on the far table, her shoes abandoned by the door, balcony doors cracked to let in cool morning air. Most importantly, her hair: properly mussed, frizzy where you grabbed it, where she moved in rhythm with your body. [3]

The morning stretched ahead, full of nothing but this.

-

[3] The morning-after hair observation thing is such a cliché it hurts, but: you become a forensic expert in the evidence of your own happiness. Every tangle says "this happened," every misplaced strand means "we were here, we were real, we were absurdly alive at 3 AM." It's pathetic how much meaning you can extract from follicular displacement, but then again, memory needs its anchors, and if yours happen to be keratin-based, so be it.

-

'It was nice watching you and Sooin together. All the history there.' 'Seven years of questionable decisions,' she murmured. 'Good decisions. Like this hotel room.' 'Mmm. I'll tell Sooin you approve.' She yawned. 'She'll be insufferable.' 'She's already insufferable. That's why we love her.' 'True.' A pause settled between you. 'Do you think she's okay? About the exhibition?' 'She will be. She always is.' 'I know. I just worry.' She shifted to look at you properly. 'Is that silly?' 'No. It's what you do.' You tucked her hair behind her ear. 'It's nice.' 'Nice?' 'Adorable. The kind where you pretend you're not soft but you actually are.' 'I'm not soft.' 'You made her a good luck playlist.' 'That's just being supportive.' 'With color-coded sections.' '…Organizational efficiency.' 'And little notes for each song.'

She buried her face in the pillow. 'Stop knowing things.'

'Never.' Your hand found her back, rubbing gentle circles. 'Hey. She's going to be brilliant. You know that, right?' 'I know.' Her voice came out muffled. 'I just want good things for her.'⁴ 'They'll happen.' She turned her head to peek at you. 'You really think so?' 'I do. And if not, we'll be there with emergency mimosas and terrible jokes.' 'Your jokes are terrible.'

'That's the point.' She smiled, reaching up to trace your face. She kissed your closed eye. You held her closer. Her eyes, the small mole on the tip of her nose. Palpable, the universe of you two. 'I love you.' She whispered. You kissed her in turn. 'I thought no embarrassing admissions before coffee.' Pink crept up her neck as she hid her face again. You pulled her closer. 'Nowhere else I'd rather be.' 'Even with mysterious bed people?' 'Especially then.'

She laughed, tugging you down for another kiss. 'Okay. Fifteen more minutes, then we really do have to get up.'

'Deal.'

'I mean it this time.'

'Sure you do.'

'I'm setting an alarm.' But she made no move toward her phone, already melting back into your arms.

'Very convincing.'

'Shh. Weekend rules. No calling out contradictions before coffee.'

'I thought that was embarrassing admissions.'

'I'm making new rules as needed.'

'Of course you are.' You kissed the crown of her head. 'Fifteen minutes.'

'Fifteen minutes.'

The promised alarm never materialized. Instead, your mouth found hers again, morning breath be damned. Your hands sprawled across her honey skin, palms pressing against the beginning swell of her breasts, circling slightly, drawing out those perfect little half-groans.

When you shifted to bracket her body with yours, she squealed playfully, pressing her palm against your shoulder. 'Someone's feeling bold.'

'Just thorough. You seemed cold.' The lie was transparent. She knew it, fingers already tracing your shoulder, eyes holding that particular heat from last night. 'Thorough, he says. Is that what we're calling it?' You answered by kissing the corner of her mouth, working your way to that spot below her ear that made her breath catch. She tilted her head automatically, a response coded into muscle memory. 'You're terrible,' she breathed.

'The worst,' you agreed against her skin. 'Absolutely the - oh.' Her words dissolved as you found that perfect junction of jaw and neck. Then, disaster: pins and needles shot down your supporting arm. She noticed immediately. 'Did your arm just fall asleep?' You lied by her side. With a big grin. So beautiful, when she smiles. 'Maybe.' 'Adorable. My strong man, defeated by his own circulation.'[1] Her hands worked your forearm back to life. 'Better?' You flexed your fingers in response. She caught your index finger, pressed a kiss to the tip. 'Competen - '

'Don't even start.' Her eyes blazed with mischief. 'Maybe stick to positions that don't require gymnastic endurance?' You pulled her firmly against you, her waist bending perfectly as she gasped. Your mouth found the flexing tendon of her neck, tongue tracing hollows and dips as she arched into you. Fifteen minutes became thirty. Thirty became an hour. Sooin could wait.

-

[1] All taut sinew; the next, your nerve stages a coup, flooding your limb with the fizzy static of a thousand dying televisions. The humiliation is exquisite: biology reminding you that you’re essentially a sentient meat puppet piloted by faulty wiring and whimsical blood flow. You try to play it off - Ah, just my corporeal vessel rebelling against transcendence! - but internally, you’re drafting furious letters to Evolution: “RE: Poor Design Choices in Homo Sapiens Model #27B-6. SUGGESTION: Prioritize limb reliability over, say, toe hair or the ability to taste cilantro as soap.” It’s the universe whispering, through pins and needles, that even ecstasy is provisional, subject to maintenance, and probably overdue for an upgrade.

-

Her breath hitched when your lips found the edge of her jaw. You kissed the hard angle first, then traced the taut cord of muscle down to the soft dip beneath her chin. When your mouth finally covered hers, it wasn’t gentle. ‘How’s that for competent?’ You growl. Into her mouth. Her breathless mouth. Inching for any opportunity to breathe. You sealed her protest with your tongue. Her hands locked behind your nape pulling you closer until her breasts flattened against your chest, nipples hardening directly on your skin. The scent of her skin - salt and gooseberries and lilac - flooded your nostrils as she arched into you. Your palm slid down her outer thigh, fingertips catching on the fabric of her panties. Higher. Over the curve of her ass, gripping the fabric until the muscle tensed under your hand. She moaned into your mouth, grinding against your hip, her bare feet wrapped around you, holding on for dear life. Then her hand was on you - fingers curling around the thick outline of your cock through your underwear, squeezing just enough to draw a ragged groan from your throat. You felt the damp heat between her legs when your thumb brushed her clothed pussy.

‘Fuck me,’ she gasped, hips jerking as you pushed two fingers past her waistband, through slick folds. ‘Turn around.’ She smirked before she pivoted, turning around, back pressed to your chest. You hooked your thumbs in her panties - black lace - and dragged them down to mid-thigh, perfectly profane. Her skin burned where your knuckles brushed her inner leg. 'Please.' She pleaded, pushing her ass against your erection' You fumbled with your underwear, cock springing free against her lower back. She guided you with a hand behind her, fingers wrapping your shaft, angling you downward. Your first thrust grazed into her. Too tight.

‘Wrong - ,’ she yelped, pain and laughter trembling. 'Oh fuck. I'm so sorry.' You sidle up next to her, 'Are you - '' 'Keep going. Don't ruin the mood. Keep going. Please.' You choked; you adjusted, the head of your cock catching on wetness this time. She gasped as you pushed past swollen flesh, sinking an inch into her. Her inner muscles clenched.

‘Deeper.’ she begged, fingers clawing at your thigh. ‘Please - ’ You drove forward until your hips met her ass. A choked cry tore from her throat as she took your full length. She was fracturing. 'Fuck. Fuck - ' You held still, letting her adjust, feeling the flutter of her walls around you. 'Take it. Take it.' You breathe out, out of breath, fucking her into heaven. Nothing to offer but your length divvied into her wet walls. Hips pinned against her every turn. Your cock kissing her cervix - the rim of her moist cunt pressed oh so tight, filthy, dirty. ‘Should’ve - ah - aimed better,’ she panted, rolling her hips to take you deeper still. You moved then - thrusts that dragged just so, perfectly, leaving just the crown of your cock before pressing your full length inside her. Her moans sharpened, pitching higher with each retreat, each return. You slid a hand around her hip, fingers finding her drenched folds, circling her swollen bud as you fucked her. Her thighs shook. ‘Come on,’ you urged, thumb pressing hard. ‘Let go.’ You fucked deeper. Restraining her neck, her back compressing into an arch that left nothing in the middle. Only her nape and ass pressed against you. You dug your palm into her navel, 'Cum for me. Princess. Cum for me.' You growl, drawl. Her back arched, more than before. More than what should be possible. A scream ripped through her as she came, muscles milking your cock. Pulse after pulse. You groaned, and you followed, hips slamming forward as release tore deep into your muscles, your bones. Rope after rope. Cum served right to her cervix. Glancing off the walls, eventually sickeningly spread all inside her, filled to the brim, spilling like lava through the slightest crevice of her folds. All she could offer was a soft sigh.

-

Her back was to you, she was still trembling. Sweat glued the both of you together. Your fingers stroked the damp hair at her nape.

'I don't think I can walk.'

You smile. 'Who said you had to walk?'

‘Mmm,’ she hummed, turning in your arms. ‘Such a charmer.’ Her hand slid down your chest, pausing at your abdomen. ‘Prove those muscles aren’t just for show. Carry me.’

You lifted her easily, fireman-style. Her laughter vibrated against your neck as you carried her to the bathroom.

She opened the doors. 'Though I'd be of help, you know, my arms, and your legs situation.'

'Appreciate the assistance.' You jokingly say.

The shower hissed, steam immediately fogged the mirror.

‘Brunch with Sooin later. Before her exhibition.’ she said, a reminder to herself. Water sluiced through her hair, darkening it to ink.

You followed, hands sliding over her slick shoulders. ‘And after?’

She tilted her face up, droplets catching on her lashes. ‘Haven’t decided.’ Your palm cupped her breast, thumb rubbing a taut nipple. She sighed, leaning back into you. ‘Maybe we’ll just… see.’

'Wait.' You reached for the shampoo, squirting some into your palm. 'Did Gawon just suggest winging it?'

'I'm full of surprises.' She turned, presenting her back to you as you worked the shampoo through her hair.

'Next you'll tell me you threw out your color-coded calendar.'

'Let's not get crazy.' She was soft, content. Her head steadily went along with your touch. 'This feels nice though.'

'What does?'

'Not knowing. Just… being here with you.' She leaned back slightly into your touch.

'Even with soap in your eyes?'

'Especially with soap in my eyes.' She laughed, swiping at her face. 'Very romantic. Really setting the mood.'

'I do my best.' You helped rinse her hair, fingers gentle against her scalp. 'So this spontaneous Gawon - should I be worried?'

'Terrified.' She grinned up at you. 'I might suggest something really wild. Like trying that new Thai place without checking reviews first.'

'The horror.'

'Or walking through the park without a clear idea.'

'Now you're just talking nonsense.'

'I'm learning spontaneity from you. So to speak.'

'That's either very sweet or you're setting me up for something.'

'Can't it be both?' She reached for the conditioner. 'Your turn. What do you want to do today?'

'Honestly?' You took the bottle from her. 'Whatever makes you keep smiling like that.'

'Smooth talker.' But her smile widened. 'Though I notice you didn't actually answer.'

'Maybe I'm learning from you. Keeping my options open.'

'A convert!' She pressed a wet hand to her chest  in mock surprise. 'My work here is done.'

'So Sooin at… noon?'

'Eleven-thirty. She's got that exhibition at two.' Gawon tilted her head as you worked conditioner through the ends of her hair. 'She's nervous about it.'

'Art?'

'Mhm.'

'She'll nail it.' You guided her back under the water. 'She's got that whole eccentric thing down.'

'I'll tell her you said that.' She wiped water from her eyes. 'She thinks she's too cheerful for the part.'

'That’s charm though. No one has energy like her.'

'She contains multitudes.' [1] Gawon's eyes sparkled with mischief. 'Speaking of which, you never told me who your favorite poet actually is.'

-

[1] Gawon deploys Whitman quotes like other people deploy "um" or "well". It's her tell. You've catalogued them all: 'I contain multitudes'; 'I am large' when caught crying at a commercial; 'Do I contradict myself?' when she changes dinner plans for the third time. If you were confronted on behalf of her, you'd say, to the world and above 'She's a loser, your honor'. Though the fact that she only does this for maybe four people in the world makes you stupidly proud to be one of them.

-

'You're not getting out of the Whitman bit that easily.'

'Worth a shot.' She reached past you for the body wash. 'Though I bet it's someone properly pretentious. Ezra Pound? T.S. Eliot?' You had your hand out, she spooled some body wash on your palm.

You rubbed your palms together, getting suds out. 'Baudelaire, actually.' You softly rubbed her body down.

She paused, surprised. 'Gross.'

'What?'

'Pervert.' She smiled, something tender in it. 'I see where you get your naughtiness from.'

You smiled back.

The water ran.

'See?' she said finally. 'Spontaneity. We just had a poetry moment in the shower.'

You pressed a kiss to her damp forehead. 'Maybe ease up on the transcendentalists before coffee.'

'No promises.' She tucked herself against you for a moment. 'I'm feeling very one-with-the-universe today.'

'God help us all.'

'Just you.' She pulled back, eyes bright. 'Think you can handle it?'

'I'll manage somehow.'

'Good.' She headed for the bedroom, calling back, 'Because I'm thinking we skip the predetermined brunch place and just walk until we find somewhere that looks good.'

'Living dangerously.'

'Try to keep up. This new spontaneous me waits for no one.'

'Except for the fifteen minutes you'll spend choosing which spontaneous outfit to wear?'

A towel flew back through the doorway, her laughter following it. 'Twenty minutes, minimum. Some habits die hard.'

You helped her dry her hair, something you’d underestimated, she had a mischievous smile the moment you accepted her offer of drying her hair. The best part was, indeed, the scent of her hair, the softness of it, gliding along your hand.

‘Didn’t expect it to take this long?’’

‘Not at all, it's your hair. Any time is too short.’

‘You got vocal chords shaped like a heart don’t you?’

'Only for you.' You wrapped your arms around her waist, and kissed her neck once.

‘I’m feeling beguiled.’

‘Unsafe?’

‘Very. Where’s the exit?’

‘Oh. I’m not that easy.’ You tightened the embrace.

She giggled, her hand wrapping endearingly around yours.

You had maybe 3 outfits; they were also scattered - the rest of the time, you and Gawon had to look for it. You finished just a little later than Gawon.

Outside, Sooin was sitting in her jeep with the windows down. She spotted you approaching with a grin.

'Morning,' she said, climbing out. 'I brought coffee but I drank it all. Sorry.'

'You okay?' Gawon asked.

'Yeah. Just couldn't sit still at home.' She leaned against the car. 'My neighbor started vacuuming at six AM so I figured that was the universe telling me to leave.'

You all climbed in. The car smelled faintly of coffee and the blue lavender sachets she kept tucked everywhere.

'Where to?' Sooin asked, pulling out carefully.

'I hadn't really decided,' Gawon said.

Sooin glanced over. 'Really?'

'Really.'

'Huh.' A small smile crossed her face. 'Okay. Let's just drive then.'

She took a left at the light, no particular destination in mind. The morning traffic was light, mostly delivery trucks and early joggers.

'The exhibition's at two-fifteen,' Sooin said after a while. 'They want a 'spontaneous review' .'

'You're good at those,' Gawon said.

'Sometimes.' She adjusted the mirror unnecessarily. 'It's three months in Hokkaido if I get it.'

'That's far.'

'Yeah.' Another adjustment. 'Really far.'

They drove past a small café with outdoor seating. Sooin slowed.

'This works?'

'Perfect,' Gawon said.

Sooin parked, taking two tries to get it straight. Inside, they found a corner table. The place was nearly empty, just them and an older man reading a newspaper.

'Tea?' Gawon suggested when the server came by.

'Coffee,' Sooin said. 'I know, I know. But tea makes me sleepy.'

'Since when?'

'Since always. I just pretend to like it.' She smiled at the server. 'Biggest mug you have, please.'

They ordered food too - eggs, toast, nothing fancy. Sooin picked at hers.

'Not hungry?'

'I ate earlier. Made eggs at home too. Forgot I did until just now.' She laughed quietly. 'I'm a little scattered today.'

'You'll be fine,' you said.

'Maybe.' She took a sip of coffee. 'My agent actually said 'think less.''

'Helpful.'

'Right?' She managed a real smile then. 'I should just channel Gawon. Very contained.'

'I'm not that contained,' Gawon protested.

'You made me use a coaster at your apartment during a party.'

'That's just common sense.'

'It was a red solo cup.'

They fell into silence. Sooin's hands had stopped fidgeting, wrapped around her mug.

'Thanks for this,' she said eventually. 'I know I'm being weird.'

'You're not,' Gawon said.

-

'Right.' She put the phone down. 'Tell me something normal. Anything.'

'Like what?'

'I don't know. What you had for breakfast yesterday. Your grocery list. Literally anything that isn't about auditions.'

Gawon thought about it. 'I bought new socks.'

'Thrilling.'

'They have cats on them.'

'Of course they do.' But Sooin was almost smiling. 'Are they at least subtle cats?'

'They're wearing top hats.'

Sooin smiled.

'What? They were on sale.'

You laughed. 'Show her the ones from last week.'

'No.'

'They have tacos on them,' you told Sooin.

'Tacos?'

'Tiny dancing kitty tacos.'

Sooin stared at Gawon. 'You're secretly twelve years old.'

'They're comfortable.'

'That's not a defense.'

'It's the only defense I need.' Gawon took a sip of coffee. 'Besides, you have that shirt with the - '

'We don't talk about the shirt.'

'The one with the sequined - '

'I said we don't talk about it.'

They went back and forth like that, and slowly Sooin's death grip on her mug loosened. Her shoulders came down from around her ears.

'Fifty minutes,' she said eventually. 'Think I have time to throw up?'

'You're not going to throw up.'

'I might.'

'You won't.' Gawon pushed the water closer. 'Drink this.'

'Bossy.'

'Yeah.'

Sooin drank the water. 'Remember when I auditioned for that commercial? The one with the cat?'

'You were allergic.'

'So allergic. My face swelled up like a balloon.' She touched her cheek. 'At least there's no cats this time.'

'Small mercies.'

'Huge mercies. Can you imagine? Sorry, I can't quietly unravel, I'm too busy sneezing.''

'You'd still get it,' you said.

'With my balloon face?'

'Even then.'

'Liar.' But she looked calmer. 'Thirty minutes. Oh god.'

'You want to head over?'

'No. Yes. I don't know.' She stood up, sat back down. 'What if I forget my own name?'

'Then make one up,' Gawon suggested.

'Hi, I'm… Gertrude.'

'Aim higher.'

'Beatrice?'

'Now you're just listing old lady names.'

'Those are sophisticated names.' Sooin stood again, for real this time. 'Okay. Let's go before I really do throw up.'

You paid and left. Outside, Sooin stopped walking.

'I don't want to go to Hokkaido,' she said quietly.

'Then don't,' Gawon said.

'I need the job.'

'You need a job. Not necessarily this job.'

'It's a good opportunity.'

'Is it though?'

Sooin looked at her. 'You're supposed to be supportive.'

'I am being supportive. I'm supporting your right to not freeze your ass off for three months.'

'That's…' Sooin laughed, surprised. 'Actually helpful?'

'I have moments.'

They walked to the car. Sooin got in, started it, didn't drive.

'What if I bomb?'

'Then you bomb,' you said.

'That's it?'

'Then you bomb and we get lunch and tomorrow's another day.'

'You make it sound simple.'

'It is simple. But cruel.'

Sooin considered this. 'I hate when you're profound.'

'Sorry.'

'Don't be.' She finally put the car in drive. 'Twenty minutes. Let's do this.'

At the theater, she parked crooked and didn't fix it.

'How do I look?'

'Like yourself,' Gawon said.

'Is that good enough?'

'It's perfect.'

Sooin nodded, grabbed her bag. 'If I die in there - '

'We'll delete your browser history.'

'I was going to say tell my mother I love her, but that's better. Thanks.'

She hugged them both quickly, then walked inside before she could change her mind.

'She's going to nail it,' you said.

'Yeah.' Gawon was already looking for somewhere to wait. 'Coffee?'

'Obviously.'

You found a place across the street. Ordered. Sat by the window where you both could see the theater doors.

'She really doesn't want to go to Hokkaido,' Gawon said.

'No.'

'Think she'll take it anyway?'

'Probably.'

'Yeah.' Gawon turned her cup three times. Caught herself. 'Damn it.'

'I didn't say anything.'

'You were thinking it.'

'Little bit.'

They sat quietly, waiting. Normal morning. Normal coffee. Two people waiting for their friend to maybe change her life or maybe not.

Either way, they'd be there.

-

Sooin's exhibition was successful. She sold 3 pieces. 3 more than she expected. She was more than ecstatic. And she was hired.

'I got it!' Sooin shouted from the hallway, fumbling with her keys. 'Holy shit, I actually got it!'

'We heard you the first ten times,' Gawon said, taking one of the champagne bottles before Sooin dropped it.

'I'm going to keep saying it.' She finally got the door open. 'Maybe forever.'

Her apartment was a mess. Empty wine bottles from last night's panic session, canvases against every wall, a dead plant she kept meaning to throw out.

'Sit,' Gawon ordered. 'You're vibrating.'

'I can't sit. I might explode.' But Sooin collapsed on the couch anyway. 'They want me for three months. In Hokkaido. Starting next month.'

'That's fast,' you said.

'That's terrifying.' She opened the champagne badly. Foam everywhere. 'Shit. Sorry.'

'Leave it.' Gawon was already in the kitchen getting glasses. Real ones, not the plastic cups Sooin usually used.

'Fancy,' Sooin said.

'You got a real job. We're using real glasses.'

'It's just three months.'

'It's a whole thing. With a budget. A whole mentor.'

'Who thinks I have 'luminous loneliness.' Sooin made air quotes. 'Whatever that means.'

'It means you're hired,' you said.

'Yeah.' She drank half her glass at once. 'Weird though, right? Like he saw through me or something.'

Gawon and you exchanged a look.

'What?' Sooin caught it. 'What was that?'

'Nothing.'

'Bullshit. You did the thing.'

'What thing?'

'The worried look thing.' She poured more champagne. 'I'm fine. I'm great. I'm employed.'

'We know,' Gawon said carefully.

'Do you? Because you're looking at me like I'm about to cry or something.' Sooin laughed. Too loud. 'I'm not going to cry. I got the part.'

She kept drinking. Fast. By the third glass she was quieter.

'Three months is long,' she said eventually.

'We'll visit.'

'Yeah.' She picked at the couch cushion. 'It's just. I'll be alone. Again.'

'You won't be alone. You'll have the cast, the crew - '

'That's not what I mean.' Sooin looked at them. 'When's the last time someone actually wanted me around? Like, really wanted me?'

The question hung there.

'See?' She smiled, but it was all wrong. 'Can't remember either.'

'Sooin - '

'It's fine. I'm used to it.' She stood up too fast, swayed. 'I'm going to bed.'

'Let us help - '

'I'm good.' She wasn't. 'Really. Thanks for… this. For being here.'

They watched her weave toward her bedroom. The door closed with a soft click.

-

The apartment had gone quiet except for Sooin's gentle breathing from the bedroom. You'd both helped her there an hour ago, after the toasts became mumbled and her eyes started closing mid-sentence.

Just you and Gawon on the couch, the Yamazaki bottle between you on the coffee table. She poured two fingers each, no ice.

'She was happy,' Gawon said, tucking her legs under herself. 'Really happy.'

'The exhibition was a success.' You add.

'That's not what I mean.' Gawon took a sip, considering her words. 'Did you see her face when that couple was discussing her work? How she lit up?'

'She loves when people get it.'

'No.' Gawon shook her head. 'She loves being seen. There's a difference.'

You waited. Gawon had that look-the one that meant she was working up to something.

'She told me she hasn't been with anyone.’ She said, quiet.

'She's focused on her work.'

'She's scared.' Gawon stared into her glass. 'I mean, I know the feeling now, you know? She’s never been with anybody - I never thought that concept would be so important to me now.’

She looked at you then. 'When's the last time someone chose her? Really chose her?'

Japan’s humid night tucked the both of you in this comfortable atmosphere.

'I've been thinking,' Gawon continued. 'About what she needs.'

'Gawon - '

'Just listen.' She shifted closer. 'You're good. Actually good. Not just nice, not just charming. Good.'

'I'm not - '

'You are.' Her hand found yours. 'And she trusts you. We both do.'

'What are you asking?'

'I'm asking…' She took another sip for courage. 'I'm asking you to make her feel wanted. Even just once. So she knows what it's like.'

'You want me to-'

'I want her to stop believing she's meant to be alone.' Gawon was fierce but quiet. 'I want her to know how it feels when someone sees all of her and wants her anyway.'

'This is whiskey talking.'

She set her glass down. 'This is me talking. Me loving her enough to be unconventional.'

'And you'd be okay with it?'

'I'd be there.' The words came out sure. 'If she wanted. If it helped her feel safe.'

You studied her face - earnest, determined, maybe a little scared herself.

'This could complicate everything,' you said carefully.

'Everything's already complicated.' She laughed softly. 'We're sitting in her apartment, drinking her celebration whiskey, trying to figure out how to fix her loneliness. We passed complicated a while ago.'

'She might say no.'

'She might.' Gawon picked up her glass again. 'But she might not. And maybe that's what she needs - to choose. To be chosen.'

From the bedroom, Sooin murmured something in her sleep. You both turned toward the sound, then back to each other.

'Think about it,' Gawon said. 'That's all I'm asking.'

'I don't need to think about it.' You touched her face gently. 'If you're sure. If she wants it. If it would help her…'

'You'd do that?'

'I'd do anything for the people I love.' First time said aloud. 'Both of you.'

Gawon kissed you then, soft and grateful.

She curled into your side, and you sat there with the weight of what you were contemplating. The whiskey bottle refracted and diffracted, amber and warm, like the feeling in your chest.

'When?' you asked eventually.

'When she's sober. When she can really choose.' Gawon was sleepy now. 'When it's not about the exhibition… but just… us. Being here for her.'

'Okay.'

'Okay?'

'Okay.'

She smiled against your shoulder. In the bedroom, Sooin slept on, unaware of the promises being made in her name, for her heart, in the whiskey-soft glow of her own living room.

-

Morning came with the quiet sounds of movement in the kitchen.

'There's coffee,' Sooin said without turning when you and Gawon came in. She was at the stove, hair messy, wearing the same paint-stained shirt she always wore for cooking.

'Smells good,' Gawon said, settling at the table.

'It's just eggs.' Sooin was carefully neutral. 'Nothing fancy.'

'Sleep okay?' you asked.

'Fine.' She still hadn't turned around. 'You?'

'The couch was comfortable.'

'Good. That's… good.'

Gawon nudged your foot under the table. The eggs were starting to stick to the pan.

'Here.' You stood, moving to help. 'Let me - '

'I've got it.' But she let you take the spatula, stepping back.

Standing this close, you could see she'd been crying again. Not recently, but enough to leave traces.

'Sooin.'

'Don't.' Her voice was very quiet. 'Please.'

'Okay.'

You focused on the eggs, salvaging what you could. She stayed nearby, not quite touching but not moving away either.

'I said things last night,' she said finally.

'You were honest.'

'I was drunk.'

'Both can be true.'

She laughed softly, without humor. 'I guess.'

The morning light caught her face when she finally looked up. She looked tired but also somehow lighter, like crying had washed something away.

'I meant it though,' she said. 'About being tired of being alone.'

''I know.'

'It's not…' She glanced at Gawon, then back. 'I'm not trying to make this weird.'

'You're not.'

'I am though.' She moved closer, just barely. 'Aren't I?'

You set the spatula down. 'Look at me.'

She did, reluctantly.

'You're not making anything weird. You're being you.'

'That's the problem.'

'No,' you said gently. 'It's not.'

Something shifted in her face. 'You mean that.'

'Yeah.'

'Even though…' She gestured vaguely between you and Gawon.

'Even though.'

She was very still now, watching you. You reached up slowly, giving her time to step back. She didn't. Your hand touched her face.

'Oh,' she said softly.

The kiss was brief, gentle. Her fingers wrapped around your wrist, not pulling away, just holding.

When you stepped back, she stayed still for a moment, eyes closed.

…

She opened her eyes, looked at you, then at Gawon who had moved closer.

'I don't understand any of this.'

'That's okay,' Gawon said quietly.

'Is it?'

'Yeah.'

Sooin took a breath. Looked at the stove. 'I burned the eggs.'

'I noticed.'

'They're completely destroyed.'

'We'll make more,' you said.

'Right.' She turned off the burner, moved the pan to the sink. 'Right. Okay.'

She ran water over the burned mess, watched it steam.

'Thank you,' she said to the sink. 'Both of you.'

'For what?'

'I don't know.' A small laugh. 'Everything. Nothing. The eggs.'

'Anytime,' Gawon said.

The morning sun filled the kitchen. Three people standing in the aftermath of something shifting. The burned smell was already fading.

Sooin dried her hands, turned around. 'So. Breakfast?'

'Breakfast,' you agreed.

And that was enough for now.

-

The taxi smelled like fake pine. Gawon sat by the window, arms crossed.

'You okay?'

'Fine.'

'You're doing that thing with your jaw.'

'What thing?' Her jaw unclenched slightly.

'That thing.' You poked her shoulder. 'When you're annoyed but pretending not to be.'

'I'm not annoyed.'

'Okay.'

'I'm not.'

'I said okay.'

She turned to glare at you. 'Her lipstick is on your collar.'

You glanced down. There was indeed a faint pink smudge. 'Huh.'

'Huh? That's all?'

'What do you want me to say?'

'I don't know. Something.' She turned back to the window. 'Never mind.'

'You're jealous.'

'I'm not jealous.'

'You're a little jealous.'

'Shut up.'

You slid closer. She leaned away.

'Gawon.'

'What?'

'You literally suggested it.'

'I know what I suggested. Doesn't mean I have to like it.'

'Fair.'

The driver changed lanes. Gawon stayed pressed against the door.

'She uses vanilla lip gloss,' you said conversationally. 'Very sweet.'

'I don't care.'

'Like candy almost.'

'Stop talking.'

'You use that mint one. Much better.'

She finally looked at you. 'You're enjoying this.'

'A little bit.'

'Ass.'

'Yeah.' You touched her knee. 'Come here.'

'No.'

'Come on.'

'I said no.' But she wasn't pulling away from your hand.

'One kiss.'

'You've had enough kisses today.'

'One more.'

She rolled her eyes but turned toward you. 'You're ridiculous.'

'Yeah.'

'And your collar is still pink.'

'I'll wash it.'

'Good.' She leaned in then, quick and firm. When she pulled back, she was almost smiling. 'There. Happy?'

'Getting there.'

'Don't push it.' But she let you take her hand. 'How was it anyway?'

'How was what?'

'You know what.'

'It was nice.'

'Nice.' She considered this. 'That's it?'

'She was nervous. Kept apologizing.'

'Sounds like her…'

…

'I also liked it.' She added, in the silence.

Wha-

She swiftly kissed you this time, harder, hands on your jaw. The taxi driver coughed pointedly.

'We're almost there,' Gawon said against your mouth.

'We could circle the block.'

'That's very Pretty Woman of you.'

'I've never seen it.'

'Liar.' But she was smiling now, the tension finally breaking. 'You probably cried at the end.'

'Every time.'

'I knew it.' She settled against your side properly. 'You're such a soft touch.'

'Only for you.'

'And Sooin, apparently.' She smiled, now with an air of mischief.

'That's different.'

'I know.' Quieter now. 'I know it is. Still.'

'Still,' you agreed.

The hotel appeared ahead. Gawon straightened, already reaching for her bag.

'For the record,' she said as the taxi slowed, 'I prefer when your mouth tastes like mint. Or nothing. Or me. Or you.'

'Noted.'

The taxi stopped. The doorman was already moving toward them. The moment broke, but the understanding remained - she'd given something, watched something, felt something she hadn't expected. And maybe that was okay.

-

The hotel already felt like home. Two days. Just two days and the air carried Gawon's scent.

And the traces of the entire day, and the day before that.

You carried a box of cookies that Sooin made into the villa. She said it was just a parting gift just for today, but it felt more like she was trying to forget what happened. It was the opposite for you, you couldn't forget; and the fresh smell of the cookies, reminded you exactly of Sooin's plump lips, pressed desperately against yours, as the scent of the cookie caramelized in the oven.

You left the box of cookies on the table.

The door to the bathroom clicked when you sat on the bed. And Gawon emerged. Sheer stockings covering her feet to the midway of her thighs. A stunningly webbed black lingerie piece that covered just the right amount to leave you anguish, while still narrowly hiding everything.

Her bra was the same too, the underswell, the upswell, the way her breasts coupled just over the edge of the bra, just so, god almighty.

-

'Sit on that chair.' She was firm.

You moved, still admiring her, but now sat facing her.

She approached, slowly at first, between you and the bed, and she sat.

'I suppose this is what I planned as payback.'

'Because of yesterday.'

'Among other things. You kissing Sooin, keeping me sore this entire week.'

Her stocking-clad foot traced a deliberate path along your denim-clad thigh - a slow exploration. ‘Gawon.’ The name escaped you, raw and pleading.

‘Hush.’

Your fingers dug into the chair’s worn knit fabric. Her toes pressed, finally, against the aching bulge straining your jeans - then lifted away. ‘Gawon.’

‘Keep saying my name.’ A command.

Both feet settled heavily on your thighs now, warm soles pressing heat through denim. Your knuckles whitened. ‘What do you want? Tell me.’

‘Help me. With your feet.’

‘Good boy.’

One foot slid upward, the nylon catching on your zipper. A single toe hooked under the button. Relief was a breath away. ‘Take it out.’

‘What?’

‘Take it out.’ Her foot pressed down, the arch molding perfectly to your trapped erection. Toe pads dragged firmly along the swollen length. ‘Look at you. Hard just from my feet. Naughty boy.’

‘You’re the reason.’ Your voice was gravel. Her sole pressed harder, feeling the rigid heat through the layers of cotton and denim.¹

Her hands clenched the bedsheets, knuckles taut.

Then - emptiness. Her feet withdrew.

You looked up, lost. ‘Wh - '

Her fingers hooked the waistband of her skirt. A slow, slide down endless legs. The fabric caught briefly on her toes before pooling on the floor. Art unveiled.

You released the chair, transfixed. The air hummed with worn nerves. She planted her feet firmly on the mattress edge, wiggling her toes - a deliberate provocation. Her gaze pinned you, savoring your desperation.

Slowly, deliberately, she ripped the seam of her left stocking. White-painted toes emerged. ‘These were expensive,’ she murmured. ‘I expect… reciprocation.’ The contrast - torn black nylon against creamy skin - was devastating.

‘Take it out.’ This time, it was final. You shoved your boxers down, freeing yourself.

Gawon’s eyes widened. Her left foot landed on your bare thigh, sole searing against skin. Then the right. Both feet bracketed your shaft, radiating unbearable heat just millimeters away.

‘Let me show you what these can do.’ A soft, dangerous smile.

Her feet closed around you. Her warm textured soles around your shaft, bare toes wiggling, brushing. Pressure. Friction. Gawon grinned, your cock trapped between her arches, twitching, helpless, pooling with precum.

She asked you to move closer, ‘Wait - closer. I can - ’

You dragged the chair forward immediately, wood scraping floor. She slid toward the edge. Your hands locked around her thin calves, feeling the flex of muscle beneath nylon.

‘That… works.’ Her breath hitched. One hand slid down her stomach, fingers pressing into soft skin below her navel. Lower. Beneath the lace edge of her panties. A sigh escaped her as her fingers moved slow, shadowing across her lace panties, hints of knuckles, fingers, the soft squelch. Her hand emerged glistening.

‘God. You’re so wet.’ You barely tear out.

‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’ She held up her slick-coated hand. ‘Want it? Be good. Take it.' She wrapped that wetness around your cock. Tight. She spat into her other palm. Both hands worked you now, while her feet maintained their tight grip at the base of your cock, barely moving, but destroying your nerves nonetheless.

Then she moved. Her hand held crown of your cock as her soles pressed heavily on either side. Her hand worked the precum down, her feet worked all of it: saliva, precum, her slick.

You twitched. Back arching. Your grip on her calves was too tight at some point, to which she moaned a soft rebellion: you stopped immediately.

You dug your toes into the carpet, your biceps pulsed, you lost oxygen after every filthy pass of her feet along your length.

And yet,

Her feet never stopped - a slow, torturous undulation against your shaft. The textured nylon dragged and pulled every moan from you, every hunchback position to prevent spilling on her textured soles rubbing against the slit of your cock.

Then just as you half-twitched to completion.

She stopped.

'You want my hand?'

'Yes.' You barely say.

You were prey to Gawon: 'Louder, beg for it.'

'Please. Your hand. My cock. Please.'

Her hand gripped your cock like it was a squeeze toy, a welcome sensation when you're passing in and out of consciousness.

Every downward stroke of her hands synced with her soles pressed hard around your cock.

'Look at you,' she breathed. 'Twitching like a rabbit in a snare.'

A strangled sound escaped you. Her thumbs circled your swollen head, smearing her wetness mixed with yours. Pre-come slicked the path. The schlick-schlick of her pumping hands synced with the shush-shush of nylon soles gliding.

Then she changed rhythm.

Her feet stilled, clamped tight just below the head. Her hands accelerated, twisting on the upstroke, thumb digging into the frenulum.

'Gawon - !'

'Not yet.' Her command was amber and honey and gunpowder pressed to your very nerves. 'You hold it. Hold it for me. Be a good boy.'

Sweat beaded your temples. Your hips jerked, seeking deeper pressure, but her feet held firm, denying release. Muscles trembled - thighs, abdomen, the cords in your neck standing rigid. The need was a live wire sparking behind your eyes.

'You taste the air?' She murmured, inexplicably.

You did. Salt. Her arousal. The tang of overworked nerves.

'That’s you unmaking. That’s what I do. Now, come here. sit here.' She patted on the part of bed between her thighs.

You stood up immediately, sitting between her thighs, her arms now entangled around your waist.

'I have a request.' She pressed a kiss to your jaw.

'Mm.' You reply. Running on fumes.

'I want you to… are you listening?' She says, now soft.

In a flash, her legs wrapped around your waist, her hand wrapped around your cock. Her heels just hovered by the sides of your shaft.

Then her heels dug in.

You let out a groan. In pleasure.

'I want to watch you have sex with Sooin.'

You twitched. You almost came. You groaned too. She's trying to fucking kill you. Her heels moved just so, the muscle of your shaft shifting in turn, her soles now pressed on either side of your shaft.

'Gawon - '

'Fuck Sooin for me. I won't force you. I want you to. I liked it… I liked it when you kissed her.'

'Gawon - ' You breathe. You were about to break. You were twitching. One more move. That's all she needed to break you.

'So?' Waiting for an answer.

Her left foot shifted. Just the big toe, dragging slowly, agonizingly, from root to tip along the pulsing vein underneath your cock. A whimper tore loose. Her hands tightened, twisting harder.

'Ok! I will. Fuck. I'll fuck Sooin. In front of you... I'll cum inside her.'

You groaned, her soles continued its movement, along the length of your cock, the whole of her soles, milking you.

She moaned. She came before you did. She moaned right on the rim of your ear, vibrating her perfect orgasm.

Holy Fucking Shit.

You detonated next.

It was a structural collapse. Spine arching, heels digging into carpet, vision whiting out as heat roared up your spine. Her hands milked every spasm, her feet a warm, grounding weight as you emptied yourself over her fingers, stripes of white landing hot on your stomach, her fingers, the carpet below the bed.

You panted, Gawon held you firm.

Gawon watched, chest rising and falling rapidly, her own arousal glistening visibly now at the lace edge of her panties. She lifted her slick, glazed hand, studying the mess with detached fascination.

'Holy fuck.' She said, spent.

You laughed.

She laughed in turn.

Her foot, still resting against your spent cock, gave one final, proprietary squeeze.

-

Tomorrow. Tomorrow was when everything was gonna happen.

You and Gawon shared a shower. Went along with the routine of days past.

With a commitment etched into eachother's hearts.

-

The day was neutral. Routine. You and gawon showered together. She scoffed when you held her waist with a half-hard cock against her back; all she could offer was, 'Tonight, you'll have all the time you need.' She didn't know how much that made you ache.

The hours ambled past. You and Gawon made rounds to cafes, pet shops, summer trees. Her honey hand was wrapped with yours the entire time, even when clammy: a soft proclamation that the both of you would be through thick and thin.

By evening, you walked nervously with Gawon to Sooin's place. She said everything was arranged. What did that mean?

The walk upstairs was even more nerve-wracking. It was until Gawon hugged you, right outside the door to Sooin's, that you calmed down. 'Sooin deserves the best. You deserve the best. I won't be jealous. I want Sooin to feel loved - more than just a kiss. I want you to understand, more than just sex, that I'll be forever yours.'

'It's a pity I can't throw you against this wall and make love. Hm?' You grin. She grins back. You kiss. You have no idea what you did to deserve Gawon.

The door softly cranked open and Sooin was stood there. Her hands raised perpendicular, waiting for you.

You walked towards her, then hugged her.

Sooin stood on her toes for a moment, readjusting her arms around your neck. She was secure, holding your head, looking at you; maybe she was trying to conceptualize something, something more foreign than just kissing.

Your hands were at her waist now, against her warm skin.

You were already half-hard. Half-dizzy. Crazed: Gawon's watching you, Sooin wants you. Focus, for once, focus.

Two beautiful women, one observing, one right in your arms - the one that isn't your girlfriend. You were confused.

Things were uncoiling. You aren't sure what it was.

'Kiss me. Again. More. As much as it takes.' Sooin whispered, right on your ear. Her moist breath tingling the side of your ear, your face.

Your breath caught. AWOL. You looked at Sooin once more. Her cheeks flush, her breaths heavy, her hair tangled so perfectly around your fingers.

You caught the side of her chin with one hand. Tilting her head just a little, just so, and you touched her lips. She was breathing fast, her heart was beating, you felt it on her lips.

You slid your tongue between her lips, selfishly. mmph she says, christ almighty. You traced her lips, her tongue.

Her arms tightened around your neck, and she took initiative: pushing her tongue deep into your mouth. You moved in response, in surprise. 'Gently' you whisper, she nods; now, licking softly, her tongue to yours, exploring you. Her hands were stretching the quarter-zip that Gawon bought for you.

You were catastrophically hard. You weren't privy to what Gawon was doing, what she was saying, most of all, what her reaction was. You were a deer under spotlight. Sooin coodinating perfectly to make sure you couldn't look at Gawon.

'Was that good?' She asked. Cheeks flush. Breathing heavily. Her hips were gently rocking against you. On your hardness.

'Yes. That… was perfect.' You whisper, just loud enough. Gawon surely heard it. Your cock jerked in excitement.

Without saying anything, you pulled her tight, entering her mouth once more, harder, without sympathy. She squealed something. You kissed her hard. Passionately. Far passionately than before, far more than the other times.

Your arm seized the small of her back. You helped her rock her body against your hardness. She was moaning in tandem with your pushes and pulls.

You looked down to see, to go past concept, to see what you were doing to Sooin. But before then, Sooin pulled your chin again, and kissed you hungrily.

Don't worry.

Just enjoy it.

'Christ almighty Sooin.' You balk, speech almost unintelligible. Desperately clinging to Sooin's body.

'Grind into me. Please.' She begged. That was it. That did it.

You nearly lifted her into the air as you ground yourself deep into her. Separated by cloth. Your cock against her pussy.

She moaned deep into your mouth. Her husky voice destroying a piece of you every time.

'I'm gonna come.'

'Keep going. Please. Keep going.'

You desperately move. Forgetting everything. Concepts forgotten. Just Sooin body perfectly sidled up on your brick-hard cock.

Then:

Gawon wrapped her arms around your shoulders. Forehead against your nape.

'I want in.'

Sooin retreated back. Cheeks red. Breathing heavily.

Gawon’s lips left a searing trail down your neck - half-graze, half-bite - as her fingers hooked the hem of your shirt. Fabric rasped upward, baring skin to the cool air and her hotter mouth. She mapped your shoulders, the tense cord of your triceps, then circled to face you, eyes locked on yours as her tongue flicked a nipple. The jolt went straight to your groin.

‘I want to suck your cock.’

No preamble. No permission asked. Her hands were already at your waistband, deftly working the button, the zipper teeth parting like a sigh. Your fingers tangled in her hair, not guiding, just anchoring, as she sank to her knees.

Behind her, Sooin stood frozen. Back pressed to the doorframe, knuckles white where she gripped the wood. Her breath hitched - a soft, involuntary sound. Gawon heard it. Didn’t turn. Just smiled against your hipbone, her breath humid through the thin cotton of your briefs.

‘Watch,’ Gawon murmured, not to you.

She peeled the briefs down. Your cock sprang free, flushed and straining and dripping with pre cum. Gawon’s gaze didn’t leave Sooin’s face as she took you into her mouth.

Her cheeks hollowed out, a gentle sucking noise rang out as your knees almost buckled right then and there.

The soft whimpers of Gawon going deeper.

The slick noise of her tongue circling the head.

Sooin made a sound - a whimper trapped in her throat. Gawon hummed around you, the vibration ricocheting up your spine. Encouragement? Mockery? Impossible to tell.

‘Gawon - ’ you choked out.

She pulled off with a filthy pop. ‘Patience.’ Her hand replaced her mouth, stroking slowly. Deliberate. Theatrical. ‘She’s never seen this, has she? Never seen how pretty a man comes apart.’

Sooin’s eyes were wide, dark, fixed on Gawon’s hand moving on your shaft. A fevered flush crept up her neck.

Gawon’s free hand reached back, blind, and found Sooin’s wrist. ‘Touch him,’ she ordered, voice thick around the command. ‘Just here.’ She guided Sooin’s trembling fingers to your hip, to the tense muscle jumping beneath sweat-damp skin. ‘Feel how hard he is for us.’

Sooin’s touch was feather-light. Terrified. Electrifying. Her fingertips traced the V of your pelvis, then flinched back.

‘Look at him,’ Gawon insisted, taking you deep again, hollowing her cheeks. _‘Look at what we do to him.’

Sooin’s breath stuttered. This time, when her hand returned, it didn’t tremble. Her palm flattened against your stomach, feeling the clench and release of muscle as Gawon sucked harder, faster. Her thumb brushed the base of your cock where Gawon’s lips stretched tight.

Two hands now. Two women. One unbearable friction.

Gawon moaned around you - a sound of pure satisfaction - and Sooin echoed it, softer, wonderstruck. Her nails bit lightly into your hip as Gawon took you to the hilt, throat working, eyes watering but never closing, never looking away from Sooin’s rapt, overwhelmed face.

Gawon’s throat flexed - a tight, rippling swallow against the head of your cock. Her nose pressed into your base. You felt the ridge of your crown catch momentarily on the tense ring of muscle at the back of her mouth before she forced herself deeper, her throat opening in a practiced spasm. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes, tracking mascara-smudged paths down her flushed cheeks. She didn’t blink. Didn’t look away from you.

Her lips sealed impossibly tight around the root, the stretch burning. You felt the thump thump thump of her pulse through the soft flesh of her palate, pressed directly against your straining underside. Saliva overflowed, thick and slick, dripping down your shaft onto Sooin’s hand still splayed on your lower belly. The warm rivulet traced a path through the sweat-sheened skin.

Gawon held you there, buried to the hilt. Her breath came in short, desperate sniffs through flared nostrils, unable to inhale fully. Her jaw trembled with the effort. A low, guttural hum vibrated through her throat and into your cock - a physical buzz deep in your core.

Then, slowly, agonizingly, she retreated. Her throat released its grip with a wet, sucking pop. Your cock slid back through the tight tunnel of her mouth, every ridge, every vein catching exquisitely on her tongue, her palate, her teeth held carefully back. Her tongue flattened beneath you, a hot, broad pressure massaging the sensitive frenulum as she withdrew. Cool air hit the slick length for a fraction of a second before her lips, swollen and red, sealed back around the head.

Her tongue pressed hard under your cock, making you wince with pleasure, all the joints of your body gridlocked under blissful tyranny. Her lips pulsed around your shaft, the softness of the inside of her mouth, molded around your shaft, all velvety and fucking outrageous, dragging horribly along your length, the suction of her lips making a meek sound as it passed the crown of your cock.

Her hands never stopping working the base of your shaft and your balls. Switching rhythmically, squeezing lightly, fingers rolling your sac, just so, just so.

'Fuck. Gawon.'

'God. I love you. And this cock. And everything.' She breathed out, all flush and bothered, intermittently sending a hand down her panties, knuckles shadowing along her panties as she fucked herself on her fingers.

Gawon's saliva ran glistening along your shaft. Before it could pass down your legs, her lips surrounded your shaft again. Slicking Sooin's fingers where they still pressed against your hip. The sound was obscene: wet schlicks on the upstroke, guttural swallows of choked gasps when she surfaced, the constant drip onto skin.

Her hot gusts fanned your wet skin when she, occasionally, came up for air: short, sharp inhalations followed by low moans directed at you, directed at her fingers working on her pussy, before she plunged down again.

Sooin’s hand on your hip shifted. Her thumb found the taut tendon running from your hip bone towards your groin. She pressed into the rigid cord of muscle, her nail scraping lightly through the sweat and Gawon’s spit. Her other hand, the one Gawon had guided, lifted from your belly. You felt her hesitation in the air above your cock, then the tentative brush of a fingertip against the slick, spit-sheened head - just below where Gawon’s lips were sealed. A jolt shot through you.

Gawon felt it too. Her eyes, locked on Sooin’s, narrowed slightly. She increased the suction, hollowing her cheeks sharply, pulling Sooin’s focus back to her mouth, her control. She released you with another filthy pop, saliva stringing between her lower lip and your crown.

'See?' Gawon rasped, her voice wrecked. She didn't break eye contact with Sooin. Her tongue darted out, broad and pink, lapping at the pre-come beading at your tip, collecting it messily. 'See how he leaks for it?' She guided your cockhead back to her lips, her tongue swirling over the slit once more before taking you in, not deep this time, just the head, sucking hard and fast, her cheeks collapsing inward. 'All this… just from my mouth. Imagine.'

Gawon looked at you once again. This time, she stood up, wrapping her arms around your neck before kissing the side of your face, then pressing her tongue deep into your mouth.

Sooin stood there, wet-handed, even flusher, but she still just stood there: waiting, patiently.

'Sooin.'

That was all she had to say for Sooin to rush back towards you. But before she came, Gawon pushed you. You lost the abiltiy to maintain balance a long time ago, your knees were fucked, your brain was totally fucked. You were just fucked.

So you fell. Onto the bed.

'Calculated.' You breathe, masking the previous panic in your voice.

'Always.' Gawon says. And she leans on you, her knees on the bed. Hand on your wet cock.

Her lips surrounded your nipple, and a faint suction ran through your entire body.

Gawon's hand, the one taht was preoccupied with stroking you into madness, pulled for Sooin to come. And, again, she did.

Knees on the bed.

Palpably close to your cock, Sooin kneeled closer. And her lips pressed warm against your nipple.

Gawon motioned for Sooin, something unspoken, and you felt her hand wrap around your shaft.

Schlick.

Her moved. Her hands were smaller. Warmer. Tighter.

Schlick.

'Sit on him.' Gawon said. You darted up to look at them. Sooin was silent, eyes wide, her hand stopped moving.

'Are you sure?'

'Sit on him. Dear.'

The side of your chest where Gawon stayed was warm, she was there, looking at Sooin, she slid off your body, steadying herself. Her skin glanced off the sunlight, she was paler, a born deer surrounded by two wolves.

You were complicit in her ruin. You knew it now. Your cock grew harder the more you looked; soft skin, large bosom, thick thighs. You took a deep breath when Sooin straddled you, your lungs ballooned, the sides of her inner thighs pressed to your outer thighs. Her body was just inches off your rock-hard cock.

Gawon slid behind Sooin. Sooin didn’t turn - her gaze stayed locked on you, lips swollen and bitten red. The snick of a bra clasp echoed in the quiet. The garment slid down Sooin’s arms and landed in your lap, warm from her skin.

'Ah.'

Their laughter tangled - light, nervous. Gawon’s hand darted out, snatching the bra away.

Sooin’s breasts were bare now, high and full, nipples flushed pink. Your gut clenched, a visceral pull to bury yourself inside her - now.

She crossed her arms over her chest. 'You’re grinning,' Gawon observed, mischievious.

'I know.'

'Approved?' Gawon’s tone was all edges.

'Jesus. Are you blind?' You shifted closer, easing Sooin back against your chest. She was gentle, her back was arched. She was so so soft. Her bare shoulders trembled.

'Mm!' Sooin gasped as your thigh brushed her inner leg.

'Okay?' you murmured.

She nodded, cheeks blazing with red.

A hand closed around your cock - Gawon’s. Her thumb pressed the leaking tip. 'Hard as marble. Is this for her?'

You stayed silent. The answer pulsed in her grip.

Sooin arched when Gawon’s other hand slid between her legs, palming her through damp cotton. 'It’s really happening. Oh fuck, it's really happening.' Sooin breathed, pinned between you.

Gawon hooked a finger in the waistband of Sooin’s panties. Look. She peeled the fabric aside.

Wet heat glistened. No barriers left.

-

You traced Sooin’s inner thigh, feeling the jump of her muscle. 'Tell me.' 'I want' Sooin’s voice frayed. 'Just… touch me first.'

Gawon’s hand left your cock, guiding yours to Sooin’s center. 'Here.' Your fingers met slick heat. Sooin whimpered.

'Like this?' You circled her clit, her viscous slick covering the pads of your fingers. Holy fuck. Sooin’s head fell back against Gawon. 'Yes. God - yes.'

Gawon bit Sooin’s shoulder, leaving a red bloom. 'He needs to feel you. Ready?' Sooin nodded, frantic.

You lined up, the head of your cock nudging her entrance. Her hips jerked. 'Wait,' Gawon ordered. She spat into her palm, slicked your length. 'Now.'

You pushed in - slow. Sooin cried out, back bowing. 'Breathe,' Gawon commanded, pinning Sooin’s hips down. 'Take it.'

Sooin’s walls clenched, scalding tight. 'More - ' You thrust deeper. She sobbed, nails scraping your forearm.

Gawon watched. She moved to the side of the bed, sitting next to you. Hand on her mound - fingers moving. She breathed soft. She was looking at you, how you moved into Sooin. You met her eyes, once or twice. Making sure she saw, how your hips crushed against Sooin. Gawon's grin didn't leave her, her lust-gleamed eyes didn't change. Her fingers were still inside of her. In the background, as you stared at Gawon, Sooin let out pitiful moans that was more inspiration than anything else.

You moved deeper. Found her shoulder to bite on. Her pussy was wet, hot, her slick passed through your entire shaft, collecting down your balls.

'I'm fucking losing it. I'm fucking losing it.' She repeated, in your ear. You went faster.

Her hips moved up, your hands pulling as support, and she crashed back down. Her ass against your thighs. Smack.

She let out a pitiful moan again.

She moved back to find a different position. Her breasts bounced up and down. Your cock ground against her g-spot. She came.

She came just like that.

'Ahhh. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck' She buried her head in your shoulder. Trembled. Lost herself. Regained herself. Grinded her hips just a little. Letting your cock move and scrape against her sensitive spots.

'How does it feel? His cock grinding you. All inside you. Stretching you out.' Gawon's hand held Sooin's sweaty nape.

It wasn't question: an observation.

Her pink pussy was swollen around you. Morphed around you. Her stomach moved as her diaphragm collected oxygen. It felt unreal, her pussy tightening as she breathed in and out. It reminded you of a grounding detail, as the pause ensued: fucking Sooin as your girlfriend watched.

This time, Gawon's hand wrapped behind you, and she kissed you; first, on your ear, a tender, wet kiss that traced the outline of your ear; then, as you tried to kiss her back, her finger hovered over your chin, and pushed it back: 'I'm a spectator.' That was all she said.

Sooin was still breathing softly, her forehead still pressed against your left shoulder. The sides of her body still moved in accordance of her breaths, her humid breath hovered on your collarbone - worn out, high on bliss.

'Slap me.'

What?

'What?' You say, this time, with your mouth. Doubly processing.

'I want you to slap me.'

You look at Gawon, only to find her smiling.

The only clueless person in the room - you. [1]

-

[1] The exact moment your brain, which was previously operating on a simple "This is nice / This is weird / This is hot" flowchart, blue-screens entirely. It's the dawning, ice-water horror of realizing that the other two players in this… scenario… have apparently been co-authoring a very specific Google Doc of Kinks & Agendas in a shared folder you were never invited to.

-

Sooin blew air at you. You looked, she was smiling, still rawing from the pleasure, and then, just then, kissed you.

You locked your arms behind her back, and pressed your cock so deep that she groaned into your mouth. Her tongue moved in frantic movements as you pressed deeper and deeper into her; her folds pressed wet against the base of your shaft. You let the kiss go - to Sooin's dismay: mouth open and dizzy and flushed - to press your face against the space between her breasts; on either side, there was hills of perfect upswell dotted with pinkish nipples. You held her firmer as you plowed into her. She was still, victim to her pleasure, moaning, groaning, releasing her slick - some of it dripping on the carpet.

You saw Gawon move behind Sooin in your periphery. A sharp crack echoed - Gawon’s palm landing hard on Sooin’s ass. Sooin yelped, her fingers digging into the back of your neck. You held her hips down against your lap, your cock buried deep inside her, and delivered your own stinging slap to her other cheek. The flesh jiggled, already flushed.

'Thought you could just take and take, little thief?' Gawon hissed, naked, pressing her front against Sooin’s sweaty back. Her lips brushed Sooin’s ear. 'Squeeze her tight. Make her gush. Let her ruin her own fucking carpet.'

No more talk needed.

You stood, lifting Sooin’s legs, hooking them over your shoulders. She groaned, back arching, as the angle drove you impossibly deeper, the head of your cock grinding against her cervix. A raw, punched-out whimper escaped her - she was still trembling from her last climax.

You pulled her ass back, just enough for the tip to catch, then slammed home. A wet thwack of flesh meeting flesh. Sooin shrieked. You grunted, the force driving your hips forward.

Glancing down, you saw Gawon on her knees between Sooin’s splayed legs. One hand was frantically rubbing her own swollen clit. The other hand rose and fell in weak, almost spastic slaps against Sooin’s reddened ass. 'Close… oh fuck, close,' Gawon gasped, her voice thin and strained.

Sooin’s ass slammed against your hips again, slicker now. The wet sound was obscene - a mix of her slick, her cum, your pre-cum, smearing across skin and dripping onto the carpet below. The air reeked of sex and sweat.

Gawon’s head snapped back. A ragged cry tore from her throat as she came, her hips bucking against her own hand, her weak slaps stopping entirely as her body seized. 'Yes! Fuck! YES!'

The sight, the sound, the feel of Sooin’s cunt clamping down like a slick fist - it pushed you over the edge. 'Gonna - !' you managed, pulling out just as the first hot pulse surged up your shaft.

'Fuck! Fuck!' Sooin sobbed, her body convulsing. Her swollen pussy clenched around nothing, and a gush of clear fluid splattered onto the carpet between her thighs, soaking into the fibers. 'Oh god! Oh god!' she gasped between desperate cries, her hips jerking as she squirted again.

You gave her no respite. Still hard, still throbbing, you shoved back into her sopping, pink entrance. This time, you crushed your mouth to hers, swallowing her gasps as you fucked her through her own aftershocks. Deep, punishing strokes. The final sprint.

You buried yourself to the root, grinding hard. 'Fuck!' The growl ripped from your chest as you locked Sooin against you, fingers digging into her hips hard enough to bruise. You emptied yourself deep inside her - one thick, hot rope after another, painting her inner walls, each pulse kissing her cervix. Your balls tightened, drawn up, as Gawon ducked her head, hollowing her cheeks to suck them greedily, swallowing what spilled.

'You… filled me,' Sooin breathed against your lips, dazed.

You kissed her, deep.

You thrust twice more, shallow and possessive, grinding your spend deeper into her core. Then you pulled out with a wet suck.

Thick globs of your cum spurted onto the soaked carpet, joining her slick puddle. One stray pulse landed on Gawon’s waiting tongue. She closed her mouth, swallowing.

You lowered Sooin onto the bed. She collapsed, chest heaving, looking up at you with glazed, awestruck eyes.

Your gaze locked onto Gawon. She was still panting, her own climax lingering. On her knees, she shuffled forward until her face was level with your softening cock, still glistening with a mix of your spend and Sooin’s slick. She let the heavy head rest on her tongue for a heartbeat, tasting it, before closing her lips around your shaft. She hollowed her cheeks, sucking firmly, cleaning every inch with slow swipes of her tongue.

To be continued.

a\n: And here we are! Hopefully this fic isn't too bad, I forgot how to write, and then maybe remembered…. idk. So for a few updates, I think releases will be monthly. Commissions are a bit of an issue - since i live somewhere where receiving payments or even operating a paypal account is strictly forbidden - so I decided to close the Ko-Fi account. When push comes to shove, and I mean when I'm really seeking money, I may find a work around. For now, here are my free works: monthly, utterly imperfect, barely edited, yet here. right here.

[defmaybe]

Our Story, Like a Romance Novel [Chapter 2]

Chapter 0, Chapter 1

Tags: angst, fluff, slice of life, coming-of-age

Word count: 5k

a/n: there's gonna be a scene that may or may not be uncomfortable for some readers, but the angst tag is already there. but yeah, I gotta keep the story moving, so I hope you like it.

Having connected through SNS for a while, Nien and Junghoon hit it off to say the least. Getting to know each other through texting, even though they have already been hanging out in the same club four to five times a week, sometimes a little more, within the last three to four months since he was invited into the Mad Money Club.

Within that spam to lf time, Junghoon would often find the woman somewhere near his or her department building, if not at the club’s hangout room. At first, he expected this, considering their meetings mere chance encounters… But every time Nien catches his eyes, his heart keeps thumping louder, especially as their proximities close.

A wallflower since his early adolescence, never has he felt a sensation this fluttering and intrusive. His mind would spiral all over the place, and not even his sense of reason can try and make any excuse towards his inquisitive yearning to stay with her the chance he gets.

“Hey, Junghoon-ssi…” she walks to him in her backpack. “You done with your classes?”

Sometimes, those flutters make him nervous. Another time, they elevate his patience, interest, and determination with someone. In those moments, he turns into someone he’s usually not—yet he simply couldn't care less. Not even the lovey-dovey teases of Yubin, Dahyun, and Sohyun bothered him. In fact, they somewhat encouraged the butterflies flourishing in his stomach to push himself and do something—anything, to get himself out of his comfort zone, if it meant prolonging his moment with Nien.

The only problem is, he can’t come up with anything when he’s in front of her. “Yeah?”

“You’re not sure?” The left corner of her lips slightly raise in amusement.

There are perhaps millions, if not more ways to describe how he was feeling whenever he’s around Nien. Yet that’s also what often hindered him from expressing himself.

“I mean—yeah!” He clears his throat. “It just finished, actually… But, how about you?”

“We were done about three hours ago,” she informs him in a somewhat aloof tone.

“Wait…” He wiggles his head in confusion. “Don’t tell me, you waited there—”

“What do you think?”

One thing was for sure, mainly because of how his heart keeps on racing around her.

“Mianhaeyo!” Junghoon exclaims as he rapidly bows to her out of guilt.

“Oh, no, no, no! Please, Junghoon… I’m just kidding.”

“Oh… Well, I might as well apologize for keeping a lady waiting here for a long time.”

He likes this woman very much, and he’s not letting this new opportunity slide.

“Yah…” she folds her lips, even as they curve upwards, turning her eyes away from him. “I’m just here to fetch you before the girls meet, you know?”

“So you didn’t just wait here, under the sun, for how-long…”

“What if I was? Is that a problem with you?”

He interlocks his fingers. “It’s the opposite of that… You know, I wouldn’t mind spending a little more time with you. Outside the club hangouts and all that.”

 “Oh…” Her eyes slowly grew as her smile slowly showed her crystal white teeth.

“That is,” he quickly backtracks. “If you’re not uncomfortable with it, then we can—”

“Of course, of course, not!” she almost panicked. “I’m comfortable with it, Junghoon.”

Unbeknownst to him, their encounters would end up leading them to have a small date. A meeting at the cafe and like most encounters, there’s a waiting game for one’s arrival.

Not knowing anything about flirting and talking to women he’d liked, Junghoon rushed to his friends for advice right after Sohyun gave him Nien’s number. Of course he would come to ignite brighter sparks with her by simply being himself, a certain trait that Nien herself had found to be quite enticing, even fascinating, the longer they got to know each other. But unbeknownst to him, their texts and hangouts on campus. This date came to a fruition just happened to be brought by Nien on a whim and of course, it freaked him out from his side of the screen, but instead of making his panics obvious, he expressed his glee. Nien tends to be playful most of the time. It's a part of her charm that entices Junghoon. However, when she's serious about something, she will commit to it.

[Nien: I guess we’re both set for Saturday!]

{Junghoon: We are.} {I can’t wait, Nien!}

[Nien: Neither can I, Junghoon-ah (⸝⸝> ᴗ•⸝⸝)]

He didn’t want to mess it up, especially since she’s the one who made the move to meet. Once more, he knows nothing about dating, until now. Hence, from a newer hairstyle and perfume to fancier clothing, he asked his buddies about their recommendations. Even if such a request was a burden that he owed them, he reiterated to them and to himself, “I know it’s too much to ask, but I can’t mess this up. Not for her.”

“Don’t you dare explain yourself or apologize for anything,” Yeonghwan welcomes him with open arms, placing his arm on his shoulder. “We got you on this bud!”

“Yeah, dude,” Kotone shakes his other shoulder with excitement. “We’ll make sure you’ll have the night of our life with Nien-sunbaenim!”

“Oh, he will!” Honggi insinuates her remark with a grin, patting his palms on his back. “You’ve grown up, man!”

“What do you mean?” Junghoon turns his head in confusion.

“Don’t mind him,” Myungsoo chuckles at his innocence. “But, you’ll understand what he means eventually.”

The whole day was spent on their trip to the mall. Junghoon’s earnings from Mad Money Club were more than enough to buy himself a new set of clothes suggested by his friends. Surprisingly enough, this was one of the few special moments he had spent on something and anything outside his priorities.

He learned the mannerisms, he bought the items he never even knew he needed. Now it’s time for the meetup he’s been preparing for in the last few days. It’s a Saturday afternoon when they finally meet at a restaurant. Nothing too pretentious. A cozy place where a few young couples like them are also dining in due to either their locality or Insta popularity.

He rushes to Nien’s table while trying to keep his calm. “Sorry if I was late.”

She smiles at his presence. “You’re right on time. Don’t sweat about it.”

He notices her attire. Wow, is all he can think about meeting her in person, outside campus. She herself must’ve also prepared for this. Of course she would, since she suggested going on a date with him. “You look really lovely tonight, Nien-ssi.”

“Just tonight?” her tone sounds intimidating, though he knew her enough. She’s teasing.

He almost panics. “I mean, you did, too… You’re always beautiful.” Just until he saves it.

Letting out a giggle, Nien looks down and curls up her hair to the side of her right ear.  She’s still taken aback at his remark, even though she has heard similar things before.

“Yah… You look great too, Junghoon-ssi,” she tells him. “I thought you’d wear some suit and tie, but that’d be too much for this occasion. Even in that, you look pretty fancy.”

“I guess this occasion is just special enough for me, so I even thought I overdressed.”

Her eyes grow for a second, as is her smile. “It is? Does it mean this is your first date?”

An itch strikes the right side of Junghoon’s hair, prompting him to scratch it on sight. His reaction made Nien chuckle. Despite his feeling of embarrassment, she keeps her eyes leveled to him with adoration.

“Cute,” she whispers under her breath, before facing him. “I’m not judging you. I’m just… Curious.”

“Well,” he musters up, slowly straightening his back. “It is. Is that a turn-off for you?”

“No,” she smiles. “It’s kind of the opposite.” Her eyes and smile always gets him. That remark from her alone makes him feel things up his mind, in his heart, and down his–

Don’t mess this up. Don’t mess this up! Junghoon warns himself in his mind while he faces her from his seat.

But it’s a first date, which means that mess-ups are not out of the realm of possibility. It could be an awkward interaction that goes to hell, or someone bumping into a waiter as it trickles down a domino effect that breaks every plate and glass they were serving. For these two, a worse situation would strike their moment like lightning on a summer day.

Yet thirty minutes have passed since they met. Is he really gonna have the night of his life, just like what his friends had teased him? He doesn’t know how the night will end, but with how it’s been going well, Junghoon is already feeling like it, to say the least.

Nien finds herself more allured as the man in front of her takes a bite and describes each of the steaming appetizers that just arrived, as if she’s listening to a gourmet who’s been enhancing her dining experience. Down their table, each snicker and giggle from Nien triggers a few tantalizing movements from her feet as they give his ankle light footsies, one that almost made him choke on his water the first time he felt her movements.

Surprisingly, it was thanks to his conscious mind, Junghoon’s years of locking eyes at the television, watching dramas, has reminded him of some things either to follow or ignore. A couple exchanges of jokes and compliments were the start, but receiving a handful of light, playful touches.

He senses this is something else. Something more.

Then Junghoon receives a call, and the words that follow has him paralyzed for seconds.

His sudden expression concerns her. “Junghoon-ah, what’s the matter? Who was it?”

“I–I’m sorry, Nien-ssi,” his voice trembling, just his face submitting to unimaginable fear at what he just learned. She reaches her hand to him as her daydreams drain out, his words snapping her to this unexpected reality. “Something came up. I’m so sorry.”

Junghoon gets up from his seat and leaves the cafe. Outside, he runs and runs with no care and shame about the bystanders looking at him strange or worried. Seconds have passed and he is nowhere to be seen on the street. Nien stares outside, devastated that the man she likes has now left her without any reason, although not a single reason will ever undo the damage that’s been done.

She accepts the truth unfolding in front of her. The night is already over.

Having taken a taxi and spending more of his earnings from the club, he finally makes it to the hospital after ten minutes of an anxiety-filled ride throughout Seoul. Despite his shortness of breath, he rushes straight to the receptionist and asks her about the room of a woman in her mid-eighties, named Kim Byeolyi.

As soon as she answers, he takes a few turns across the corridor until he reaches the emergency room, as fright and relief fight over his lungs—letting out “Halmeoni!”

= = =

Monday morning. Students return to class. Piles and piles of papers were returned as results were announced, alongside new ones. Yet guilt remains anchored on his mind and heart.

Junghoon did his best avoiding the Mad Money Club for a couple of days since then. He imagines how they’ll react if they see him after that night. And he wouldn’t blame them if they feel that way towards him. Or if they end up kicking him out of the club later on. For now, he had to pay more attention to his only family, despite his pitiful regret for leaving the woman he's more than willing to spend the night with.

As the clock strikes twelve noon, he could only confide in the people who he has known the longest, meeting them on the empty stands next to the campus’ football field.

“How are you holding up, man?” Yeonghwan looks at him with sympathy.

“Oh, you know… I messed it up,” Junghoon sighs. “But halmeoni is stable again.”

“We’re glad that halmeoni is doing better,” Kotone can only pat him on the back.

“Besides, I’m sure Nien will understand, man,” Myungsoo considers. “Does she know about what happened?”

“Did you tell any of them?” Honggi chimes in, emanating with worry, instead of the usual curiosity or intrigue he always brings to their hangouts. Realizing that all of his closest friends have shown and voiced their concern towards him. “I mean your club.”

“I, uhh…” Junghoon clears his throat. “I didn’t tell them…”

Outside his closest friends, no one else knew. Not even the person he trusts the most. Yet, he kept receiving texts from them. Message notifications would keep popping up, and he can longer ignore the club. Not after realizing that they became his friends too.

[Yubin: Junghoon-oppa!] [Where the hell are you?]

[Dahyun: Junghoon… We’re worried about you.] [You must have a reason why you left, but you gotta tell us about it.]

[Seoyeon: Why aren’t you answering our messages, Junghoon-ah?][What happened?]

[Sohyun: Answer your phone, Junghoon.] [Please.] [Talk to me about it.]

[Nien: Whatever happened that night…] [I just hope you’re doing okay, Junghoon-ah.] [The club wants to know if you’re okay.] [I want to know if you’re okay.]

“I'm feeling much better, Junghoon-ie,” his grandmother assures him from the couch as she lets out a cackle at the variety show on the television, later that afternoon.

He walks to her, handing her a tablet with one hand, and a glass of island on the other. “I know, but you're gonna need to drink your medicine regularly, okay halmeoni?”

“Of course, honey, I know your worries won’t go away—” she looks up, swallowing down the tablet, before taking the glass from him. “—if I don't take them.”

“Halmeoni,” he sighs. Despite knowing her intentions to lift his spirits, she can feel her grandson’s hand clenching with concern. “That’ll be for the whole month… Please.”

She chuckles lightheartedly, softly rubbing his back. “Arasseo, arasseo… I’ll drink the next one after we eat. I remember what the doctor prescribed me, too, you know?”

He sighs heavily, showing her a smile of relief. “Yeah…”

The next morning arrived… When he finally listened to his grandmother's words, also remembering what she told him a few days earlier. Despite what happened, he knows that he's always been stronger than he thinks.

He enters the club’s room. Room 238. Just as he always remembers it. The atmosphere is not the same as when he usually enters. As much as it pains him, he looks at everyone as they stare at him in silence. Most of them look at him with disquiet and concern, even though he feels he doesn’t deserve such a gaze. At least, one of the girls is staring at him the way he believes he should be treated. Xinyu must be killing him over and over again in her mind. I deserve it. After I left her best friend alone. I deserve worse. At least my halmeoni is doing better. At least my friends understand. That’s what matters more right now. Whatever happens now… That’s their reaction.

“Should I not be here today?” He breaks the silence, keeping his tense breath slow. “I can just stay out—”

“No, no…” Dahyun comes closer, emanating with concern. “Come in, Junghoon-ah.”

“We’re glad you’re okay, oppa,” comforts Yubin, rubbing his arm as he walks by.

But as he looks around, Nien is nowhere to be found among the club members. Junghoon immediately worries for her, still guilt-ridden. “Where is—”

“Don’t go anywhere near Nien-ah,” Xinyu pierces his soul with her stare of death.

Junghoon silently bows to her with regret, but her glare towards him remains merciless.

Beside her, Sohyun slowly holds Xinyu’s hands a little tighter with eyes that plead to her. “Xinyu-yah, please don’t be harsh on him.”

“Why not?” She tilts her head at her girlfriend, before looking back at him. “He doesn’t even need to be here! Not after what you did to Nien!”

“I know, sunbae…” Junghoon keeps his composure. “But I need to know where she is.”

“Not until you tell us first, Junghoon,” Sohyun pleads to him with a somber tone. Letting go of Xinyu’s hand, she takes a few steps forward. “Or at least… tell me what happened.”

Junghoon takes a deep breath, enough to push himself to explain everything to her.

After several minutes, Junghoon would find Nien at the gardens, as Sohyun briefed him. He takes a seat next to each other at a bench in the midst of the afternoon spring breeze. Not as anything more than friends who want to clear the air about what happened that night. But for both of them, that’s all that matters for now.

“I’m so sorry for standing you up like that,” he looks at her. “You don’t deserve it.”

“No. Kotone-hoobae actually told me what happened on my way here… Junghoon-ssi, I just wished you told me sooner.” She looks at Junghoon with eyes of solace and reaches his shoulder softly, pulling him in an embrace, hoping to comfort him through the only way she can in this situation. “It must’ve been hard for you, finding it out so suddenly.”

“Yeah, I should’ve,” Junghoon mutters, still feeling remorseful for his actions that day. “I’m really sorry, Nien-sunbaenim.”

They slowly break the hug. “Does anyone else in the club know about what happened?”

He nods. “I first told Sohyun-noona… The others know it was a family emergency.”

“How is she now?” Her hands still lie on top of his. “Your grandmother…”

“She’s feeling better now, but the doctor advised her to drink her medicine, so I’m gonna have to work overtime in my late shifts to earn enough to buy her those meds.”

“Don’t worry about the money too much. We can help you out with that, arasseo? Take care of her by staying close with her… I’m just glad that your halmeoni’s doing okay.”

“I feared I would mess things up. I did everything I could, but it just happened when I got the call from the neighbors and—”

“Junghoon-ah,” she stops him with a calm demeanor. “You didn't mess everything up. Your grandmother's well-being matters more. It should... You made the right call, okay? Like I said, focus on taking care of her right now. We got your back.”

“Thank you, sunbae,” he can feel his heart beating slower, as his breathing feels easier.

Nien can’t help but let out a snicker. “You gotta stop calling me that, Junghoon-ah.”

“Why not? It’s a fact that you are my sunbae, and you’re a year older than me.”

“And..? It’s been months since you joined the club. At least stop calling me sunbae.”

“Yeah, I’m a part of Mad Money, but as your ‘part-time assistant.’ Other sunbaes and students would think it’s weird that I just started calling you too casually.”

“Who cares about what others think? You gotta drop the honorifics with me. It’s the least you can do… If you truly want to stay friends with me… Unless you don’t?” She darts her eyes at him. They still get him every time, even if she’s messing around with him, even if she’s simply lifting his spirits.

“I do want to stay friends!” He raises his hands, following an instinct. One that aims not to disappoint her. “I’ll try my best not to call you that, noona—”

“Ah, ah!” she interrupts him, pointing her index finger at him like it’s a blade. “Not that one either. You may have convinced unnie and Soda-yah for you to call them that, but not me. I’m not gonna let that slide. The whole ‘noona’ thing doesn’t vibe with me.”

Junghoon laughs. Her reasoning seems well-thought-out. “So, Nien-ssi then? I mean, that’s what I called you last time and you didn’t seem to mind it.”

“Fine!” Nien finally settles with his proposal. “I’m guessing you’re not that comfortable with me just yet… And by the way, you better let me treat you to lunch. Between friends, of course. I can’t let that dinner be the end of us hanging out.”

“Well, if that makes things better for us…” He offers his hand, signaling a handshake. “I’d love to have a ‘friendly lunch’ with you some time, Nien-ssi.”

“Kol!” The woman stands up with a burst of optimism, reciprocating Junghoon’s offer without hesitation. “And by ‘some time,’ you better mean like soon, all right? The way you described those dishes on the restaurant’s menu was mouth-watering!”

“Maybe we can order them for real next time,” he suggests. Nien nods with anticipation.

Nien and Junghoon stopped treating their relationship as romantic, or anything close to that. But maybe that’s for the best, as they’d grow into something that would last longer. Nien would realize that she’s not too fond of being in a committed relationship just yet. And as for Junghoon… Time will tell. As they say, after all, there is always someone for everyone, even if they don’t hope or expect it to come to them. With their conciliation, Junghoon returns to Room 238 with Nien to face the rest of his clubmates once again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, yeoreobun,” he bows to the rest of the club members.

“God, oppa… You know you had us worried for days,” Yubin frets further. “We thought something happened because you weren’t answering our texts! Even our calls.”

Junghoon bows to them. “I’m sorry. It just happened and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It’s okay, Junghoon-ah,” Dahyun reassures him. “Now that you told us, we’re just glad that your grandma’s feeling better.”

“Well, it can’t be helped if you had a personal emergency. I hope she has a fast recovery,” Xinyu’s tone sounds more neutral, making Junghoon feel that the misunderstanding he had caused to Nien will not be easily forgiven by everyone. Even if Nien herself forgave him. “But you left Nien without saying why... I won’t forget that.” And he won’t, either.

“I did,” Junghoon remains hesitant to answer her. “And it won’t happen again, sunbae.”

“But Sohyun-ah trusted you enough to lend your services to us,” Xinyu sounds more logical than sympathetic to his response, yet a hint of hostility remains in her tone. Perhaps still grudgeful of his fault. “Just be transparent next time, Junghoon.”

“Unnie…” Seoyeon steps up, sensing Xinyu’s passive aggression. “I trust Junghoon, too. So does Soda and Yubin-ah. I understand if you’re still not too trusting of him, but the fact is, Nien and him have already made up outside. Besides, their date last week isn’t some kind of assignment that he had to do for her.”

Xinyu feels like she’s backed into a corner. “I know that, Seoyeon-ie… I’m just saying—”

“I don’t want anyone harboring ill feelings for anyone in this room,” Seoyeon continues. “This isn't why we formed this club. We know that you have issues with trusting anyone else, but whether you like it or not, Junghoon is still a part of our club.”

“I don't hate him!” exclaims Xinyu. “I warned him so nothing like this happens again.”

“That’s enough,” Nien disrupts the feud between her sisters. “Seoyeon-ah’s right, and I can’t force you to like him. But we went out on a date because I wanted to, Xinyu-unnie. He happened to have an emergency concerning his grandma, so he left me to deal with it and he apologized for not telling me sooner.” A breath of relief leaves her body. “Unnie… Yeorobun… It’s alright now.”

Xinyu becomes swarmed with guilt, but she can’t say anything any further, otherwise the situation gets worse when it starts to be mended. She knows that she said enough. “I’m sorry Seoyeon-ah and Nien-ah…” she stammers. “And I’m sorry for my behavior just now, Junghoon-ssi.”

“It's okay, Xinyu-sunbae… I'm just thankful that I've told you girls the truth. Whatever you think of me after this, I don't mind it. I understand if you don't want me to still be around, but I'll come by and help out if you need me with anything.”

= = =

Later that afternoon, Junghoon would meet with his close friends at their usual campus hangout, a bench near the grass fields, during their dismissal. They continue to console their friend about the aftermath of his unfortunate incident and emergency last week.

“Did you finally tell Nien about your halmeoni's condition?” Yeonghwan asks him.

“I did, hyung,” Junghoon sighs in relief. “I told everyone else in the club, too. They understood, so the misunderstanding has been cleared up, to say the least.”

“Does that mean you’ll be having another date with Nien-sunbaenim?” Honggi wonders.

“Well, not exactly. We’ll have something better, though.”

“What is it?” Myungsoo cannot help but spew his questions. “You two going somewhere outside for another dinner? Maybe a stroll to the park?”

“Just friends going out for lunch,” he delivers nonchalantly.

“Friends for lunch?” Honggi’s confused at what he just heard. “What happened to the girl who you hit off with that night? I thought she was even flirting with you non-stop?”

“That’s kinda what I’m wondering too, man,” Yeonghwan chimes in. “Why didn’t you talk things out with her a little more? Maybe there’s a little more misunderstanding?”

Why didn’t he push it through? Took a little more initiative, ask her to spend more time with him, despite already making up, instead of chickening—

= = =

“I’m sorry I ruined your special night, dear,” mutters his grandmother, Kim Byeolyi. It had only been a few minutes since she woke up from the hospital bed.

“No, no… Why are you apologizing? Come on, it was nothing, halmeoni.”

She places her other hand on top of his. “It’s not just nothing for you, Junghoon-ie.”

“I’m just happy that you’re doing better, okay? Besides… We don’t have anyone else.”

“We still got our neighbors,” she reminds him with a cheerful tone, but he’s unmoved by his own coldness. Junghoon found out that her friends next door called the ambulance when she was hanging out at their market. The possibility of ‘if no one else was there,’ scares him more, but the warmth of his grandmother’s hands only makes him sigh.

He looks down on her wrinkly palms, both in despair and gratitude. Despair for what could’ve been, if no one got there in time. Gratitude that things haven’t gotten worse.

“Don’t beat yourself up… Now, go talk to that wonderful girl you just left and apologize to her, okay? Buy her a bouquet from the shop outside, if you have to… Maybe cook her what food she likes, if you want! Just don’t leave her hanging like before.”

As a couple of hours would pass, Junghoon had to wait with his own thoughts while the physicians took her through a few more tests. Despite his grandma’s sincere advice, he didn’t know how else to deal with such a nerve-racking situation. The schism of guilt and conscience raging within him. ‘My savings won't be enough to cover all costs.’ ‘Halmeoni needs more for next week.’ ‘Should I ask for a raise?’ ‘Just calm down.’ ‘You already owe them a lot.’ ‘Don’t make things worse.’ ‘You’re a coward.’

Junghoon’s heart beats in the same rhythm yet it rings in various ways, reeling him through various memories. Nien’s smile and company. His grandmother’s breathing and motherly care. The cheers and hollers of his close friends. The encouragement of the Mad Money Club in the past few months.

Yet, at the same time, his impulsive actions last night… Leaving Nien all alone. She may forgive him. She may definitely not. But that’s not what’s making his muscles twitch or his mind spiral into the pitless dimensions of analysis paralysis concerning the future. Priorities and responsibilities ramming through his daydreams and desires like they were glass.

Looking back at his grandmother, lying on the hospital bed, the young man’s heart aches at the sight of family, still keeping up her warm smile, despite her recent close encounter in the face of the abyss. He doesn’t even know if he can forget, nor forgive himself for it.

‘You gotta think this through,’ he tells himself. ‘This isn’t just about yourself, Junghoon.’

= = =

“I’m sure sunbae has a reason for changing her mind too,” Kotone considers, patting her friend’s shoulder. “I’m just glad that halmeoni is doing better... Take some time off from work if you want to, Junghoon-ah. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

“Thanks…” was what Junghoon could only say, ignoring their more pragmatic advice, though taking them to heart. “And even though Xinyu-sunbae wasn’t as friendly when she heard my explanation, I get why she acted that way.”

“Zhou Xinyu?” Myungsoo realizes. He did share a few classes with her before, even worked in the same group. “Oh, that makes sense. She's not too friendly with anyone outside her friend groups. At least not so much that she'll be sticking around with ‘em.”

“Oh,” Junghoon feels less guilty, yet remains disappointed for some reason. “That's one thing I didn't know about her… She rarely hangs out in the room whenever I am there.”

“I can't blame her, though,” Yeonghwan agrees. “She's probably experienced it a lot since day one. All the catcallings, the selfless acts from guys, sometimes some girls, just so they could try getting their way in her pants… But when she met Sohyun, I guess she probably felt easier. More comfortable around her along with their pals… But she's actually a kind person, I'm sure she'll soften up on you the longer you stay with the club.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Junghoon nods. “I do know that Sohyun and Xinyu-sunbae feel like their truest selves the most whenever they're together. It's quite touching to see, to be honest.”

“I heard from Joonie-sunbae that those two are like wild animals in their dorms—”

Irritated, Kotone hits her left knuckle on Honggi’s shoulders, making him unleash a shriek of agony in seconds. Yeonghwan and Myungsoo cannot be more amused at his reaction.

“Knock it off, Honggi-yah!” she shakes her head while he backs off inches away from her. “Stop being a perv now. What’s wrong with you?”

Groaning in pain, Honggi rubs his shoulder with disdain. “I was just bringing up a rumor, which I’m expecting for Junghoon to confirm or debunk right now.”

“Umm, that’s not my business,” Junghoon chuckles. “And neither is it yours, man. But... They’re the best couple I know, that’s for sure... And I wish nothing but the best for them, you know?”

= = =

I've written this a while ago, but I added some scenes. Some slight spoilers for readers: what happens in the next one (nothing violent or anything though) may trigger some reactions, but since this is just an au fic. everything here is entirely fictional... It'll be an "angst fest," but there'll be sparks of fluff to balance it out. If you're still interested, hope you stay tuned. thanks for the read and have a good day!

[defmaybe]

I Yield

(Beach Section Part 1) Ex - (G)-IDLE Soojin x male reader smut

Tags: Cunnilingus, Body Worship | Words: 1,9k

I yield.

That is the only thought that came across your mind when you see her.

Soojin, with all its beauty and glory, standing there with you in the room, just the two of you.

Can you feel all the excitement? The anxious feeling you must be familiar with knowing that the only thing stopping you from indulging yourself of her is some flirtatious words and maybe some foreplay.

“Hey, are you just going to stare?” Soojin asks, snapping you of your imagination.

“Is he nervous? Alright, let’s do something to loosen him up, after him.”Soojin thinks to herself.

Get your mind together, you got ONE shot at this!

You brace yourself and you walk closer towards Soojin. Your heart can’t seem to be calmer, you think by how loud the sound your heartbeat makes, Soojin might heard it. In truth, Soojin can see it all over your face, Soojin just finds it cute as she throws a little smirk.

You close your distance with her and pull her into a hug. You can get a good a feeling of her slim body. Her back, her waist, and especially her soft cute ass. Soojin can tell your intention, and she tries to get a good feeling about it.

“Mh-hmm,” Soojin murmur as the result of you squeezing her ass. You take it as a good sign, a sign of acceptance, a sign to keep going.

Soojin’s hands are not idle as she does the same squeezing your ass and slapping it.

*SMACK*

“Ugh,” you grunt. Yes, now you are sure Soojin does not wish to wait around.

Soojin then goes to wrap one of her arms around your neck, pulling you into a kiss. The kiss contains a lot of passion. You can understand Soojin’s feeling that she wishes this to happen the first time you and her inside this room.

You put your mouth to hers and begin kissing her. Putting out your tongue, so does she. You both continue exchanging saliva, feeling each other presence in the moment.

For a good minute, you and Soojin continue to touch around each other, feel the heat continue to build up around each other. Your hand keeps switching between squeezing her ass and brushing her pussy through her underwear.

Soojin squirms every time she feels your hand playing with her pussy. Each time your hand squeezing her ass, Soojin feels hornier and thus making the kiss hotter.

After some more touching, she pulls out from the kiss.

“That was nice, how about we continue on the bed?” Soojin asks. You can see Soojin’s face is red fill of excitement and eagerness. And in Soojin’s mind she can only think about sex.

You and Soojin walk to the bed in the room. You both sat down and just stare at each other for a moment. You can feel it in the air, the pent-up emotion to just jump on her and go wild. But you know you need to do a proper preparation to fully satisfy her.

Thus, you begin pulling her by the chin closer to you for another kiss. Then you go to kiss her cheek and slowly moving towards her ear. While doing so, you use one of your hands to fondle her tits and your other hands to untie her bra.

Soojin is letting out heavy breath because of the feeling of your touch on her tits. While the feeling is certainly captivating, she also wants to do some work on you. Using her hands, she strokes your now erect cock through your boxer.

“Mmm, so hard for me, eh?” Soojin ask with her sultry voice.

You hear what Soojin says, but you choose to not answer her verbally. Instead, you choose to show her how horny she makes you feel right now.

You start by moving your kiss to her neck area, giving her some love bites while at it as well. By doing so, you hear Soojin’s gasp, a sign you do something right. Then you go on to kiss your way downward to her now expose tits.

Soojin closes her eyes, just feeling everything you do to her body. Occasionally she imagining how you will take her through this session. Feeling your mouth on her tits, she lets out a gasp and occasional moan. She can feel herself lost in her own thoughts, and when she realizes, she is already laying on the bed, one hand playing with her nipple and the other is on your head trying to tell you to keep going.

You really like nibbling on her tits. Sometimes you give her nipple and her chest a lick to show your appreciation of her body. You can feel her hand on your head, gripping your hair slightly.

While Soojin is playing with her nipple, you continue licking her chest and her side boob. You also use your free hand to play with her pussy, rubbing it through the cloth. Every time you take a small bite around her chest, you can feel her hips goes up and down trying to rub her pussy to your hand.

Soojin still letting you do your things; she only lets out occasional moan telling you to keep up with your work. She also feels your tongue quite active in terms of pleasuring her. Soojin then open her eyes slightly to see that you lift her left hand up showing her armpit. She feels a little self-conscious but curious on your next action.

You want to show Soojin, how grateful you are to have her here right now. You want to show how lucky you are to have her, laying on her back right now. What you do after lifting her hand is something Soojin never expects.

After putting out your tongue to lick her side boob, you slowly move your head towards her arm. While still licking her, you continue to move your head closer to her armpit.

Once you arrive, you take a whiff before you go on to lick her armpit furiously.

Soojin gasp and moan by your sudden aggression, she never expects such act to be shown by people like you.

“Isn’t it kind of sweaty? How is he liking it?” Soojin thinks to herself.

But those thoughts don’t linger long, because your finger does not want to lose on the aggression itself. Soojin lets a heavy sigh feeling your finger trying to penetrate her pussy through the fabric cloth. Soojin closes her eyes again, feeling your enthusiasm on her armpit as well as your skilled hand work on her pussy.

After you feel enough on her armpit, you move your attention towards her pussy.

Your hand that was on her underwear doesn’t feel dry, meaning Soojin is turn on enough. Thus, you go ahead and move your head towards her pussy, by licking her tummy all the way to her thighs area.

Soojin opens her eyes, to see how you will take the next step “worshipping” her.

She sees you caressing her thighs. Opening the way to her pussy slowly. But you don’t go to her pussy yet.

Instead, you linger on her thighs. Licking it and kissing it.

Soojin sees your action and only lets out a small moan each time you get your mouth close to her pussy entrance. At this point, she can tell you are not someone who is just thinking about pleasuring themselves, someone who is selfish. She can see how caring you can be.

While you are busy licking and kissing her thighs, you can also hear her whimpers every time you get close to her pussy.

Without wasting anymore time, you latch your mouth to her clothed pussy. You don’t want to take it off yet, just a little more to tease her. Soon she will feel irritated and will force you to go and claim her pussy.

Soojin gasp by your sudden movement to her pussy. Even though she still wears her underwear, she can feel your wet tongue trying to eat her. She doesn’t have time to take a second to think about how you should go on, at this moment she is lost in her own mind seeking only pleasure.

After a few seconds enjoying yourself between her thighs, it is time to get a bit more serious.

You go ahead and pull her underwear, revealing her dripping wet pussy. Looking at it can make anyone hungry, and you are no exception.

After you come back to your senses, you instantly latch your mouth to her pussy. Now without any obstacle, you can freely explore her most erogenous part. You can say that she has that tangy taste to her pussy juice. You like it.

Soojin can’t seem to get a break from constant moaning and gasping due to your aggressive behaviour.

And now that your mouth and her pussy is truly connected, Soojin can’t seem to think straight anymore. She can feel your tongue exploring her insides, sometimes flicking her g-spot causing her hips to buckle up.

You are enjoying this moment full of lust and desire to taste her.

You notice her reaction when you put your lips on her clit, or when you lick her sensitive spot inside her pussy. Because of that you continue in pleasuring her, by hitting those sensitive spots to trigger more reaction of her.

Soojin’s mind can only focus on one thing and that is to reach her orgasm.

With you focus on working her pussy using your mouth, Soojin uses one of her hands to pinch and play with her nipples while the other gripping your hair to give you a signal that she wants to cum.

You can tell by her hand gripping your hair getting harder, and her hips constantly pushing her pussy to your mouth, Soojin is close to cumming.

With that you speed up your work, switching between licking and sucking her clit, to furiously licking inside her pussy.

Soojin can’t hold it anymore, she grips your hair harder, almost feels like she is trying to pull your hair.

“Auuh, I am CUMMING!” she exclaims.

Soojin reach her first climax of the night, her body tense up and quiver riding through that feeling.

Soojin heart beats real fast, and she can feel it. This is what she has been waiting when you and her step into this room. And you deliver.

You suck up her pussy juice, tasting the result of your passionate work throughout her body so far. My, it tastes so good.

You enjoy licking her pussy before lifting yourself up to see that Soojin still laying in trance after cumming.

“Hey, earth to Soojin?” you ask with a non-serious tone.

“I admit, you are good with your tongue.” Soojin replies with ragged breath.

Soojin is placing one of her hands over her eyes, she still trying to get her mind together.

“When you lick my armpit, is that your fetish?” Soojin ask still with her uneven breathing, just trying to make a small talk.

“I guess…” You say back with a low tone voice, while moving closer besides her.

When Soojin removes her hand from her eyes, she sees you laying besides her, with the looks of waiting for her to get ready for the next step.

Soojin pulls you for another kiss, this time it is slightly softer than before, as she is trying to regain her focus.

While kissing you, Soojin use one of her hands to reach into your boxer to stroke your cock.

You know that the session is still not over, you have not got your fair share of pleasure, well besides licking her body.   

But for now, the thoughts of making her your woman will have to wait. You may feel overwhelmed, but by doing what you can do best will eventually lessen the burden you put yourself into conquering the problem.

================================================

Author's Note: THANK YOU FOR THE LOVE OF THE PREVIOUS WORK, IT WAS MY FIRST EVER SMUT, AND NEVER EXPECT THAT MUCH ATTRACTION.

Anyway, this one is a draft i had beside the previous work, hope you guys like it, yet this is not over, as there supposed to be part two!!!!!

STAY TUNED!

[defmaybe]

Her (Risky) Invitation.

Pairing: Chuu x Male Reader

Word Count: 4,432

A/N: Hello Orenjideul! This fic was supposed to be out as a BFH but I got busy so whatever haha. I feel like this should out in the draft hell since my folder's getting stacked and dusted (rip) but anyways, hope you guys like this pretty quick bit.

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The ebullient sounds of the audience roars around the stadium, and you contribute to it with a single percentile. The match is getting exciting at this moment, considering how a single home run changed the course of the game yet someone isn’t in the same boat as you.

“This is pretty boring, argh—” The girl is unfiltered, not giving a care on who may hear her despite her opening pitch earlier that made the crowd erupt in cheers.

“Don’t say that—a wrong word that comes out of your mouth could get you in trouble, Chuu.”

“So?” She raises an eyebrow, following a coy smile as you sigh in little disbelief.

She doesn’t care, and you couldn't care less—her pettiness is something you despise, an attitude worth removing with teaching her a lesson but that won’t even make her learn anything.

“What do you mean ‘so’?”

She brushes you off, looking at the distance, reeking with boredom, and with nothing much for Chuu to say right after, you just avert your attention back to the game where it’s getting spicy.

“You know what—whatever, I’ll go to the bathroom, I’ll be right back.” You couldn’t care less even if she leaves the stadium (metaphorically, you do, yet realistically, you won’t let her) knowing how you’re getting more hooked with the game in front of you.

Letting Chuu by, you nod to her as she just looks at you and flashes out of your sight, through the door, then averted your attention towards the possible climax of this stupendous game.

“Hope this delivers an exciting ending.” You hope it does, and you’re looking forward to what happens in the next minutes.

---

Almost a home run, and the waves of cheers erupt as the pitcher poises himself to throw the ball until a buzz in your phone piques your attention.

jiwooya__ at 5:58 PM - “come at the restroom rn plsss”

You at 5:59 PM - “why am i gonna go there with u?? something wrong?”

jiwooya__ at 5:58 PM - “yeah, just come over pls pls”

The ephemeral conversation sums up: her needing your help on something, an immediate call for you, and possibly another game from her—you know how this can end and whatever the outcome may be, you would welcome it with open arms because it’s Chuu and you can’t resist her.

You’re quick to get off your seat and excuse yourself, not giving a damn if the game’s getting spicy or not.

“This better not be a waste of my time...” You’re optimistic it won’t be, rather suggestive or not, you’re in positive spirits with what trick she may have up her sleeve.

---

You’re an easy bait and no one can blame you for that—like earlier, you can’t resist Chuu, not even in public places like this and you doubt anyone would care if something may happen here, the eruption of cheers that quakes the stadium says otherwise.

“It’s pretty compact here, don’t you think?”

“It doesn’t look like it—” Chuu’s eyes wander around the bathroom, sensing possible dangers to unveil such profanities. “Besides, this is the perfect place.”

It was all part of your plan, and hers—it was all an act out there, because deep inside, the both of you want to discover the thrill of the underlying threat of being observed, but you’d love to keep all of what’s bound to happen for you and you only.

You’d make it clandestine, a secret that will be locked just between the both of you.

“Can’t wait any longer~” Chuu’s tone teases you, legs uneasy as you could sense her wetness beneath such a hot pair of jeans that accentuates the fine build of her ass. You can’t let yourself die out of impatience, a cruel death that’s not worth as your hands did an audacious move—gripping her ass and pulling her closer to you.

“Me neither.” It’s simple, enough for Chuu to receive the message with clarity as your lips lock hers. An entangled mess comes right after, hungrily exchanging torrid kisses with tongues dancing around gracefully with the aim to taste each other.

She’s insatiable and you can’t wait to just do the unthinkable. Knowing her patience is running low too, she knows this isn’t the reason why the both of you are alone together in a restroom.

“Been wanting this for a while.” Her breath blesses your face, just inches away as her seductive barrage of words comes after, not without her hand finding its way onto your clothed bulge that’s growing with every second that passes.

“Elaborate, Chuu.”

“Huh, you wanna hear the things I want to do with your cock?” She chuckles as you nod, Chuu then fixing her hair and tucking it behind her ear just to whisper these words: I want to stroke your cock until it leaks all over my fingers, then, I’ll suck it sloppily just like you always wanted, and then, you’ll cum all over my face, and it’s not just going to end there, because you’re going to pound me in front of this mirror until you drain your balls into me.

You’re fucked, and you love it. Chuu doesn’t just say it all because she wants to, because she’ll mark her words and she’ll fulfill her needs whatever it takes.

“So, you in?” Simples words as a smirk paints your face, then nodded knowing how much you fucking liked the dirty talk she’s escaped.

She doesn’t need to be commanded, because it’s in her nature to know what she’s an expert at, and she’ll show you why you won’t find a girl like her—she’s just that type of girl. She drops down to her knees, dexterous fingers coming right after, unbuckling your belt and undressing what fabric that just hinders her to her deserved reward. She can undress you with her eyes closed, and with just your boxers as the last bit of defense, she exhales and drops it down with one, swift motion.

Her eyes glimmer in lust and admiration, your erect shaft in sight for her to savor for the umpteenth time. She places her hand around it and brings shivers down in you, the coldness of her hand rivaling the emanating heat of your cock.

She strokes it, you wincing with that hint of pain until she spats on her hand and continues her expertise. “Just want it slow? Give you some room?”

As much as you want to tell her to pacen up her strokes, you want to savor every second of her dexterous talent, a pleasurable drive that’s downright commendable. “Like t-that, Chuu—god, your hands are a blessing.”

“Already stuttering? Oh my, I really did turn you on, hm?” Those doe-eyes that only have innocence as its façade, begs for your answer as she continues her work until the base of your shaft.

“What do you think, hm?” It’s rhetorical and you know it as her laugh says otherwise. She averts her eyes onto your already throbbing cock, leaking such a minuscule amount on the slit where her tongue laps the gifts, making your knees weak.

“I fucking love you—and this cock, god.” Her handjobs are just the side dish, because the main course is being delivered immediately, lips enveloping on a tight snug that earns a moan out of your lips. Her strokes on your base are continuous, massaging the hardness where it stands tall yet you crumble, and it's evident with her lips venturing deeper, almost taking half of your shaft to really test you.

If she’s not careful, she’ll knock down the architecture of your legs, and she’ll pick up the pieces once she’s done. 

She just swirls around your sensitive crown, dethroning your attempts to resist her utter control. She licks with passion unwavering, moreso, her lips sucking you off like a lollipop with a suction that rivals even a vacuum. It doesn’t end there, because she’s just starting this, and she’s not even bobbing her head frantically to the point where the both of you become a mess.

Well, speaking of that, she’s fulfilling her promises, one by one.

“Shit—that feels good, Chuu.” You’re hissing, a hand cradles her head, then your fingers running through her locks as she bobs with a pace that’s moderate, yet her experience shows evidently—her absence of gag reflex, her tongue licking wherever it lands, her hands fondling your balls and her lips that’s wringing out the best bits of pleasure from you. Her bobs are in this recurring pattern to die out the inevitable building inside you—slow, fast, slow—and it’s just perfect, because you’re moaning like you mean and encouraging her that she’s doing great.

“Keep sucking—shit, you’re really a filthy cocksucker, aren’t you?” You taunt her but it falls deaf onto her ears, continuous with her pace and what she’s great at.

Saliva seeps out of her mouth, dripping onto your balls that she’s taking care of, until such a hot pursuit was hindered, ejecting out and looking at you with delight. “I am your filthy cocksucker.”

Then she continues, only this time, she’s locking eyes with you as down she goes, relentless with her oral pursuit of greatness.

Her nails are digging deeper, gripping your thighs harshly yet not enough to mark you, as she’s bobbing more furiously, the saliva staining her orange top and the puddle of worthless clothing of yours—rather rendered as worthless, the intention of the commotion says otherwise. She’s slobbering all over your length, gawking with the succulence as her actions are repeatedly dangerous and rightfully audacious—she doesn’t care if her mascara runs rivulets onto her cheeks or she messes the clothing full of saliva, because all that matters is the fulfillment of the need.

She’s just bringing you down slowly, piece by piece until you break as she’s relentless, but she knows what her limits are, and releases such warmth out with a loud pop.

“Are you close? You’ve been throbbing more than before—like my mouth that much?” She’s igniting you, words that unlock a safe that’s your reservoir, slowly filling in and nearing the end. You’re not going to be under her spell, not this time, and as much as she thinks you’re lying, there will be a single answer to her rhetorical question.

“No and yes, Chuu.”

She’s stroking, wringing it out leisurely and you inevitably grunt as she does so, a mischievous smile directed towards you as she seems appalled with your answer. “Elaborate, please?”

She knows she’s fucking you up, barely got any space to genuinely articulate a sentence, what more about a simple elaboration? Well, it doesn’t matter whether you answer or not, because your earlier reply is enough to stroke her ego, and she’s giving it all, stopping the feverish pumps and letting her mouth do the job.

Let’s be honest, with the suction Chuu provides, the plumpness of her lips and her mouth complementing the shape of your cock, you’re not going anywhere far as the inevitable builds up quick on par with her pace. Albeit the lower ground, she keeps your lower body in check, ultimately powerless to move as all you can do is embrace the warmth she brings. You’re gripping those dark locks as a leverage, not restraint and decelerating her pace because this is the outlet you have to combat the pleasure she delivers.

You want to thrust and fuck her throat just to suffice the filthiness that’s orchestrated at your end, and with those doe-eyes glimmering with lust, she’s quick to assess the situation and nods as her lips just puckers at the tip of your cock.

“Do it—” She laps the drool that dribbles onto your underside, licking fervently as she continues her verbal approval. “—fuck my face—I know you’re dying to do that.” 

With her disheveled look begging to get your job done, you know it’s the green light. She doesn’t need a breather even if you ask her to have one, because she is that addicted to your taste that she can’t bear the vision of being depraved by it even for just a second. Your pace is immediately ruthless, and you wouldn’t give such an introductory act considering how she slobbered all over your length earlier without giving a damn with the mess she can make.

The pace dictated didn’t render herself useless, being used like a toy, but instead battled against your roughness as she bobs repeatedly alongside your thrusts, which makes her falter a little, gagging onto the rapid actions of filth. Your thrust, do a couple and she gags—it’s beautiful, all that pretty countenance just to be ruined within minutes as your control dominates her. Chasing the nearing high, your hands grip a handful of her hair, a leverage to muster greater pace, skin clapping and her repeated gags reverberating around the restroom. 

At this point, someone may suspect something suspicious between the both of you, and thank god her mouth is shut thanks to you because you know how much noise she can create in such a filthy session with you.

“Fucking like t-that, hm?” You tug her hair as she looks up at you with glee beneath the dishevelment, nodding with just those eyes as you continue your assault, yet she never resisted, only carving more.

You’re dying to paint her body with your cum, you really do—nobody can blame you for that, not when her outfit perfectly accentuates a godly figure. Despite that, you can’t just do that immediately when she’s still all dressed but just a mess.

Just a mess. Well, you should really fulfill her needs and add up to the monstrosity.

You pull out as the saliva-sheathed cock is throbbing relentlessly, as Chuu catches her breath but her words contradict her visible struggles.

“Hah—hah, I c-can—can take more of it—fuck me more, please.”

Her grip on your thighs weaken and ultimately, you’ll do what you need to do. 

“But I can’t, Chuu.” Your hand raises her chin, as she smiles and anticipates what you’re about to do. What she had in mind might be right, and you’d know it’s imminent. “Stay fucking there and make me cum.”

She does what she’s told to and does it with eagerness. You’re on your wit’s end as Chuu’s fingers wrap around them and muster a velocity unparalleled, slick with her drool and messing her up. She closes her eyes as she knows what’s about to come, and she embraces it.

White, pearlescent streaks paint her porcelain skin, splattering and coating almost every feature of her face as her awaiting mouth receives plenty of her reward. She hums in satisfaction with what you’ve given her, the warmth complementing the hotness the both of you are in and the succulent taste that she’s been yearning for quite some time.

This is far from over and she knows it, but for now, you marvel at the fruit you bear—an outstanding sight, her face covered with your cum and it’s filthy in all of the right places.

She parts her lips, hitches a breath and opens her eyes just to meet yours painted with utter satisfaction. Sweat forms on your forehead and it’s worth effort, ruining her in a space where risk lingers around the corner.

Even with the marvelous sight, you’re still not done with her, and she knows that.

“Get up.”

“Why?”

“You know why.” You didn’t hesitate to outpower her, grabbing her by the wrists and flipping her over, facing the mirror. “And I’m fucking you up to get the job done.”

You meant it, and she gets herself ready.

Your eyes just darts onto her fine ass accentuated by those tight jeans (thankfully), its scrumptious volume allowing you to really test its integrity with a single, harsh spank that makes her yelp, and bite her lip. You see it in the mirror, a clear vision that she’s genuinely enjoying this and so you did another until you know to yourself that you shouldn’t play with your food.

You tug, she wiggles and you spank. It repeats for another time as the lust emanates the air the second that inviting face of hers exactly points out her reasons to fuck her—it doesn’t get any better than this and you know it, you’re damn impatient as much as she is. You undress her pants slowly, down to its ankles as your cock throbbed to the sight of a monumental wonder of nature and you’re glad to see it firsthand, nobody being blessed as much as you are. 

“Red ones, hm?”

“Like what you’re seeing? It’s your favorite shade.” Chuu knows you well, and you can’t lie. You just can’t help the fact that this looks like she orchestrated herself for you to fuck her publicly, anticipating with the right moment of the possible embarrassment to come and risk of being caught.

“You’re really a fucking slut—you did this intentionally, didn’t you? You wanted me to fuck you at this very day, hm?” More spanks wrings out cries at her end, a sweet disposal of the masked pleasure. She laughs and kept that gleeful face on hers, nodding because you debunking her sole reasons was just a piece of cake.

“You alwa—o–oh! Fuck, t-that’s great…” She grows weak, the second finger teasing the cameltoe formed onto those panties, feeling her wetness evident as her hands grasp the concrete of the sink and close her eyes.

“Keep d-doing that—oh!” 

“Grab the sink, Chuu.”

“What—ow!” You spank as your command renders deaf on her ears, the pleasure finally getting into her and she’s submitting slowly to you faster than you’ve expected.

“I’m fucking you with my fingers—be ready. Grab the fucking sink.” She does what she’s told to, gripping tighter as you plunge a finger, half with its depth and she moans in reply—that alone is the driving force to tease her, plunging another just to elicit that same, sexy moan you love hearing. 

You thrust in and out, a repeated process that orchestrates sounds in such a rhythmical and discordant pattern even with such a benign way of introducing yourself into her clit. You swipe and slowly make her descend down to her carnal desires, and your eyes sparkle with each passing second that passes, drooling with the fact how much it turns you on to see her dripping, glistening under the lights and her legs shuddering due to your own actions.

Guess you need to really start the show, for the better for both worlds.

Chuu knows you can’t contain it anymore, unleashing the beast, setting up the pace and going to “home-run” all over her backside—

“Fuck!” She swears at you, laced in goodness of what she’s feeling as your exposed lengths envelops another eventful paradise, plunging in deep and withdrawing with just the tip resting in it. The pace is sluggish, much intended for your comfort rather than hers, getting accustomed to her tightness that still surprises you until this day. You hold her hips and she holds the side of the sink tighter as your thrusts grow harsher and deeper, the profoundness driving you into insanity as Chuu spews profanities that reverberate around the puny restroom. It’s not just her dulcet tone that is an ear-candy, but also the clapping of your bodies against each other, a sound that adds to the erotic soundtrack that’s purely an abomination, your greatest creation.

She grows louder and it alerts you, so with an immediate action against it, the domination truly shows and it starts with you reprimanding her. “Shut y-yourself or we’re going to be fucked and you’re not gonna like it—do you understand?”

It’s surprising how articulate you could still be even with thrusts nigh-unbearable. Your other hand is occupied shutting her mouth up, letting her muffled screams vibrate on your hand as her eyes portray the sight of being satisfied, and it’s all shown in the mirror just to fuel you to take it into the extremes. It will be, but you’re still having the semblance of humanity left to just fuck her in a pace that she can take but if she talk right now,  you know that she’ll beg for more and she won’t break—the former, an absolute chant yet the latter can be debatable.

Thank god the cheers and the sounds outside rivals the absolute sinful cacophonies the both of you muster, and you’re thanking the blessing in disguise with that. With the climax of the game being evident outside thanks to the sounds of the audience, now brings the opportunity to bring spanks onto her butt that makes her grit her teeth in pain and pleasure.

You let go of your hand on her mouth to let those beautiful moans out for your ears to be blessed again, and she wails in pleasure with your pace and the harshness your hand makes contact with her ass. The sight of a rosy hue is the fruit of your efforts, and the events occurring in such a stingful session is a sight to see—a jiggle of her ass was enough to make you riled up even more.

You’re gripping her hips and you can foresee what can be her—

“Shit! Fuck, more, more! G-god, just fuck me real g-good…” Chuu is utterly fucked and she’ll thank you for it. She snapped and there she goes, you reading her like a book—she’s going to beg for more and with her numerous pleas that isn’t even registering in her head totally, you fulfill it anyways knowing it’s the route that you’ll inevitably pass.

“Fuck m-me—my ass—shit, more!” Your hips muster a velocity that is uncertain, but ultimately frantic and in for no-return. Her juices just stain the tiles and thank god you still have some time to discard her pants away to the sinful scene where her nectar will fall into, and at that point you know you’re breaking her apart slowly. At this point, Chuu is just blabbering with nonsensical jumbled pieces of existing words that will soon be more incoherent when you put the final in the coffin.

“You fucking like that, huh?” She nods in the mirror, those cum-glazed lips smiling after as she closes her eyes, savoring whatever that’s stimulating her and the pleasure you’re bringing all over her body.

“God, fuck! Ah, you’re crazy!” You pull her hair and make it as a leverage for you to fuck her truly. The pain stings but is translated as pleasure the second she feels it, and it’s evident because she’s been secretly talking about it and with the live reaction, oh, it’s all right there for you to hear.

You spank her and she bites her lip, you hissing at her remarks. “What did I say? Shut your fucking mouth.”

You’re vulgar and she didn’t care, even dropping the honorifics when you’re dropping her pants. You thrust repeatedly until burying it deep in her, making her moan so sultry and cry in pleasure, as lean towards her and whispered, “You want my cum again, hm?”

You slowly oscillate your hips, kissing her nape and ear as she replies an audible yes that enables the green light for the denouement of this spectacular show—spoiler: you did this before and you’ll never get tired of doing it again.

You pull yourself back, grab Chuu’s waist and run your hands towards her clothed tits, caressing it as she moans with your actions and cries once you return to your original pace. It went for possibly twenty seconds that felt like minutes on how heavenly she feels until you lean towards her again, this time, announcing the very thing she wants to hear again.

“I’m going to fucking cum, Chuu.”

You’re nearing the end and it won’t be in her pussy.

Well, here are the reasons why: firstly, you don’t want people to see your reward marked onto her pants and that would be unhygienic; second, she haven’t earned that luxury yet as per the situation the both of you are in; third, it’s a damn risk to it knowing it’s a sudden invitation by Chuu because you don’t want to risk these things; and lastly, you might just need to add up to the mess on her face you plastered all over her earlier.

Reasonable arguments, and it’s easier to be done than being said.

She doesn’t argue with your principles and wants, but eagerly obliges as she brings herself down to her knees again, stares at you with anticipation and her mouth agape. You know she really does know what she’s doing when she’s initiating the actions, stroking your cock frantically as your knees shake a little due to the pleasure her hands bring.

“Come on—cum on my face, right he—” She doesn’t need to finish her sentence when yours does, spurting strings and strings of cum on her already disheveled face, flinching whenever it gets on her forehead and savors with her hums when it gets on her tongue and lips. With the final orgasm that possibly lasted about ten seconds, she still wrings out the leftover cum in your slit, even licking it clean to savor your succulence, then smiling towards you because of the gratification.

“God, you still came a lot…” She still grips your length, admiring it as she slowly strokes it for good measure as an ending.

“It’s all your fault, Chuu.” You reply back, chuckling as the both of you exchange smiles. Chuu licks her lips and wipes her face full of your cum, the messy liquid being tasted by hers and she commends that taste, and you roll your eyes because of that.

Now, with the adrenaline diminishing slowly, the both of you are grasping the situation as the both of you get dressed up quickly, and Chuu is cleaning up the mess you’ve made on her face.

“Shit—I’m sorry, Chuu—was I too rough? Sorry if I came too much—”

“No, no, it’s fine—I can retouch and reason with them later. You got me pretty sore though.” Her bubbly smile takes effect and reassures you, and you trust what she can do to reason herself out of this mess. You got her ready and you know it’s still a risk even going out, even with the busy atmosphere around the stadium.

Chuu just smiles at you, smirking even with a single sentence that follows. “We should do these things again, I never knew it would be this fun…”

You’d be truly damned if it was to be fulfilled but you’re foreseeing the inevitable, and it’s just about when would be the next time such sin would happen.

[defmaybe]

Lia miniseries: The last time

Itzy Lia x m reader a/n: go stream gwbg Word count: 16.5k words

The music is loud, but not loud enough. This place smells like sweat and cheap alcohol, the exact same mixture you can find at any college party. People shout over each other, cups crinkle under people’s dancing feet, and everyone is touching everyone.

You should be enjoying yourself, but even the loudest distractions can’t prevent your eyes from being locked on to Lia.

She stands near the edge of the room, far away from the life of the party, arms crossed, tears swelling in the corners of her eyes but refusing to spill over. Her boyfriend—the eternal class act that he is—leans in close, probably spouting some bullshit. His expression is all smooth confidence, but hers is hurt. You don’t need to hear what he’s saying. You already know. You saw him, lips on another girl, bodies flush against each other like Lia never existed in the first place. And now, he’s feeding her some excuse, no doubt in his mind that she will just swallow it like she always does.

But something’s different this time. She’s not buying it, and she’s not giving in. And then, just like that, he sighs, throws up his hands, and walks away. No fight, no desperation. He just walks away from her like she was never worth the effort.

You don’t even hesitate. No time to. She’s your best friend after all. You move.

Lia barely reacts as you step in beside her, but when you nudge her arm, she exhales, already privy to your antics. “Not now.”

“If it’s up to you, it’s not ever,” you correct. You don’t wait for permission. You snag a bottle of whiskey from the counter next to her and pop the cap. “Drink with me!”

She hesitates. She’s reluctant. “I don’t feel like drinking.”

“And I don’t feel like letting you mope tonight.” You take a swig straight from the bottle and hand it to her. It burns, but it’s bright and distracting. “Come on. When was the last time you lived a little?”

She eyes you, then the bottle, then you again. Something shifts in her expression—anger, defiance, something that reminds her of memories long buried. She snatches the bottle from your grasp and takes a drink. It burns, and she coughs, but she doesn’t hand it back.

You grin. “That’s the spirit!”

She scoffs through the coughs, but the corner of her lips twitch. “Shut up.”

You’re already scanning the party, looking for something to pull her out of her own head. There’s a group playing beer pong, hyping each other up like they’re at the Olympics. Perfect.

You drag Lia along with you, as you approach the would-be champions. Without warning, you grab a ball off the table and line up a shot. The guy who was about to throw blinks at you. “Dude, what the hell?”

You ignore him and flick your wrist towards victory. The ball arcs, bounces once, and lands straight into a cup. The crowd reacts with a mix of cheers and protests, but you don’t care. You turn to Lia, smirking with satisfaction, and hand her the next ball. “Your turn.”

She stares at you. Her body is shrinking, and it looks like she might retreat into her shell. “You’re insane.”

“And you’re up.”

Lia glances at the crowd watching, the challenge hanging in the air. She looks at you, your smile going from one ear to the other encouraging her to partake. She takes a deep breath, takes the ball, straightens her shoulders, and throws. The ball drops into a cup flawlessly.

The room erupts. The guy whose game you interrupted throws his arms up in disbelief. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Lia doesn’t gloat. She just picks up the cup, downs the beer inside, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand like she’s been doing this her whole life. Then, she looks at you.

You whistle. “Damn.”

She smirks. “What can I say?”

You step in close, voice level adjusted to be just for her. “This is fun, isn’t it?”

She exhales, something loosening in her. “Yeah. It kind of is.”

But you’re not stopping here.

You scan the room for the next move. You spot it, your next target—an old speaker, unattended and inviting on a counter, playing the same overplayed pop song. With Lia in tow, you stride over and connect your phone. The music cuts off, and a few people groan, but you just open your library and hit play.

A completely different song blasts through the room. Something more obscure, something wilder.

People react immediately, some booing, others cheering. Lia’s eyes react instinctively. “Wait, this song—”

“You like this song,” you fall in, leaving no doubt about the reason for your choice.

She laughs, the sound light, unburdened but restrained. “I do.”

“So dance.”

She hesitates, but you grab her hand, spinning her once. She stumbles into you, laughing despite herself. The party moves on around you, but for a moment, it’s just the two of you, caught in your own little world.

You can see it on her face. For the first time tonight, Lia isn’t thinking about him.

But the moment shatters. Your efforts were beginning to bear fruit, but they were spoiled too soon.

From across the room, he approaches. Her boyfriend’s voice, loud and annoyed, pierces the carefully crafted atmosphere. “Lia, what the hell are you doing?”

You don’t even have to turn to see him pushing his way through the crowd, eyes locked on her, clenched fists like he was preparing for a fight. The fun, the freedom, it all fades from existence, from her face—hesitation, guilt trying to creep back in.

Not this time. You’ve seen it happen countless times before now.

You lean in close, voice out her boyfriend's reach. “Let’s get out of here.”

She looks at you, uncertain of it all.

Then, her boyfriend calls her name again, sharper this time, as if she’s making another mistake. But she knows better.

Lia grabs your wrist in her first act of defiance. “Let’s go.”

You don’t need to be told twice. You let her lead you outside the house, but once outside, the roles reverse. You don’t let her pause, let her stop here. Instead, you take her even further away from the party to the first and best thing your mind can think of.

The arcade is alive with flashing neon lights, the chaotic symphony of electronic jingles and mixed reactions filling the air. You shove a few bills into the token machine, spilling a handful into your palm before tossing a few to Lia. She catches them like it’s a practiced act, but her expression is skeptical.

“You seriously dragged me to an arcade?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at your great escape.

“You seriously gonna tell me you’re too cool for this?” You grin, nudging her towards the air hockey tables. “Come on, we’re settling this once and for all. Air hockey. I used to smoke you all the time. Loser gets a punishment.”

Lia chortles, but there’s a flicker of amusement behind her eyes. “You’re on.”

You pick your table, and from the second the puck drops, it’s war. Lia is fast, but her shots are wild. She misses easy blocks, fumbling the paddle once, but she’s so caught up in the fun she doesn’t notice how you start easing up, letting her slip goals past you. When she scores the final point, she throws her arms up, victorious.

“Destroying you has never felt better,” she teases, gloating as if she just settled a lifelong rivalry.

You roll your eyes in mock annoyance. “Alright, alright. Fair’s fair. What’s my punishment?”

She taps a finger against her chin before smirking. “Close your eyes.”

You sigh but comply. You’re not a sore loser, not after choosing to be one. A few moments later, she presses a cold can into your hands. You pop it open and take a sip—immediately regretting it. “What the hell is this?!”

Lia bursts into laughter. “Carbonated milk. Consider it payback.”

You sputter the concoction, wiping your mouth of its filth. “That’s foul.”

Her grin is as proud as it was mischievous. “Exactly.”

You shake your head, laughing despite yourself. You’ve missed this. Missed spending time with her. “Alright, let’s move on. I’m winning you something.”

You drag her to the claw machine, and she crosses her arms, unimpressed. “Please, these things are rigged.”

“Not when you’ve got my skills.” You crack your knuckles, putting on an exaggerated show of focus as you deftly maneuver the claw. Lia observes your performance, still skeptical, until the claw actually snags onto a small stuffed bear and holds on long enough to drop it into the chute.

You scoop it out and hand it to her, the bravado of a man who won a teddy bear ten times the size you just had. “Told you.”

She takes it, eyes softer than before. “I… didn’t think you’d actually get it.”

“Guess I’m full of surprises.”

She holds the bear against her chest for a moment before stuffing it into her bag. “Alright, I’ll admit. That was kind of sweet.”

“Kind of?”

She rolls her eyes in the same mock annoyance she must have learned from you. Or was it you who learned it from her? Either way, she doesn’t argue any further.

Eventually, you both step out of the arcade looking for your next distraction, the night air cool against your skin. Lia stretches her arms over her head, exhaling. “Alright, what’s next?”

You glance around, spotting a near-empty grocery store parking lot, an idea sparking in your mind. A childish smile spreads across your face. “I think I see our next challenge.”

Lia follows the direction of your gaze to an abandoned shopping cart and lets out an incredulous laugh. “No way.”

“Oh, come on. You trust me, right?” Your rebuttal is tempting, tempting enough to get her to hum as she considers it.

She shakes her head but, to your delight, climbs into the cart. “Alright. Just don’t kill me.”

You take a running start, the wheels rattling as you push her through the empty lot. Lia shrieks high pitched and filled with life, clutching the sides as you pick up speed, laughter bubbling past her lips. It’s reckless and stupid, but it feels good—feels free.

When you finally slow down, she’s breathless, her face suddenly inches from yours. She doesn’t move away. You don’t want to either.

The cool air becomes heavy, something new unraveling in the little distance between your eyes.

Before you can say something you didn’t stop to think about, Lia clears her throat and looks away. “We should—keep going. What’s next?”

You nod, shaking off the moment just as easily as it came. “Let’s go find something else to conquer.”

You end up outside a rundown photo booth near an old convenience store, its flickering sign barely hanging on. The joy on your face says everything Lia needs to know. She eyes it, then you. “Seriously?”

“Come on. Gotta commemorate the night somehow!”

She huffs, exhaling air through her nose in a quick burst but follows you inside. The cramped space forces you close, her shoulder pressing into yours as she scoots barely into frame. The first flash goes off as she makes a face, sticking her tongue out.You paint a big smile on your face for the picture, throwing an arm around her to pull her into the frame for the next one.

Then, right before the third flash, you can feel Lia’s body tense up against yours. She’s planning something. She looks at you, really looks at you, before smirking mischievously. You can’t help but wonder what prank she has planned to pull on you, but you’ll let it happen nonetheless. Cheering her up was worth it all.

And then, instead of some grand, over-the-top stunt, she does something quieter. She leans in, sliding deeper under your arm, her head resting against your shoulder. Her fingers interlock with yours, and she doesn’t let go.

The camera flashes.

You glance down at her, your chest squeezing tighter then when you were pushing her around in a cart. She doesn’t say anything, just stays there, close, warm. The playful air shifts—becomes something calm.

She doesn’t move away, doesn’t laugh it off. Just holds your hand a little tighter, waiting. You rub your thumb over hers. It’s soothing. You’re just friends. You had never even considered Lia as something else. But what if…?

The next flash of the camera captures the sudden stillness, the quiet storm brewing between and inside of you.

You let out a breath, finally looking away. “Come on,” you murmur, squeezing her hand once before standing. “I know where we can go next.”

As you step out into the night, Lia doesn’t let go of your hand right away. She lingers, thumb brushing against your skin before finally, hesitantly, letting it slip away. Neither of you comment further on it.

After a few moments of walking in silence, you glance at her. “You remember the old jungle gym?”

She blinks, then lets out a soft laugh. “From middle school? The one we used to sit at, talking about nothing for hours?”

“Exactly, that’s the one! Haven’t been there in years.”

Lia tilts her head, considering. Then she smiles, a green light signal to go ahead. “Let’s go.”

You climb to the top of the jungle gym together, the city humming in the distance, but here, beneath the stars, everything feels still.

Lia stretches out, staring up at the sky absentmindedly. “It’s weird. I can’t remember the last time I’ve done this.”

“What? We used to climb this thing all the time.”

She chuckles and shakes her head. “No, not that! Just… let go like this.”

You watch her, the way her hair falls against the worn metal, the way the moonlight catches in her eyes. “We used to do that too all the time,” you remind her. “Back when we had nothing better to do than waste time here.”

She smiles faintly. “Yeah. Before everything got… complicated.”

You don’t say anything, only offering a smile that reaches half of your lips. You just watch her as she rolls onto her side, propping herself on an elbow facing you. “Why are you doing this?” she asks suddenly, eyes searching yours as if they’ll provide the answer.

You blink, caught off-guard by the sudden question. “What do you mean?”

“This.” She gestures vaguely around her and towards you. “Dragging me around, making me forget about him.”

Your throat tightens. You think about saying something inflammatory about her boyfriend, but don’t even want to let a thought of him taint this place. “Because I hate seeing you like that.”

She studies you, her gaze flickering over your face. She looks down. Her smile is small but real. Like she’s happy she’s here now, but already mourning the fact that it won’t last. “You make it sound easy.”

“It’s easy when you’re with me.”

When you’re starving, and you have a bite, you only end up craving more. That same hunger is consuming Lia right now. She’s feasting on this moment, indulging in every reckless, fleeting moment like she's been starving for it. Watching her like this, so alive, enjoying each minute she has—you can’t help but feel the hunger too.

It quickly gets overtaken by quiet, only interrupted with the creaking hush of the metal under your combined weight and the cricket-thick dark all around. Then Lia speaks, softer still: “Do you think I made a mistake?”

You turn on your side so you’re facing her, knees drawn up, hands dangling in between them. “Yeah, I mean, you should have dumped that guy ages ago.”

She makes a face and you know you deserve it. “No, not that. Just—leaving like that. Walking out.” Her voice is directed away from you. She sounds ashamed to even be asking the question.

“Honestly?” You lean back against the cold rail, letting your head tip to watch the sky. It’s easier to be honest that way. “Nah. If anything, you should’ve gone harder. Made a scene. Gone full dramatic. Hell, even kiss someone else in front of him. Get even.”

“Yeah, because you know me as the type to kiss random dude at parties.” She’s grinning, a little, but she clearly thinks you’re ridiculous.

“Not random,” you say, and waggle your eyebrows. “I could’ve volunteered.”

She laughs, easy and bright, the sound running up your spine like a dare. “Oh, right,” she says, “Because that wouldn’t have made things weird between us?”

“Sure. It could have.” You nudge her with your shoulder. “Or you could have totally fallen for how good I am with my tongue.”

She hums, draws little circles on the chipped paint with her finger. “Yeah, well, maybe I should have. But I’m warning you, you’re the one that would end up smitten with me, not the other way around.”

You chuckle in response, but you don’t think you can say much more without fully tipping your hand, and this night isn’t about you.

You let the silence settle again. Can’t keep yourself from looking at her in it, and the way she looks at you makes you think you should stop joking around and actually fall for her. Just give in.

She just sighs when you don’t. You’re not sure if it’s because you don’t or some other reason that has yet to reveal itself. “I’m hungry.” The likely answer is that she’s just hungry, then.

You slide down the bar so you’re parallel to her, feet dangling above the mulch. “Let’s get pancakes. I know a great diner, within a diner’s capacity to be great.”

She sighs again, this time with more drama. “I’m also exhausted. Like, terminally. What if I can’t make it to the diner? Will you leave me here to be eaten by raccoons?”

You give her a look, one eyebrow up. “Do you want me to carry you or something?”

Lia scrunches her nose. “That’s so childish.”

“You’re right,” you say solemnly. “Better to perish on the mulch.”

She smacks your arm, but she’s smiling. “You won’t make it a block.”

You position yourself in front of her, crouching, arms out. “Now I need to prove myself.”

She hesitates just long enough for you to think she’s going to refuse, but then she’s climbing onto your back, arms slung around your neck. She is lighter than you expect, which is nothing to start with, all angles and heat and the faint citrus of her shampoo. “Don’t drop me,” she says, but there’s laughter in her ear, right by yours.

“Only if you don’t give me a reason to,” you say, and start down the sidewalk, Lia’s breath hot against your cheek.

The first step makes her arms grip your neck so tight you nearly choke. You consider dropping her then, but you have a reputation to uphold. Eventually, you manage to start up a rhythm that allows air into your lungs despite Lia’s best attempts. Her thighs clamp around your hips, and you can’t help but think that the last time you carried Lia like this, she didn’t have tits pressing into your back. It’s distracting. Every few feet, Lia shifts to keep from sliding, and every time she does, her body presses tighter into yours.

“You’re struggling,” she teases, but it’s breathless.

“Having less issues with the carrying than I’m having with your bratty comments,” you shoot back, and she pinches your ribs hard enough to make you yelp.

It’s only a seven-minute walk, but you are both panting when you spill into the fluorescent refuge of the twenty-four-hour diner, giggling like absolute idiots. A bored waitress barely looks at the two of you as you enter and drop Lia onto a vinyl booth seat before climbing the seat across from her.

You try to stifle your body’s reaction to the feeling of her hips and chest now that it's in vision of her, as you focus on the menu. Lia’ is already tracing the patterns on the scarred tabletop, her mind drifting towards what to say.

“So,” you say, when the pancakes arrive. “Why did you stay with him this long?”

She stares at her pancakes, then the syrup bottle, then you. Her mouth twitches. “He made me feel wanted, I guess. Like, he paid attention to me. Like I was—” She shakes her head. “It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.” You’re gentler now, picking up her wrist and tracing the raised vein with your thumb. “But you’re still allowed to be pissed. Or sad. Or both.”

She shrugs, but she’s not pulling away. “He was hot. That was probably part of it. And he was so, I don’t know, confident? Like, he’d just do shit and not care what anyone thought. I always cared too much.”

You cock your head. “You ever think maybe you liked him because you wanted to be like that? Like, less afraid.”

She chews her lip. “I guess so. But his reason for not being afraid was because he didn’t care about anything. There’s a difference.”

You nod. “Yeah, you actually give a shit. Which is why you might be the only decent person left on the planet.”

She laughs, but then her eyes go soft and wet. “That’s so sappy. You’re sappy.”

You stick out your tongue and make a face, syrupy affection and all. "I am what you need me to be."

She chuckles, shakes her head with her eyes closed, and goes back to her pancakes. You do too.

For a second or two, and then you’re back to making sure she doesn’t get in her own head. You have a mission, after all. 

“C’mon,” you say, “you gotta give me something better than ‘he made me feel wanted.’ There had to be stuff you hated about him.”

She doesn’t answer right away. You watch her work through it, chewing each word. “Sometimes I felt like… a prop. Like, I fit into his world, but he didn’t really care what I was thinking. Or what I wanted.” She looks up, eyes somber and level. “You ever get that?”

You nod. “Yeah, with my parents. Or group projects. Or… you know, every time I’ve ever hooked up.” You regret it as soon as it’s out of your mouth. Lia’s eyes spark with curiosity. “Wait, you’ve hooked up? You don’t just—” she gestures at your outfit, at your face, “—go to your classes, eat lunch with your less attractive friends and then go home and read books?”

You snort. “Nah. I’m a total slut, actually. I just don’t tell you because you’d judge me.”

She leans in, elbows on the battered Formica. “I would be so proud of you if I weren’t jealous, actually.”

You swallow, hard. That’s a lot to process. “Good to know. But that’s not the point. The point is, you deserve more than being some guy’s prop.”

Her plate gets pushed aside, her chin now resting on her hand like a flower. “Can I ask you something embarrassing and you promise to not laugh?”

“Sure.”

“Does it make me pathetic that the thing I’m most mad about is that he never once went down on me?” She says it low, but not embarrassed. Just quietly furious.

You almost spit coffee over the table. “Wait, never?”

She shakes her head, hair falling in her face. “Not even once. But I gave him blowjobs all the time.” Her eyes flick to yours, and she’s smiling, but her teeth are bared. “I’m good at it, too.” She tacks it on so nonchalantly you’re not even sure what to think.

Shock is evident on your face, and you can’t help but think about it. It’s not even your fault. “How do you… know?”

She shrugs, taking a sip from her coffee before giving her answer. “No gag reflex. Plus, I did all my research.” 

You nearly choke on your coffee. "Okay, before I get a stiffy in a worn down diner with all your bragging, why did he never go down on you?"

She shrugs, and speaks matter of factly like it’s normal. “Said he didn’t want to. That it was gross.”

You don’t even have to ask if she’s fucking kidding you, it’s written all over your face. “Wow. Not even once? Was he, like, afraid he’d have trouble finding the clit?”

The edges of her mouth corner upwards, tilting, and she’s thinking if she should or shouldn’t say. “Maybe? Who knows. All I know is I’ve given more head than a guillotine and never once—”

You hold up both hands, surrendering to the image. “Okay, okay, point made. But, for the record, that’s insane. You should sue for emotional damages.”

She giggles, then sobers. “I know. But it’s not even about the sex, really. It’s the principle. Like, why is it only okay when it’s for him? Because you should have heard how whiney he gets if I tried telling him no.”

You click your tongue. “It isn’t okay? Fuck that noise, you deserve so much better. Like, at the very least, a guy who knows what a clit is, where to find it and how to spell it with his tongue.”

She laughs hard at that, but her eyes glint. “You volunteering again, manslut?”

You make your face very solemn, steeple your fingers like a cartoon therapist. “Lia, as your friend, it is my sworn duty to ensure that you, specifically, are not denied any life experience. I’d take one for the team.”

She stares at you, a little wide-eyed. Is she considering it? The tension is steeped in it, and you’re trying to balance on top of it. She grins, slow and dangerous. “You would not survive me reciprocating the favor. And I always reciprocate.”

You lean in, close enough to feel her breath on your chin. “Please. I’ve never cum from a blowjob before, I doubt even you and your boundless talent could change that.”

She eyes you, pupils blown wide, the tip of her tongue darting out to wet her lower lip. “That sounds like a challenge.”

You rest your elbows on the table, interlacing your fingers and staring her down. “It’s not, Lia. It’s literally impossible.”

She leans in until you’re nearly nose to nose. “You think you could still say that after experiencing someone without a gag reflex?”

The heat that shudders up your neck is involuntary. You force a grin, deflecting with bravado. “Maybe. I’m just saying, it’s not for lack of opportunity.”

She cocks her head, lashes low, voice a purr: “So you’re saying you’ve had chances, but no one could get you off?” Her hand is on the battered edge of the table, three inches from yours. There’s a beat where she just watches you, then she slides her pinkie across, hooks it in yours. “That’s really fucking sad,” she says, and you get the sense she means it. “But not as sad as me, never even getting head.“

“Tragic, really.” Your mouth is dry but you keep your tone light. “Honestly, I think we’re both lost causes at this point.”

She leans back, stretches with her arms above her head, arching her back forwards, and it’s on pure instinct you suddenly notice her breasts pressing against the thin cotton of her shirt. Something shifted.

Her eyes flick up to yours, and for a second, it’s all too hot in the booth. “You know, I really don’t like people doubting the skills I’m confident in.”

Your foot, under the table, finds her shin. You graze it, just lightly, and feel the need to press her buttons some more. She doesn’t move away. “Fine,” you say, “you want to prove your skills or something?”

She laughs way too confident, her hands already in motion, eye contact established and unbroken as her fingers pull her hair back into a messy ponytail, exposing her neckline. “Sure! You want to do this here?” she asks, incredulous but not like it bothers her. It’s painfully obvious this should be a bluff. It should be.

You, bravest of cowards, glance around the diner. The waitress is behind the counter, scrolling her phone. There’s a guy in a hoodie two booths down, asleep with a plate of fries at his chin. The world is asleep or indifferent. “Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

You nearly choke. “You wouldn’t.”

She arches a brow. “You don’t think I will?” You stare her down. “Not a chance.”

She slides out of the booth and stands, stretching like a cat in the sick diner light. Her gaze flicks to the denizens of the diner, and then back to you. “Bathroom. Five minutes. If you dare.”

You laugh, convinced there’s no way she doesn’t chicken out. “You’re bluffing.”

She shrugs like she’s already won, the fire in her eyes burning with something brave. “You really want to take that risk? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

You watch her saunter to the bathroom, legs crossing with each step, her hips swaying in a way she knows has you following her with your eyes. She doesn’t look back, but you can’t stop watching her go.

The first two minutes are spent waiting for her to return. The third minute is considering your possibilities. The fourth and fifth minute are spent realising you’re actually keeping track of the time. You slide out of the booth, your hands shaking inside the pockets you hide them in. This is a terrible fucking idea.

The optics aren’t great. Stepping in reveals two truths. One is that it is exactly as disgusting as you’d expect. Cracked tiles, a hand dryer that’s more sickly than anyone daring to touch it, and one overhead bulb casting a yellow light over it all.

The other is that Lia isn’t using the bathroom for its intended purposes, but was also checking her phone, waiting for you. She’s in front of the mirror. She meets your eyes in the reflection and she almost looks stressed that you did.

“You came,” she says, and instantly makes a face, regretting her choice of words.

You lean against the door, arms folded. “Yep. So, here we are.”

She spins to face you, hands bracing behind her on the sink. “Here we are,” she echoes, and the words hang between you, heavy with implication of what you’re both doing there

There’s a second—or a couple, or who knows how many—where you both wait for the other to chicken out, to call bullshit, to undo this and retreat to safety. Neither of you does though.

You clear your throat awkwardly, like this is your first time being in a tiny bathroom with your best friend you might have started developing feelings for when she’s about to prove to you she can make you cum from a blowjob. “You know, we don’t—”

She cuts you off, eyebrows raised at what she thought you would say. “Do you want me to?” She doesn’t look away from you though. She even forgets to blink, and that’s her tell. That’s how you know she’s shitting her pants, that’s she in way over her head, and that she’s hoping you’ll pull the plug so she doesn’t have to.

You think to oblige, a forced smile that is all too easy to read shows up on your face. “Don’t feel like you have to, you have nothing to prove to me. What do I know.”

She shrugs, digging the hole she’s stuck in a little deeper. “I want to.” She pushes herself up higher, sitting on the edge of the sink with more confidence than this kind of bathroom should allow, legs slightly apart, feet dangling off the edge. “Do you not want me to?”

Her cheeks are pink, even under the sickly yellow light. She’s not only messing with you—she’s also messing with herself. Testing if she can, testing if you would, the way she always does when she’s about to rationalize a mistake or say something she knows she shouldn’t. It’s a staple of hers at this point.

“I mean,” you say, “I don’t think I’d hate it? I’d probably like it. But I don’t think I’d cum from it.” Your voice is a little too honest, too floaty, and she catches it.

You get lost in looking at her for just a moment. Her knees slightly apart, the way her knuckles go white with how hard her hands grip the edge of the sink, the way her lips part every time she takes a breath.

You snap out of it and speak again. “Wait, Lia… are we really about to do this?”

She blinks, startled. For the first time since the challenge, the mask cracks and the real Lia steps out. Her face softens, small and vulnerable. “I—” She looks down, hands twisting together. “I don’t know. Are we?”

You exhale, relief and regret pouring out in equal measure. “I mean,” you say, “if somebody told me a week ago my best friend was going to try and deepthroat me in a public restroom, I would’ve called them a liar.”

She laughs, but the sound is threadbare. “Yeah. It’s kind of insane.”

You lean back against the cold cinderblock, arms crossed. “You don’t have to prove anything, you know?” The words feel stupidly sincere in the archipelago of dried vomit and mystery stains, but you say them anyway. “I mean it. If this is just… I don’t know, some kind of rebound performance review—”

She shakes her head, forceful. “It’s not. I just…” She trails off, and for a second she’s the same girl who used to triple-dog-dare you to eat glue, who overthought everything and then did it anyway. “I guess I wanted to see if I could be as spontaneous as you, for once.” She chews her lip, then lets out a nervous giggle. “But also, this bathroom is so gross I’m pretty sure I just caught tetanus from sitting on this sink.”

You hold up your hands, surrendering. “Yeah. Not like this. This is so—” You gesture around, taking in the cracked tiles and the ancient tampon machine stuck with a chewed wad of gum. “I mean, if we’re gonna do something dumb, shouldn’t we at least pretend it’s romantic?”

Her shoulders drop. She huffs a breath, then laughs. “Thank god. I thought you were gonna make me actually do it in here.” She rubs her palms over her jeans, eyes squinting in relief. “I was like, I will, but before we even kiss?”

You lean in. “For what it’s worth, if anyone was going to be the first to, uh, make me actually finish from that, I’d be honored if it were you.” You flick your gaze to her mouth, then back. “But not in a stinky diner bathroom, okay?”

She grins, genuinely this time, the tension breaking. “Deal. I’ll save the unwrapping of my talents for a more… prestigious venue.”

“Noted,” you say. You’re close enough now to see every fleck of gold in her irises, every ragged end of her ponytail. Something clicks into place in the air as you realise the implication of what you and what she just said. Technically, it could count as a confession. “But, uh. While we’re here—”

She doesn’t wait for you to finish. She grabs the front of your shirt and tugs you in, kisses you hard enough you nearly bruise your teeth on hers. It’s not romantic, not gentle; it’s hungry, desperate, tasting of syrup and coffee and the hours of wanting you both pretended didn’t exist. Her hands go straight to your hair, fingers tangling at the base of your skull, and your hands find her waist, yanking her off the sink until her legs wrap around you.

You barely have enough sense to lock the door behind you before her mouth is on yours again, hot and insistent, her breath loud in your ear. 

You both pull back in sync, breath staggered and eyes wild, twitching to find each other. It takes a moment to understand what you just did. She’s breathing hard, laughing against your throat, her arms still cinched around your neck like she’s afraid if she lets go she’ll wake up in her old life.

“You did say you’d volunteer,” she muses, slightly raw. She tries to sound like she’s joking, but it catches in the back of her throat.

You nuzzle her ear and whisper, “And I don’t regret saying it.”

She snorts, the sound dangerously close to a giggle. “You’re such a dork.”

“And you’re such a good kisser for someone who only ever dated selfish morons,” you say, still holding her, still feeling her pulse through your joined bodies.

You both collapse into laughter again, and then, like nothing happened, she’s smoothing her hair back into place and you’re straightening your shirt, already conspiring over the next thing to do. You slip out of the bathroom, Lia a half step behind you, and return to your booth. As you pass the counter, you catch the waitress’s knowing smirk, but you don’t care.

You slide into the booth. Lia joins you on your side this time, thigh pressed to yours, close enough that it’s basically an admission of intent. She grabs a strip of bacon from your plate and chews it like she’s mad at it, her leg drumming against yours under the table. You can’t stop touching: knees bumping, hands fiddling with the same syrup bottle, pinkies hooking and unhooking. If anyone saw you, they’d assume you were already together, some weirdly codependent pair of lovebirds, and you suddenly get why people always accused you of being “basically dating, but not admitting it.”

You’re texting under the table, a quick message to your friend with the backyard pool and the parents who are never home: “still cool to use your pool? need to impress a girl, promise no one will drown.” He replies fast: “go wild, just don’t get anything weird in the water or be too loud. neighbors know nobody is home so they might call cops.”

By the time you’ve finished that thread, Lia has finished your pancakes. She wipes her mouth and leans back, looking at you bright-eyed. “You got any plans for what’s next?”

You smirk, already one step ahead. “You ever broken into a pool before?”

She raises a brow. “Isn’t that illegal?”

You shrug. “Only if you get caught. Besides, I think it’s a rite of passage or something.”

She hesitates, chewing her lip, and you wonder if you’ve overplayed it. But then she squares her perfectly ninety degree shoulders, grabs your hand, and says, “Fuck it. Let’s do something stupid.”

You grin, adrenaline blooming. “That’s the spirit.”

The walk is long, and you’re both too keyed up to say much. Lia swings your hand, humming a song under her breath, and you realize you’ve never felt more alive than right now, running through the dark with her, doing something so aggressively pointless. The house is a monster in the darkness, all big windows and a backyard made for rich kids’ parties. The side gate is exactly where you said, the latch loose. 

You sneak in, and Lia—in a surge of confidence—leads to the pool.

“This is so illegal,” she whispers, giggling as she steps out of her shoes.

You glance around, the no lights on in any of the houses. “Keep it down and nobody will call the cops. And even if they do, we look way too good to be criminals.”

She rolls her eyes, but she’s already at the edge, and then she stops, frowning. “Wait,” she says. “We don’t have swimsuits.”

You look at her like you can’t believe it took her this long to realize. She takes you in, judging her a little, and then shrugs, defiant. “Fuck it. I didn’t walk all this way just to chicken out now.”

You agree, and this time, you take the lead. You start with your shirt, because, well, it’s easy. It only takes a second for it to be gone and be just the first of many fabrics strewn across the floor. The cold night air hits your skin, and you hope the pool’s heated.

Lia, meanwhile, is watching you. Her mouth is pressed into a firm line, arms folded over her chest like she’s caught between moving forwards and regressing.

“Don’t look at me as I undress, you perv,” she warns. “I mean it. You get even remotely creepy and I will drown you. And then tell everyone you had a microdick.”

The threat is so perfectly Lia you have to fight down a grin. You stand with your back to her, taking off your jeans with exaggerated, cartoon modesty. “You’re the one who made this weird.”

She snorts. “Need I remind you that my truth is having a sexual history of one person?”

You hear the soft scuffle of fabric. And now you’re the one making it weird. Your mind does a dangerous trick, imagining the sound in freeze frame: her pale skin catching moonlight, the careful way she’d cross her arms to peel off her shirt, the way she’d maybe even blush, even if you weren’t looking. You keep your eyes laser-focused on the pool, but your entire brain is on fire with the idea of Lia, naked except for the confidence she’s wearing like a new suit.

You hear her step up behind you, breathless. You don’t look. “Okay,” she says. “Count to three?”

You both count off, but on “two” she shoves you, and you hit the water in a flailing, gasping mess. She follows not long after, so close to your landing zone that you feel her feet brush you as you go under.

The water is cold, but not as cold as the outside air. As you surface, (sputtering, thanks to Lia) you hear her treading water not far from you. She’s laughing so much she can be found through echolocation. You dog-paddle closer, the splash of the water still too alive to make anything out under the waves and she holds up a hand, palm out.

She slicks her hair back, shivering, but her eyes gleam, catching you getting closer with your eyes clearly open. “Hey, no. That’s not enough. You have to swim with your eyes closed. Like, the entire time.”

You shake your head. “That’s insane.”

“Trespassing into some random person's yard is insane,” she says, grinning now. “Eyes closed, or you’re getting your dick twisted off.”

You squeeze your eyes shut, then roll your them (behind closed lids), floating backwards on your back, arms splayed. “If I drown, it’s your fault.”

She huffs. “I’m an amazing lifeguard. I know how to perform mouth-to-mouth.”

You drift a little, keeping your limbs extended to try and not drift into any pool edges. You think you can feel her watching you, and you know you can hear her moving away. She’s got something planned.

“You’re not looking, right?” she calls.

“Only if you’re not either,” you shoot back, the words a little louder than they needed to be. You, good boy that you are, keep your eyes shut, but something tells you she’s smirking. You can taste it in the air.

“Eh, I don’t think I agreed to that rule,” she answers, and it’s enough to send a shiver down your spine, the way her voice is seeped in mischief. “Besides, you’re the one floating proudly with your dick above water like you’re trying to show off. I’m keeping everything nice and clean underwater.”

You blush, swearing at the way your body betrays you, heat blooming under your skin even though you’re half freezing. “You’re bluffing again, I know you wouldn’t look—”

“Wouldn’t look? Couldn’t help but look,” she nonchalantly intercepts, “I didn’t know you were packing. Isn’t it supposed to be tinier in cold water?” A beat passes where you’re lost for words. It’s still too generic, it’s a classic Lia bluff. “I half regret not taking care of that in the diner bathroom.”

You choke so hard on your own spit you almost dip under again. “You’re fucking with me.”

Her voice is lower now. “You wish I was. Also, you’re clean shaven. Didn’t expect that. Thought you were all hot and heavy for the vintage look.”

You open your eyes, protests be damned, and there she is, half-sprawled on the steps at the pool’s shallow end, arms propped behind her, legs out like she’s posing for a calendar. The moon catches on the water beading her skin, and for a second you’re sure you’re hallucinating her: you’ve never seen Lia look so open, so unguarded, so absolutely fucking beautiful.

She tilts her head. “I didn’t give you permission to look, pervert.” She stretches, toes pointed, and looks at you like you look at her. “But since you have, what do you think?”

You don’t have the words. You never have the words. You just swim closer, one hand out for balance, until you’re in front of her on the steps, knees bumping. “I think,” you say, “it’s taking everything I have to keep me from jumping on you.”

She rolls her eyes, but she’s shivering, and you can’t tell if it’s the night chill or something else. “You’re such a dork.”

You risk it all. “Yeah, but I’m a hung dork.”

That gets her. She bites her lip, eyes gone dark and wild. “You’re such a slut.”

You haul yourself up onto the steps, water sluicing down your back, and she laughs as you nearly slip. “Careful there,” she says, softer now. “It’d be a shame if you broke your neck before I broke your little head problem.”

You pause, kneeling between her legs, and she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look away. You reach for her, she bites her lip, and it’s all culminating in skin touching and bodies trembling.

You look up. “You trust me?”

She laughs, but it’s honest and her gaze can’t keep up with yours. “Don’t fail me.”

Your hands slide up from her lower legs to her calves, cradling her hips, and the water makes it even easier to lift her. You stand, walking with the steps in the shallow end, carrying her above the water and she squeals right before you put her down on the edge of the pool. Perched on the concrete lip with her feet still in the water, and your head taking its place in between her thighs.

She’s clean shaven. She looks so fucking delicious and easy to devour you almost want to thank her boyfriend—or ex-boyfriend—for letting you be the first to get to taste this.

You rest your cheek against her thigh, and she goes very still.

You’re not expecting it to be so easy, how her legs melt open in invitation, how the scent and heat of her rolls over you like a sunrise. She’s blushing, hard, hands fidgeting on the concrete behind her, like she can’t believe you’re about to make her lose her mind.

You kiss the inside of her knee first, and her reaction is electric. She whimpers, softly, and it’s a promise of the sound she’ll make when you give her what she wants. You move up to her thigh, tasting chlorine and humid skin beneath it. Her eyes are wild, nervous with joy, unsure if she should stare at your eyes or your mouth.

She shudders with every touch, but her legs don’t close. Every inch you take, she parts them wider, pleading for you to continue, greedier to get her world rocked.

You glance up. “Stop me if you want.”

She shakes her head, breathless. “If you stop, I might cry.”

You slide higher up on her thighs, nudging her gently with your nose and lips, and her hands find their place in your hair where you wanted them all along. You let your tongue follow her horizon, and for a second, she goes so quiet you think you might have short circuited her. Maybe it’s internal water damage. But then she makes a soft, desperate sound, the kind of noise you can get addicted to.

So you do it again, and she does too. Then again, slower, letting your tongue linger at the place where her thighs meet her center, teasing the crevice where her legs meet her crotch with the tip of your tongue before finally letting yourself taste her for real.

She bucks up so hard you almost lose your grip. “Oh my fucking god,” Lia says, using her words for the first time since you started. “This is—shit, okay, fuck, okay, don’t—” she babbles, gasping, then giggling and going back to gasping again, like she can’t decide if this is so hot she should melt or so insane she can only laugh.

You break contact, looking up to her just to ask, “You good?” but she’s not having it, pushing your face back down like she’s needy for it, muttering, “Shut up, don’t please, you’re perfect, I’m just—”

You lap at her, soft at first, then harder, then you flatten your tongue and drag it in slow, deliberate circles around her clit, just to see what color she turns when she’s about to lose it. Her nails scratch at your hair, then her thighs, then the concrete. She’s so fucking unbelievable, shaded in the moonlight and the light coming from the pool. Her head is thrown back, her mouth wide open, Her tits peaking forwards, eyes squeezed shut towards the stars and her whole being is pink and wet and trembling.

You hum, sending a pulse up through her, and she shudders hard. “Are you—holy fuck, are you humming?” she asks, voice going all high and incredulous.

You pull back just enough to say, “Wouldn’t want to deprive you of the full experience,” then dive back in, tongue working faster, pushing her closer and closer to the brink.

She’s full on babbling now, none of her usual slick responses, her guard fully down. “fucking fuck fuck, that’s—yes, this feels so fucking, fuck, fuck, don’t stop, don’t you dare—” She’s stringing words, not making sentences, mewling and desperate.

You only hold on to the edge of the pool with one hand now, pushing two fingers inside her, and she makes a sound so high pitched you worry there’s more she’s yet to experience. Worry she might break.

“Do I feel that good?” you ask, the sound muffled against her skin.

She just nods, gasping, “The fucking best,” and you take it as motivation to draw this whole thing out.

You edge her, just a little, slowing down until she’s whining, then ramp up again, alternating fast and slow until she’s cursing at you, tears leaking out from the corners of her eyes. “You’re such an asshole,” she sobs, “just let me—”

You glance up, a wicked smirk on your lips. “You want to cum?”

“Please,” she whispers, voice gone small and desperate for air. “I’m not trying to become you, I need to—please—”

You look up. “What’s the magic word?”

She opens her eyes, glaring down at you through a curtain of messy hair. “I will actually murder you,” she says, but she’s grinning, and that’s all the permission you need.

You let her have it, then. Fingers, tongue, everything, all at once, relentless and hungry and absolutely shameless in how much you want to taste her finish. She’s not quiet, not even a little. The sound she makes when she finally comes is a full-body event, a yell that echoes off the water and the fence and probably into the neighbor’s bedroom. A small prayer goes out to not having them interrupt you.

She falls backwards, upper body limp as her legs shake so hard you keep them steady just to keep her from sliding into the pool. She lies there for what feels like longer than an orgasm could last, shivering and laughing and gasping, and you think about telling her she needs to be quiet. You could never.

When the air returns to her lungs in full, she pushes herself up by the elbows. Fully upright, and she cups your cheeks in her hands, pulling you up, but it’s more so you pushing yourself up. She kisses you, and you’re mixing her tastes in your mouth.

You keep yourself pushed like that until her pulse slows. Then she buries her face in your neck and whispers, “You have to do that again. Like, right now.”

You’re about to oblige when the neighbors backyard security light clicks on with a loud mechanical whine, flooding the deck with off-beat white-hot illumination. For a split second, you freeze, Lia’s body still limp on the concrete, both of you utterly exposed for every constellation above to take in.

She starts to laugh again, then clamps both hands over her mouth, eyes huge. “Oh my god, oh my god, we’re going to die—”

You grab the nearest towel, wrap it around her, and half-carry, half-drag her behind the pool shed. She’s not helping at all, still giggling uncontrollably, but you manage to get her sheltered, both of you pressed close, hearts pounding in sync.

For a minute, you don’t say anything. Just breathe together, trying to calm down. Then she whispers, “Best night of my life. Even if we get arrested.”

You kiss her on the forehead, no words, just hoping she gets the message to keep quiet. She doesn’t. “But like, let’s try not to?” she says, and you look at her like you’re trying, but she’s making it hard. “You know, cus I technically owe you a blowjob now.”

You’re stunned. It feels only minutes since you didn’t consider Lia a sexual being and now you’re whole beings on fire because of her. “You’re absolutely insane and insatiable,” you say, and her shoulders just rise and fall.

“What can I say? You liberated me. It’s your fault, with that damn mouth of yours.”

You peer out from behind the shed. The light is still on, but nobody’s come outside, so you motion for her to follow you back to the pool deck. You towel off, putting your boxers on backwards in your haste, and she does the same, wrapping her hair up in a makeshift bun.

You wait for the light to disappear, and when it does, she glances at the fence, then at you. “Should we go somewhere we won’t get a permanent record for if we get caught?”

You consider the options, then grin, because you already know where to go.

“Love hotel?” you suggest, the words a joke but also not.

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Only if you pay for the good room.”

You salute. “What, you think I don’t want the best room available for when I celebrate my first time finishing with a blowjob?”

You escape, and walk through the sleeping streets. Your hands are entangled, no longer shy about what they want. Your clothes are messy. Who cares, they’ll be on the floor again in no time.

When you finally reach the love hotel, buried under all its glorious neon signs, you can’t help but get a little nervous. It’s easier to do things for Lia, but sitting back and having her take care of you feels dangerous.

She doesn’t seem to think so. She jumps on the bed and flops back, arms and legs spread like she’s trying to take up as much space on the bed as possible and failing at it.

You find enough space to crawl up next to her, and she turns her head to look at you, full of giddy joy. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Always.”

“I think I’ve wanted this for a while now,” she grins, shy and proud swirling into one. “I just didn’t know if I could get here.”

You nudge her with your shoulder, smiling back. “Really? You’ve wanted to fuck your best friend in a love hotel for a really long time?”

She socks your upper arm, hard enough to sting, and you yelp. “Asshole. You know what I meant.”

“Yeah,” you say, rubbing the spot, “but I like hearing you say it anyway.”

She makes a face, then rolls onto her side, hair fanning over the hotel’s surprisingly clean sheets. “Fine,” she says, voice gone soft and hoarse. “I want you.” She looks at your mouth, then your eyes, then back to your mouth. “And not just tonight. I want… all of it. The weird, the stupid, the you.” Her cheeks pink up, but she doesn’t blink. “I want to be yours. And I want to do all the stuff with you that I was too scared to even ask for before.”

You just pull her in and kiss her, soft at first, then harder, until she’s clutching at you like she’ll float away if she doesn’t anchor herself in your skin. When you break apart, she’s smiling, all half-moons with her eyes, the way she used to when you’d stay up too late and make each other laugh until you were delirious.

You nudge her, voice low: “So, what now?”

She grins, a new wickedness there. “Now?” She rolls onto her side, mouth at your ear. “Now, I want you to lie back and let me suck your dick until you cum like you’ve supposedly never done before, and then, when you’re still all shaky and ruined, I want you to use that tongue of yours to fuck my clit up until I’m a groveling mess. Once your cock is ready for another round, and only after you’ve begged for it, I’ll let you fuck me. Dealer’s choice of how.”

You blink.

You can’t help it. The way Lia is talking—direct, filthy, like she’s trying to say every single thing that would make your pulse snap—is so far removed from the Lia you know it’s almost like you’re talking to a different person. Or maybe, just maybe, this is the real Lia, the one who’s been stifled for years by her self-obsession with being the “good one.” The “steady, reliable one.” Blinking turns into staring, and she picks up on it instantly. She turns inwards.

“Too much?” she asks, voice suddenly small, a hiccup of uncertainty behind the wildness in her eyes. Maybe the real Lia is somewhere in between all that, and there’s no point in trying to categorize it. Maybe, you just need to experience it.

You shake your head so fast you nearly give yourself whiplash. “No, I just… wow. I’m impressed. Didn’t know you had it in you to talk like that.”

Her palm splays on your chest, like you just gave her permission to sink in, and in a way, you did. “You also still believe I don’t have it in me to make you cum with my mouth.” She glances up, searching your face for a response, a snarky remark, a stupid joke, but you miss the timing entirely. Too busy recalibrating your entire image of her.

You flop back onto the pillows, getting comfortable, stretching out in full anticipation. “Right. Do I need to beg for that too, or…?‘

She bites her lip with a smirk, shifting so she’s straddling your knees, and begins fully undressing herself. Even without the moonlight, she’s ethereal. “Don’t cum already,” she taunts, but if anyone could make you just from sight, it’s her. Then, she reaches for the edge where skin meets waistband of your underwear with both her hands.

She’s not slow about it at all. She yanks them down in one rough motion, laughing as it flies across the room. You help, taking off your shirt as well, both of you equally nude now. But only one of you is under attack. “God, it’s even bigger up close,” she crows, eyeing your dick up and down, and she’s such a loser about it that you want to bottle it forever.

She gets on her stomach, chin propped on your thigh, and looks up at you, resting her cheek on your hip. “You’re sure you want me to?”

You grab a pillow and stuff it behind your head, a throne for the king you’ve become. “If you don’t, I might actually die.”

“Noted,” she says, and then she wraps her hand around the base of your cock, squeezing lightly, and gives you a look that could set the room on fire. “Ready?”

You nod, speechless.

She starts at the bottom, tongue touching your balls, licking a stripe up the underside, eyes peering past your cock to yours, slow and deliberately showy, flicking her tongue as you realise how badly you underestimated her. She takes your head in her mouth. She won’t let you look away. Her hands are on your thighs, nails biting skin. She starts slow, then slides a little farther, lips tight and glossy around you.

She’s not kidding about the lack of gag reflex; she takes inch after inch until her nose is pressed against your stomach, then pulls back, hollowing her cheeks with a practiced, obscene pop. She repeats it, faster, then slower, then faster again, alternating pace like she’s reading a manual on your pleasure, waiting for you to flinch, to break, to do anything but bite your own knuckle and pray you don’t embarrass yourself.

It’s good—almost too good, actually. She’s not shy about it; there’s no over-the-top porn performance, just pure, unfiltered focus on the task at hand. You glance down, and you can see the pride in her eyes, the spark that says she’s not doing this for you, not really—she’s doing it for herself, to prove something about who she is on the other side of all that old inertia.

But after a minute, you notice she keeps pausing, glancing up, waiting for you to… what? Give her directions? Yell encouragement? It’s not what you expected at all.

She pulls off, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Am I doing it wrong? You can… you can grab my head, if you want,” she says, a little breathless. “You’re allowed. I can handle it.”

You blink again, like she just suggested you recite the national anthem. “Why would I do that?”

She hesitates, uncertain. “Isn’t that what guys like? My ex always did that—like, he’d hold me down, or guide me. I figured you might want—”

You shake your head, reaching down to stroke her hair, gently, more to comfort than control. “Lia, you were going to make cum, weren’t you? I have no intention of using you to get myself to cum.”

She blinks, digesting this for a second, then lets out a tiny, nervous laugh. “Okay. That’s… weirdly nice. Not used to it.”

You smile, then, letting her see how much you mean it. “You’re in control. Seriously.”

She looks down, cheeks flushed, and then squares her shoulders. “Alright. But if you don’t cum, I’ll never forgive you.”

You have to laugh at that one, and try to make sure she does too.. “Balls are in your hands, sweetie.”

She does, and then goes straight back at it. There’s a silent confidence to it. Experimental rhythms, new techniques—twisting her tongue around, letting only her tongue linger until you’re about to lose your mind. She even tries humming, just to see what happens, and when you gasp, she grins around your cock, the vibration sending a pulse up your spine.

She doubles down, working your cock like she’s got something to prove to her universe (right now that would be you alone), and by the time she starts talking, you’re already lightheaded. 

“You’re so fucking hard,” she whispers, pulling off just enough to stroke you with her hand, tongue circling the tip like she’s painting it with precision. “God, I love how you taste. I want you to cum for me. Right in my mouth.” She breaks up the words with slow, deep sucks, gripping your thighs to pin you down when you start to squirm. “Bet you didn’t think you were going to blow your load in my throat tonight, did you?”

She moans, soft at first, then louder, so performative but fucking hot, not even a slightest hint of a gag. You moan too, can’t keep it in when she’s wrangling it out of you. Lia catches the sound, doubles down, then pops off with a wet, obscene slurp, catching her breath before diving back in.

You’re going to die. You’re going to die in a love hotel, and when they find your corpse, it will be smiling.

She alternates between deep, slow bobs that have you seeing stars and quick, greedy flicks of her tongue that make your whole body arch up off the bed. She’s methodical about it, as if there is some secret, sacred geometry to the way she works her hand and mouth in tandem. You watch her, rapt, as she salivates over you, hair falling out of its ponytail and sticking to her cheeks, her eyes darting up to check your expression every few seconds. It’s obvious she’s cataloging your every reaction and making little mental notes. Every time you twitch or gasp or say her name, she smirks just a little and doubles down.

You want to hold out, to prove you have some measure of control, but she’s relentless. You bite your forearm to keep from moaning loud enough for the whole building to hear, but she just laughs around your cock, wicked. You can feel the vibration all the way down your legs.

“Fuck,” you gasp, “I—if you keep doing that—”

She pulls off, making a mess of your lap, then kisses the tip lightly, eyes huge and wet and so fucking hungry. “What? You’re gonna cum?” she whispers. “That’s the whole point.”

Her throat makes you feel like you’re drowning in sweet honey.

She already knows you won. You’re not as unbreakable as you proclaimed. She’s just taking victory laps now. Losing track of the amount of times she brings you to the brink of painting her white and then backing off, her tongue ghosting and taunting you as she lets you calm down before she starts again.

Every tease lowers the time she has to pull back. She finally holds you there, right on the brink, and then—as the throbbing begins to signal the end—she pulls off, eyes never having left yours. Her lips are slick with spit, parted, and her tongue flicks delicately over the tip, collecting the drop of precum that’s already there.

“Do it,” she whispers, and then she takes you all the way in, nose pressed to your skin, hands gripping your thighs so you can’t move. You’re helpless to stop it; you groan, involuntary, loud enough to scare the birds off the roof.

You cum—hard, so hard it’s embarrassing, and the first spurt catches her off-guard, but she laughs and swallows, eyes crinkling into half-moons again, this time with victory. She powers through the second, the third, but by the fourth one she’s not ready, and it spills out over the corner of her mouth, streaming down your cock, pooling on your stomach. She keeps you in her mouth until you soften, then finally pulls off, licking her lips with a devilish little smile.

She pulls off, coughing a little, then wipes her chin with her palm, grinning like a champion. “Holy shit,” she says, “I did not know you could cum that much. Is that, like, normal for you?” Another string of cum ropes onto her wrist as she laughs, and with obscene showmanship, she licks it off, slow and deliberate. “You realize if you actually shot that up me, I’d probably be pregnant with triplets?”

You stare at her, still slightly dazed. “No, that was—fucking insane. You’re a goddess.” You’re still trying to recover, but she’s trying to prevent you from it. She’s busy leaning down, and her tongue tips out, licking your abs clean, not missing a single drop. And if that wasn’t enough, she takes your softened cock back into her mouth, sucking soft pressure on it, like she’s determined to get every hidden drop. When you beg, and you do, she sits up, opens her mouth wide, and vocalizes to show you how empty it is.

You stare, awed. “That was the best blowjob of my life. By, like, a factor of ten. I might have to marry you now.”

Surprisingly, that’s the point she finally breaks eye contact, pink-cheeked, and it's clear how little she expected that, even if she plays it off.

You reach for her, but she stops you with a palm to the chest as she ducks, suddenly bashful. “Wait—hold on.”

You frown. “Why? What’s wrong?”

She covers her mouth and looks at you like you’re an idiot for not getting it. “I’ll probably taste like, you know… you.”

Now it’s your turn to look back at her like she’s an idiot for not getting any of it. “And?”

She looks at you, then away, then back again, sheepish but not ashamed. “I mean, guys think that that’s gross, right?”

You blink. “Gross?”

She stares at her hands, twists the comforter between her fingers. “You know. Kissing after—” Her voice drops. “After giving a blowjob. My ex always said it was a turn-off. He wouldn’t let me kiss him, after.”

You sit up, propped on your elbows, and the look you give her is so incredulous it’s almost cartoonish. “That is, with all due respect which is none, the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. I want to kiss you more than I want to breathe right now, I don’t give a shit if you taste a little like me.”

Her face turns bright red at the admission, and laughs, but a little shaky. Cute, but shaky. “That’s new. My ex used to make me go brush my teeth. Or at least rinse. Otherwise he’d, like, dodge me. Like kissing me after was…” She trails off, eyes shining. “You actually mean it?”

You grin, and pull her in, and she lets you. The kiss is messy, a little salty, a lot desperate, and as you taste yourself on her tongue you can’t help but think she tastes good no matter what. She opens to you, greedy, and you let her climb into your lap, hands in her hair, your own still trembling from the aftershock of her mouth.

She’s not even subtle about what she wants to happen next. In her defense, she did spell it out for you. She’s grinding down on your thigh like she’s asking you to feel how wet she is. Her lips are on yours, desperate, insistent, tongue chasing every last taste of you. She’s moaning into your mouth, open and honest in a way that makes you want to ruin her, or maybe just worship her, or figure out a way to do both. You realize she’s been holding back for hours, maybe years, and now it’s all coming out in the fevered way her hands are clawing at your back.

You break the kiss, just to breathe, and she chases your mouth, gasping, “Please don’t make me beg. Please?” and then devolves into a fit of giggles because even at the edge of a nervous breakdown, Lia is still Lia. Still the girl who’d dare you to eat glue, then do it herself just to one-up you. Only now, she’s out of glue and onto something infinitely more addictive: you.

You slide your hands down her back, over the curve of her ass, and she arches against you, body curving like she’s trying to become a permanent part of you. She’s still laughing, but it’s all breath and need, the sound a little unhinged. “What’s so funny?” you ask, voice low, half teasing.

She pants, “I just can’t believe we’re—” but then you’re kissing her again, and she forgets her sentence halfway through, hips jerking forward in search of more.

She’s so wet, you can feel it through your thigh, hot and slick and spreading, and every time you flex your quad it makes her gasp. “Oh my god,” she says, “I’m such a slut,” but she’s smiling when she says it, proud and wild and alive.

“Jesus,” you murmur, mouth at her ear. “How long have you been this wet?”

She rolls her hips into you, grinding shamelessly. “Since the diner,” she admits, breathless. “You kept talking about making me cum and I—fuck, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

You don’t want to tease this out any more than she does. You flip her, rolling her onto her back so fast the sheets threaten to tangle her up, and she shrieks in delight, hair fanning out behind her on the pillow like a halo. There’s a second where she just looks at you, all reverence and disbelief, and then she grabs your shoulders and pulls you down to her chest, wrapping her legs around your hips, locking you in.

She’s so open, so ready, it makes your head spin. You kiss down her neck, tasting the salt and heat, then down between her breasts, which she arches up for you like an offering. You take your time here, letting your tongue circle one nipple, then the other, and she’s whimpering, writhing, her hands never still as they alternate between your hair and your shoulders and her own mouth, like she can’t decide what she wants more: to pull you closer, or to muffle her own noises.

You work your way lower, kissing down her stomach, nuzzling your nose in the soft flesh just above her hipbone. She’s trembling now, and when you slide down between her legs, she whimpers, puppy-like, knees falling apart on either side of your head. This time, you don’t tease. You dive straight into the main course, finding her previously established weak spot, and making sure she gets all the rounds she needs.

It’s almost impossible how sensitive she still is, every lick causing her thighs to shudder against the sides of your head. But you want her ruined—so fuckign addicted to getting head that nothing else matters to her anymore—so you don’t let up, alternating between the blunt, relentless pressure of your mouth and soft, delicate circles with the very tip of your tongue. This time, too, you add a finger into the mix. She’s boneless the second you curve it.

You’re stealing her tricks like she stole yours. Eyes trying to find hers, but hers are rolled back, her mouth hanging slack. You want them on you, so you click your tongue and insert another finger, curl it inside her. Her eyes shoot open and lock onto yours like you just stole the last piece of pizza and she just can’t believe you got away with it.

She tries saying your name a couple of times, but all that amounts to are wet, choked gasps. She doesn’t let that stop her though. She’s losing control like you’ve never seen before, and she’s dragging you into that rhythm.

She tightens, and it happens faster than at the pool. She cums, hard, her whole body locking again, shaking so hard you’ve got to pin her down, and her back arches off the bed. But only for a moment. You never stopped, not as she squirms from overstimulation, not when she begs you not to.

As her back finishes it’s bow and she goes flaccid, you give her a minute, just to catch her breath. Just to start again. Don’t even let her ask you to, there’s no room for jinxes or invading neighbors now.

At first, she giggles, thinking you’re just returning the favor she performed on your limp cock. But when your tongue circles her still-throbbing clit,her whole body buckles for you. Hyper-sensitive and desperate, but you know what her hands in your hair are telling you.

You keep going. You don’t know how to stop. The taste of her is a current that runs straight to your skull and shorts out the last vestiges of your self-control, the raw, aching want to see her undone all you can think about.

And she continues to impress, sweat glimmering at her hairline, two perfect tears tracking down her cheek. She tries to say something coherent, but it never arrives. Might have been your name. You think a curse could also be an option. Doesn’t matter. Her tongue flattens against her teeth and the sound transforms as the next wave hits her.

You revel in her clenching and spasming, hips smashing into you and arching away, her own body unsure of where to go or what it needs in the most beautiful dance you’ve ever seen.

You don’t let up. Three is not enough. You ease your fingers out of her, making a direct connection between the nerves feeling her every twitch and your brain stem as her body seems to rewire itself with yours. She’s so sensitive now, every touch igniting some kind of fuse.

And you’re greedy to see her burn.

You kiss her clit, just once, and she yelps, a raw, startled noise. “Wait—” she gasps, but you don’t. Can’t. Not yet, anyway. “I’m gonna, I—” she gasps, but then you suck her clit between your lips and play with it with your tongue and she’s too deep, spiraling into another orgasm she didn’t know she could handle.

 This time, she sobs your name. And it doesn’t sound like desperation, not exactly. More like surrender. Like relief.

And that’s your cue. You ease up, mouth and chin slick with her juices, and take it in. There’s not a hard muscle at work there, arms and legs trembling on instinct, spread out wide, chest rising and falling again in frantic, uneven tempo. Her eyes are glassy, staring upwards with hooded lids that could close every second. She’s gone, ascended somewhere, and for a second you think you’ve overplayed it. But she returns with a laugh—just a single one, mind you, scraping breath in deep after it, filled with disbelief, delight and the undertones of a new addiction.

“I eh, I can’t—” she breathes out, voice strained from all the muffling, and she grabs a pillow, hugging it close to her chest, just to have something to bury her face in. “Holy shit,” she curses in full now. “My legs won’t stop fucking shakin, you prick.”

You move up, slide in next to Lia, careful not to cause any more explosions. Her face still glows with the aftershock as she’s clutching the pillow like it’s some kind of stuffed animal you won for her at a carnival. You make a mental note to add that to a bucket list.

You reach over to the nightstand, pour a glass of water from the pitcher provided, and push the glass gently against Lia’s lips. “Drink,” you say, and she does with a big smile, tipping her head back and gulping like her life depended on it. She splutters the last mouthful, wipes her mouth on the pillow, and collapses again.

You stroke her head, slow, patient. “You’re a fucking rockstar, you know that? Not just for being so free tonight, but… man, the way you cum? You’re a miracle.”

She groans into the pillow, mortified. “Shut up. You’re being such a loser right now.”

“Ouch,” you say, cheeky, “And here I was thinking we had something special.”

You lie there, sticky and messy and sweaty, just appreciating the way you fit into each other. A minute drifts by, two. Then she cracks open an eye and grins. "Kind of unfair of you, by the way."

You blink. "What is?"

She reaches over, wraps her hand around your cock who is valiantly refusing to give up the dream, and gives it a languid, teasing pump. "That you’re literally hard as a rock again. I mean, you just ruined me. My legs still don’t work. And you’re just… ready to go."

You can’t deny it’s what you want, but she looks like she might evaporate if you try anything on her. “Oh, you don’t have to—”

She stops that thought before it’s fully formed, squeezing your hilt enough to silence you. “You’re fucking kidding me, right? I’m not doing anything because I have to, it’s because I want to. And that’s thanks to you. You don’t really think I’m going to let you walk out of this place without actually fucking me?”

You open your mouth, but she slides her thumb over your slit, slow, and your brain disconnects from your body for a second. "Lia, you need to recover—"

She cuts you off with a glare. “If you don’t fuck me right now, one of us will die. But—” She holds up a finger, doing her best to get her breathing under control. “Condom. I know you’re a cum fountain, and I am not going to be that cliché.”

She leans over to the nightstand, rummages through the basket of “romantic amenities” and yanks out a foil packet. She tosses it at your chest. “Pick your position,” she says, rolling onto her back and spreading her arms in a gesture of reckless generosity. “Dealer’s choice, remember? But if you do missionary, I swear to god—”

You catch the foil packet with a smirk, weighing it in your palm. The options tumble through your head, a dirty montage: you could go classic, split her open missionary just to see the look on her face and violate her threat; you could get her on her stomach, ass up, push her down and rut her until she’s drooling into the motel comforter; you could even force her into lotus, making her do some of the work and test out her jellied legs some more. All tempting, all hot, but you hesitate. Something about the way she’s looking at you—equal parts challenge and naked trust—makes you want to ask.

“What do you want? I can’t decide,” you say, tearing the foil but waiting.

Lia props herself up on her elbows, squinting like the question is a trick. “What do you mean?”

You shrug. “I mean, if you could pick anything. Any position. What’s your fantasy, Lia?”

She opens her mouth, then shuts it instantly with a glare, very aware that you’re the type to use this against her. She’s not wrong. She considers her options, bites the inside of her cheek, and acts against her better judgement. “Well,” she starts, “You fucked my legs out of commission, so I can’t be riding you.” She pauses briefly. “But, honestly? That thing you did earlier. Piggyback ride. I don’t know why, but it was… really fucking hot. How easy it was for you to hold me. I’m still thinking about it. Like, you, holding me up while you do what you want to me.”

You blink, surprised, but so fucking down. “You’re telling me you want to get fucked without your feet touching the ground?”

She shrugs. If you’re going to use it against her, she might as well mix some defiance into her guilt. “Maybe.”

You slip away from her, standing upright, towering over her with that cock she thinks is so unfair. She doesn’t back down. Her breathing is fast, and she’s waiting to see if you’ll indulge or if you’ll run from the challenge.

Obviously, the only right answer is to hook your hands under her knees, dragging her to the edge of the bed. You move fast, but there’s no roughness. You scoop her up, hands cradling her ass and thighs, hoisting her into your lap like she belongs there. Her arms find your shoulders in an instant, hooking around your neck, legs bracketing around your waist. For a second, you gloat, just holding her, proud of how easy she makes it. Chest to chest, you stare into her eyes, and she blinks, caught off guard by how tender you’re approaching this.

You push her up against the wall, one hand under her ass, the other working together with her hand to tear the condom wrapper. She helps putting it on, fingers trembling as she rolls it down your length.

Her legs clamp tight around your hips, grinding down until she’s got herself just so with the head of your cock pressed in between you. You pull back, line up, then sink in very slowly. You want to savor the way she stretches and molds around you. She’s so fucking tight.

“Holy fuck,” she groans out, eyes pleading, “You’re fucking huge, I don’t know if I— I can’t—”

You keep pushing, not rough but insistent, sliding in and she nearly claws a chunk out of your shoulder for it. “You can,” you whisper back, “you feel so fucking good, Lia, and you’re taking all of me.”

Her hips shift to let you in easier, back arching against the wall, and you take the hint, finally entering fully. She’s panting in your ear for it, but she settles into you.

She twitches every time you throb, the slow and grinding rhythm overtaking her. You’re not rough with her. Maybe next time. Tonight, you want to take her in a way that makes her fall in love with you forever.

“Okay—Okay, it feels good,” she pants, and you believe her, because she’s looking at you like you have light in your eyes. You can’t stop looking at her. “I’m fucking yours,” she somehow manages to push out between her moans. “Don’t fucking stop, it feels so fucking good.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—” is all she can mumble now, and it’s more fucks than you’ve heard from her before this night combined. You grip her ass, holding her steady, and fuck up into her until she shakes, her head dropping onto your shoulder as she cums again, harder than before.

This time, she doesn’t stop. She keeps moving, rocking against you even as you piston in and out, her body greedy for more. She’s a mess—hair wild, mascara running, sweat beading on every inch of her—but she’s never looked better. You kiss her, deep and dirty, and she moans into your mouth.

Even as your hips jackhammer into her, she’s clawing at your back, nails biting in time with your thrusts, leaving raised red gouges like she wants to sign her name in your skin. She’s a machine of noise—every time you bottom out, she yelps, a cracked mewl that might be pain or pleasure or both. You can’t tell the difference anymore.

“Fuck,” she gasps, “fuck, fuck, fuck, you—” Her head thuds against the wall, her hands locked like a vice behind your neck. “I can’t believe you fit,” she cries, “I can’t believe—holy shit, you’re going to break me.”

 Her head lolls, hair fanning over her eyes, but she doesn’t let go. Every time you drive in, she squeezes with her legs, trying to take you even deeper, her cunt milking you so greedily you almost lose it right there. You hold on, wanting to keep this going as long as possible.

“Fuck, Lia—” you grunt, and the way she’s still looking at you, with her lips saying more than her words ever could, make you want to fuck her until she’s sobbing your name and can’t remember hers.

She bites your shoulder, hard, and then whimpers, “I want this every day. I want you to fuck me so stupid I can’t even think. Please, please, stay with me—” She’s babbling, words slurring into each other, punctuated by the wet slap of your bodies colliding. There’s nothing left of the old, careful Lia; she’s a mess, running on pure animal need, and you love her for it.

You slow down, just to tease, and she claws at your back. “Don’t—don’t stop, I need you, please—” Her voice is high and shaking, every syllable a desperate plea. You push her harder into the wall, cock grinding up against her cervix, and she comes again, a high shriek that starts in her chest and ends in your mouth as you kiss her through it. She’s sobbing, laughing, cursing you out, and you’re right there with her, barely holding on.

“Inside—inside, please,” she gasps, “please, I want to feel it pulse, want to made I made you—fuck, fuck, fuck, cum in me—” She’s so far gone she doesn’t even care about her own orgasm anymore. Just begging for yours, spasming around you, aftershock after aftershock.

“God, you’re a mess,” you groan, but you love it, love every ruined, wanton inch of her.

“Yours,” she pants, “I’m your mess, I’m fucking yours, so fill me, please, please—”

Your control snaps. You pin her to the wall, driving in with a force that rattles the whole room, and she shrieks, both hands grabbing your face to keep from floating away. You feel it start low, a static charge building in your spine, then sparking outward, white-hot and blinding.

She kisses you this time, and you’re coming, hard, groaning into her mouth as you burst everything you have and fill the condom inside her.

You somehow stay standing, keeping Lia’s body squished between yours and the wall, a sweaty mess. She bites your bottom limp, then slumps back, limp and boneless. “Oh my god,” she sighs, “I can’t decide if I like the feeling of your cock or your tongue more.”

You stagger back to the bed, collapsing with her still wrapped around you. She clings to you. Even as you lie, she doesn’t let go. You just enjoy the breathing, the returning to life, the existing.

Eventually, she breaks the spell. “So,” she says, “are we dating now, or what?”

You look down at her, and she’s biting her lip, trying not to laugh.

You kiss her, soft and slow. “Yeah,” you say. “We’re dating.” You twist around, finally removing the condom and tossing it in the trash, and collapse back next to her, where she’s waiting for you.

She turns onto her side, snuggling in. “I still have to tell him we broke up,” she says. “He’s probably going to be so pissed.”

“Think he’ll try to win you back?” you ask, rubbing lazy circles into her shoulder.

She groans. “He always does. He’ll probably try to make me feel like I’m the one overreacting, saying he loves me so much, tell me to stop being dramatic and to not throw away what we had.” She pauses, rolls her eyes and continues. “He’s probably blowing up my phone already, like, ‘Where are are, let’s talk about this, it’s not a big deal.’”

You reach for her phone, unlocked and abandoned on the nightstand, and sure enough: seven notifications, all his name, as if he could will her back through volume alone. She silences her phone just as easily, and tosses it on the nightstand.

Almost as if spurred on by an extra need for vengeance, she smiles. “Hey,” she asks, “you got anything left in you?”

You blink, then glance down at your thoroughly spent cock, and laugh, embarrassed. “As much as I want to, I think I’m drained.”

She grins, baring her teeth, and leans down to kiss your chest, then your stomach, then lower, tongue trailing lazy circles. “You sure? Because I could probably get one more out of you if I tried.”

You squirm, half-ticklish, half-hopeful, but after a few minutes of her best efforts, all you manage is a halfhearted salute and a dizzy giggle. “Sorry,” you say, “system rebooting. Please come back when my balls aren’t thoroughly drained.”

You lie there, entwined, for as long as you can get away with. The hotel clock ticks over every excruciating minute, reminding you that you’re on the clock, that this freedom is paid for by the hour and will end as soon as your wallets or bodies run dry. You don’t care. You let the minutes drain from you, marking time by the lengthening pattern of Lia’s fingers tracing the line of your ribs.

Eventually, you both get up, shower off, and put yourselves back together. You’re still trembling a little, a pleasant aftershock, as you walk into the dead of night. The world looks different, like the universe has been rerouted through your joined hands.

She’s got her hair in a messy bun, your hoodie over her shirt, and she’s still not wearing a bra. You follow her down the block, back toward campus, the old world waiting where you left it. You’re halfway there, Lia chattering about nothing, when you hear a voice behind you—loud, sharp, the vocal equivalent of a car alarm.

“Lia! What the fuck?”

You turn. There he is: the ex who doesn’t know it yet, still looking the same as he did when he kissed that girl at that party, like he missed a couple of seasons of Lia.

Lia flinches at the raised volume, some vestiges of his control. You squeeze her hand, once, a silent reminder that you’re here as well. She stands, just a little behind your shoulder, but her chin is up, her spine straight.

He’s got it all loaded: the hurt, the entitlement, the performative anger. “Wow, Lia,” he spits, loud and rattling the air. “This what you do now? Run off with some fucking loser? Real mature. Real classy.”

You brace for impact, for the flinch and the apology and the slow-motion collapse, but Lia just shrugs, all slow confidence. “You don’t get to be mad,” she says, voice steady as a rifle shot. “Not after you did what you did.”

He tries again, louder. “You’re making a fucking scene. You want this guy to see what a goddamn psycho you are?”

And you’re about to step in, to body-block or at least escalate with some well-timed sarcasm, but Lia beats you to it. Her voice is steel and glitter: “Eat shit, asshole.”

She turns to you, and just as he draws a breath to retort, Lia kisses you with a force that feels like it could break your teeth. It’s not gentle, not even a little; her hands are in your hair, her mouth insistent, hungry, and you can feel her ex’s ego shriveling up and dying at the sight.

He stands there, a monument to every mediocre boyfriend in history, jaw working, hands twitching. You almost feel bad for him, but then Lia pulls back, breathless, and you see the look in her eyes and you know the only person in this story worth rooting for is her.

Lia wraps herself around your arm, tucking in like it’s her natural place, and for once you see the boyfriend—ex, you realize now, it’s official—deflate. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then shakes his head, half-laughing and half about to lose it. “You’re a fucking joke, Lia,” he says, voice cracking, “I hope you’re happy together.”

She doesn’t even look at him. She just leans into you, hand spread wide over your stomach, and says, “I am, actually.” She glances back, a parting shot gleaming in her eye, and adds, “He knows how to make me cum. You could learn a thing or two.”

His face goes blotchy-red, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, and for a second you think he might take a swing at you. But then he just shakes his head, mutters the word “sluts,” and shoves his way past, storming off down the block.

You and Lia stand there, your laughter coming out in hiccups, barely able to breathe.

“Holy shit, did you see his face?” She clutches your shirt. “I thought he was going to try and hit you.”

You both laugh at how ridiculous it was, how she revels in her victory. She scrunches up her nose, looks at you with all the love she can give, and there’s no grief.

When you finally reach her dorm building, she hesitates at the door. She turns to you and asks, “So, I’ll see you tomorrow morning then? Promise?”

You nod. “I’ll be here.”

She grins, then pokes your chest, hard. “And not just because I’m the only one that knows how to suck your dick?”

You salute, dead serious. “It helps, but the fact that you’re my favorite person was established before I found your hidden talents.”

Her lips form a tight line, she staggers a bit as she ducks inside and waves over her shoulder, and then the door closes. It takes a minute for you to start walking away.

You eventually make it back to your place, and the clock reads past 4 a.m. as you let yourself into your room, flop face-first onto the bed, and become dead asleep in seconds.

You wake up to a dozen of texts from Lia, all time stamped between 8 a.m. and the current 9 a.m., each more unhinged than the last:

“my thighs are bruised and whose fault is that? yours. youre officially an abuser…”

“jk they’re good bruises”

“remember when i said i wanted u i was serious don’t be a dick about it”

“fuck i can’t stop thinking about your mouth”

“are you awake. please be awake. i want to see you right now. but i also want to sleep for 1000 years. what do i do”

“hey my legs are working again”

“nvm im on the floor SEND HELP”

“my roommates are gone till 5 btw just saying”

“so have you got any juice back in those balls of yours?”

“i havent washed my face yet and i desperately need you here to give me a reason to”

Then there’s a picture. Lia’s on her dorm floor, hair everywhere, face grinning up at the camera, eyes soft with sleep but lit with mischief. Her shirt is one of those oversized, thin things that’s only oversized if you’ve never actually tried to contain anything with it—her nipples show through, and the neckline is so wide it’s sliding off one shoulder, hinting at the curve of her collarbone and the warm, pliant skin below. You can’t tell if she’s wearing anything under it, but that’s probably the point.

“im trying so hard to look good for you so youll finally get the hint and come over to fuck me (multiple holes ready for use btw)“

“just imagine how much better id look if you were here with your cock in my mouth… like??“

You text back: “just woke up. im there in 10. youll look even hotter after i rip those clothes off of you.”

The little typing bubble appears, and three seconds later: “run. i needed you inside me like an hour ago already.”

[defmaybe]

The Flavors of Rivalry, ft. STAYC Isa

tags: creampie, (a hint of) breeding

length: 15k

author's note: That's the poll completed: three fics featuring three idols.

---

"Through here, sir."

Minjun nods, heading through the suggested door with urgency. His head is held high, his steps are quick, his gaze sharp. Moving through the sea of people and weaving through the bodies swiftly, his eyes sweep over faces, assessing—perhaps judging. His sharp gaze eventually lands on a woman in a tidy blazer, surrounded by others in matching attire. Minjun’s eyebrow rises, his lips curving into a demeaning smirk. "Azure." The name alone tastes like cheap, fleeting trends on his tongue, a company synonymous with a lack of tradition, of principles. The pin glinting on her blazer confirms it, and a knowing amusement flickers in his eyes. “Daddy's girl is here, huh?”

Minjun legs lock, his heels clacking loudly as he stops, and his escorting group stops behind him. Sensing the shifting tensions, the people from Azure cut their chatter, turning around slowly, as if physically bracing to face the big daddy of the industry. “Hi there,” he greets them dryly, his voice nearly completely devoid of respect. “Welcome to The Flavors Expo, ladies and gents.” They exchange glances, unsure of what to say to the man wearing a golden leaf pin. Eventually, a woman—the daddy’s girl, the heiress—emerges, facing Minjun with an unwavering resolve. “The Azure Taste Limited is humbled to be here,” she says, a calm, confident smile decorating her face, not a single tremor in her voice.

A ripple of hushed whispers spreads through the nearby booths. Seasoned industry veterans exchange knowing glances. This isn't just a polite introduction; it's the opening salvo in what promises to be a very public and very personal war. No one dares to intervene, mesmerized by the clash of two young, formidable wills. The air in the expo hall, already thick with the scent of competing flavors, suddenly crackles with raw, undiluted tension.

The woman extends an open hand, holding onto her coffee with the other. “My name is Lee Chaeyoung. May I ask what yours is?” Minjun’s expressions soften, not wanting to look too hostile right off the bat. “Park Minjun. Golden Leaf International,” he introduces himself, shaking her hand firmly, perhaps a fraction longer than strictly necessary. “Mister Park Minjun,” she echoes, the name instantly solidifying in her mind as both a benchmark and a formidable obstacle. “Would you like to have a sample, Mister Park?” He smiles, stifling a chuckle from leaving his lips, almost disgusted at the idea of having a taste of Azure’s flavor—but he must play nice, at least for now. “That would be amazing. What do you have?” he asks, carefully building a façade of friendliness.

Chaeyoung leads him towards a table lined with pre-filled pods, each one filled to the brim with her company’s flavors. “These are the fruity ones,” she traces a line over a row of bright-colored pods, “and those are our creamy ones. Please, have a taste.” Being a fan of dessert-like flavors, Minjun reaches for one labeled simply as caramel. He then takes a long puff, closing his eyes as the rich, buttery sweetness washes over his tongue, perfectly balanced and utterly familiar. For a fleeting moment, a sense of pure, unadulterated pleasure fills him, a recognition of true mastery—and his stomach twists with unease. It’s more than a passing feeling, though; it’s a jolt of alarm. Azure’s caramel tastes not just similar, but nearly identical to Golden Leaf’s top-selling Salted Silk.

Minjun's eyes snap open, the pleasant haze from the flavor vanishing. Pulling the pod away, his fingers tighten around it. A flicker of raw surprise, quickly masked, crosses his face. Chaeyoung, watching closely, catches the fleeting shadow that crosses his features before his practiced mask slides into place. He clears his throat as the last bit of cloud leaves his lips, offering Chaeyoung a tight, almost forced smile. "Remarkable," he states, the single word carefully neutral, but his mind is already a whirlwind of questions. How did they get so close? Is this a coincidence, a direct challenge, or worse, a leaked secret?

“This caramel blend of yours has quite the depth to it,” he continues, holding up the pod for a moment, “say, Miss Lee, what was your inspiration for this?” Chaeyoung looks away for a moment, hiding her satisfied grin behind the curtain of her hair. “I've always had a particular fondness for well-crafted caramel notes,” she confesses, her voice tinged with excitement. “And our team drew from a wide array of top-tier references when developing this blend.”

Minjun keeps his eyes on her. “References, huh? Like Salted Silk?” he wonders to himself, the words burning like an accusation in his mind, accusing her of copying the result of his team’s hard work. Cutting short the interaction, he takes a deliberate step back, putting distance between himself and the booth, even as he offers her a pair of curt, almost dismissive nods. “I think your R&D team deserves a pat on the back, Miss Lee.” Chaeyoung's hand comes up as she chuckles, covering her mouth in a gesture that is both demure and subtly triumphant, fitting for an heiress of an evolving empire. Even if he perceives it as built on shaky grounds—a new brand standing on no tradition, trying to make a name for themselves—Azure can still pose a threat, and emperors like the Golden Leaf don’t like threats.

Minjun turns abruptly, signaling his escort with a sharp gesture. "We have a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce in five minutes," he states, his voice low and clipped, devoid of the earlier feigned pleasantries. Walking away, his gaze flicks back to Chaeyoung and the Azure booth one last time, the image of that perfectly replicated caramel flavor burning behind his eyes. This isn't just competition; it's an insult to the throne.

-

The initial jolt of alarm from The Flavors Expo morphs into a cold, hard resolve for Minjun. He dedicates the next few weeks to dissecting Azure's market entry, commissioning detailed reports on their supply chain, their patent filings, and even their recruitment strategies. The sheer audacity of their caramel clone still chafes. Golden Leaf's legal team is put on high alert, meticulously reviewing every flavor profile, every branding choice for potential infringement or reverse-engineering tactics. Minjun isn't interested in a public skirmish; he's mapping out a strategic blockade, finding every possible leverage point to corner Azure before they can truly establish a foothold.

“Mr. Park, sir,” a manager calls to him, his gaze darting around the room, his fingers fiddling with his pen as he speaks. “May I suggest hiring some private investigators to look into this?” Minjun exhales, leaning back in his sleek, leather-wrapped chair, the vapor cloud of Salted Silk hovering over his head, a cold reminder of Azure’s brazen challenge. "Keep talking, Mr. Shin," Minjun says, his voice a low rumble. “Sir, we have a reason to believe there might have been a breach,” Mr. Shin replies, his voice gaining a nervous confidence. “There is no way anyone could make something this similar to our stuff without someone leaking the development recipe.”

Minjun’s sharp gaze stays locked on the manager, taking another puff of Salted Silk as he considers the idea. “Does anyone else have another idea, because I don’t see any other way?” he asks the other managers who remain glued to their seats, their faces carefully blank, unwilling to risk suggesting a flawed alternative and igniting the wrath of the big boss. A heavy silence fills the room, broken only by the hum of the air conditioning. "No?" Minjun's voice drops, a dangerous edge to it. "Well, ain't that disappointing." He points his vape pod at Mr. Shin. “Can you assure me that your investigators can be discreet?” Mr. Shin nods slowly, understanding the weight behind his question. “Certainly, sir. They operate outside the usual corporate channels, thus minimizing direct risk to Golden Leaf's reputation.”

Minjun abruptly rises from his seat, slamming the pod onto the table. “This,” he points at it, “is a fucking insult to us.” His fiery gaze scans the faces of the managers before him, each person not daring to look back at him. “I expect everyone to do their part in finding the root of this. You're dismissed—and please excuse my language.”

One person after the other leaves, and as Mr. Shin prepares to join his fellow managers, Minjun grabs his wrist, his fingers wrapped firmly around the sleeve of his suit. “Get me Lee Chaeyoung’s number, Mr. Shin,” he demands. The man simply nods, knowing better than to ask twice, already thinking of ways to get what the boss wants. “By the way,” he continues, “make sure security always checks everyone when they enter and leave the building. Refusing to comply will result in immediate dismissal.”

Settling back in his seat, Minjun pulls out another pod from his pocket: Tiramisu Twist. He grips the pod hard, imagining what it would be like if someone were to clone this flavor. The one he created with his own hands, back when he was serving as the Head of R&D under his father. The one he spent countless hours perfecting until it was deemed good enough for the big boss. The one he keeps coming back to whenever he yearns for comfort.

“Clone this, and I’ll burn Azure myself, Lee Chaeyoung,” he murmurs, staring right into the empty seat across from him, imagining Chaeyoung sitting in it—just the image of her grin makes him hot. He takes a slow, deep puff of the Tiramisu Twist, basking in the gentle sweetness covering his tongue, the slight hint of bitterness the perfect closing note of the flavor. “No one gets to insult the Golden Leaf, and definitely not a company without tradition like yours.”

-

The scorching heat of summer has now been replaced by the calm, more soothing breeze of autumn. The heat in Minjun’s heart is still as fiery as before, though. If anything, it's burning even hotter; the confidential report, detailing how one of his R&D personnel stole Salted Silk's base formula and sent it to competitors, lies scrambled on his desk. It ignites the beast sleeping in his chest.

The report's findings replay in his head: "Former R&D Lead, Kim Dongho, terminated due to insubordination, accepted a position with Azure two weeks prior to their 'Caramel' launch." The name burns. Minjun doesn’t say a word, his gaze drifting out of the window of his office. This is him; mild irritation will make him run his mouth, but one that is deeper, heavier will stifle it. The silence stretches long, only broken by the sound of his pod’s puffs. He was hoping that the chilling sensation of menthol from this Watermelon Whirl could help his mind relax, but it doesn’t feel like it at the moment.

A fleeting image flashes through Minjun's mind: Kim Dongho, years ago, a bright-eyed, eager R&D intern, nervously presenting a flavor concept. Minjun had mentored him, seen his potential, trusted him. The betrayal cuts deeper than any corporate espionage; it's a personal wound. “What happened, Dongho-yah? Is this about that second-grade mango I told you to make, the one you had come up with—we didn’t have the materials for that, though,” he mumbles, wondering what could have made Dongho to stab him in the back.

He shakes his head, dispelling the ghost of the past. The lingering phantom taste of second-grade mango fades, replaced by the bitter tang of betrayal. "It doesn't matter," Minjun mutters, his voice devoid of emotion. What matters is the present. What matters is the enemy now holding a piece of him. He pulls out his phone, the screen already illuminated with Lee Chaeyoung’s contact, courtesy of Mr. Shin.

Minjun presses the call button, closing his eyes as he waits for her to pick up, taking another long puff for good luck. Luckily, he doesn’t have to wait long. “That’s brave,” he thinks quickly; CEOs don’t usually pick up calls from unknown numbers. “Good morning, Miss Lee,” he greets her, his voice flat and controlled. “Good morning. Is this Mr. Park Minjun from Golden Leaf?” she asks, her voice calm, almost too calm, without a hint of surprise.

Minjun’s eyebrows furrow, but his voice remains flat, staying solid. "Indeed it is, Miss Lee," he replies, his gaze fixed on the cityscape outside his window. "I'm calling about that caramel flavor you were showcasing at The Flavors Expo." He pauses, stringing together a sentence to continue. “I won’t waste your time, Miss Lee, so let me ask you this: did you or did you not receive the development recipe for Salted Silk from a certain Kim Dongho?”

A beat of silence, heavy with unspoken tension, stretches across the line, each side trying to be one step ahead of the other. “Mr. Park,” she replies, her calm voice suddenly carrying a sharp edge. “I’m not sure what gives you the idea that Dongho-oppa gave Azure any development recipe.” Minjun’s eyes blink rapidly, and soon, his lips stretch into a smirk—he’s caught her lacking.

“Dongho-oppa, hey? Is that what you call him over there?” he taunts, keeping his voice controlled despite the urge to burst out laughing. "A cute nickname for a corporate spy, wouldn't you say, Miss Lee?" He pauses, letting the silence twist. "Here's what's going to happen. You can either cooperate with our investigation into your... acquisition of our intellectual property, or Golden Leaf International will make sure the name of Azure Taste Limited becomes synonymous with corporate theft. Your choice, Miss Lee. Oh, and I don’t give a piss about Kim Dongho,” he adds, his fingers gripping his phone hard, a testament to the fire in his heart.

The line hums with the weight of Minjun's ultimatum. For a long moment, Chaeyoung says nothing, her breath catching. Then, her voice, though strained, comes back with surprising force. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Mr. Park," she states, the sharp edge now a hardened blade. "Azure Taste Limited operates with the highest ethical standards. We have nothing to cooperate with, and we will defend our reputation vigorously against any baseless accusations. Good day." The click of her phone hanging up slices through the silence.

His grip on the phone tightens until his knuckles whiten, but he quickly relents; she’s hung up anyway. "Fool," he mutters, a dangerous glint in his eyes. He expects a fight, but not a surrender. “Oh, Lee Chaeyoung, surely you’re not this stupid.” Minjun shakes his head, amusement growing in the midst of frustration. “Time to get some lawyers, I guess.” He doesn't waste another second. His thumb flies across his phone screen, dialing his head of legal. "Get a cease-and-desist order drafted for Azure Taste Limited, immediately," he barks, his voice now devoid of any pretense. "And prepare for a full intellectual property lawsuit. I want every single breach documented, every piece of evidence ready. We’re going to war, Mr. Oh."

Within hours, Golden Leaf International's legal department becomes a whirlwind of activity. Mr. Oh, a veteran of countless corporate skirmishes, mobilizes his team, their faces grim but determined. Cease-and-desist letters are drafted, injunctions prepared, and evidence files on Kim Dongho's employment, his proven breach of contract, and subsequent actions meticulously compiled. Minjun leans back in his chair, still looking out the window, taking puffs of Watermelon Whirl while his legal machine churns. This isn't about winning money; it's about making a statement, about crippling Azure and sending a message to anyone else who dares to challenge his empire.

Soon, the legal whispers quickly become industry-wide murmurs. News of Golden Leaf International's aggressive legal maneuvers against Azure Taste Ltd. spreads like wildfire through trade publications and discreet industry forums. Other CEOs, old heads and new bloomers alike, lean back in their chairs, a mix of apprehension and schadenfreude on their faces. The big daddy is making an example out of Azure, and everyone knows it. The question isn't if it will fall, but how hard.

Days later, a thick, official-looking envelope arrives at Azure Taste headquarters, delivered by a grim-faced courier. Chaeyoung reads the cease-and-desist order, her fingers tightening around the heavy paper. The accusations are damning: intellectual property theft, corporate espionage, and a specific mention of Kim Dongho. Her calm facade, usually so impenetrable, wavers. This isn't just a threat; it's a declaration of open war, designed to crush Azure before it can truly bloom.

Later that day, in a tense, closed-door meeting at Azure Taste headquarters, Chaeyoung sits across from Kim Dongho, the cease-and-desist letter spread between them like a battle map. Dongho avoids her gaze, his usual cheerful demeanor replaced by a sullen silence. Chaeyoung's voice is low, strained with barely controlled anger. "Dongho-oppa," she begins, the informal address cutting through the heavy air. "The Golden Leaf just accused you of stealing his company's formula and giving it to us. What exactly is going on?”

Dongho sighs, taking off his glasses and rubbing his forehead, as if trying to wipe the stress away. “I had a feeling this day would come,” he mutters, his voice carrying defeat. “Okay, I’ll confess: I did steal GLI’s intellectual property.” The room falls into a deafening silence, executives trading glances with each other, stunned by such a grave revelation. Leaning back in her chair, Chaeyoung's breath catches in her throat, her initial anger replaced with disbelief. “But this flavor—this blend of caramel—is mine,” he continues, his voice rising in a desperate attempt for understanding. “I made this with my own hands, back when I was with Golden Leaf.”

Chaeyoung closes her eyes, stopping the tears from falling out. She takes a few seconds of silence, her heart aching—perhaps even bleeding—at Dongho’s actions. “If… if it's yours, then how did you ‘steal’ it, oppa?” she asks, her voice shaking slightly. Dongho opens his mouth, a protest or an explanation forming in his mind, but her fist slamming on the table interrupts him. “Do you know how bad this is, Kim Dongho, to get in a fight with Golden Leaf?” Chaeyoung presses on, her glassy eyes a proof of her hurt. “And the worst part is, we're not even trading blows,” she ends, the weight of the IP theft crushing down on her.

The head of legal, who has been watching the exchange with growing alarm, clears his throat, shifting the attention to him. “Miss Lee,” he begins, carefully stringing words together in his head. “I understand your frustrations, but we need facts.” He glances to his left, at Dongho; he doesn't look like he's in the right mind, but legal is about facts over feelings. “Mr. Kim, can you please elaborate on why you decided to… take GLI’s IP here?” he asks, his tone controlled.

Dongho takes a shaky breath, his hand running through his disheveled hair. Not daring to look at his CEO, he turns his gaze to the head of legal. “Okay, you want facts, right, so here they are,” he starts, formulating a defense. “I was the one initially tasked with coming up with the recipe for this caramel flavor. I've done many revisions on the recipe under the directions of Park Minjun and his father. Eventually, we arrived at a roadblock: one of the key materials was a substance that's restricted in this country, but the Parks insisted that we had to use that material, saying that I was a coward for not trying to slither through the holes in regulations.”

The room falls silent once more; this is quite a revelation from Dongho. The idea that Golden Leaf is possibly using restricted chemicals to make their caramel can shake the grounds upon which the giant is standing. Should the giant fall, a race to take the top spot is guaranteed to happen.

“A restricted substance, Mr. Kim?” the head of legal presses, his ears imperceptibly perking up like an excited puppy. “That's… quite the bold accusation you're making.” Dongho sighs deeply, slightly regretful of having to resort to such a level of whistleblowing. “I think… I think they have managed to lobby legislators to lift the restriction, though,” he continues, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. Borrowing a pen from the head of sales next to him, Dongho writes the name of the substance—something that sounds like a magic spell to outsiders—on a piece of paper. “Here's the name. You might want to confirm it yourself.”

Chaeyoung takes a slow, deep breath, steadying herself. The room feels charged, the air thick with unspoken possibilities. She looks at her legal head, then to Dongho, a cold, fierce glint in her eyes. "Verify everything, Mr. Jeon," she commands, her voice unwavering. "I want us to hit back, and we can’t do that without a solid ground to back our claims." The head of legal nods firmly, tucking Dongho’s small note in his pocket. “We will get back to you soon, Miss Lee. We will definitely hit back,” he offers an assurance to the CEO.

They leave one by one, heading out her office in a line, and here Chaeyoung is, sitting alone in her office. She leaves the conference desk and sits on her desk, grabbing a pod of Red Apple—this flavor is an original, by the way; she commissioned it to her RND  team last year. She takes a long puff, letting the apple’s sweetness and the subtle cool from the menthol fill her mouth. “Still not perfect, but this will do,” she mutters to herself, taking a small, personal victory amidst the chaos.

-

A ding from her computer, signaling an incoming email, steals her attention. Her eyebrows furrow as she skims through the content; an invite to visit Golden Leaf International, a stark contradiction to the legal threats she had just received. Attached to the body is a handwritten letter, signed by Park Minjun himself. “Wait, what? What the hell is this?” she whispers, the unexpected invitation throwing a fresh curveball into her escalating war with Minjun.

Chaeyoung's hand hovers over the attachment icon. Despite the logical urge to consult Mr. Jeon, her professional curiosity, combined with a potent dose of defiance, wins out. With a swift click, the handwritten letter unfolds on her screen. Minjun's elegant, precise script fills the page, a stark contrast to his recent verbal barrage. The message is brief, yet potent, a single line requesting her presence at his corporate headquarters for a 'private discussion,’ leaving her with more questions than answers “Alright, I’ll bite,” she grabs her phone, calling her driver, “please prepare the car. We’re going to Golden Leaf for… a friendly visit.”

The sleek Continental glides through the city's bustling streets, but inside, Chaeyoung's mind races. She takes another puff of Red Apple, the flavor doing little to soothe her nerves. This is Minjun's territory, his fortress where his throne sits. Is this a trap? A calculated intimidation tactic, or does he genuinely believe he has something that will make her surrender? She presses her lips into a thin line, straightening her jacket. Whatever it is, she won't show weakness; Azure’s future lies in her hands, and if she’s truly to take them to the top, there is no room for hesitation.

Her car pulls silently into Golden Leaf International's sprawling underground parking, a sterile, brightly lit cavern that feels like the belly of the beast. Chaeyoung steps out, her heels clicking crisply on the concrete. The elevator ride to the executive floors is swift and silent, amplifying the sense of anticipation. When the doors finally part, a stern-faced security guard—a woman, Chaeyoung notes—stands waiting, a tablet in hand. "Miss Lee Chaeyoung?" she asks, her voice flat, clearly expecting her. This isn't a welcome; it's processing. “Can you please empty your pockets on the table?”

Chaeyoung moves to the side, her lips tightening as she fishes things out of her pockets and leaving them scattered on the table. “Your phone, please,” the guard adds, opening her palm to receive it. With a sigh, she pulls her phone out of her rear pocket, handing it over to be kept in a small safe. “Do you want my bra too, perhaps?” she teases the guard, her irritation lying beneath the sarcasm in her voice. The guard's expression doesn't flicker, her eyes staying cold and unreadable. Without breaking eye contact, her hand moves, with practiced efficiency, to her radio. “Miss Lee Chaeyoung is clear. I repeat, Miss Lee Chaeyoung is clear.”

The butterfly doors in front of her part, revealing another security guard—a man, this time. He signals Chaeyoung to come closer, not bothering to say anything. “Quite insulting. I’m a damn CEO,” she says to herself, her jaw clenching at the treatment she’s getting. It’s like everyone is trying to tell her she doesn’t matter, but her ego doesn’t squish that easily.

The guard leads her through a corridor lined with closed doors, each bearing a simple, gold plaque: Legal Affairs, Global Marketing, and— “What the hell is ‘Treasury Management?’ Is that not just ‘Finance and Accounting?’” she wonders quietly. Beyond another set of glass doors, Chaeyoung catches a glimpse of a sprawling office space, buzzing with a small army of employees. Having this many people on the executive wing is a testament to the sheer scale of Golden Leaf's operation. It's a stark reminder of the colossus she's challenging, a company whose resources dwarf her own.

The guard leads her past rows of impressive offices until they stop before a large, obsidian door, subtly set apart from the others. No nameplate adorns it, but the aura of power radiating from behind it is palpable. The guard simply nods towards the door, his duty fulfilled. Chaeyoung takes a final breath, the faint, lingering taste of Red Apple a quiet rebellion against the overwhelming presence of Golden Leaf.

Chaeyoung steps closer to the door, but before she could knock, it opens by itself, as if eager to welcome her. Inside, Park Minjun is seen standing by the big glass wall, its tinted surface softening the scorching afternoon sunlight. Stepping inside, the guard closes the door behind her, the subtle sound of the lock latching confirming the lack of an escape route.

Minjun turns slowly from the window, his expression unreadable, a single Salted Silk pod held loosely in his hand. His gaze sweeps over Chaeyoung, an almost clinical assessment in his eyes. The silence stretches, thick with unspoken power. "Miss Lee," he finally says, his voice a low, resonant rumble that seems to fill the vast office. "Thank you for accepting my invitation." He gestures to a minimalist chair placed pointedly opposite his sprawling desk, a subtle challenge in the invitation. “Please, have a seat. I assure you, you’re safe within these walls.”

Chaeyoung meets his gaze, a flicker of understanding passing between them. She steps forward, her heels clicking softly on the plush carpet, and deliberately takes the minimalist chair. It's surprisingly comfortable, its appearance hiding a clever practicality. A subtle smirk touches her lips. "Safe, perhaps, or simply… contained" she acknowledges, her voice calm. "Thank you for the invitation, Mr. Park. I'm sure you didn't bring me all the way to your... 'fortress' just for pleasantries.”

Minjun’s expression softens as his lips curve into a smile, perhaps hiding his hostility behind a momentary façade. “Miss Lee,” he pulls a chair for himself, settling into it, “believe me, I didn’t invite you here to bash you. I meant it when I said I wanted to see you in private.” Placing his Salted Silk pod on the table, he gently pushes it closer to her. “Please, allow yourself to relax. I’m not trying to put you in danger.”

Chaeyoung's gaze flickers to the Salted Silk pod, then back to Minjun's surprisingly soft expression. She raises an eyebrow, a subtle challenge in her eyes. "Relaxing seems an ambitious goal, given the circumstances," she notes, her voice dry. She leans forward, her hands clasped loosely in her lap, but makes no move towards the pod. "However, I'm intrigued. What exactly is it you wish to discuss, Mr. Park, that couldn't be covered by a lawsuit?"

Minjun smiles once more, falling silent for a few seconds as he eyes the pod lying idly on the table. “I’m dropping the lawsuits, Miss Lee,” he mutters softly, his tone dropping to a gentle timbre. “In fact, I’ll also sell you the patent for Salted Silk—cheaply, might I add.” Chaeyoung’s jaw drops, disbelieving what she has just heard, surprise drawn all over her features. “Pardon me, Mr. Park, but what did you just say?”

Minjun’s smile stays solid, his expression softening further, almost appearing benevolent. "I said, Miss Lee," he repeats, a subtle emphasis on his words. "I am dropping the lawsuits and offering you the patent for Salted Silk." He gestures vaguely with the hand holding his pod. "Let's just say... Golden Leaf is about to embark on a new grand venture, one that requires our full attention. We prefer to clear the deck, streamline our focus, and honestly, Azure has given us enough sleepless nights.” His gaze drifts toward the pod before chuckling. “I promise I’m not trying to flirt with you, but thinking about you makes me lose sleep, Miss Lee.”

Chaeyoung's eyebrows raise slightly, her initial shock now laced with deep suspicion. His words hang in the air, a strange mix of business acumen and a thinly veiled, almost unsettling, personal remark. She ignores the flirtation—quite the poor attempt by her standards—her mind rapidly sifting through the implications. Golden Leaf never acts without incentive, let alone sell one of their best-selling IPs. There's a hidden cost here, a trap far more intricate than she can yet discern. “Mr. Park, can you please jump to Azure’s role in all this?” she presses, starting to lose her patience over the circling conversation.

Minjun's chuckle deepens, his eyes still holding that unreadable quality. "Let's just say, Miss Lee," he replies, leaning forward slightly, his tone becoming more serious. “I want Azure to stay in its own lane while Golden Leaf paves the way for the future. Let us pursue this in peace, and in return, enjoy the money that our Salted Silk brings in.” Chaeyoung stays quiet, the room now filled with a tense silence, but eventually, she breaks the brief silence. “Any other terms to your offer, Mr. Park?” she asks, familiar with how Minjun operates. “Oh, of course there is,” he answers quickly. “Develop your own flavors from now on. If we catch you stealing again, we’ll make sure Azure turns to dust.”

Chaeyoung's gaze drifts from Minjun's unreadable eyes to the Salted Silk pod, then back to the expansive view of the city. The offer is tempting: an end to the lawsuit and a profitable IP, but the terms he’s giving are shackles. She thinks about Dongho’s revelation about the restricted material used to make Salted Silk, and a grim smile takes root on her face; Park Minjun is trying to buy her silence, her complicity.

“That thing,” she points at the pod, “that thing contains a banned substance, does it not?” Minjun chuckles, looking almost amused by her question. “Did Kim Dongho tell you that?” He shakes his head, rubbing his forehead as he prepares to reveal his side of the story. “Miss Lee—oh, God, how do I say this,” he looks around the room, stringing words together in the air, “look, if you’re accusing us of breaking the law, then allow me to show you some proofs that we imported the material legitimately.”

Rising from his chair, Minjun grabs a folder from a safe buried in the wall. After making sure he has the right one, he hands it over to her, letting her assess things herself. The first few papers talk about how Golden Leaf got blocked multiple times even when they were trying to import samples. Some others talk about how Golden Leaf paid a fortune in fines for putting too much of the material in the finished product. Finally, the rest talk about an order from the government saying that Golden Leaf are only allowed to import a certain amount lest they are sanctioned.

Chaeyoung sighs but quickly masks it with a tight smile, placing the folder back on the table. “We’re no outlaw, Miss Lee,” Minjun says, his voice now confident. “No matter how hard it is to follow them, Golden Leaf operates within the boundaries of law. Sure, we try to bend it sometimes. After all, those politicians are only good for that.” She offers a small chuckle; her father once tried to lobby those crooks to lower the legal smoking age from 21 to 17. “I don’t disagree with you on that part, Mr. Park.”

Chaeyoung's smile fades, replaced by a colder expression. “Now, about your… suggestion,” she continues. “You want us to stay in our lane in exchange for Salted Silk, but what guarantee do I have that your new venture won’t hurt us?” Minjun taps his chin, his gaze drifting to the ceiling, as if really thinking about the answer to her question. “That’s a good question,” he murmurs. “I mean, so long as you won’t try stealing our IP again, we will also stay in our lane. Isn't that how things were, before all this?”

Chaeyoung's jaw tightens. He conveniently forgets the accusations against Dongho, the initial legal threats, and now, the restricted substance. It’s like he’s trying to paint Azure as the sole aggressor. "So long as we don't steal, you won't hurt us," she echoes, a dry sarcasm in her tone. "That's hardly a guarantee, Mr. Park, especially when your definition of 'your lane' seems to shift with the wind. What concrete assurances can you offer that this 'new grand venture' won't simply be a different method of encroaching on our market, or that your 'peace' isn't just a prelude to a stronger attack?"

Minjun puts his palm on his forehead, dragging it down on his face, his patience running dangerously thin. “Okay, fine. We’ll register Azure as a key account, and as a key account, not only can you have Salted Silk, but you can also buy materials from us. As you’ve seen for yourself, we can get even the most restricted materials to our front door.” Minjun chuckles; he can’t believe he just said these words, but he will get Azure to stand on the side, away from the path Golden Leaf is chasing. Also, for a company like Azure, access to such resources could revolutionize their production. “I know that sounds silly, but I can’t think of any other way—well, aside from buying Azure, that is.”

Chaeyoung blinks, taking a moment for the full weight of his words to settle. "A key account," she repeats slowly, testing the phrase on her tongue. "And this would entail... what, exactly, Mr. Park? Preferential pricing? Guaranteed supply? And what are the specific expectations for a 'key account' when it comes to competition, or, as you put it, 'staying in our lane'?" She keeps her voice steady, attempting to mask the seismic shift his offer has just created.

Minjun leans forward again, his features beaming slightly; Chaeyoung is cracking. She forces her face to remain neutral, even as a jolt of alarm, then interest, shoots through her. “Preferential pricing, yes. Guaranteed supply, yes. Hell, you can even have my heart if you desire. However, most importantly,” he continues, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. “You’ll be the first to join us should this venture succeed. After all, Golden Leaf always takes care of its friends.”

Chaeyoung watches him, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. "Your generosity is... noted, Mr. Park," she replies, her voice carefully neutral. The implications of his offer—access to restricted materials, guaranteed supply, a share in a successful future—are staggering, but the word "friends" echoes oddly in the opulent silence of his office. She doesn't miss the subtle power play, the implied allegiance. “Please humor me with one last question: what is it you’re seeking from this… friendship, as you call it?”

A slow, knowing smile spreads across Minjun's face. "Transparency and trust, Miss Lee," he states, his voice dropping to a confidential whisper. “The kind that’s forged between parties who fully understand the nature of this industry. If you commit to pursuing your path honorably, without resorting to... unoriginal methods, then Golden Leaf ensures your prosperity. You will be encouraged to build your own empire, protected from threats of any kind, but poke the lion again…” he trails off, letting Chaeyoung complete his sentence.

Chaeyoung holds his gaze, the weight of his words settling heavily in the opulent office. The "lion" metaphor is clear. She thinks of Azure's lean resources, the relentless grind to survive. This offer, for all its veiled threats, promises a path to power, a shortcut she hadn't dared dream of. "I understand the terms, Mr. Park," she finally says, her voice low. "Transparency, integrity... and no 'poking the lion.' A rather unique definition of friendship, I must admit, but I believe Azure Taste Limited can thrive, even within such... clear boundaries."

“Wonderful!” Minjun claps his hands, jumping out of his seat to grab a bottle of champagne from the shelves behind his desk. “Miss Lee, would you please kindly join me for a glass or two?” Chaeyoung chuckles, rising from her chair to join him by his desk—oh, whose photo is that next to his monitor? She quickly diverts her gaze, pretending to have missed the picture.

As Minjun pops the champagne, the photo by his monitor burns an image into Chaeyoung's mind. It was only a glimpse, but enough to register a soft, almost vulnerable quality that clashed sharply with the ruthless businessman before her. A sister? A lover? The detail sits uncomfortably, a tiny crack in the seemingly impenetrable facade of Park Minjun, making her wonder if there's more to his "grand venture" than just market dominance.

Minjun pours two flutes of bubbling golden liquid, handing one to Chaeyoung, his smile confident. "To new understandings, Miss Lee," he says, raising his glass. Chaeyoung takes the flute, the cold glass a stark contrast to the warmth of her hand. Her gaze meets his, but her mind is still on that photograph, searching for clues. "To new ventures, Mr. Park," she replies, her voice smooth, masking the sudden shift in her perception of him. The champagne tastes of triumph and a lingering, unsettling question.

Chaeyoung empties her glass, the last bubbles dissipating on her tongue, leaving behind that unsettling aftertaste, but her mind keeps coming back to the portrait. “Mr. Park, may I ask who that woman is?” she asks, her tone careful, almost too quiet for him to hear. Minjun turns his head, smiling rather softly as he looks at the framed photo—a beautiful woman with a vibrant, gentle smile—she can sense a deep, lingering pain beneath it, though. “This is Park Sieun, Miss Lee. She was my fiancé,” Minjun hands the photo over to her, letting her have a good look, “she passed away two weeks before the day of our wedding. A drunk trucker took her life, Miss Lee.”

Chaeyoung takes the framed photo, her fingers brushing the cool glass. The vibrant smile of Park Sieun stares back at her, radiating a warmth that now feels heartbreakingly poignant. The ruthless CEO before her suddenly transforms into a grieving man, and the weight of his personal tragedy settles heavy in the opulent office. All of Minjun's ambition, his drive to pave the way for the future, suddenly takes on a new, more profound meaning. She hands the photo back, her voice softer than before. "I... I am so sorry for your loss, Mr. Park."

Minjun takes the photo back, his fingers tracing the edge of the frame. "She believed in a future, Miss Lee," he says, his voice distant, lost in memory—a stark, raw departure from the controlled executive.. "A world where… everyone is happy.” He blinks his tears back, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “It sounds cliché, I know, but… but I want to believe in that future too, so please help me, Miss Lee.”

Chaeyoung watches him, the sudden shift from ruthless CEO to grieving man pulling at something deep within her. His raw honesty, even if clichéd, gives a chilling new context to his drive. His empire-building isn't just about money; it's about a desperate need for control, for a legacy for the woman he lost. She nods slowly. "I see," she says, her voice measured. "So, this 'new venture' isn't just about market dominance; it's about... fulfilling a promise." She pauses, her gaze hardening slightly as the businesswoman reasserts herself. "If your vision for this 'happy world' is truly innovative and adheres to ethical boundaries, then yes, Mr. Park. Azure Taste Limited can play its part."

Minjun places his flute on his desk, slowly opening his arms, his eyes searching hers with raw vulnerability, hesitation drawn all over his face. “Please?” he whispers, begging her to come closer. With a soft step, Chaeyoung closes the gap between them, her arms wrapping snugly around him; he’s quite warm, too. “I hope my Sieun is proud of me,” he murmurs, his voice shaking quite violently. “She is, Mr. Park, and she loves you too,” she replies, whispering right into his ear.

Minjun's body trembles against Chaeyoung's for a long moment, a lifetime of grief contained in the brief, fragile warmth of their embrace. Slowly, he pulls back, his eyes still red-rimmed but holding a new, softer light as he looks at her. The corporate masks are gone, replaced by the weight of shared humanity. The terms of their "deal" now feel different, imbued with the silent understanding of his personal pain and her unexpected compassion.

Minjun clears his throat, a soft, almost shy sound, and glances down at his hands, then back to Chaeyoung. "Thank you, Miss Lee," he murmurs, his voice still a little hoarse. "That... it means a great deal, especially coming from you." He manages a small, genuine smile, utterly devoid of the calculated charm from moments before. The tension hasn't vanished, but it has transformed, replaced by a delicate understanding that hangs between them. Chaeyoung holds his hand firmly, her fingers itching to wipe the tears from his cheeks. “Please, it’s just Chaeyoung-ie…” she mutters, her voice getting tender. Minjun's eyes widen almost imperceptibly at the familiar, almost intimate, suffix, a new warmth spreading through them. “Thank you for being honest. I appreciate honest men, even if they’re scary like you.”

Minjun takes a shaky breath, the unfamiliar warmth of the informal nickname settling deep within him. He squeezes her hand gently before releasing it. The silence stretches, no longer tense with animosity, but with a complex mix of vulnerability and burgeoning respect. "Chaeyoung-ie," he repeats softly, testing the name on his tongue. "Perhaps... perhaps we can make this 'new venture' something we both can be proud of, a legacy that transcends simple profit."

Chaeyoung watches him, the lingering sting of his grief in her own eyes. The image of the powerful, ruthless CEO has shattered, replaced by a man driven by profound loss, its weight unimaginable for her. Her initial strategy of countering his every move now feels inadequate, perhaps even cruel. This isn't just about business; it's about a shared understanding, a fragile thread woven between them. The Salted Silk patent, the access to materials, the "lanes"—all of it now holds a different meaning.

Minjun offers her another small, almost hopeful smile, a stark contrast to the calculating grin he wore just moments before. The silence that follows is comfortable, filled with the unspoken weight of their shared understanding. The opulent office, once a battleground, now feels like a space where something entirely new has begun to take root. They stand there for a long moment, two former adversaries, now connected by grief, ambition, and the faint, unsettling taste of a future yet unwritten.

Chaeyoung holds his gaze. Not in a tense, hostile way, but rather a relaxed, cordial one. “I don’t mean no disrespect to Miss Park Sieun, but if you keep acting this kind and gentle, I might actually fall for you, Mr. Park.” Minjun chuckles, wiping his tears with the back of his hand. “Has anyone ever told you how funny you are, Chaeyoung-ah?” he quips, a genuine grin spreading across his face, delighted by her admission.

Chaeyoung grins back, the earlier tension completely dissolved. "Only when they're truly caught off guard," she replies, a playful glint in her eyes. "But it seems I've found my audience." The air in his office now feels strangely intimate, filled with the unexpected warmth of shared laughter. They stand there, the head of a titan and an aspiring empress, connected not by legal battles or corporate maneuvering, but by a sudden, profound understanding that transcends business.

Minjun shakes his head, still smiling. "Well, consider me thoroughly off guard," he says, a softness in his voice that was unimaginable an hour ago. He gestures back towards the door, acknowledging the need for Chaeyoung to continue her day as a CEO. “You’re free to leave, Chaeyoung-ah,” he says. Looking over her shoulder at the door, Chaeyoung’s forehead furrows; she thinks the door is still locked. “I thought you had me locked in here?” Minjun explodes in laughter, doubling over slightly, shaking his head out of pure mirth. “Oh, no, no. The lock is for keeping those outside, outside. Just turn the handle and you’ll be on your way.”

Chaeyoung can't help but crack a genuine smile herself, the lingering tension from earlier conversations finally dissipating completely. The sheer absurdity of her assumption, paired with Minjun's uninhibited laughter, creates a strange camaraderie. "Well, that's certainly one way to control the flow," she quips, a genuine lightness in her tone. Making her way to the doors, she turns the handle as he suggested, and they part for her. “Oh, you’re not lying.”

Minjun watches the doors close behind Chaeyoung, his laughter fading into a soft smile. He walks back to his desk, picking up the framed photo of Sieun. "She's an interesting one, isn't she, love?" he murmurs to the smiling face, his voice devoid of tears now, replaced by a calculating satisfaction. “But still; she’s not you.” He sets the photo down, his gaze falling on the Salted Silk pod lying forgotten on the table. The first step of his grand venture is complete; Azure is now precisely where he needs them to be.

-

A quarter later, the tension that once filled Minjun’s vast office has truly faded, replaced by a comfortable quiet. Chaeyoung sits across from his sprawling desk, not in the minimalist chair of their first encounter, but on a plush sofa, a half-empty mug of her favorite herbal tea steaming beside her. The Salted Silk patent now sits securely in Azure's vault. The "key account" status has indeed revolutionized their access to premium materials, and the legal battles are a distant memory.

Typically a whirlwind of activity, Minjun now leans back in his executive chair, a genuine, unburdened smile on his face as he listens to Chaeyoung recount a humorous struggle with a particularly stubborn supplier. The framed photo of Sieun still sits on his desk, but his gaze no longer carries the raw, aching pain. Instead, when he looks at it, there’s a quiet tenderness, a sense of peace that wasn't there before.

"So, you finally managed to get them to budge?" he asks, his voice warm, a stark contrast to the intimidating rumble she first knew. "You’re good at being stubborn, Chaeyoung-ah—and I mean that as a compliment." Chaeyoung laughs, a genuine, unrestrained sound that echoes softly in the room. "I learned from the best, oppa," she quips, her eyes twinkling. "Though I think my methods are slightly less... aggressive than yours."

Chaeyoung feels a warmth spread through her, and it’s not about the tea. "Good at being stubborn," she repeats softly, a soft smile playing on her lips. "I suppose that's true. Sometimes, you just know a fight is worth it, even if it seems impossible." Her gaze drifts, lingering on his hand resting casually on his desk, then flickers back to his eyes. “Okay, just so you know, I’m not going to fight Golden Leaf again,” she adds. Minjun bursts out laughing, shaking his head in amusement. “Yeah, let’s not do that again,” he agrees.

As the laughter dies down, the comfortable quiet deepens, filled with an unspoken awareness, a delicate thread forming between them that feels both fragile and profoundly real. "What about you, oppa?" she asks, her voice softer now. "What impossible fights are you still determined to win?" Minjun sighs, promptly reminded about a material that is quite difficult to get his hands on. “I mean, it’s not impossible necessarily, but importing Raspberry Ketone has been… quite challenging. If only we didn’t need it so bad.”

Chaeyoung's brow furrows in thought. Raspberry Ketone. A whisper of a substance, found only in trace amounts naturally. "Raspberry Ketone, huh?" she mouths, leaning slightly forward. “Let me guess; raspberry isn’t in season right now.” Minjun pouts as he nods, exaggerating his reactions a bit. “I guess we can go back to selling Salted Silk—oh, wait…” Her eyebrows rise at the mention of Salted Silk, her lips curving into a light smile. “Wait, Salted Silk is yours now, isn’t it,” he muses, a smile of similar lightness blooming on his face. Chaeyoung giggles, the warm and bright sound bouncing on the glass walls. “Hey, you gave it to me, remember? Something about making peace, if I recall correctly.”

Leaning back in their respective seats, their gaze drifts aimlessly, another silence settling in the room. “Oppa,” she calls to him, breaking the peace. “Why not try selling something Azure makes instead?” Staying silent, Minjun blinks a few times, thinking about the offer. “Something that Azure makes…” His gaze drifts to the ceiling, then back to her. “Such as what, Chaeyoung-ah?” She grabs her phone, checking the list of new items that Azure’s RND team has created recently. “Erm, I don’t know—graham crackers, maybe? The materials for this are easy to get, you know.”

Minjun's eyes, wide with thought, settle on Chaeyoung. "Graham crackers," he repeats, a slow, intriguing smile spreading across his face. The idea is so outside Golden Leaf's current trajectory, yet, coming from her, it sparks a genuine interest. "Can I have a sample, please? I think this might work out well for us." His emphasis on "us" implies a shared future, not just his own. With a smile, Chaeyoung reaches for her handbag, pulling out an amber bottle packed in a plastic bag. “100 milliliters of graham crackers flavor, all for you.”

Minjun takes the amber bottle, his fingers brushing hers as he accepts it. Uncapping it, he inhales deeply, a surprised hum escaping him. “Oh, this is… different,” he murmurs. “This is ready-to-use, right?” Chaeyoung nods to his question, but she also warns him that it might taste a bit chemical-like, since it’s quite fresh from the lab. “I mean, if it’s good, it’s good,” he says, grabbing an empty cartridge from the drawer of his desk. She keeps her eyes on him as he fills a pod to the brim, biting her lip to stifle a grin; she doesn’t want to celebrate too early.

Minjun inserts the pod into his device, taking a cautious draw. His forehead furrows slightly as he exhales, but he quickly relaxes into a surprised smile. “This is a good starting point, Chaeyoung-ah,” he confirms, never one to shy away from offering praise. “Not sweet enough for my taste, but still very good. How did your team make this, by the way?” Chaeyoung grins, her heart soaring with pride. Her R&D team has done a wonderful job, and to have the head of the giant praise them warms her heart. “I just told them to try mixing some flavors together, and they came up with some new flavors, including this one.”

“Oh? Some new flavors, you say?” he asks, already considering about commissioning Azure to produce stuff for Golden Leaf. Chaeyoung pads over to the sofa, fishing out some more bottles of newly created flavors, and returns to him with a handful of amber bottles, each one labeled concisely. “Oh, now we’re talking.” Minjun grabs a bottle—strawberry shortcake, the label says—and inspects it closely. “These samples are meant for a customer, but you’re more important than them.” As soon as those words leave her lips, Chaeyoung quickly looks away as heat rises on her cheeks, hiding behind the curtain of her hair. “Anyway, let me know what you think.”

Minjun's eyes flicker to her averted face, a knowing glint appearing in them, but he doesn't comment on her sudden shyness. He shakes the strawberry shortcake bottle gently, his focus returning to the task at hand, though a quiet amusement plays on his lips. "Strawberry shortcake," he repeats, pulling another empty cartridge from his drawer. "Let's see if your R&D team can make me blush, too, Chaeyoung-ah." He winks, a playful challenge in his tone, then proceeds to fill the pod, letting her anticipation build.

Minjun takes a slow puff, his eyes closing shut as he savors the flavor. It’s a touch sweeter than the graham crackers one, and combined with the hint of sourness, it’s surely something that is right up his alley. “Can you do a production trial?” he asks, his voice crisp with intent. “P-production trial? Like… right now?” she stammers, slightly taken aback by his sudden (yet gentle) demand. “Well, yes, please.”

Chaeyoung stares at him, her initial surprise quickly giving way to a thrill of excitement. A production trial? She doesn’t even know what her team is occupied with at the moment. It's exactly the kind of audacious move she's come to expect from him, now simply softened by his current demeanor. "Yes, oppa," she affirms, her voice gaining its usual confident edge. "Let’s do a production trial. How quickly do you need the first batch, and what specific quantities are you thinking?" Her eyes gleam with a mixture of challenge and shared ambition.

Minjun glances at the clock sitting on his desk. There’s half a workday left, and as much as he wants to test Azure, he doesn’t want to push too hard. “At least 25 kilograms. Of course, it goes without saying that I want them quality-tested and ready to be used immediately.” Chaeyoung swallows a gulp; 25 kilograms isn't what Azure usually does for a production trial; it's usually around 2 kilograms, 5 tops. Her eyes dart rapidly as she cycles through her team’s current projects, the inventory levels, and the lab’s open slots for quality testing. “Azure Taste Limited accepts the challenge, oppa,” she says firmly, putting her worries to the side. “You will have 25 kilograms of strawberry shortcake e-liquid at your front door before 7 p.m. tonight.”

Minjun's intense gaze softens slightly, a hint of something akin to awe flickering in his eyes. "7 p.m., you say?" he murmurs, a quiet respect in his tone. "Then you might want to call someone soon, sweetheart, because this man in front of you doesn’t like lateness, and those mixers aren't about to move on their own,” he adds. Chaeyoung blinks rapidly, the hint of his urgency settling in her mind, and runs to the sofa to grab her phone, frantically browsing through the contacts to find department heads.

Minjun watches her as she makes one call after another, giving brief yet concise orders to each person. “Cute,” he thinks, an adoring but regardful smile tugging at the corners of his lips. This isn't just about the flavor anymore; it's about the woman cranking the gears of production, thus bringing the flavor to life. When she finally drops the phone, a slight flush on her cheeks, he speaks. "That's quite a symphony you conduct, Chaeyoung-ah," he says, his voice laced with genuine awe, completely devoid of his usual corporate edge. “The things I do for you, oppa…” she muses, crashing into the sofa once more, her heart still racing with a mix of excitement and panic.

Chaeyoung closes her eyes for a moment, letting the adrenaline drain from her limbs. The weight of the 25-kilogram promise still hangs in the air, but Minjun's praise, his soft tone, and the easy way he now uses her informal name, settle something deep within her. She opens her eyes, meeting his warm gaze. No more is he a scary CEO that runs the industry; he’s more akin to a demanding customer, a confidant, or perhaps something more. The thought sends a new kind of warmth through her, one that has nothing to do with panic and everything to do with him.

Minjun watches her, a gentle smile playing on his lips as her eyes open, meeting his. He sees the softness there, the lingering wonder, and a warmth spreads through him that mirrors her own. "Everything alright, Chaeyoung-ah?" he asks, his voice low, filled with a gentle understanding. He doesn't press, just holds her gaze, letting the new, delicate understanding settle between them. The office, usually a place of sterile deals, now hums with a different kind of energy. “If you need fresh air, that door is open,” Minjun adds, pointing to the tinted glass door to the balcony.

Chaeyoung holds his gaze for another moment, feeling the undeniable pull of his presence. The offer of fresh air is tempting, but for now, the quiet intimacy of the office, filled with this new energy, feels enough. "I think I'm alright now, oppa," she murmurs, a soft smile gracing her lips. "Just... processing. Twenty-five kilograms of strawberry shortcake e-liquid by 7 p.m. It's a lot to process. I mean, the recipe was only validated yesterday.” A chuckle escapes her lips, as she thinks about how bold he is to buy something so new, so much.

-

Chaeyoung and Minjun sit together at the loading dock gate, their legs dangling off the edge. Minjun scrolls through his phone, not catching the way she keeps biting her lips, anxiously waiting for Azure’s truck to enter through Golden Leaf’s front gate. It is only when he glances at her that he sees the signs of nervousness; tense posture, lip-biting, and long gaze. A sense of protectiveness washes over him, but Minjun quickly diverts his attention back to his phone. “She’ll be okay,” he thinks.

Minjun carefully places his phone beside him on the concrete. "Something wrong, Chaeyoung-ah?" he asks, his voice soft, cutting through her anxious thoughts. He doesn't need to ask if it's about the delivery; he knows. Chaeyoung sighs, letting some of the tension drain from her shoulders. "It's a big order for something so new, oppa," she admits, her voice a low murmur. "I just... I really want it to be perfect for you."

Minjun's gaze warms further, understanding the unspoken weight of her desire to impress him. Scooting closer to Chaeyoung, he musters up the courage to wrap an arm around her, offering comfort. “It’s the effort that counts, sweetheart,” he whispers, his tone warm in her ear. “Even if the e-liquid isn’t commercial-ready right away, we can tweak the recipe and try again.”

Chaeyoung leans against him, resting her head on his shoulder, finding solace amid nervousness. “You know, sometimes I wish we had been friends from the start. I wish I hadn’t fought you over Salted Silk. I wish—” Minjun places a finger on her lips, tenderly deadening her voice. “This is how it’s meant for us, sweetheart,” he murmurs, leaving no room for her to rebut.

A bright white truck, emblazoned with Azure Taste Limited's subtle logo, finally turns the corner and rumbles towards Golden Leaf's front gate. Chaeyoung lifts her head from his shoulder, her eyes still soft as they meet his. The hum of the engine, the squeal of the brakes—oh, it's the beautiful sound of a delivered promise. Minjun squeezes her shoulder gently, his gaze filled with shared anticipation, no longer just for the product, but for the future they are undeniably building together.

The truck grinds to a halt before them, its engine still humming. A Golden Leaf security guard approaches, ready to open the gate. Minjun rises, offering Chaeyoung a hand as she stands. "Let's see the fruits of your team’s labor, Chaeyoung-ah," he states, a note of genuine excitement in his voice. As the gate slides open, the truck backs into the loading dock, ready to offload the 25 kilograms of strawberry shortcake e-liquid.

Standing next to each other on the side, Chaeyoung’s fingers snake around his own, seeking comfort to calm her racing heart. “You’re okay. You’re totally okay,” he whispers, squeezing her hand firmly. She nods slowly, taking his affirmation to heart, but the urge to keep biting her lips proves irresistible. “Good or bad, we’ll think about it together,” he adds, offering closure to Chaeyoung.

The Azure trucker grabs a 30-kilogram jerrycan from the truck, placing it on the concrete floor before the two CEOs. “I was told to give these things to you, Miss Lee,” he says, handing a folder, presumably containing quality testing results, and a commercial-sized, 100-milliliter bottle of e-liquid. After handing those items over, the trucker scratches his head, seemingly puzzled about something. “Miss Lee, pardon my curiosity, but… why the rush order, and why did no one give me proof of delivery to be signed?”

Chaeyoung smiles, squeezing Minjun’s hand stoutly as she addresses the trucker’s question. “This man right here wanted to test us from all kinds of aspects, Mr. Koo,” she tilts her head towards Minjun, as if shifting the blame to him, “as for the proof of delivery, I think it’s an oversight, but we can fix that tomorrow. You’re free to head back.”

As Mr. Koo retreats to his truck, Minjun's gaze locks onto the jerrycan. He kneels, the weight of the container undeniable, and with a grunt, manages to pry open the cap. A rich, sweet aroma, unmistakably strawberry shortcake, wafts into the evening air. He dips a clean, sterile stick into the liquid, brings it to his nose. Chaeyoung watches him, her breath held, every muscle in her body taut with anticipation.

Minjun closes his eyes, inhaling deeply, letting the complex notes of strawberry and cream fill his senses. A slow, beatific smile spreads across his face, not the calculated grin of the CEO, but the unburdened joy of someone who has found exactly what they've been searching for. He opens his eyes, a glint of pure triumph in them as he looks at Chaeyoung. "This," he murmurs, his voice filled with reverence, wiggling the smelling stick in front of her eyes, "this isn't just good, Chaeyoung-ah. This is the next big thing—the next Salted Silk, perhaps.”

Chaeyoung's taut muscles finally relax, a wave of profound relief washing over her as Minjun's words sink in. A warm, triumphant smile matches his own. "The next Salted Silk, oppa?" she muses, her voice soft with pride. "That's quite the compliment." She steps dangerously close to him, the gap between their bodies barely able to fit a sheet of paper. Chaeyoung asks, “You’re not playing with me, are you?” Shaking his head firmly, he answers, “No, not at all. I meant every word I said.”

Chaeyoung holds his gaze, a quiet awe blossoming within her. His sincerity, his close presence, the weight of his words – it all solidifies something profound. The cool evening breeze ruffles her hair, but the warmth between them is undeniable. She simply nods, a soft, contented smile on her face. The new flavor, the successful trial, the enormous potential... it all pales slightly in comparison to the man standing so close, the one who no longer plays games, the one who sees her, truly sees her. The future stretches before them, no longer a battlefield, but a shared, exciting horizon.

-

A quarter later, the strawberry shortcake e-liquid is not just a success; it's a phenomenon. It dominates the market, its unique, natural flavor profile captivating consumers across the world, not just Asia. Sales figures for both Golden Leaf and Azure Taste Limited surge, shattering all previous records. The "next Salted Silk" has truly arrived, and then some. It’s particularly strange for Azure; they have never seen numbers this big.

Chaeyoung’s eyes remain glued to her tablet as her Continental takes her to Minjun’s house. “That forecast graph looks like a mountain,” she thinks, her finger tracing a line along the graph. “And to think that Azure is in the center of all this…” Her gaze leaves the screen as she leans back in the back seat. “Is everything okay, Miss Lee?” her chauffeur asks, glancing at her through the rear-view mirror. “It is. If anything, everything is great,” she states, no hesitation in her voice.

The Continental glides silently through the opulent gates of Minjun's private estate, a place Chaeyoung has only visited a handful of times, always for a high-stakes, exclusive meeting. Tonight, however, feels different. As the car pulls to a stop, Minjun stands waiting at the entrance of his grand house. A casual shirt, the sleeves folded to his elbows, replaces his usual sharp suits, and a soft, welcoming smile is already gracing his lips. He extends a hand to her as she steps out, his eyes warm with an unspoken congratulations that goes far beyond just business.

Chaeyoung takes his outstretched hand, her fingers brushing against the warmth of his skin. The subtle contact sends a pleasant shiver through her. "Oppa," she murmurs, her voice soft with a mixture of awe and contentment as she takes in his relaxed form. The scent of his subtle cologne, familiar from their close encounters, now seems to linger more intimately in the evening air. He squeezes her hand gently, a silent acknowledgment of their shared journey and the profound success that now links them.

“Tell your chauffeur to leave you with me, sweetheart,” Minjun mutters, an invitation to a special night lying beneath his voice. Chaeyoung nods, signaling to her chauffeur to leave her at Minjun’s estate. As the car disappears into the night, she turns to face him again. “I’m yours now,” she whispers back.

Minjun's smile deepens, a profound tenderness replacing the earlier gleam in his eyes. He laces his fingers through hers, the warmth of their joined hands anchoring them both. "Come inside, sweetheart," he murmurs, his voice a low, inviting hum. He guides her across the grand threshold, the heavy door closing behind them with a soft click, sealing them within the intimate warmth of his home. The quiet opulence of the foyer feels less imposing now, less a symbol of power and more a backdrop for the shared, undeniable connection that pulses between them.

Chaeyoung’s eyes land on the massive, plush sofa in the center of his grand living room. “Can we sit there, please?” she asks, pointing at the sofa, eager to sink herself into it. With a small nod, Minjun leads her to the pointed furniture, letting her sit down first before settling next to her. He turns to her, his hand gently finding hers again, lacing their fingers together. His thumb softly traces the back of her hand, a simple gesture that speaks volumes.

She leans closer to Minjun, to the point where he can feel her breathing on his face. “Kiss me, oppa.” Without hesitation, he gently takes her lips, taking her invitation to intimacy right away. Closing their eyes, Minjun and Chaeyoung stay connected, filling the air with a charged intimate tension. When the kiss eventually breaks, both are left breathless; gone are the CEOs—they are simply Lee Chaeyoung and Park Minjun, two souls finding their way to each other.

Minjun's eyes flutter open, dark with a shared emotion, as he rests his forehead against hers. "Chaeyoung-ah…" he breathes, the name a soft prayer on his lips. His hand moves from hers to cup her cheek, his thumb gently stroking her skin. “This feels right, doesn’t it, oppa?” He nods to her question, the small gesture carrying more weight than any words he can say now. The world outside, the new success they have built together, fades into insignificance. All that exists is the soft warmth of her against him, the gentle rhythm of their breaths, and the undeniable truth of this moment.

Chaeyoung crashes into him once more, claiming his lips as hers, pouring everything she has into the connection. “I… I want to be with you, oppa. Not just as a business partner, but as a partner in life,” she confesses. Minjun takes a deep breath as her words settle in his mind, but before he can say anything else, she presses on. “Would you let me take the space in your heart that Miss Park Sieun once owned?”

Minjun's eyes hold hers as he rests his forehead against hers. "No one could ever replace my lovely Sieun, sweetheart," he murmurs, his voice thick with the enduring grief. "But you, my incredible Lee Chaeyoung... you don't need to replace her. You've carved out a space in my heart that is uniquely yours. A space that makes me want to live again—truly live. Not just for the past, but for a future with you." He pulls her into another deep, reaffirming kiss, sealing his words.

When the kiss finally breaks, they remain intertwined, foreheads resting together, breathing each other in. The silence of the grand living room wraps around them, not empty but rich with unspoken promises and the gentle thump of two hearts beating in sync. Chaeyoung lifts a hand, tracing the line of Minjun's jaw, a soft, amazed smile blooming on her lips. "A future with you, oppa," she whispers, the words tasting like hope.

Pulling away, Minjun’s palm lands on her knee, softly caressing it. “May I entertain you with some shrimp carbonara fettuccine?” he asks, a hint of excitement woven in his voice, seemingly eager to flex his cooking skills. Chaeyoung giggles; shrimp carbonara fettuccine sounds heavenly to her rumbling tummy. “Yes, you may, oppa. Please make it spicy too.” His eyebrow rises at her request. “Spicy, you say? How spicy?” She leans closer towards him, the idea of personal space non-existent. “As spicy as tonight will be.”

Minjun's eyebrow remains raised, a slow, knowing smile spreading across his face. "As spicy as tonight will be," he echoes, his voice a low, husky rumble that sends another shiver down her spine—this one is purely of anticipation. He squeezes her knee gently before pushing himself off the sofa. "Consider it done, sweetheart. Come, let's see if your palate can handle Golden Leaf's executive chef's spiciest creation." He extends a hand, inviting her to join him, his eyes sparkling with a promise of culinary, and perhaps romantic, adventure.

Chaeyoung settles on a stool at the kitchen, her hands resting on the clean marble countertop, while Minjun begins to prepare the fettuccine dish. She watches on silently, as if stuck in a stupor, as he moves around the kitchen with practiced fluidity. “Was he a chef in a past life or something?” she wonders quietly. “You know, I’ve always liked cooking for those I hold dear,” he says, as if able to read her mind. “Seeing people enjoy my cooking brings me joy.”

Chaeyoung’s ears perk up like an excited puppy. “Those you hold dear, oppa? Am I part of that exclusive circle now?” she muses, a flush creeping up her cheeks at the idea of being held dear. Minjun glances at her over his shoulder, a small grin peeking out the side. “You are, and once you're in, you can't get out—well, unless you do something very, very… uh, stupid.” She laughs, the sound filling the spacious kitchen. “Like stealing your most precious IP?” Minjun laughs with her, the clash over Salted Silk a distant memory. “Yes, like stealing my most precious IP.”

Soon, two plates of shrimp carbonara fettuccine lands on the counter, the smell of garlic and butter poignant. “I put 4 bird’s eye chilies in yours. I hope that's spicy enough,” he says, his gaze still locked on her plate. Holding his chin with her fingertips, Chaeyoung turns his face towards her—wait, since when is her cleavage exposed? “I can handle spice, oppa, and I'm not talking about chilies.”

Minjun's eyes widen slightly at her directness, the playful challenge in her gaze mirroring his own. A slow, consuming heat rises within him, far more potent than any chili. His hand, initially resting idly on the counter, slides towards hers, his thumb brushing against the soft skin of her wrist. "Oh, you're not talking about chilies, are you, sweetheart?" he murmurs, his voice filled with a desire he no longer bothers to hide. He leans in, closing the remaining distance between them, his gaze dropping to her lips.

Chaeyoung's breath hitches, her eyes fluttering closed as Minjun's lips finally claim hers. The kiss is deep, urgent, a declaration of all the unspoken words and desires that have simmered between them for months. His hand tightens on her wrist, pulling her closer until no space remains. When they eventually break apart, both are breathless. The scent of garlic and chili on the air are now mingling with something far sweeter and more intoxicating.

Minjun pulls away, a triumphant, tender smile gracing his lips. "That’s definitely spicier than any chili," he murmurs, his voice raw with emotion. “But whatever it is we’re about to do tonight can’t be done on an empty stomach.” A fond, knowing smile tugs at the corners of Chaeyoung’s lips. “I know, oppa, and just so you know, I want to be treated with grace and tenderness.”

Minjun's triumphant smile mellows into something deeply tender. He reaches out, gently brushing a stray strand of hair from her face, his touch light and reverent. "Grace and tenderness," he repeats softly, his gaze holding hers. "You deserve nothing less, my heart." He then gestures to the plates of pasta. "Come, let's get some warmth in that stomach of yours. We have all night for... everything else." His eyes twinkle, a playful promise of the passion to come, wrapped in careful respect.

As they begin to eat the fragrant pasta, the air between them remains charged with that electric awareness. The meal is delicious, a testament to Minjun's unexpected talent, but it feels like a prelude. Once their plates are clear, Minjun reaches across the counter, taking her hand. "The living room, perhaps?" he suggests, his thumb gently caressing her palm. Chaeyoung shakes her head; she wants something more… private. “The bedroom?” he suggests once more, looking for a yes from her. “The bedroom, yes,” she confirms, leaning forward a bit, giving him a peek into her exposed chest. “Grace and tenderness, remember?”

He rises from his stool, pulling her gently from hers, their joined hands never breaking contact. He doesn't need to ask again; the answer is clear in her gaze, in the slight flush on her cheeks, in the undeniable pull that now binds them as he turns and leads her deeper into the quiet vastness of his home.

A shiver, this one purely out of exhilaration, runs down Chaeyoung's spine as Minjun leads her towards what feels like the sacred, yet hallowed, sanctuary of his bedroom. Her mind races with all kinds of thoughts; she is about to enter the room where Minjun and Sieun have shared nights of raw, unbridled passion. The idea that she’s replacing Sieun is almost unsettling.

The door looms, dark wood against the soft light of the hallway. As Minjun's fingers tighten around hers, Chaeyoung's steps falter for just a moment. She looks up at him, her eyes wide with a sudden, raw vulnerability. "Oppa," she whispers, her voice barely audible. "Park Sieun..." She doesn’t need to finish the sentence; the unspoken question, the ghost of comparison, hangs heavy in the air between them.

Minjun's gaze, usually so sure, softens even further, acknowledging the profound weight of her hesitation. “No, baby, this isn’t about replacing her with you. This is about us, about the future we’re building together,” he assures her, pulling her into his arms. “I think… I think my Sieun would want me to look forward and move on, so please help me.”

Chaeyoung melts into his embrace, her arms tightening around his waist. The lingering doubt from Sieun's ghost begins to dissipate, replaced by the profound warmth of Minjun's honesty and his raw plea. She rests her head against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. "I will, oppa," she whispers, her voice firm, filled with a love that now understands the depths of his. "I'll help you. Every step of the way." Together, they take that first step towards the bedroom door, no longer a sanctuary of the past, but a threshold to their future.

The soft light of the bedroom spills into the hallway as Minjun pushes the door open further, holding it for her. He steps back, allowing her to enter first, a silent gesture of respect and invitation. Chaeyoung walks into the room, her eyes taking in the subdued elegance, the large, inviting bed. She turns to him, a soft, confident smile on her lips, and reaches for his hand again, pulling him fully into the room. The door clicks shut behind them, enclosing them in a private world where Lee Chaeyoung and Park Minjun exist as who they truly are, no façade of professionality in between.

Chaeyoung pulls him closer, her free hand coming up to rest on his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart. “Oppa…” she mutters, her eyes fluttering close, beckoning him to fully close the gap. Without a word said, Minjun leans down, capturing her lips with his in an unhurried kiss, unattached to the world beyond these walls.

As the kiss deepens, she takes his hand, guiding it towards her bountiful bosom. “Mm…” Chaeyoung softly moans into the kiss, savoring the sensation his fingers are offering. They break the kiss momentarily, looking into each other’s eyes. “You like my assets, oppa?” she teases, pressing her body into him. “I do,” he whispers back. “You’re perfect, baby…”

Minjun's fingers gently explore, eliciting another soft gasp from Chaeyoung. He leans down, tracing the curve of her neck with his lips, his breath warm against her skin. "Absolutely perfect," he adds, the words vibrating against her as he lifts her into his arms. She wraps her legs around his waist, instinctively clinging to him as he takes a step, then another, moving them closer to the inviting expanse of the bed.

Minjun settles on the edge of the bed, keeping Chaeyoung seated on his lap, her red cheeks a proof of her unspoken desires. He sneaks his hands to the second button of her blouse, his gaze meeting hers, searching for permission. “Yes, you may,” she breathes, knowing what is on his mind. One button after the other swiftly gets undone, thus allowing a glimpse into her physique. “Goodness me...” Minjun is in awe at the sight before him. “You’re absolutely beautiful, baby…”

Minjun's fingers continue their gentle work, pushing the soft fabric aside as his eyes devour the sight before him. His gaze, filled with reverence, slowly travels upward, meeting her own. Chaeyoung's hand, which had been resting lightly on his shoulder, now reaches up, her fingers threading into his hair, pulling him closer. "This is me, and I’m yours and only yours," she murmurs, her voice husky, a playful challenge in her eyes that promises further submission.

Minjun's eyes darken, reflecting the fervent desire in hers. He doesn't need to speak; her words, her touch, her gaze, convey everything. He leans in, closing the final distance, and captures her lips in a deep, consuming kiss that tastes of promise and absolute surrender. “Baby,” he calls to her, his whispered voice husky. “Can you do something for me?” Chaeyoung takes a deep breath, bracing to hear her first order from him. “Say it, oppa. What do you need from me?” Taking her hand, Minjun guides it towards his growing erection. “Can you help me… get ready?”

Chaeyoung's gaze drops to his hand on hers, then follows to where he guides it. A blush deepens on her cheeks, but her eyes sparkle with understanding and eager consent. Without hesitation, her fingers curl around him, feeling the warmth and impressive size. "Anything for you, oppa," she murmurs, her voice a low, confident whisper.

Chaeyoung sinks into her knees, feeling the soft carpet through the fabric of her trousers. Without breaking eye contact, she swiftly undoes his belt and zipper, sliding Minjun’s pants down his legs. “Oh my…” Slowly, hesitantly, she reaches for his manhood, the shape and size apparent from the bulge on his boxers. She looks up at him again and asks, “May I, oppa?” At his approving nod, Chaeyoung lowers his boxers, not bothering to take them off entirely; she’s stunned by the sight of his asset.

Not wasting time, Chaeyoung parts her lips, taking the first few centimeters of him in her mouth. Minjun inhales sharply at the first contact, his breath catching at his throat. “Oh my God…” he mumbles. “You could’ve warned me first, baby, but… please go on.” Relaxing her muscles, she tries to take him deeper, fighting the reflexive urge to gag. His breathing begins to pick up tempo; it’s been so long since someone has touched him like this.

Minjun's hand, which has been resting on her shoulder, tightens, his fingers subtly guiding her head, urging her deeper. A low, guttural groan escapes him, a sound of pure, unbridled pleasure that vibrates through her. Chaeyoung focuses, pushing past her own discomfort, her movements becoming more confident, more rhythmic. The taste, the feel, the sheer intimacy of it all washes over her, a thrilling tide.

Chaeyoung closes her eyes, letting her movements be guided by his hand planted on the back of her head. At every pass, she moans around him, the vibration sending shivers down his spine. “Baby…” he whispers, his breath quick and ragged, and she’s quick to meet his gaze. “Goodness me, you’re… amazing.” She offers a wink before taking more of his length, making him groan her name. “You’re… killing me, Lee Chaeyoung.”

Eventually, Minjun’s hips buck, a desperate, uncontrolled rhythm taking over his body. His fingers clench tightly in Chaeyoung’s hair, pulling her head slightly back as a final, raw groan tears from his throat. A powerful tremor shakes his entire frame, and he collapses back onto the bed, utterly spent, his breathing ragged. Chaeyoung pulls away, breathless, looking up at him as he lies there, wiping the remnants of his release off her lips. Curious, she takes a lick; Minjun tastes so… manly.

A soft chuckle rumbles in Minjun’s chest as he catches the look on Chaeyoung’s face. He reaches for her, pulling her gently up so she’s lying beside him on the bed, his arm coming around her waist. Chaeyoung rests her head on his shoulder, listening to the steadying beat of his heart. The silence that settles between them is comfortable, filled with the warmth of shared release and the undeniable, tangible proof of their newly forged intimacy.

“That was just the opening act, though, right?” Minjun chuckles at her question, pressing a fleeting peck to her forehead. “It was. It was quite… explosive, might I add,” he adds. A satisfied grin blooms on her face, proud of herself for her performance. Her hand slides from his chest to his crotch, her fingers brushing against his manhood, the tip shiny from his earlier release. “Come on, oppa. Let’s get ready for the main event,” she urges, stroking him to full hardness again.

Minjun groans, a sound of pure pleasure rumbling in his chest as her fingers work their magic. His body responds instantly, hardening beneath her touch. He pulls her closer, shifting his weight. "You’re not one for intermissions, are you, baby?" he murmurs, his voice thick with raw desire. He lifts her, repositioning her over him, their gazes locked, ready for the main event to truly begin. “Go on, then; you know what to do.”

She lifts herself off his lap, quickly shedding every layer of clothes from her body, tossing them over her head, not bothered by the mess. Minjun watches her undress with a dark, excited gleam in his eyes, his cock pointing straight to the ceiling, ready for action. “Wow…” he murmurs, taking in the sight of her shape; she’s simply breathtaking. “You’re so beautiful, baby.” A flush creeps up her face at his admission, turning her cheeks red hot. “Thank you, oppa. You’ve said that before, remember?”

“Anyway…” Chaeyoung’s eyes sparkle with mischief as she positions herself over Minjun’s rigid length, her slick folds teasing the sensitive head. She takes a moment to admire the sight of him, spread out beneath her, his chest heaving with anticipation. “Like this, handsome?” she asks, her voice a sultry purr as she slowly sinks down, taking him inch by delicious inch until she's fully seated on his thick cock. “Mm, so big and hard...” She sighs, her inner walls clenching around him as she starts to move, rolling her hips in slow, deliberate circles. She sets a leisurely pace, savoring the sensation of being filled to the brim by her new lover's potent manhood.

Minjun’s hands instinctively rise, gripping her hips, his fingers digging in slightly as she rolls. A deep, guttural moan rumbles from his chest, a sound that vibrates through Chaeyoung and eggs her on. His head tilts back against the pillows, eyes squeezed shut, a look of pure, unadulterated bliss etched on his face. "Yes, baby… just like that," he rasps, his voice thick with raw desire. He begins to thrust up, meeting her every downward slide, finding a powerful, intoxicating rhythm together.

Minjun groans, his fingers digging into Chaeyoung’s hips as she sets a relentless pace, her velvety walls gripping him like a vice. The sight of her bouncing on his cock, her tits swaying with each thrust, is almost too much to bear. “Fuck, baby, you're killing me.” He pants, his vision blurring at the edges as he struggles to maintain control. “So hot, so tight... You were made for me, weren't you?” Desperate to prolong the pleasure, Minjun reaches between us to rub circles around Chaeyoung’s sensitive nub, hoping to push her over the edge and into a screaming orgasm. His own climax builds rapidly, threatening to overtake him at any moment.

A low cry escapes Chaeyoung as Minjun's fingers work their magic, sending waves of pleasure through her that mirror the mounting tension within him. She clenches around him, her hips bucking wildly, abandoning all control. "Oppa!" she screams, her voice raw, as an intense wave of pure sensation washes over her, pulling a guttural roar from Minjun as he, too, shudders into his release. His body goes rigid, a final, powerful tremor shaking his frame, and they collapse onto the bed, utterly spent, their bodies slick with sweat, the last echoes of pleasure vibrating between them.

Chaeyoung moans as his hot release pools in her core, filling her to the brim, a testament to his claim over her. “I… I’m sorry; I should’ve asked first,” he breathes, regret swirling within him for being careless. “Nonsense,” she rebuts, pressing a quick kiss to his lips. “This cannot be any more perfect.” She shifts slightly, eliciting a deep groan from Minjun, and looks right into his eyes. “You’re perfect for me, Park Minjun.”

Minjun's arm tightens around her, pulling her closer against his damp skin. He presses his face into her hair, inhaling her scent, a soft sigh escaping him. The grand bedroom, once a symbol of his solitary world, now hums with the warmth of their shared presence. They lie intertwined, the steady beat of his heart against her ear a comforting lullaby, proof that they are truly, finally, home in each other’s arms. The night stretches before them, no longer a series of acts, but a continuous, tender embrace.

-

Hours later, the first hint of dawn paints the vast room in hues of soft grey and rose. Chaeyoung stirs in Minjun's arms, nestled perfectly against him, a warmth spreading through her that has nothing to do with the sun. She opens her eyes to find him already awake, watching her, a profound tenderness in his gaze. "Good morning, my heart," he murmurs, his voice still heavy with sleep. “Mm, good morning, my king,” she replies, stretching languidly next to him.

Minjun's arm tightens around her waist, pulling her even closer. He presses a soft kiss to her temple, savoring the feeling of her warmth against him. "Sleep well, my love?" he asks, his voice a low rumble in his chest. Chaeyoung hums in agreement, tracing patterns on his bare arm. ”It was the best sleep I’ve had in a hot minute,” she muses, her mind going back to the sleepless nights when they were fighting over Salted Silk. “And the fact that you filled me to the brim… it’s like getting a hug from the inside.”

Minjun chuckles softly, pulling her even tighter against him, burying his face deeper into her hair. "A hug from the inside, huh?" he murmurs, a contented smile in his voice. He shifts slightly, reaching for her hand, lacing their fingers together. "I like the sound of that, baby. If you need another hug, just let me know; I’ll fill you until overflowing." Chaeyoung smacks him on the chest, more playful than harmful, giggling out of pure mirth at his teasing offer. “That’s a generous offer, but I think I’d give it some time before we go again.” She shifts in his embrace, her lips brushing against his earlobe. “If we’re lucky, maybe my belly will rise after a bit of rest.”

Minjun freezes, his laughter dying in his throat. His head lifts from her hair, and he pulls back just enough to look into her eyes, searching for a hint of jest, but finds only earnestness mixed with playful hope. His breath hitches. "Your... your belly?" he whispers, the words barely audible, a profound mix of disbelief and overwhelming joy dawning on his face. She smiles from ear to ear, her eyes creasing into half-moons. “My belly, yes. I will give you heirs—that’s my promise to you.”

Minjun’s disbelief slowly morphs into a radiating warmth that fills his entire being. A single tear escapes the corner of his eye, betraying the depth of his emotion. He pulls her even closer, a fierce, protective embrace that speaks more than words ever could. "Heirs," he breathes, the word a sacred vow on his lips. "With you, my love, yes—a thousand times, yes." He cups her face, his thumbs gently caressing her cheeks, and pulls her into a kiss that promises a lifetime of love and the joyous chaos of a family built together.

[defmaybe]

0310

IVE Liz x Male Reader

Words: 2k+

“I can’t believe I’m here,” you muttered under your breath, letting out a slow, weighted sigh. It’s already past four o’clock, and yet you’re still there, sitting in the same spot for almost an hour now, almost like you’re waiting for something… someone…

“Hey! I’m really sorry for making you wait!” a girl’s voice pulled you back, dropping onto the bench beside you, still catching her breath but laughing through it. Did she run here for you? You lifted your head, turning to her, looking at her. A cute deep dimple carves into her cheek as she smile, as bright as the sunshine brushing across her face, her almond eyes glowing. She’s so beautiful. “Hey, Liz.” that’s all you could manage to say. But the smile on your lips says more than just words ever could.

That moment, the way she looked, the way your heart moved, feels like it never really left this place.

A breeze passed, the sunlight shifting as your smile fades, realizing that now, it’s just you. Alone in the same bench, holding the weight of the memory from this exact day five years ago.

“I can’t believe it’s been that long already,” you murmured, staring at the empty seat beside you. Your fingers brush the wooden slats she once sat on, your hand lingering where hers used to rest.

That was the day it all began. Her laugh, the way she looked at you, the way you swore no one had ever made the world feel that light before. The laughs you shared each awkward silence, it felt so genuinely assuring.

You stood, brushing your hands against your jeans. The bench creaking slightly as you leave it behind, just like you both did, all those years ago.

The park haven’t changed much. The same vendors, same rusted bike rack, same uneven brick that used to make her trip just a little every time, until she learned to step over it. You walked slower now, tracing her old footsteps with your own.

There it is, the riverside. You rest your hands on the same metal railing. Its blue paint chipped and cool beneath your skin. It’s quieter than you remember. Or maybe it’s just you.

“It’s so pretty here.” Liz said, her eyes set on the small duck boats from a distance. You turned to her, admiring her smile, it feels like home. It never failed to make your heart pound as hard. “It is pretty,” you replied smiling, you wanted this moment to last forever.

“I think I like this better than the movies,” she said, leaning closer to the edge, her fingers brushing yours on the railing. “Less people, less noise. It’s so peaceful.”

You searched her eyes, hoping she’d meet yours. But she didn’t. “Yeah,” you said too quickly. “But if it’s with you, even noisy places would be okay.”

She smiled at that, not teasing, not deep. Just… polite. And yet, you still held onto it like it meant everything.

You edged your hand a little closer to hers. Not quite touching, not yet, just lightly brushing. Waiting, hoping. She didn’t pull away, but didn’t reach back either.

You took a deep breath, looking at your hands just beside each other. You finally made a move to hold her hand. But it was cold, realizing that she’s not there anymore, it,s just the metal railing you held, where she had rested her hand before. If only you’d held her hand that day.

“Liz?” A familiar scent brushed past you. You turned, looking around, but she’s not there. Of course not. That scent had been lingering in your memory, etched in your mind even since that day. So vivid some days, it clings your clothes, sneaks into the air when the wind shifts. But you still has those butterflies each time.

You breathe again, slower this time. It’s gone. But it’s enough to pull you away from the railing, from that memory.

Your feet started to move. Knowing exactly where they’re going.

That cafe’s still here. Standing alone in the park among the trees at the edge of the park. The sign’s a little faded now, the logo peeled at the edges. But the bell above the door still jingles the same.

The warm air meets you first, along with the faint scent of coffee beans being grinded by the counter. A few sleepy cats curl by the windowstill. You glanced around for that one familiar cat, but it was nowhere to be found.

You took that table. The one by the window. Where that grey cat always claimed the other seat. Liz always liked this table, a perfect view of the riverside where she can watch the sunset, and her favorite cat always curling up beside us.

No need to look at the menu, you both just ordered the same thing everytime anyway. “One large Spanish Latte, a slice of red velvet cake, and then…” you paused, catching yourself. “…just that, please.”

You carried your tray back to your table, careful not to step on the cats sprawled across the floor. You sit quietly, watching the sky outside as you sip your coffee. The sun’s already down. Then softly, the overhead lights flicker on. The warm amber glow fills the room.

“Wow, the lights are pretty.” Liz said. She was there, resting her chin on her hand, her eyes following the soft lights strung around the plants. “I like how the light make everything feel softer,” She smiled. “Even the cats look fluffier.” She let out a soft giggle as she looked at the cats around. But your eyes, just stayed on her.

A grey cat hopped onto the empty chair next to her. Her eyes widen, smiling so brightly as she pet the cat. “Hello!” She cooed in that cutesy high-pitched voice she always used with cats. “Meow!” And then there’s her meowing, as if she’s having a full-on conversation. You couldn’t help but to adore her being all excited playing with a cat. It’s like watching two cats playing with each other.

Outside, the full moon hangs in the sky, glowing softly over the river. You turned to look at it. Still having that warmth feeling from that time, until you turned back, looking at the empty seat in front of you.

The same grey cat approached on your side. “Hey there, Yona.” That’s the name Liz gave her, after the cat kept sitting with you everytime you were here. “I was looking for you earlier but you weren’t around.” You reached down and scratched her head gently as she leaned closer to your hand. Yona turned to look at the chair where Liz used to sit, then meowed.

“I miss her too,” you whispered, giving her one last scratch behind her ear before turning back toward the window. “The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” You sat for a moment longer, letting the silence settle.

The bell above the cafe door jingles as you leave. The night air cooler now, brushing against your skin like a ghost of her touch. You slipped your hands into your pockets, feet already moving as if they already know which way to go without needing to be told.

There’s a path behind the cafe, the one lined up with paper lanterns during festivals. The same one you walked with her that day.

“I love you.” Liz said so suddenly.

“What did you say?” you asked, assuring that you heard those words correctly.

Liz turned, looking up at you. “I… Love… You…” she said, word per word. You heard it right, does that mean?

“Does that mean—”

“Yes.” she smiled, her hands reaching yours. It’s hard to be explained, people walking by froze, everything went into a blur. All you knew was she’s the only one you can see.

“Yes? Yes?! Whoooo!!” You screamed your emotions out, couldn’t believe it, that she’s now yours, and yours only. And that you’re hers, and hers only. You hugged her tightly, jumping around like a little kid. “I love you too!”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t think we’re still working for me.” just like that day, she caught you off guard with another sudden confession. A total opposite of the start, the end.

She laughed then, half embarrassed, half in awe, pulling back just enough to look at you. “You’re so intense,” she giggled, her fingers didn’t let go of yours. Not yet.

You memorized everything about that moment. The way her smile curved, the way her eyes darted away when you held her gaze too long, like she was afraid to be seen too clearly. But you didn’t mind. You’d hold on enough for both of you.

“I’m sorry. I just don’t think this is working for me anymore.”

It was exactly two years later, but just like that first confession, she caught you off guard again. Another truth dropped without warning.

You blinked, frozen in place. “Wait, what?”

Her eyes avoided yours. “I just… I think I need space. We’ve been trying so hard lately, and it’s still not…” she paused, breathing shallowly, “…still not enough.”

Enough. That word stuck to your ribs like a stone.

“I can fix it,” you said, too fast. “We can fix it, Liz. I just need to know what you need, what I can do—”

She shook her head. “That’s just it. I don’t know what I need. I never do. And I feel like I’m always being pulled into something too much, too fast.”

Your heart broke a little right then, not just from the words, but from how far away she already seemed, even standing right in front of you.

You’ve already noticed her clues beforehand. The way she’d pull her hand away a little faster after holding it. How her replies in text got shorter, slower. The way her eyes drifted to the window when you spoke about the future, as if the view outside was easier to hold onto than your words.

She started saying “I’m just tired” more often. Not angry, not upset, just tired. But tired became quieter, and quieter became distant.

You told yourself it was fine. That everyone gets like that sometimes. That if you just gave more, more patience, more love, more time, she’d come back around.

You didn’t ask questions you didn’t want the answers to. Because deep down, you knew. And knowing would’ve made it real.

It’s been two years since that day, and yet you’re still in this place, reenacting those precious moments you made together. From your first date, first “I love you”, to your last time together.

Your feet stopped, at that very cobbled stone where it all started, and ended. The trees rustled as the cool night breeze passes, carrying the faint scent of blossoms. You looked up. Cherry blossoms already falling. “Isn’t it too early?” You muttered.

Pink petals falling like snow, so cold it reminded you of that day. You managed to pick one falling petal, staring at it.

“Happy anniversary,”

“Happy anniversary,”

You froze, fingers still holding the single petal. There she was, standing in front of you, her hair slightly longer now, her coat rustling with the wind, eyes wide like she couldn’t believe it either. She held a petal in her hand too.

Why is she here? Did she come to those places too? Wait, did she just say “happy anniversary” too? She remembered?

You looked at her, really looked. The way her fingers fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve, the soft flush on her cheeks from the cold. Real, undeniably real.

Those two words. Just like the first time. It was all you could manage saying.

“Hey, Liz.”

She gave a soft smile, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Do you… wanna walk a bit?”

••••••••••

Prompt by @suchsweetstories

[defmaybe]

Party of Three

Kazuha (🦢) X Sakura (🌸) X Reader (📖)

Word Count: 2.7k

A/N: Prompt for @suchsweetstories. Thanks for hosting!

The air hangs heavy, fragrant with warm skin and breathed liquor. Each breath shivers with a chorus of whimpers and muffled groans, until even the hush between sounds feels taut with pleasure.

Kazuha is the trembling center—back arched in a perfect curve. You pin her arms behind her, hips driving forward with relentless rhythm, keeping her weight tilted to meet every thrust. In front, Sakura molds herself to Kazuha’s chest, steadying her while still forcing that exquisite bend. She turns her gaze over Kazuha’s shoulder, eyes locking with yours, a slow smile spreading as Kazuha’s soft cries flutter against her neck.

“This is what you wanted all along, isn’t it?” she purrs, gaze flicking to yours while Kazuha gasps. “My greedy little slut—fantasizing about me and my boyfriend.”

The words are filthy, but Sakura’s fingers comb Kazuha’s hair with disarming tenderness. Each insult makes Kazuha clench, velvet heat gripping you so hard you curse under your breath.

“Fuck… you’re so tight.”

Sakura’s smile widens—she has both of you dancing on her strings, savoring the power as your control frays and Kazuha dissolves in breathless moans.

“Still hiding that voice?” she murmurs, lips grazing Kazuha’s ear. “We’re giving you everything, and you won’t even let us hear how badly you need it?”

Her hand slips lower. The moment Sakura’s fingers find Kazuha’s clit, a sharp cry rips free. The dam bursts: Kazuha’s once‑muffled sounds swell into shameless, aching wails.

“I‑I… can’t—” she tries, words shattering on her tongue.

“Speak.” Sakura’s command is velvet‑soft, relentless fingers never slowing. “You weren’t shy a moment ago—so eager to tell us every filthy thought.”

Kazuha can only sob, hips jerking as pleasure coils tight.

Sakura chuckles, wicked and fond. “This is your doing. That needy little mind of yours can’t think of anything but sex—”

Whatever she does next steals the rest of Kazuha’s breath: her body arches, clenches, a raw scream spilling as she convulses around you, proof that Sakura is guiding her right over the edge.

“Shit im close!!” you groan.

“Kazhua baby,” Sakura purrs, “You don't mind if my boyfriend cum inside do you?”

Kazuha didn't answer, her mouth still gasping, moaning, too busy with accommodating the pleasure.

“Do you?” Sakura asks again, more demanding now.

“No!” she screams, on the edge of pleasure herself. “Fuck… Please…”

Sakura shifts her gaze to you, “Do it, give it to her” she simply says, “She's ours tonight.”

 As if her words are the trigger, you broke. With a guttural groan that tore from your throat, you poured yourself into Kazuha, a hot, thick rush that felt infinite. Her body convulsed violently beneath you, a raw, keening scream ripping free as she shattered around your climax. The feeling of her seizing, clutching, taking everything you gave her was an electric shock, making you shudder and thrust one last, deep time before collapsing forward, heavy and spent.

Your strength finally gives out, and you shift to the side, collapsing onto the bed with a heavy breath. Kazuha drops beside you, eyes closed, her chest rising and falling as she succumbs to exhaustion. You reach out, gently brushing a few strands of hair from her face, revealing her peaceful expression beneath the mess of it all—soft, flushed, beautiful.

On the other side of the bed, Sakura stretches out, clearly the most energetic of the three. Her smile hasn't faded—still bright, still giddy—as she gazes at Kazuha with something close to adoration. Then her eyes flick to you. She leans in and cups your face, her thumb brushing your cheek.

“Who would've thought, huh?” she murmurs.

You can't help but smile back, still catching your breath. She’s right. You’re still reeling from how quickly Kazuha could shift—from sweet, shy stammering to something so intense it left your head spinning.

Moments earlier the three of you had sprawled in the living room. Sakura on the other edge of the table while Kazuha vanished into the kitchen to fetch more drinks. Party remnants lingered everywhere: half‑eaten cake on the coffee table, the TV still set to karaoke, balloons and pom‑poms drooping in corners, a tower of unpacked boxes shoved aside to clear floor space.

“Party” was generous; truthfully it was just you and your girlfriend scrambling to throw together something for Kazuha’s birthday.   Still, Kazuha’s place in your relationship had always been special. She’d been Sakura’s best friend long before you met her, the very reason you met Sakura at all, and even after playing matchmaker she never drifted away. When it was you and Sakura, things were romantic; when Kazuha joined, it shifted to three friends hanging out—easy, natural. You’d never questioned that balance … until tonight.

Kazuha was still rattling around the kitchen, leaving you and Sakura sitting cross‑legged on the floor.

“It’s been a long day,” Sakura sighed, tapping a sealed box within reach before gesturing to the birthday decorations. “You did so much. We should’ve gotten back from the store sooner,” she teased.

You drained the last of your drink. “I didn’t think—I just did what I could. ‘Go set up while I keep Zuha out’ isn’t exactly a detailed plan,” you laughed.

“At least it worked. We even picked up furniture on the way—efficient, just how she likes.” Sakura polished off her drink, then forked a bite of cake.

“True, but who decides to move right before their birthday? A house‑warming party should happen after unpacking, not during—and definitely not on the same night,” you muttered, keeping your voice low.

“She likes efficiency, 2 parties in one” Sakura repeated around a mouthful of cake. Then she swallowed and murmured, “I can’t wait to get home.”

“We’re not staying?” You blinked. “It’s late, we’ve both had drinks—we can’t drive.” Sakura stared, clearly lining up a rebuttal. “Unless there’s a specific reason you want to go home?”

She set her fork down and crawled around the table to press against you. You wrapped an arm around her.

“Why?” you asked softly.

“Don’t you want to go home?” she murmured.

“And leave Zuha alone?” The playful swat she gave your arm said she disliked that angle.

“Don’t you want to do something at home?” she asked, cheeks coloring.

The penny dropped. “You mean… you want to play?”

She didn’t deny it; the guilty smile said enough. “You want to go home because you want to queue up in League?”

“It’s just—playing with you, I like it more than I expected.”

“It’s been a long day. Even if we did go home, I doubt I’d last a match.” You glanced toward the kitchen. “And you’d leave Zuha alone on her birthday?”

“She’ll understand—she’s my best friend, she knows how much I lo—”

“Understand what?”

Kazuha pads back in, two fresh beers hissing in her grip. You take one, setting it on the table while Sakura scoots aside, suddenly sheepish.

“It’s nothing—you wouldn’t get it anyway,” you tease.

“That’s not fair.” Kazuha drops cross‑legged beside you, popping her can. “Every time I walk in, you two change the subject.”

Sakura exhales. “Fine. We finally did it—together.” She pauses for effect. “lol.”

Kazuha chokes mid‑swallow. “Wait, what?”

“You okay?” you ask, patting her back. “Bit of an overreaction, isn’t it?”

“I just assumed you’d… done that ages ago,” Kazuha sputters.

“Nah,” Sakura says, wiping foam from her lip. “Everyone says it can wreck a relationship if you’re not in sync.”

“They do?” Kazuha frowns, thinking.

“I’ve heard horror stories,” Sakura goes on. “Happy couples break up after one bad match. No synergy.”

Kazuha nods slowly. “Yeah… I guess I’ve heard things like that.” She lifts her can to hide a shy glance. “So—were you two… compatible?”

“We were,” Sakura answers at once, pride bright in her voice.

But Kazuha’s eyes linger on you, waiting. You shrug, grinning. “Yeah, it was fun—though Sakura definitely enjoyed it more. She keeps begging for another round.”

“We ended up doing it all night,” Sakura shyly admits.

Kazuha’s fingers tighten around her can. “All … all night?” she echoes, eyes wide.

Sakura gives a shy laugh. “We lost track of time. I’ve played with others before, but with him it was relaxed and fun.”

You notice Kazuha squirm, clearly unsettled. “Anyway, Zuha, this topic is going to bore you,” you say, glancing at Sakura. “You’ve never played, right?”

“H‑how did you know?” Kazuha sputters, shooting Sakura a glare. “Did Kkura tell you?”

“No,” Sakura chuckles. “You’ve just never brought it up—people assume.”

“I… I—” Kazuha falters.

“Okay, new topic. Furniture?” you suggest.

But Kazuha lifts her chin. “Even if I’ve never done it, I know a lot. I’ve studied.” Both you and Sakura blink at that. “I’ve read plenty.”

“You do?” Sakura perks up.

“Read?” you repeat. “That’s an unusual way to start—most people learn through videos.”

“I’ve watched them,” Kazuha mutters, cheeks tinged pink. “They get repetitive. Reading is more detailed. And lots of people read it too, so I’m not weird.”

“Sure…” you nod slowly, amused. “So, have you played before?”

“No. Never had the chance,” Kazuha says, shifting in her seat. “I can’t just do it with anyone, can I? I want it to be special. I guess.”

“Why? That’s kind of limiting,” Sakura laughs, leaning back. “Just do it yourself then.”

“That counts?”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Sakura shoots back instantly.

Kazuha hesitates—then quietly says, “Then… I’ve already done it. A lot.”

“Are you sure it’s ‘a lot’?” you tease. “Because Sakura here is the definition of excessive. She’ll just sit there and do it for hours. Days blur together. I’ve had to physically pull her away some weekends.”

Sakura shrugs innocently, not even denying it.

“How often do you do it then?” you ask, grinning. “Sakura easily gets through ten in a weekend.”

“I… I don’t really keep count,” Kazuha mumbles, practically hiding behind her can. “Maybe… six? A day. If I’m really in the mood, I take the whole weekend.”

Sakura nearly chokes on her drink. You stare.

“…Per day?” you echo, slowly.

“I said maybe,” Kazuha defends, mortified. “I just—if I’m in the zone—I can’t stop once I start.”

Sakura nods solemnly. “She’s one of us.”

“How come I’ve never seen you do it?” you ask, genuinely surprised. Kazuha chokes on her drink. “I mean, if you do it a lot, how come you never told us?”

“Why would I tell you? Well, not now but people don't bring it up casually—or do it in front of others!”

“Well, if you’d told us, we could’ve done it together,” Sakura offers with a sly grin.

“Together??” Kazuha sputters, eyes wide. “You two—seriously?”

“Yeah,” you chime in. “We could’ve formed a three-man party. Played normals or quick play together. Though… playing with Kkura might not be the best idea—she gets really competitive.”

“Yeah—maybe just the two of us at first,” Kazuha says, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear, trying to play it cool. “That might be a little less overwhelming.”

“I’m competitive??” Sakura snaps, mock-offended. “I’m not the one who starts swearing every time they get fucked. He just starts throwing insults.”

You turn to Kazuha in your defense. “Hey, it’s only during the game, okay? I’m not actually that kind of person… Right?”

“Yeah—cursing is pretty normal,” Kazuha agrees with a soft smile. “Honestly, I might even prefer the insults.”

“See?” you say smugly, turning back to Sakura. “Kazuha’s on my side. And I’m not the only one with verbal issues—you’re loud too. You make the weirdest moaning noises whenever you get hit. I’ve told you to stop doing that.”

“You don’t like it loud?” Kazuha asked, tilting her head with innocent curiosity.

“Not when she gets that loud,” you sigh. “Someone might overhear and get the wrong idea.”

“Every time,” you continue, “she’s the one getting carried, yet she screams like she’s fighting for her life.”

“I am, though,” Sakura fires back.

“Wait—carried? Screaming? Fighting for your life?” Kazuha’s voice laces with disbelief. “Is it that good?”

“Of course,” Sakura beams. “We did ten ranked placements last weekend. At first, his came out as Silver, but by the time morning hit—bam—we pushed it all the way to Gold.”

Kazuha chokes. “Silver? Gold? Gold?! Isn’t that kind of… unsanitary? I’ve seen videos. I know some people do it, showers, but I didn’t think you two would go that far. Isn’t that dirty?”

“It’s a pretty dirty—some say toxic—rank,” you explain, nodding. “But honestly, we’re enjoying it. It’s better than where we started.”

“I told you we should play all three together,” Sakura insists, already getting excited. “The laptops are in the trunk, right?”

“Wait… are we really doing this?” Kazuha asks, glancing toward you.

You shrug, grinning. “I mean, if that’s what the birthday girl wants—and if you're okay turning your celebration into an all-nighter—why not?”

“Then shouldn’t I do it with you first?” she says, her gaze flicking to yours.

“Hey!” Sakura cuts in. “That’s not fair—leaving me out?”

Kazuha hesitates. “Yeah, I guess that is reasonable… I’m sorry. Okay. Then… are we doing it now?”

“Yeah. Now,” Sakura answers, already sipping her drink like it's settled.

“Now?” Kazuha blinks.

“Yes!”

“Here?”

“Yes, here,” Sakura grins. “What, did you want a penthouse suite or something?”

Kazuha’s brows knit in concentration. “Then… should I start now?”

You and Sakura share a quick, confused glance, her brow raised in silent question. Are we on the same page…? you think.

But before either of you can say a word, Kazuha leans in. Her movements are slow but unsteady, like someone bracing against nerves and alcohol. Her breath is shallow, lips parted slightly, eyes fluttering shut as she inches closer.

Then—her lips press against yours.

Warm. Soft. A little dry.

Your mind goes blank.

The kiss isn’t practiced or smooth. It’s clumsy—her nose bumps awkwardly against yours, and for a second you’re both adjusting, finding some rhythm in the inexperience. But she doesn’t pull away.

In fact, Kazuha leans in more.

Her hand brushes your cheek hesitantly, trembling. Her lips press harder against yours, holding the kiss longer than you expected. It's messy, a little awkward… but honest. She’s trying. Committed.

You can feel it in the way her breath hitches when your lips shift slightly. The way she freezes for a second, then resumes, not knowing what to do—just doing it anyway.

Behind you, Sakura chokes on her beer.

You barely hear it.

You’re too focused on Kazuha—on the quiet vulnerability trembling in her kiss. Not passion, not lust, but raw, unspoken feeling. Hesitant hope.

Eventually, she pulls away. Barely.

Her face hovers close, breath mingling with yours, eyes still shut as if bracing herself for what comes next. When she finally opens them—wide, vulnerable, flushed—they lock onto yours.

But what greets her isn't affection. It's confusion.

Your brows are drawn, not angry, just baffled. Sakura sits frozen next to you, beer halfway to her lips, mouth parted in stunned silence.

“What exactly did you start?” you ask gently, half-smiling through the bewilderment.

Kazuha blinks. Once. Twice. “You… you said—” Her voice falters as panic creeps into her tone. “Wait, what were we talking about?”

“League,” you say carefully. “League of Legends? LoL?”

Her face turns the color of her drink—deep red, all the way to the ears.

Sakura finally finds her voice, her tone flat with disbelief. “Wait. You weren’t thinking about League, were you…? You were thinking about sex?”

“I—I—” Kazuha sputters, hands flailing briefly in protest before she buries her face in them. She sinks back onto the floor, absolutely mortified.

You, still dazed from the kiss, turn slowly to Sakura. “Then you read… wait did she really say she masturbated six times a day?”

Sakura nods stiffly, her lips pressed together in a line as she processes it. Then she glances sideways at you, mouthing silently: Did you like it?

You hesitate.

Because you don’t really know. It was awkward. But there was something… earnest. Unexpected.

Kazuha moves, trying to stand—probably to flee.

“I–I need to—just—leave, I didn’t mean—” she mutters, not even completing the thought.

But Sakura is already behind her. With surprising speed, she wraps her arms around Kazuha from behind, gently but firmly pushing her back into a seated position.

“Where are you going, birthday girl?” she teases softly, chin resting on Kazuha’s shoulder.

Kazuha freezes, breath caught.

Then Sakura glances at you over her shoulder, her eyes playful but half-lidded, her voice low:

“Babe. How about we give this naughty girl of ours a present? Grant her little fantasy—make it come true. Add another layer to her special day, make it a party of three.”

[defmaybe]

Snippets with Jiwon: Belle

male reader x Park Jiwon

~2.3k words

A/N: Prompt for @suchsweetstories. Thanks for hosting!

Enjoy.

“Here’s your shake!”

The room glows, flashing every color in the rainbow as the drum of the bass starts to beat through your chest. Laughter, giggles, and conversations were everywhere. Not like in those night clubs where it was messy and chaotic. This was quieter, tamer, more focused.

The decor of hearts—neon lights, balloons, the Goddamn headband of it you were forced to wear—decorated everything, from the walls to the chairs to the cherry on top of the shake you just got. It was all red, hiding from the glow of the lights flashing around them.

The DJ somewhere at the back was playing some old songs that you couldn’t tell if people cared about or not since they were all focused on each other rather than anything else.

You sigh, taking a deep breath before taking the chance to glance around the room. Couples all over the place, drinking the same single shake you have, with two straws and two spoons, two mouths. Facing each other, sitting next to one another, it didn’t fucking matter. 

They were all the same, just in different shapes and sizes. The older couple wrapping their arms around each other staring outside the window or the awkward one that were laughing at each other for drinking on the same glass.

In the end they were all enjoying what they were here for.

“Happy Valentines!”

This feels like a mistake, and you shouldn’t have let Jiwon convince you to do this.

You don’t even know how she managed to do it. Only that she yelled at you to attend this ‘blind date’ event to get your mind off of things.

Things being your ex that left you for some gym rat she met where she works out at.

She didn’t bother to give you the courtesy of telling you face to face. Just a text telling you that she needs a ‘break’ then proceeds to block your number.

If you can call a break hooking up with someone else because you found her cheating.

And yeah, not sleeping right and wallowing in your misery for the first few weeks of the breakup isn’t the healthiest way to cope, but this is not the answer to fixing your heart.

It’s been months since the break up anyway, and you told yourself to swear off of falling in love in the near future. 

You were doing fine. 

Jiwon disagrees, because she always does, which is why you’re holding a tray with a milkshake in an event to try and find your ‘dream girl’ as she puts it.

You should’ve told her to set herself up too since she’s been single since birth.

Your supposed ‘blind date’ hasn’t shown up and it’s been almost half an hour since the event started.

And the number stub that was given to you has been staring at you for the majority of the time you’ve spent together.

Twenty might as well haunt you at this point.

No dream girls here.

It really didn’t have to be on February 14th of all days because that felt like pouring salt in the wound and slapping the utter shit out of it.

Like, holy shit, who would even set up a blind date event on Valentines?

And yet here you are, pushing through it anyway. Did it to prove a point that you still have your shit together. You dressed up, got a new cut, used your favorite perfume. Cleaned yourself up pretty well, you have to admit. 

It still feels as if you’re conducting self-inflicted torture on yourself to see all these people enjoying their dates and you’re here in the middle of all of it. 

Sitting on a table. 

Staring across the empty seat.

Struggling to enjoy the free shake.

Alone.

Your hand wraps around the tall glass, cooling your palms. You were about to grab a straw until you notice:

A pair of straws, a duet of spoons. Both heart-shaped.

Two.

Motherfuckers.

You must’ve looked depressing as hell to everyone in the building right now, staring at the milkshake you got, watching the glass slowly condensate and the ice cream melt on top.

You sigh, feeling the hearts bobble on your head shake when you reach out to one of the straws, hearing a slower song start to play before a hand takes it away from the tray.

You can smell the rosy-wine smell on the arm that took it. It smelled familiar, like someone who always left that same scent every time you met. 

“Hey.” You hear, making you look up to see a very familiar face.

“Jiwon?” You squint against all the glare of the party lights, and sure enough, it was her, in the flesh, standing right in front of you. Wearing a combination of black and red that looked amazing on her, with a choker on her neck and the same headband that you’re wearing to complete the ensemble.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes.” Jiwon smiles, “Didn’t get a chance to catch your dream girl?”

“No, I–Hold on, what are you doing here?” You watch her sit down on the chair in front of you, her purse settling on the table. “I thought you were with Hayoung.”

“I was. She’s right over there.” She points the straw behind you, aiming it near the music booth where Hayoung was talking with the DJ. “You know how much she likes these types of songs.”

“That still doesn’t explain what you two are doing here.” You return Hayoung’s enthusiastic wave with a shy, confused one before turning back to Jiwon, who’s already taking a sip of your milkshake, that glint in her eye that makes you narrow your eyes.

The next few words that came out of her mouth make you wanna—

“Does my honey not wanna see me?” She asks in this cutesy tiny little voice that makes your eyes widen, your head leaning back in, and your entire being thrown off balance. “Even after I dressed up like this for him?”

“Jiwon, what the fuck are you saying–” You can’t even continue your line of thought because she starts pouting, and that really starts to confuse the fuck out of you because you don’t know whether you like seeing that look from her or not.

“Hmph!” She makes a face. The type that looks cute and adorable, the type that makes your heart beat faster, the type that makes you want to puke at the second hand embarrassment you’re getting. “My honey doesn’t love me anymore!”

“Please stop, you’re making me cringe.” You let out. It’s a self-defense mechanism to protect your heart from whatever the fuck she’s trying to do.

“I was being cute!” She screams, drawing a few looks from the nearby people and making her mouth a ‘Sorry’ with a little peace sign and a bashful laugh before looking back at you.

“Besides, you like it when I act cute. Don’t think I didn’t see it.” She grins, taking another sip of the milkshake.

“You’re seeing things.” You retort. “And don’t think you can get away with not answering my question.”

“What question?” She tilts her head, the lights shadowing her face. And all you do is give a blank stare and a raised eyebrow to avoid thinking about how beautiful she looks, from the way she’s dressed to her cute dimple on her face.

“The question.” You reiterate. “You know, the one I asked you earlier?”

She hums, before batting her eyelashes and placing her hands on her chin. “Remind me?”

You sigh. “What are–”

“–I doing here?” She finishes, giggling, dimples showing. She dips her spoon into the shake, scooping up a piece of ice cream from the glass and holds it out towards you.

“Say ‘ah’ first.” She grins. You can smell the roses on her arm.

You blink, once towards the spoon, another towards her. “You’re joking.”

“Come on.” She drags, nudging the spoon even more. The smell is intoxicating. “Indulge me a little, honey.”

“No, Jiwon.” A shake of your head. Honey’s starting to sound really nice though.

“Pretty please?” Her pout’s back in full swing, doing her cute act of tilting her head, giving you those irresistible puppy eyes and the child-like voice airing out of her lips. “Just one, honey?”

Normally you’d say no. It’s the easiest thing in the world to say. One word. One syllable. 

But everything about her is just messing you up in all the good, the bad, the her ways from the moment she sat down.

And so, you cave in.

“Only once.” You sigh before leaning in towards her.

She grins before feeding you, giggling as she pulls it away. Her scent still lingers around you.

“You fold so easy when I act cute.” She states, placing the spoon on her pouting lips, tongue slipping out before she winks at you. “I should take notes on these–”

You weren’t used to this type of Jiwon. She was playful, sure, but never flirty with you. She’d tease, yell, whatever. Thought it was all friendly banter at that point. And from the moment you knew her, she would never, ever, act like this for you.

And you honestly thought she swung the other way judging from the looks she gives Hayoung on occasion. Or how she touches Jisun. And how well she knows Chaeyoung a little too much.

It was really, painfully obvious when she was with Miyeon. She even cried happy (or was it sad?) tears when she found out Miyeon got together with one of her coworkers. That ‘New Girl from Japan’ that Jiwon says everyone likes because of how bubbly she is.

But maybe you were wrong about her. And you don’t know what that means for you or for her.

“So,” You cough, gulping, praying that she doesn’t catch you like a nervous mess because of her. She’d never let it go. “Would you mind answering my question now?”

“Fine, fine.” She rummages through her purse a bit before she takes out a piece of paper. “I’m sitting here all dressed up, for this.”

She places it down, and the number is practically screaming out of it.

Twenty.

Two. Zero.

Oh.

“Oh, he says.” She giggles, chin resting on her palm. You were starting to like the sound of it coming out of her. “Didn’t expect it to be me?”

“I never really thought you were into these types of things.” You answer, eyes still focused on the stub. “And I thought you said you were going clubbing with Hayoung.”

“Technically, this is a club.” She replies, eyes dancing around the room. “And I was with Hayoung when we came in.”

“Did you also set yourself up as my blind date?”

“That was more of a group effort.” She smiles, tongue out and all. “Chae started it.”

“That’s now how blind dates are supposed to work.” You sigh—you’ve been doing that a lot.

“You didn’t know I was your date, so it’s still a blind date, honey.” She flicks the heart on her headband. “Besides, the look on your face is so worth the effort.”

“You are crazy.” You laugh despite yourself. This was not how you expected your night to go.

“Maybe.” She grins. All dimples and teeth and crescent eyes. “Maybe I just wanted to spend my Valentines with you.” 

You should have said something. Asked about the real reason she’s your date and not someone random. Why she went through all this trouble for you.

But you don’t know if you’re ready to hear the answer just yet. Besides, she’s done enough things today for you to put that on the back burner right now.

“Thanks for saving me, I guess.” You let out a smile of your own. Small, tired, content.

“You’re welcome!” She takes another scoop of ice cream. Grand, excited, happy. “Now enjoy this milkshake with me.”

“Only if you tell me how you all of you set this up.” Whether this was an excuse to keep things light or you wanted to hear her voice, you’ll never know.

“Deal.”

She starts rambling about how Chaeyoung found out that a mutual friend was helping out organize the entire event. How Hayoung decided to ‘volunteer’ and help out so that she can thumb down your names. How she convinced—screamed at, but semantics—you to attend the event.

You listened to all of it. Every crack in her voice when she giggles, every change in tone whenever she tries impersonating one of her friends. You don’t even notice that the milkshake’s almost gone.

You could watch her ramble on about things that could make your brain hurt like those brainrot memes that were blowing up all over the place and you’d take all of it and sit there with a smile–

Oh. Oh.

“–So now all I had to do was show up and look pretty while you gawk at how beautiful I am.”

“I wasn’t gawking.” You splutter, avoiding her gaze. You definitely weren’t. 

Surely.

“Uh-huh.” She smirks. “Didn’t you look like this–”

She starts making faces, pretending to be you when she first sat down. She looked adorably stupid doing it.

“I wasn’t that bad.” You laugh, flicking the spoon at her.

“I dunno.” She laughs with you, leaning back. “You were pretty bad at hiding it.”

You fall into a comfortable silence, and all that’s left is her smile, the music, and those little flutters in your chest that you used to have way back when. Her lips break into a grin, and her eyes light up.

You feel as if you could lose yourself in them.

Then she speaks, spoon raised and pointed towards you. 

You realize: you’re right back at square one.

“Happy Valentines, you idiot.”  

Falling in love.

“Yeah.” You smile, a shake of your head accompanying the spoon that you’re holding. You clink it together with hers.

“Happy Valentines, Jiwon.”

[defmaybe]

CHANCES ARE YOU'RE ABOUT TO LOSE.

A/N: Written for a prompt by @suchsweetstories. Much love for hosting!

Cho Miyeon x Male Reader smut

3.3k words

“I already hate it here.”

“You do not.”

“Well, It’s supposed to be spring, right?”

“Mhm.”

“Then why the fuck is it so cold?”

Miyeon doesn’t look up from her phone. She’s too busy squinting at a map of the racecourse. You wager she’s trying to figure out how far the champagne tent is from the betting tables. To her, those are the kinds of metrics that matter. 

“It’s Melbourne,” she shrugs. “The weather changes every six minutes. A bit like your mood,” she adds cheekily. 

You roll your eyes. “Feels like winter in a wig.”

“Aw,” she mocks, finally sparing you a look, giving your bicep a theatrical squeeze. “Is my big baby cold?”

You glance down at your outfit—four layers deep and still doing fuck-all against the wind. “...Yes.”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” she says, leaping over a puddle. “This is the perfect weather for betting.”

“I’m sorry, what now?”

“You heard me,” she says, flashing a grin. 

“Betting.”

*

So. Miyeon has this habit.

And no, it’s not the gambling. That one’s more of an addiction—chronic, incurable, and one you’re practically enabling at this point. This is more like a side effect. A telltale symptom of the greater illness: the way she insists on solving every problem she has with her mouth.

Not metaphorically.

Not diplomatically.

Literally.

And you don’t mean that in the sense of persuasive debate, or even manipulation—though she’s proven time and time again she’s more than proficient in both. You mean she actually gets down on her knees, flashes those doe eyes, and opens wide like you’re playing here comes the fucking aeroplane.

Take today.

Much like how she got you to fly across the globe in pursuit of the Melbourne Cup—a four-minute loop of men in silks and tiny hats riding million-dollar livestock and whipping them into cardiac arrest—she’s now “talked” you into letting her bet on it.

You resisted, of course. But when she wants something, Cho Miyeon is an unstoppable force, and you are far from immovable object.

She’d cornered you in one of the racetrack bathrooms, leaned back against the sink, spread her legs, flaunted her hair and pouted like the tragic lead of a noir.

“Just one little bet,” she pleaded and you said “absolutely not,” and she said “pretty please,” and you said “no way in Hell,” and she said “I’ll suck your dick,” and you said “Miyeon, we’ve talked about th—oh fuck, okay, alright, Jesus Christ.”

So now you’re zipping your jeans with a sigh, running a hand through your hair and staring daggers into the man in the mirror. In addition to asking him to change his ways, you’re also asking how the fuck he lets this keep happening.

It's like you’re not even a participant in your own downfall anymore. You’re a spectator—front and centre to watch yourself make the same mistakes with the same woman in differing degrees of filthy bathrooms across time zones.

You wash your hands. Not because they need it—Miyeon did all the work this time—but because it buys you a second. A pause. A breath. A reprieve before stepping out into the light where, you know disaster, (Miyeon), awaits.

That and to ask yourself:

How the fuck did I end up here?

*

“The race that stops the nation,” Miyeon had declared with starry eyes about a week ago. She was lying upside-down on your couch, kicking her feet to the ceiling, tossing grapes into her mouth, and making a mess of the misses on your carpet. “You can’t tell me that doesn’t sound appealing.”

You sighed—as you always do when Miyeon suggests travelling half-way across the world to bring you half-way to financial ruin.

“Alright, let me get this straight,” you began, already pinching at the bridge of your nose. It’s a gesture usually reserved for tax season and Miyeon-induced headaches. So, it tracks. “Two-dozen jockey’s ride in a shambolic circle for a few kilometres—no obstacles, no jumps, no real turns—and you want to fly a dozen hours to watch it in person?”

She had obviously realised how shitty of an idea this was on paper (or at the very least it looked that way in your eyes) and decided she needed to sweeten the deal. “We can do other stuff while we’re there,” she pouted.

“Like what? Lose even more money playing ‘pokies’ instead?”

Miyeon hesitated for a moment. You could practically see the responsible answer try to claw its way to the surface. But as always, self control eluded her.

“Doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me…” 

“Oh Miyeon,” you groaned. “For the love of Go—,” 

“Okay fiiiiiine. We could… explore the city!” she offered. “Try a museum or two. Go to a vineyard. Maybe pet a kangaroo!”

“Those all sound awfully like things you’ll forget about the moment you see a betting table.”

She rolled onto her side, head in your lap. “Come on. I’ve never been to Australia. And the Melbourne Cup is iconic!”

“So is the Titanic,” you retorted. “Doesn’t mean I want front row seats to the sinking.”

Miyeon simply grinned. “Except instead of drowning in water, it’ll be in our newfound wealth!”

A hand went over your face, you needed to massage your eyeballs. “Let me make something very clear, Miyeon. Even if we do go, there will not be—under any circumstance—any bets placed. No chips traded. No casinos entered. No horses backed. If you so much as glance at a gacha machine, I will not hesitate to cancel every card we have.”

“Okay, okay. Jeez, I can live with that.”

“That includes the secret debit card you keep behind your license.”

“NO! PLEASE! ANYTHING BUT THAT,” she was practically screaming, shaking your shoulders like maracas. 

It was your turn to grin. “Then promise me something,”

She was nodding like a puppy.

 “No betting.”

Miyeon straightened like a soldier and folded an arm over her chest. “Hand on my heart,” she declared. 

You nodded, almost satisfied. Obtusely unaware of the mistake you were making.

“Well,” you said, completely smug, “at least that makes your promise valid.”

She blinked. “My what?”

“We haven’t decided on going yet. The trip’s still up in the air.”

Miyeon blinked. You could see the wheels turning. 

“Oh,” she said, full of sudden inspiration.

You barely had time to blink before she was crawling into your lap, lips arriving at yours. “Then maybe I should convince you,” she whispered, one hand dragging down your chest, the other already plotting its path toward your jeans.

And you, in your infinite wisdom, said nothing.

Suffice it to say: you went to bed that night very, very convinced.

*

She talks like she’s an expert.

Like she’s spent years refining her own scientific method. Like she’s read the stats, studied the field, hand-picked the jockeys and trained the horses herself. Like she’s here with a plan—all permutations of intentional, calculated and precise.

She has none of that.

What she does have are the very same things she always brings to the betting table: blind optimism, questionable fashion choices, and a gambling history that reads like a case study in the sunk-cost fallacy.

She’s lost money on mice, cats, dogs, vulturine guinea fowls, fantasy stocks, actual stocks, motorsports, chess, video games, tabletop games, competitive rock-paper-scissors, a crab race in busan, one underground mahjong league in Okinawa, another in Kabukicho, another in Dohtonbori, and about a dozen shogi matches with the homeless in Yokohama.

She put six-thousand dollars on the World Cup final based solely on how hot she thought the coaches were.

There was a brief but financially devastating stint with marble racing.

She’s placed money on rock skipping. Celebrity baby name predictions. Whether or not the next Pope will be left-handed.

(As well as another few dozen cases you didn't end up committing to memory. Tack on another few dozen for the times she's undoubtedly gambled behind your back.)

And yet, no matter how many times she’s been burned by Lady Luck—how many “can’t-lose” bets are lost anyway, or how many hot tips go cold the second they’re placed—Cho Miyeon simply does not quit.

She adjusts her sunglasses—not for the sun, which has yet to make a single appearance today, but for dramatic effect. Then she plants her hand on your shoulder, squares herself toward the track like she’s on a TED stage, and resumes the yap.

“And that’s the neat part,” she’s saying now, continuing on from a spout of nonsense you were lucky enough to have tuned out of, “the odds are just a reflection of the pool, right? It’s not real probability. It’s not math-math, it’s like… vibes-math. It’s what everyone else thinks is going to happen—which is already flawed because people are fucking idiots. So really, by betting on the thing no one bets on, you’re actually smarter than everyone else. It’s kind of meta if you think about it.”

You don’t think about it.

“Like, take today for example. Look at these poor, unfortunate, not-winning-shit, souls.” She scans the crowd for a moment, searching for a target. “Oh, like that guy over there? Fedora and the double Windsor? Amateur. You can tell purely by the way he’s dressed he’s betting based on bloodline and track record. Rookie mistake. That’s how you lose money. The real winners—me for example—we bet with instinct. Intuition. Gut feelings. And sometimes alcohol.”

You raise an eyebrow.

Miyeon nods solemnly, as if that makes it gospel.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” she continues, even though you’re very much not thinking anything. “You’re thinking, ‘But Miyeon, didn’t you once lose 700 dollars betting that the royal baby would be named Gundalf?’ And to that I say: yes. But also, the UK had a chance to make history. They chose George. Fucking George. Cowards.”

She doesn’t even pause.

“Or maybe you’re thinking about the crab race in Busan. Which, to be clear, I still maintain was rigged. Oh, and that sperm race in LA? You can’t convince me those weren’t tampered with. You think one swimmer wins by ten lengths without pharmaceutical assistance? Please.”

You try to interrupt.

You choose not to bother.

“Anyway, the point is—betting is about more than just numbers. It’s about story. Narrative. You have to feel the arc: that upward trajectory that comes from being overlooked. You want the underdog, but not too under. You want mystery, but not scandal. You want a horse with baggage, with a little trauma sprinkled in for spice. Something to prove is what I'm saying.”

She gestures toward the big screen showing a replay from the previous race. A horse in bright orange silks is dragging itself over the finish line, dead last.

“Not him though. Orange is the worst color. Proven fact: Bad luck. Studies show it interferes with the horse’s chi or aura or whatever. I don’t remember where I read that—a subreddit, maybe—but still. Reliable source.”

Then she spins around, squints down the stretch, and points at a brown mare doing a very unbothered trot.

“But Whispering Sheila?” she says, near reverent. “That’s a horse that gets it. That’s a horse who’s seen some shit. I mean, just look at her. Not flashy. Not showy. Just focused. Professional. She’s got the legs to take her to the end and back!”

“She was disqualified last race for biting the handler.”

“Exactly! She’s got edge!”

Miyeon folds her arms, completely satisfied, the sunglasses now fully askew on her nose. You stare at her, and consider, deeply, the cosmic imbalance of power between your ability to say no and her ability to not give a fuck.

She smiles. 

“So. Shall we?”

“If I say no, are you going to drag me to the bathroom again?”

“Perhaps,” she beams.

You sigh the deepest sigh.

“Guess I have no choice then.”

Because truly, you don’t.

*

You’re not expecting a lot. That much is a given. 

You’re standing there, arms crossed, mentally preparing yourself to watch twenty-four tiny men in coloured silk slap the shit out of their horses for a couple minutes and call it sport. 

You’re also prepared to lose. 

In fact, you’ve been conditioned to lose. 

You are the emotionally battered war vet of betting by proxy. Weathered by half a decade of Miyeon induced headaches, panic attacks, and bankruptcy scares. So it goes without saying that you’ve long since made peace with the inevitability of financial ruin.

Which is why what happens next makes absolutely no sense.

The gates open with a clang. And then Whispering Sheila—Miyeon’s pride and joy, her bet of the century, her four-figure “hunch”—takes off like a fucking torpedo.

You blink.

Then blink again.

Your mind isn’t playing any tricks. Sheila's in front. Not just in front—she’s leading the charge like a horse-shaped war general. Her strides are long. Her form is beautiful. The wind parts for her like Moses at the Red Sea. And for the first time in her presumably disappointing life, Whispering Sheila isn’t just exceeding expectations.

She’s shattering them.

And beside you, Miyeon is absolutely losing her shit.

“She’s FLYING!” she screams, hopping up and down on the concrete. “Look at her—LOOK AT HER! Did I not say she had the legs?! I TOLD YOU SHE HAD THE LEGS!”

You don’t dare answer. Don’t dare jinx it while the impossible unfolds.

Sheila holds the lead through the turn. The crowd roars. Miyeon screams louder. 

You feel it then.

Not belief, no. Not that strong.

But… suspicion. Suspicion that Miyeon might’ve—against every possible odd, against the universal laws of cause and effect, against the deeply rigged simulation that is your life—actually gotten one right.

God, are you naive.

Because just as the final stretch begins—just as Sheila is poised to make history—

She stops.

Not because she trips. Not because another horse cuts her off. She just… stops. Veers off course. Loses interest. Maybe remembers an existential crisis she was having earlier.

One moment she’s a champion.

The next?

She’s taking a scenic detour near the fence, tail swishing like she’s out for a casual trot—all while the rest of the field barrels past like a freight train.

Miyeon goes silent.

The crowd does not.

Laughter breaks out. Even the drunk guy next to you mutters a heartfelt “Jesus Christ” into his stubby.

You watch, horrified, as the horse Miyeon picked using nothing but “vibes” and a conspiracy theory about saddle colour, trots across the finish line somewhere around a full minute behind the rest of the pack.

Dead. Fucking. Last.

You don’t say anything right away.

You don’t have to.

The anger radiating off your body could power a suburban home.

Broken, shattered, hollowed, you shakily ask:

“…Did we just lose four thousand dollars?”

There’s a pause.

A suspiciously long pause.

Then, from beside you:

“Okay. So.”

You turn.

Don’t fucking say it, Miyeon.

“...I may have added an extra zero.”

*

So. Miyeon has another habit.

 And no, it’s not the rambling, that one’s ingrained in her personality—endless, vexing, endlessly vexing, and one you always just have to kinda sit through. This one is embedded in her DNA:

After every catastrophic loss, every burnt dollar and ruined future, Miyeon’s only instinct is to fuck about it.

Biological, you’ll call it.

It’s like the humiliation hits her bloodstream, and she can’t metabolize it unless she’s writhing on your lap, hissing that she’s “so fucking stupid,” crowing that you “should punish her for it,” and then, in the same breath, telling you to “shut up and fucking choke me.” Perhaps it’s some kind of sick evolutionary adaptation. Perhaps it’s just the way her neurons have always crashed and burned together. Perhaps it’s simply a coping mechanism.

And if so, right now—back at the hotel, with her panties jammed in her mouth, your cock in her cunt, and one hand clamped around her throat—she’s coping.

Hard.

You can feel her smile against your wrist—cheek pressed there, eyes half-lidded, lashes glued with mascara and tears. Her skin is deeply flushed from effort and oxygen deficiency and maybe just a little bit of deranged satisfaction.

Her hips grind back harder.

Because Cho Miyeon doesn’t regret. Doesn’t apologize. Doesn’t learn.

She fucks.

Like she thinks if she moans loud enough, grinds desperate enough, takes you deep enough, the universe might reverse time. Whispering Sheila will cross the line first. The crowd will roar. She’ll be a genius again. A prophet.

A fucking billionaire.

But right now, she’s just a mess. A mess you’re making messier.

You tighten your grip around her neck. Her eyes roll. And with your other hand gripping her hips, you drag her back into you like this is a problem that can be solved through sheer physics.

She lets out a muffled scream—half pleasure, half penance. The soaked lace in her mouth dampens it, but not enough to keep the neighbours guessing. Her body’s trembling now, pitchforked between orgasm and complete oblivion.

She chooses the former.

It starts with the twitch—spine arching, legs kicking out like they’re trying to run from the heat curling up her nerves. Then, the sound, clawing its way past the gag, echoing around the room and putting a ruthless smile across your face. Her whole body convulses, clamps down, seizes up like your cock is the only thing tethering her to reality. She writhes on it like it owes her money. Like if she cums hard enough, she might get that extra zero back.

You hold her through it. Don’t ease up. Don’t slow down. You fuck her through the climax until she’s gasping through the lace, until tears are dripping onto the sheets, until every broken sob sounds like the word “sorry” in some dialect only she understands.

“Shouldn’t’ve added the zero,” she’s groaning, garbled and guilty and absolutely destroyed. “Shouldn’t’ve—shouldn’t’ve—fuck, I’m so—”

You slam into her again.

Harder.

She chokes on her words.

Good.

Let her regret it. Let her wear it. Let it bleed out of her one desperate cry at a time.

You lean down, lips ghosting her ear.

“Say it,” you growl.

She whines.

“Say what?”

You pull her head up by her hair, your other hand still a noose around her throat.

“That you’re my stupid fucking girl.”

And Miyeon, of course, barely hesitates. Because shame isn’t something she avoids.

You loosen the panties just enough for her to gasp:

“I’m your stupid fucking girl.”

Then—without even being told—she adds:

“Now ruin me for it.”

So you do.

*

After, it’s quiet.

She’s still breathless. Still warm. Still glowing with that dumb post-catastrophe grin like losing forty-thousand on a mare with anger issues was just a minor hiccup in an otherwise flawless plan.

And to her, maybe it was.

You brush a thumb over her temple. She nuzzles into it, half-asleep, humming like she didn’t just obliterate the budget. Like you’re not going to have to explain this on the phone with your bank at 8 a.m. Monday morning. Like she didn’t promise—hand on heart—not to gamble. Again.

And still, some pathetic part of you is already bracing for the next one.

The next bright idea. The next sugar-slick pitch from her upside-down on your couch. The next whispered “babe, hear me out,” followed by airfare, adrenaline, and another financial obituary with her name scrawled across it in hot pink pen.

You’d like to say you’ll draw the line.

You won’t.

Because tomorrow, there’ll be a new scheme.

New odds.

New disaster.

And for some inexplicable reason, you’ll be right there beside her. Wallet lighter. Heart heavier. Lips already forming the words:

“Okay, but this is the last time.”

Even though you know it’s not.

(And it never will be.)

[defmaybe]

who do you think from ive, le sserafim and triple s are size queens

idk man

[defmaybe]

Almost is never enough. (Ive Gaeul)

23.7k words

Content advisory: Act III is practically an F1 fanfic. Please enjoy the feature presentation!

——————

The fluorescent lights stab your eyes like ice picks. Every blink sends fresh waves of nausea rolling through your gut, thick and sour. There’s a low, insistent throb radiating from—everywhere. Your skull feels packed with wet sand, your chest aches with a deep, bruised soreness, and there’s a strange, heavy numbness anchored to your right leg. The air tastes sterile, sharp with antiseptic and something vaguely metallic. Plastic tubes snake from your arm, taped down with irritating precision. You have no idea where you are.

Suddenly, a voice cuts through the fog, sharp as a scalpel.

"You fucking idiot."

The voice is strained, ragged, laced with a fury that vibrates in the aseptic air. It takes monumental effort to turn your head, your muscles screaming in protest against stiff sheets. The world swims, blurs, before coalescing into a figure hunched in a plastic chair beside the bed. 

Gaeul.

Her usually pristine dark hair is a chaotic halo around a face devoid of its usual softness. Mascara streaks like inky tears carve paths down pale cheeks, dreary against the furious flush high on her cheekbones. Her eyes, usually holding a calm, observant depth, are wide, bloodshot pools of raw, unvarnished anger and something far more terrifying: sheer, unadulterated panic. She’s clutching the edge of your thin hospital blanket, knuckles bone-white.

"What—?" Your own voice is a dry, painful croak, barely recognizable. It scrapes your throat raw. Your tongue feels thick and clumsy.

"What?" Gaeul snaps, the word cracking like a whip. She leans forward, her gaze boring into yours, intense enough to make you flinch back against the fluffy pillow. "That's all you have? 'What?' After everything? After you nearly—" Her voice hitches, the fury momentarily choked by a sob she viciously swallows down. "What the hell is wrong with you? Were you even thinking? Were you trying to leave me?"

The accusations land like physical blows, adding to the symphony of aches. Confusion wars with the pain. 

Leave her—what is she talking about? 

Your mind feels like a shattered mirror, reflecting only disjointed, meaningless fragments. The sterile smell, the ache, Gaeul’s devastated anger—nothing connects. You still have no clue as to how you got here. The last clear memory—it’s like trying to grasp smoke. A flash of speed. A deafening roar. Nothing solid. Only this crushing weight of now.

You try to push yourself up slightly, a reflexive move to meet her intensity, but a searing bolt of agony lances through your torso, stealing your breath. A gasp escapes you, sharp and involuntary. The movement shifts the thin hospital gown, pulling taut against your body, and your gaze finally drops downwards.

Reality crashes in with brutal clarity.

Your right foot, encased in stark white plaster, juts out at an awkward angle from the edge of the bed. It looks alien, heavy, and wrong. The cast climbs halfway up your calf. Taped wires snake across your chest beneath the gown, connecting to blinking monitors that chirp with infuriating cheerfulness. Your left arm is braced in a sling, resting heavily on your abdomen. You tentatively flex the fingers of your right hand—stiff, sore, but mobile—and they brush against bandages wrapping your ribs. A dull, persistent throb emanates from your shoulder. 

You glance down at exposed skin on your forearm, a latticework of dark purple and yellow bruises, intersected by angry red abrasions, like you’d been dragged across concrete. The sheer scale of it hits you like dynamite, amplifying the disorientation. 

This wasn't a mere fall. This was—demolition.

"Gaeul—" you manage again, the confusion now mixed with a dawning horror. "I—I don't—remember. What happened?"

Her furious expression flickers. For a moment, pure, unadulterated fear replaces the anger, making her look terrifyingly young. "You don't—?" she whispers, the fight draining out of her throat, leaving only hollow disbelief. "You don't remember Spa? The rain? Eau Rouge?" 

The names mean nothing. Empty sounds in the echoing void of your memory. Her gaze sweeps over the cast, the wires, the bruises, the sling. The fierce, scolding idol vanishes. The tears she’d been holding back overflow, spilling hot and fast down her cheeks. Her shoulders shake with silent sobs, her carefully maintained composure dissolving into pure, raw grief. 

"You—you went into the barrier," she chokes out, the words thick with tears. "So fast—so much smoke—they couldn’t get you out—I thought—" A ragged sob cuts her off. She buries her face in her hands, her slender frame trembling. "I thought I had lost you. They said—they said it was touch and go for hours."

The image—vague, nightmarish—flickers at the edge of your consciousness: blinding spray, a sickening sense of weightlessness, an impact that shakes through your very bones. Afterwards, nothing. Just this sterile purgatory and Gaeul’s shattered presence. 

A cold dread seeps into your veins, colder than the IV drip. You had almost left her. The evidence was strapped, wired, and plastered all over you. The anger hadn't been scorn; it had been the desperate, terrified backlash of someone who’d stared into the abyss of losing everything.

Driven by a need that transcends the screaming protests of your body, you move your unslung right arm. Every muscle groans. Wires tug; monitors protest with a flurry of beeps. Ignoring it all, you reach out, your bandaged hand trembling slightly. Your fingers brush against the tear-damp skin of her forearm where she’s clutching her own arms.

She flinches slightly at the touch, then stills. Slowly, hesitantly, she lifts her head from her hands. Her eyes, red-rimmed and swimming, meet yours. The anger is gone, replaced by a vulnerability so profound it steals your breath more effectively than the pain in your ribs. 

You don't have words. The confusion, the fear, the sheer immensity of the pain—it’s too much. All you can offer is the warmth of your touch, the feeble attempt at connection through the layers of bandages and her own trembling skin. Your thumb strokes a clumsy, soothing pattern on her arm, a silent plea, an anchor.

"I'm here," you rasp, the words costing you. "I'm—sorry." 

Sorry for the fear, sorry for the pain you caused, sorry for the terrifying blank space where the explanation should be.

Gaeul stares at your hand on her arm, then back at your face. A fresh wave spills over, but this time, they’re quieter, mixed with a shaky, almost disbelieving relief. She doesn't pull away. Instead, her own hand lifts, trembling, and covers yours, resting on her arm. Her grip is surprisingly strong, desperate, like she’s clinging to driftwood in a stormy sea. Her cool fingers press against your bandaged knuckles, a grounding counterpoint to the chaos inside you both.

Before either of you can navigate the fragile, tear-slicked silence further, the door swings open with a soft whoosh. A nurse bustles in, her scrubs crisp, her demeanor a practiced blend of efficiency and calm that feels jarring against the emotional wreckage in the room. Her eyes sweep over the monitors, then land on the two of you—Gaeul’s tear-streaked face, your bandaged hand clutching hers.

"Ah, good, you're awake," she says brightly, cutting through the heavy atmosphere like sunbeam through storm clouds. She moves to check the IV drip, her movements quick and precise. "We were starting to get a bit concerned, but vitals are stabilizing nicely now." She taps the screen of a monitor displaying a steady, rhythmic green line. "Pain manageable?"

You try to nod, but it sends a fresh spike through your neck. "Manageable," you grit out, the word tasting like rocks. Manageable meaning a constant, grinding symphony of aches punctuated by sharp stabs if you dared to breathe too deeply or move the wrong limb.

The nurse nods, making a note on a chart. "Excellent. Doctor will be doing rounds soon, but I can give you the preliminary good news." She offers a warm, professional smile. "You are incredibly lucky. The injuries are significant, yes," her gaze flicks meaningfully to the cast, the sling, "but nothing life-threatening now. No internal bleeding we’re worried about, no spinal damage. The concussion was severe. Explains the memory gap, but the scans look promising. You’ll make a full recovery."

Gaeul lets out a shuddering breath beside you, her grip on your hand tightening almost painfully. "Full recovery?" she echoes, her voice thick with hope and residual terror.

"Absolutely," the nurse affirms, her tone reassuring. "It’s going to take time, though. Months of physio, especially for that ankle. Complex fracture, ligaments took a beating. And the shoulder needs careful rehab." She pauses, her expression turning slightly more serious, almost sympathetic. "They said it was a miracle you walked away, really. Jesus was certainly riding shotgun with you that day at Spa. That corner—" 

She shakes her head, a flicker of something like professional awe or grim understanding in her eyes. "Anyway," she continues, her brightness returning, "the main thing is you’re through the worst. Focus on healing now. Rest is paramount." She adjusts a wire taped to your chest. "Oh, and try not to worry too much about the season. Plenty of time for that later. Right now, just concentrate on getting yourself right."

Season. The word snags in your foggy brain. Spa. God riding shotgun. The nurse’s casual comment hangs in the air, heavy with unanswered implications you can’t grasp. 

Season. Football. Basketball. Autumn. Duck. Rabbit. 

It felt absurdly trivial against the canvas of pain you were stretched across and Gaeul’s raw distress. The confusion must show on your face, a furrow deepening between your brows as you try to parse her meaning.

But Gaeul isn’t listening to the implication. The nurse’s words—'you’re through the worst', 'full recovery'—seem to be the only things penetrating the haze of her fear. The tense lines around her eyes soften infinitesimally. The desperate grip on your hand relaxes slightly, shifting from a lifeline to a connection. She leans forward, resting her forehead gently against your unbandaged shoulder, her dark hair spilling over the thin hospital gown. You feel the dampness of her tears through the fabric, the slight tremor still running through her.

"Months," she murmurs against your shoulder, her voice muffled but the relief palpable. "But you’re here. You’re alive." She lifts her head just enough to look at you, her eyes searching yours, the earlier fury replaced by a weary, profound gratitude that makes your own throat tighten. "That’s all that matters right now. Just—be here. With me."

The nurse gives a final, satisfied nod at the monitors and quietly slips out, leaving you cocooned in the beeping stillness of the room with Gaeul. The mystery of the season, the terrifying void where your memory should be, the grueling road to recovery hinted at by the nurse—it all looms like storm clouds on the horizon. But for this suspended moment, anchored by the warm, real weight of Gaeul’s head on your shoulder and her hand still clasped in yours, the only truth that matters is the one she whispered: You’re alive. 

The rest—the terrifying, confusing rest—could wait. 

The pain is a constant drumbeat, the cast an immovable anchor, the wires a tether to this fragile existence, but beneath Gaeul’s tears and the lingering echo of her furious, frightened voice, there’s a fragile, desperate kind of peace. You’re here. She’s here. The nightmare of ‘almost’ is over. Now comes the long, painful awakening.

—————

Late summer air hangs thick and sweet as the car door clicks shut behind you, sealing off the world of antiseptic corridors and beeping monitors. The familiar scent of your neighborhood—cut grass, distant barbecue smoke, the faint tang of exhaust—floods your senses, almost overwhelming after weeks of hospital sterility. 

Gaeul maneuvers the wheelchair with surprising grace over the uneven pavement, her movements precise, almost rehearsed. Every bump, every minute jolt, sends a fresh reminder of your battered body up your spine. The cast on your right leg is a leaden weight, the sling cradling your healing left shoulder a constant, restrictive presence. Beneath it all, the lingering ache in your ribs is a dull percussion.

"You good?" Gaeul murmurs, pausing at the footpath leading to your front door. Her voice is soft, carefully controlled, a complete 180 to the raw fury and terror that had radiated from her in the hospital. Now, there’s a focused tenderness, a watchfulness that never wavers. She adjusts the blanket draped over your lap, her fingers brushing lightly against your good arm. The touch is warm, grounding.

"Yeah," you rasp, trying for a smile that feels stiff on your face. "Just—surreal. Being back. Back in the real world." 

The confusion hasn’t completely lifted. Fragments swirl: the blinding lights of the hospital, Gaeul’s tear-streaked face, the nurse’s cryptic words about a season and God riding shotgun at a corner. But the why, the how—it’s a frustrating blank. 

"Gaeul—" you start, the question bubbling up again, the one you’ve tentatively asked a dozen times. "What happened? Really. Before the hospital. I need to��"

She cuts you off, not harshly, but with a firmness that brooks no argument. Her hand rests gently on your uninjured shoulder. "Later. Please. Doctor Lee was very clear. Stress impedes healing. Your focus," she says, her gaze locking onto yours, intense and pleading, "needs to be here. On resting. On getting stronger. On—" Her voice catches slightly. "On being here." 

The unspoken ‘with me’ hangs heavy in the air, echoing the hospital’s raw fear. She pushes the wheelchair forward, navigating the small ramp installed during your absence. "Let's just get you settled first, okay? One thing at a time."

The front door swings open, revealing not just your familiar hallway, but an explosion of color and care. Your breath hitches, not from pain this time, but sheer surprise. The entryway and living room beyond are filled—overflowing—with gifts. Bouquets of vibrant flowers (lilies, sunflowers, delicate orchids) jostle for space with extravagant fruit baskets bursting with exotic berries and perfectly ripe mangoes. Giant, plush teddy bears wearing Get Well Soon sashes stand sentinel beside sleek, high-tech recovery gadgets still in their boxes. Cards are piled high on every available surface. Elegant embossed ones, funny cartoon ones, simple heartfelt notes.

"Whoa," escapes your lips, the sheer volume momentarily eclipsing your aches.

Gaeul smiles, a genuine, warm curve of her lips that lights up her face. "Told you everyone missed you." She wheels you further in, navigating the sea of well-wishes. "The girls—they practically raided every high-end department store in Seoul." 

She points at a large, foreboding presence. "That ridiculous giant panda? Rei. Said it was ‘for optimal hugging comfort during recovery.’ The basket with the imported Swiss chocolates and the very expensive silk pajamas? Liz and Leeseo. Yujin sent that state-of-the-art massage pillow. Said your neck would need it. Wonyoung—" Gaeul chuckles softly, pointing to a towering arrangement of white roses and lilies so pristine it looks sculpted, alongside a sleek, limited-edition noise-canceling headset. "—went for elegance and practicality. Said you’d need quiet."

Touched doesn't begin to cover what you feel. The thoughtfulness of her bandmates, their distinct personalities shining through their choices, wraps around you like a warm blanket. But the display extends far beyond IVE.

Gaeul guides you towards the low coffee table, dominated by a different kind of tribute. Nestled amongst the flowers are model cars—intricately detailed 1:18 scale replicas. A gleaming red Ferrari SF-25 sits beside a papaya-orange McLaren MCL39. A sleek silver Mercedes W16. And, unmistakably, a dark green and black Kick Sauber C45. Propped against them are signed caps, race gloves mounted in shadow boxes, and even more cards, these bearing familiar crests and signatures.

"Charles sent the Ferrari," Gaeul says softly, picking up a card with the Prancing Horse logo. 

Inside, in neat handwriting: "Mon ami, get well soon. The grid is not the same without your crazy moves. Come back stronger. – Charles."

Gaeul then picks up the McLaren model. "Lando and Oscar sent this together." She flips open the attached card, revealing two distinct scrawls. 

"Mate! Gutted for you. Spa bites. That move was almost legendary! Heal up fast, we need you back causing chaos (preferably behind us!). – Lando" 

Beneath it, neater and subdued: "Wishing you a speedy recovery. Focus on healing. The podium will wait. – Oscar"

A pair of worn but clean racing gloves sit in a box marked with the Ferrari logo. Lewis Hamilton’s signature streaks across the cuff. The note is succinct, powerful: 

"Strength isn't just speed. It's the comeback. Heal well. We’re all praying for you. – Lewis."

Then, Gaeul picks up the Sauber model, her expression softening further. "The team—they sent this. And this." She holds up a thicker envelope bearing the Kick Sauber logo. Inside, a formal letter wishing you a full recovery, signed by the Team Principal and every department head, expressing their support and confirming your contract details for the following season. Paperclipped to it is a handwritten note on team notepaper, signed by dozens of names: engineers, mechanics, catering staff.

"Get well soon, mate! The garage is too quiet! Hurry back! – The Sauber Crew"

And then, almost hidden beside the Sauber model, a simple, unsigned card. No team logo. Just stark black letters on white: 

"Next time, brake 5 meters later. Or don't. Made it exciting. Get well. – MV." 

You stare at the initials. Max. A reluctant grin tugs at your lips despite the pang of—something—the card evokes.

Gaeul watches your face, seeing the dawning realization, the struggle to reconcile the evidence with the void in your mind. She kneels beside your wheelchair, her hand finding yours again, her thumb stroking your knuckles. The tenderness in her eyes is almost unbearable. "See?" she whispers, "You matter. To so many people."

The sight of the Sauber car, Max’s blunt note, the sheer physicality and outpouring of support—it chips away at the mental barrier. A pressure builds behind your eyes, a mix of gratitude and profound frustration. "Gaeul," you say, your voice rough, the plea undeniable this time. "Please. I need to know. What happened at Spa? What did I do?"

She hesitates, her gaze flickering to the cast, the sling, then back to your desperate eyes. The carefully maintained wall of protection cracks. A sigh, heavy with the weight of traumatic memory, escapes her. She sits back on her heels, still holding your hand, her other hand coming up to brush a stray strand of hair from your forehead with infinite gentleness.

"Okay," she concedes, her voice low, losing its practiced calm. "Okay. But remember: you’re here. That’s the important part." 

Gaeul takes a steadying breath. "It was Spa. Rain. So much rain. It was—brutal. Visibility was a joke. The car was a handful, even more so in the wet. But you—you were driving like a man possessed." A flicker of the old, fierce pride shines through the worry in her eyes. "You were climbing. P5 with—less than five laps left."

The words trigger nothing. Just abstract concepts. Positions. Laps. Vague sounds of engines roaring. The relentless patter of downpour.

"You were stuck behind Max. He was defending hard. The McLarens were ahead, fighting for a 1-2 finish." Her grip tightens slightly on your hand. "Coming out of Eau Rouge—up Raidillon—" She names the legendary, terrifying sweep with a reverence merged with dread. "You saw a gap. A tiny, miniscule gap between Max and the inside curb. On the exit of Raidillon, in the pouring rain." Her voice tightens. "You went for it. A divebomb. Everyone watching—we all held our breath. It was—audacious. Reckless. Brilliant. Almost."

The word hangs thick. Almost.

"If you’d made it stick—" Gaeul continues, her voice barely a whisper now, haunted. "You’d have been P3. Right behind the McLarens. Your first podium. Right there." She closes her eyes for a second, as if reliving the horrific flip-side. "But you—you overshot the apex. Just—just a fraction. The car snapped. You hit the outside barrier—" 

Her voice suddenly breaks. "Hard. Then it spun—back across the track—into the other barrier. Metal screaming. Carbon fiber shattering—" Tears well in her eyes again, mirroring the terror you can’t remember. "There was fire—so much smoke. They couldn’t get to you. It felt like forever.”

She buries her face against your good arm for a moment, her shoulders trembling silently. When she looks up, her eyes are swimming. "They pulled you out. Barely. You were—broken. Unconscious. They airlifted you straight to Liège. And then—coma. Days. Tests. Surgeries. Waiting." 

She swallows hard, her gaze locking onto yours with fierce intensity. "Gabriel Bortoleto—he’s in your seat now. For the rest of the season. The team—they had to. But you—you almost didn’t have a rest of your life. Do you understand now? Why I just—why I just need you to be here? To heal? The car, the seat—none of that matters if you’re not here."

The pieces crash together. The season. The nurse’s strange comment about Jesus riding shotgun. The model cars. Max’s card. Spa. Eau Rouge. Raidillon. Divebomb. Podium. Fire. The abstract horror crystallizes. You weren’t simply injured. You were an F1 driver. Gambled everything on one insane move for glory. And you lost. Catastrophically. Shattered your body and your season in a heartbeat of rain-lashed ambition. 

A cold wave washes over you, followed by a surge of something hot and vital. Shame at the recklessness? Terror at the near-miss? Yes. But beneath it, deeper, fiercer—a spark. The memory might be gone, but the feeling—the adrenaline echo of pushing the limit, the tantalizing glimpse of immortal glory, the bitter taste of almost—it ignites something primal. Determination.

The commentator in your mind isn’t describing a crash anymore; he’s describing the move that should have worked. "An outrageous lunge! Is he going for it? Yes! Oh, that is millimeters! If he holds this—P3! Unbelievable! Wait—no! Too much! over the curb! Loss of control! He’s into the barrier! Heavy impact! Red flag! Red flag!"

Gaeul sees the shift. Sees the confusion recede, replaced by a dawning intensity in your eyes that frightens her almost as much as the sight of you in that hospital bed did. 

"Hey," she says sharply, squeezing your hand. "Stop. Whatever you're thinking—stop. You need rest. Doctor's orders. Let's get you to the sofa."

Her voice is firm, laced with that protective fear again.

She helps you transfer from the wheelchair to the plush sofa, arranging pillows with meticulous care behind your back and under your casted leg. She fetches water, checks your medication schedule, adjusts the blanket. Her tenderness is a balm, a constant in the storm of realization. She fusses, trying to anchor you in the present, in the slow, safe rhythm of recovery.

Later, after a light meal she prepared with focused precision, Gaeul announces she needs to run a quick errand. "Medicine refill," she says, grabbing her keys. "Twenty minutes. Tops. Rest. Promise me?" Her eyes search yours, seeking reassurance.

"Promise," you murmur, offering a weak smile.

The moment the door clicks shut behind her, the silence of the house presses in, filled only by the ticking clock and the phantom roar of engines in your mind. The giant panda Rei sent grins at you vacuously. The Sauber model on the coffee table glints under the lamplight. 

Almost. The word burns through your skull.

Driven by a force stronger than the ache in your bones, you reach for the remote. It takes some maneuvering with your good arm, fumbling awkwardly. You find the highlights video on YouTube, your fingers trembling slightly. 

Searching: Belgian Grand Prix. Lap 39. Spa fills the large screen. Torrential rain sheets down. Visibility is appalling. Cars ghost through the spray.

There you are. Car #77. Kick Sauber. Lurking behind the bright Red Bull of Verstappen. The camera focuses on the climb out of Eau Rouge, up the steep incline of Raidillon. Crofty’s voice rises, tense with anticipation: "—and here comes the Sauber! Look at this! He’s glued to the gearbox of Verstappen! Is he thinking about it? Raidillon in these conditions—incredibly brave, or incredibly foolish—"

You watch your car. It darts left, a flash of dark blue cutting inside the Red Bull on the exit, riding the treacherous curb. The move is breathtakingly aggressive, a knife-edge gamble. "He goes for it! An incredible dive up the inside! Verstappen gives him just enough room! If he can hold it—!"

The ‘if’ hangs. Your car—your past self—pushes a fraction too hard. The rear snaps out violently on the slick curb. A sickening pirouette. The impact with the first barrier is brutal, spinning the car like a toy. The secondary impact with the opposite wall is catastrophic. Debris flies. A sickening plume of smoke and steam erupts, instantly swallowed by the rain. Max’s Red Bull streaks past, completely unscathed. The camera cuts away quickly, but not before showing the crumpled, motionless wreck of the Sauber.

"—devastating crash for the Sauber! Heavy impact! That looks very, very bad! Red flag! Red flag! Medical Team deploying immediately!" Crofty’s voice goes grim, shocked. "A move that was this close to being legendary—ends in catastrophe. Let's hope the driver is okay."

You stare, numb, at the frozen replay image: your car, a broken sculpture against the tire barrier. The almost. The what-if. It’s no longer abstract. It’s visceral. It’s you. 

The podium champagne that wasn’t sprayed. The cheers that died in throats. Your season handed to Bortoleto. Months of pain mapped out on your broken body.

But the numbness doesn't last. It’s incinerated by a sudden, white-hot resurgence. Not shame. Not despair. Defiance. 

A fire you thought the crash, the pain, the amnesia might have extinguished roars back to life, hotter and fiercer than before. It floods your veins, momentarily eclipsing the physical agony. 

Crofty’s words echo: "This close to being legendary." 

He was wrong. It wasn't legendary. It was a failure. A spectacular, near-fatal failure.

But the move—the sheer, audacious belief required to attempt it in those conditions—it never died. It’s still in you. Buried underneath heaps of plaster and bandages and trauma, but there. The podium wasn’t reached. The story wasn’t finished. It was brutally interrupted.

Gaeul’s terrified face flashes in your mind. Her tears, her fierce protectiveness, her desperate need for you to just be safe. The love in her touch as she adjusted your pillows. It’s a weight, a responsibility, a reason to be cautious.

But the fire burning in your chest, ignited by the sight of your own near-triumph and catastrophic failure, is an equally powerful force. It speaks of unfinished business. Of limits tested and boundaries demanding to be pushed again. Of a story that cannot end crumpled against a barrier in Belgium.

You hear Gaeul’s key in the lock. Quickly, you switch off the TV, the image of the infamous wreck fading to black. You lean back against the pillows, closing your eyes, feigning sleep. The physical pain rushes back in, a constant, grinding reality. But beneath it, deeper, more potent, is a newly forged resolve. A silent vow, etched in the phantom scent of burning fuel and the roar of an engine only you can hear.

I’m coming back.

I’m finishing that story.

The door opens. Gaeul’s soft footsteps approach. You feel her gentle hand brush your forehead, her sigh of relief when she thinks you’re resting. The tenderness is profound, a sanctuary. But within the oasis, the fire burns, waiting for the cast to come off, the bones to knit, the strength to return. Ready to fulfill unfinished business.

—————

Months bleed into each other, marked not by seasons, but by the incremental, almost obstinate, reclamation of your body. 

The sterile scent of the hospital fades, replaced by the familiar musk of your home gym: sweat, rubber mats, the faint metallic tang of weights. The leaden weight of the cast is gone, replaced by the persistent, grinding ache of bone knitting itself back together beneath scarred skin. 

First, a slow, agonizing shuffle, clinging to Gaeul’s arm like driftwood in a churning sea. Then, with crutches that dig into your ribs, each step a percussive thud of effort. Until, finally, completely unaided. The gait is stiff, a little uneven, a constant, low-level protest radiating from the rebuilt ankle and the shoulder that still twinges with certain movements. 

But you walk. You stand tall. You move under your own power, a victory wrested from the wreckage of Spa.

Gaeul is your constant, your anchor, your fiercely protective shadow. Her tenderness is a physical thing. She massages the tightness from your scarred ankle with warm oil, her fingers tracing the map of damage with heartbreaking gentleness. She sets timers for your medication with unwavering precision, her brow furrowed in concentration. She cooks meals rich in protein and calcium, plating them with a care that borders on reverence. 

When the phantom pains strike, sudden and sharp, deep in the marrow where metal pins hold you together, she’s there, a cool hand on your forehead, whispering reassurances until the wave passes. Her eyes, though, those calm, observant pools, hold a watchfulness that never fully relaxes. They track your every wince, every suppressed grimace, every moment you push a little too hard.

And you push. Oh, how you push. 

It’s a quiet, relentless fire burning beneath the surface of your recovery. While Gaeul is attending IVE schedules—practices that stretch long into the night, countless photoshoots, the whirlwind of promotions—the garage becomes your sanctuary. Physio exercises morph into something more. Gentle stretches become deep, demanding lunges that make the tendons in your ankle scream. Light resistance bands are swapped for weights that strain your healing shoulder, sweat stinging your eyes as you grit your teeth against the pain, chasing the ghost of the strength you once possessed. 

You set up a simulator in the corner, a makeshift shrine to the world you crave. The first time you strap in, the familiar grip of the wheel in your hands, the pedals beneath your feet—even the stiff, unyielding motion of the brake—sends a jolt of pure adrenaline through you, momentarily eclipsing the ache. You run laps of Spa. Over and over. Not the crash. The move. The divebomb at Raidillon. Testing the virtual limits, feeling the car’s edge, chasing that impossible fraction of control you lost in the rain. 

It’s reckless, bordering on stupid. You know it. But almost is a siren song you can’t mute.

The rest of the F1 season unfolds on the large screen in the living room, a parallel universe you observe with gnawing intensity. McLaren’s dominance is absolute; a papaya-orange juggernaut. Oscar and Lando are locked in a breathtaking duel, trading wins and podiums, their points tally a neck-and-neck dance that captivates audiences. Commentary buzzes with their rivalry, the sheer brilliance of their driving, the inevitability of one of them lifting the World Driver’s Championship. You watch Lando execute a daring overtake on Charles in Suzuka, cool and precise, and feel a pang that’s equal parts admiration and fierce, burning envy. You see Oscar hold off a charging Max in Austin, ice flowing in his veins, and the phantom feel of champagne spray prickles your skin.

Then there’s the Sauber. Your car. Now Gabriel Bortoleto’s. It’s a carousel of disaster. Race after race, the highlights reel is a grim montage of green-and-black misfortune. He spun out in Monza, clipping the barrier at Variante Ascari on lap three. Tangled with George’s Mercedes in Singapore, retiring with a broken suspension. In São Paulo, an engine fire engulfs the car on the formation lap, a plume of oily smoke marking another DNF. When he does finish, it’s invariably at the back: P18, P19, sometimes the lonely P20, lapped and struggling. 

Commentary’s tone shifts from hopeful analysis to weary, defeated resignation. 

"Another tough outing for Bortoleto and Sauber—" 

"The C45 just doesn’t seem to suit the rookie—" 

"Sauber now mathematically certain to finish last in the Constructors'— a bitter pill for the soon to be Audi."

Each failure, each DNF, each bottom-place finish is another spark thrown onto the kindling of your resolve. The fire burns hotter, brighter. It’s not just the podium you almost had; it’s the sheer indignity of seeing your seat, your car, become a laughingstock. Bortoleto’s struggles scream opportunity. 

Qatar. Abu Dhabi. The final two races. 

The car may be utter shit, and the team’s morale at rock bottom, but you could wring something more from it. You know you could. Just two races. To finish the story Spa brutally interrupted. To prove, if only to yourself, that the fire hadn’t been extinguished, merely banked.

You keep it hidden, this blazing ambition. A secret smothered beneath Gaeul’s loving care. You smile through shared meals, listen to her talk about IVE’s preparations for MAMA, her voice animated about choreography and stage concepts. You even watch their rehearsal footage on her laptop, the girls—Yujin’s commanding presence, Rei’s quirky energy, Leeseo’s youthful spark, Liz’s vocal power, Wonyoung’s ethereal grace—moving in perfect, dazzling synchronicity. You murmur appreciative words, but your mind is elsewhere. Calculating recovery timelines. Mentally mapping the Lusail International Circuit. Imagining the feel of Abu Dhabi’s twilight track under fresh tires.

The dissonance grows unbearable. Her tenderness feels like a prison. Her watchful eyes, once a comfort, now feel like searchlights probing for the rebellion she surely suspects.

—————

The breaking point comes after a particularly grueling physio session. You’d pushed too hard on the shoulder rehab, a sharp, electric pain lancing down your arm as you attempted a weight overhead. You’d hidden the worst of the wince, but Gaeul sees everything. Later, as she kneels before you on the living room rug, gently kneading the tight muscles around your rebuilt ankle, the silence becomes thick, charged.

"You were grimacing earlier," she states, her voice low, her fingers pausing their work. She doesn’t look up. "During the shoulder presses. You pushed past the limit again."

"It’s fine," you mutter, shifting slightly. "Just stiff."

"It’s not fine." Her head snaps up, her eyes locking onto yours. The calm observer is gone, replaced by a storm of worry and burgeoning frustration. "It’s never just stiff with you anymore. You’re pushing too hard. For what? The doctor said gradual. Not—not whatever superhuman feat you’re trying to pull off." Her gaze flicks meaningfully towards the garage door. "You spend hours in there. On that simulator. Like you’re—rehearsing."

The accusation hangs in the air. The secret is out, not in words, but in the raw fear radiating from her. 

"Qatar," you say, the word dropping into the tense silence like a stone. You can’t hide it any longer. "And Abu Dhabi."

Gaeul freezes. Her hands freeze on your ankle. The color drains from her face, leaving her pale as parchment. "What?" The word is a breathless whisper.

"I want to race. The final two." Your voice is steady, resolute, fueled by months of pent-up determination. "Bortoleto’s a disaster. The car’s there. I’m—I’m ready. Or I will be."

"Ready?" The word explodes from her, laced with incredulous horror. She scrambles to her feet, towering over you where you sit, her usual composure shattered. "Ready for what? To get back in that metal coffin? To tempt fate again? After what it did to you?" 

Her voice rises, trembling with fury and terror. "Look at you! Look at what’s left! You think months of playing hero in the garage erases that?" She gestures wildly at your tattered body: the subtle stiffness, the hidden scars. "You almost died, you fucking idiot! You left me staring at machines keeping you alive! And for what? A pointless lunge for glory that ended in fire and broken bones!"

"It wasn’t pointless!" You surge to your feet, the movement sending a fresh wave of pain through your ankle, but you ignore it, meeting her fury head-on. "It was this close, Gaeul! Podium! My first! And Gaby—he’s young, but he’s making a mockery of the seat! The team’s dead last! I can’t just sit here watching it rot!"

"So what?" she screams, tears springing to her eyes, her fists clenched at her sides. "So what if they’re last? So what if Bortoleto crashes every week? Is that worth your life? Is a stupid trophy worth leaving me alone?" Her voice cracks, raw and desperate. "There’s a reason you’re still here! A reason you survived that—that wreck! And it’s not racing! It’s this!" She gestures wildly between you, encompassing the home, the care, the fragile life rebuilt. "It’s us! Or have you forgotten that part already? Forgotten the nights I sat by your bed, praying? Forgotten the pain? Forgotten me?"

"I haven’t forgotten!" you roar back, your frustration boiling over. "But this is who I am! It’s not just a job, it’s—it’s in my blood! That fire, that need to push, to finish what I started—you can’t just ask me to bury that!"

"Bury it?" She lets out a harsh, humorless laugh, tears streaming freely now. "I’m asking you to live! To choose life! With me! Not death wrapped in carbon fiber! Is that really so impossible to understand? Or is the roar of an engine really more important than—than this?" Her voice drops to a broken whisper, the anger momentarily swallowed by profound hurt. "Than me?"

Her raw vulnerability hits you like a physical blow, cutting through the blinding recklessness. The image flashes: Gaeul, pale and trembling in the hospital chair, the sheer terror in her eyes when you woke. The months of her unwavering care. The love in every gentle touch, every carefully prepared meal. The guilt is sudden, cold, and suffocating. But beneath it, the stubborn ember of a maverick racer still glows.

"I have to try," you say, your voice lower now, strained. "I have to know if I can still do it. Just two races. To finish the story."

"Finish the story?" she echoes, her voice hollow, all fight draining away, replaced by a profound, chilling disappointment. She stares at you, her eyes searching yours, finding only the unyielding resolve. The tenderness is gone, replaced by a bleak emptiness. "Fine. But remember—you’re not Cody Rhodes." 

The concession is flat, degrading, final. 

"Go on. Finish your story. Drive your heart out. Chase your precious podium. But don’t expect me to watch." She takes a step back, then another, her movements jerky. "I can’t—I won’t stand by and watch you throw away the second chance you were given. Not for glory. Not for anything."

"Gaeul, wait—" You reach out, but she flinches away as if burned.

"No." Her voice is quiet, terrifyingly calm now. "I need—I need space. From this. From you.”

She turns, walks towards the door with stiff, deliberate steps. 

She doesn’t look back. She doesn’t slam the door. It closes with a soft, definitive click that echoes in the sudden, oppressive silence of the room.

You stand alone amidst the remnants of the argument, the furious energy evaporating, leaving only the familiar ache in your bones and a far deeper, colder ache in your chest. The fire of your resolve still burns, but now it’s ringed by the ashes of her words. 

Selfish idiot. Worth your life? Throw away your second chance. 

The images of Spa replay once more: the near-podium, the devastating crash. The image of Gaeul’s devastated face as she walked out. The reckless drive to race feels suddenly hollow, tinged with a sullen, heavy guilt. 

You sink back onto the sofa, the silence of the house a crushing weight, the roar of imagined engines replaced by the deafening echo of that closing door. The path forward, once blazing with defiant purpose, now feels shrouded in doubt.

—————

The roar of the vast Hong Kong crowd vibrates through the very bones of Kai Tak Stadium. A physical pressure wave that hits you the moment you slip through the secure backstage entrance. It’s a stark, almost violent contrast to the sterile, homely silence you’ve inhabited for months. Neon strobes slash through the dim backstage corridors, catching on sequined costumes and anxious staff. The air crackles with adrenaline, sweat, and hairspray. Moving through the controlled chaos, you’re a ghost in plain clothes, navigating by memory and booming bass shaking the floor.

You find a sliver of space near the wings, hidden by a towering lighting rig. On stage, IVE is pure, incandescent fire. The complex choreography for their latest hit unfolds with razor-sharp precision, a kaleidoscope of color and synchronized power. Yujin commands the center with fierce charisma, Liz and Leeseo flanking her with explosive energy. Rei’s quirky charm translates into dynamic moves, while Wonyoung moves with an ethereal grace that seems to defy gravity. 

And then there’s Gaeul. Your breath catches. She’s radiant. 

Every movement is sharp, confident, utterly focused. The Gaeul who massaged your scars and watched you with terrified eyes is gone, replaced by the consummate idol, owning her space under the blinding lights. There’s no trace of the devastation you caused, only sheer, polished brilliance. The performance crescendos in a final, breathtaking formation, met by a deafening wall of screams that shakes the stadium.

Time becomes a blur of waiting in the pulsating dark. Announcements boom. Awards are given. The tension backstage is a living thing, thick with anticipation and exhaustion. Then it happens. 

The actor’s voice echoes, amplified: “—and the Song of the Year Daesang goes to—IVE!” 

The shriek that erupts from the star-studded artist area is pure, unadulterated joy. You watch from the shadows as they surge forward, a whirlwind of shimmering fabric and tear-streaked smiles, clutching each other’s hands as they ascend the stage to accept the highest honor.

Their acceptance speeches are a flurry of gratitude, breathless and effervescent. Gaeul, holding the heavy trophy alongside Yujin, smiles—a genuine, effervescent beam that lights up her face—but her eyes, scanning the adoring crowd, hold a depth that wasn’t there during the performance. A flicker of something else. Something calmer beneath the triumph.

Back in the relative sanctuary of their dedicated dressing room, the atmosphere is electric chaos. Champagne corks pop. Staff buzz around, offering congratulations and managing logistics. The members are buzzing, laughing, replaying core moments, their Daesang trophy gleaming on a central table. Leeseo is twirling. Liz is mock-scolding Rei for almost spilling her drink. Yujin is radiating proud calm. Wonyoung is meticulously adjusting a strand of hair in a mirror, a small, satisfied smile playing on her lips. 

Gaeul stands slightly apart near a refreshment table, holding a flute of untouched champagne, watching her members with a soft, affectionate smile that doesn’t quite reach the slight tension in her shoulders. The performer’s mask is down, revealing the woman beneath: proud, happy, but carrying an invisible weight.

You step out of the deeper shadows near the door.

The shift is instantaneous. Rei, mid-laugh while hugging her giant panda plushie (a relic from your home, brought for good luck), spots you first. Her eyes widen comically. “Oppa?!” 

The single word cuts through the celebratory noise. Heads snap in your direction. Conversations die. Jiwon’s hand flies to her mouth. Hyunseo stops twirling. Yujin’s eyes narrow slightly, assessing. Wonyoung turns from the mirror, her expression unreadable but intensely observant.

Gaeul freezes. The champagne flute dips precariously in her hand. Softness vanishes from her face, replaced by sheer, unvarnished shock that quickly hardens into wariness. Her knuckles whiten around the stem of the glass. The warmth in the room chills by several degrees, the unspoken history—the hospital, the fight, the closed door—hanging thick and heavy.

“Surprise,” you say, your voice rough, feeling utterly exposed under the collective gaze, especially hers. You take a hesitant step further into the light. “Congratulations. That—that was incredible. The Daesang—so well deserved.”

Silence stretches, taut and uncomfortable. It’s Jiwon who breaks it, ever the warm heart. She steps forward, a tentative smile replacing her shock. “Oppa! You’re here! How—?” 

She glances nervously at Gaeul, then back at you.

“Caught a flight,” you shrug, the movement sending a familiar twinge through your shoulder. Your eyes never leave Gaeul. She hasn’t moved, hasn’t blinked. Her gaze is a physical pressure. “Had to be here. For this.”

Yujin steps forward, her leadership instincts kicking in, sensing the brewing undercurrents. Her voice is calm, diplomatic. “It’s good to see you. Are you—recovering well?” 

Her eyes flick meaningfully over you, taking in the residual stiffness you can’t hide.

Before you can answer, Gaeul finally speaks. Her voice is low, controlled, but vibrating with an intensity that silences the room again. “Why are you here?” 

No greeting. No acknowledgment. Just the raw, direct question you knew was coming.

You take a deep breath, the scent of champagne and hairspray suddenly cloying. The carefully rehearsed script in your head dissolves. All that remains is the messy, uncomfortable truth. 

“Because I was wrong,” you say, the admission scraping your throat raw. “Because I’m a selfish idiot. Because I took it too far—way too fucking far—trying to push myself back into that seat before I was ready, before—” You falter, your gaze dropping for a second before forcing it back up to meet hers. The anger, the fear you saw in the hospital, the profound disappointment when she walked out—it’s all still there, swirling in her dark eyes. “Before considering what it would do to you. Again.”

A muscle ticks in Gaeul’s jaw. “Too far?” she echoes, her voice gaining an edge. “Trying to push? Is that what you call it? You were ready to throw away everything—everything we rebuilt—for two races. After everything.” She takes a step towards you, the untouched champagne forgotten. “You took recklessness to a whole new level. Again.”

The dressing room is utterly still. Rei clutches her panda tighter. Hyunseo splits wide-eyed glances between you and Gaeul. Jiwon bites her lip. Wonyoung’s expression remains carefully neutral, yet her gaze sharp. Yujin watches, her posture protective near her member, ready to step in when necessary.

“I know,” you whisper, the guilt a cold stone in your gut. “I know, Gaeul. And I didn’t go.” 

The words hang in the air. Gaeul’s fierce expression flickers, replaced by pure, stunned confusion. “What?”

“Qatar,” you clarify, your voice gaining a sliver of strength. “I never got on the plane. I packed. I went to the airport. Sat at the gate. Watched the cars—on the screen.” The memory is vivid: the roar of engines from the TV in the departure lounge, the pull so strong it felt like a physical ache. “All I could see was your face. That night—when you walked out. The look in your eyes. I knew I couldn’t do it. So I turned around. Came back. Spent the weekend—here. Planning how to crash your party, I guess.” 

You attempt a weak smile that doesn’t quite land.

Gaeul stares at you, the confusion warring with the residual anger and a dawning, hesitant flicker of something else—relief. Understanding. Her posture softens infinitesimally, the rigid defensiveness easing. “You—didn’t go?”

“No.” You shake your head. “Couldn’t. Not like that. Not without—” 

You take another step closer, closing the distance. The members are silent witnesses, the celebration momentarily suspended. “Abu Dhabi is next week. The season finale. I still want to race it. I need to—to close that chapter. For me. But I won’t. I swear to you, Gaeul, I won’t set foot in that paddock unless you tell me I can.” 

Holding her gaze, you lay yourself bare. “You were right. It’s not worth losing this. Losing you. Not for any podium in the world. I don’t care anymore. As long as I have you. It’s your call.”

The silence stretches. The distant thump of music from the stadium feels worlds away. Gaeul searches your face, her eyes tracing the lines of exhaustion, the lingering shadows of pain, the earnest desperation in your expression. The fierce protector, the terrified lover, the proud partner—they all war within her gaze. Finally, a sigh escapes her, long and shuddering, releasing some of the tension coiled inside her. A small, almost imperceptible smile touches her lips, weary but genuine.

“Stupid,” she murmurs, lacking its former bite, softened by an undeniable warmth. “Reckless. Selfish. All of those things.” She takes the final step, closing the gap completely. Her hand lifts, not to strike, but to gently cup your cheek. Her touch is cool against your flushed skin, a grounding counterpoint to the storm inside you. “But you’re mine. And I know that fire. I saw it when you woke up in that hospital, even when you couldn’t remember your own name. I can’t—I can’t hold you back from what’s in your blood. Not truly.” 

Gaeul’s thumb strokes your cheekbone. “So yes. Go race Abu Dhabi. Finish your story.” Her gaze intensifies, holding yours with fierce love and a lingering trace of fear. “But you come back to me. In one piece. Not just alive—whole. Promise me.”

The wave of relief and gratitude that crashes over you is so profound it nearly buckles your knees. You cover her hand on your cheek with yours, leaning into her touch. “I promise,” you rasp, thick with emotion. “I will come back to you. Whole.”

A collective, subtle release of breath seems to go through the other members. Rei beams, giving her panda a happy squeeze. Jiwon lets out a quiet, relieved sigh, smiling brightly. Hyunseo bounces on her toes, the tension broken. Wonyoung offers a small, knowing nod. Yujin clears her throat, subtly breathing a sigh of relief, a soft smile finally touching her lips.

“Well,” Yujin says, her voice warm but carrying a hint of gentle command. She picks up the Daesang. “This calls for proper celebration. We should find the managers, see about that after-party reservation—” She glances meaningfully at Gaeul, then at you, her smile turning slightly mischievous. “Leeseo, Rei, Liz—help me track down the coordinators. Wonyoung?”

Wonyoung, ever perceptive, simply inclines her head, her regal posture unwavering. “Of course, baby.”

Rei giggles, nudging Leeseo. “Come on, let’s go find the fancy champagne. The really fancy stuff!” 

Liz loops her arm through Leeseo’s, steering her towards the door with a final, encouraging smile in your and Gaeul’s direction.

Within moments, the dressing room vacates, the buzz of celebration moving elsewhere, leaving you and Gaeul in a sudden, intimate quiet. The only sounds are your breathing and the muffled thump of bass from the distant stage. The tension of the confrontation melts, replaced by a different kind of electricity. Gaeul’s hand is still on your cheek. Your hand covers hers. The space between you hums.

Gaeul’s eyes, no longer wary or angry, search yours—seeing the exhaustion, the lingering pain, the raw vulnerability, and the fierce determination beneath. Her gaze drops to your lips, then back up, a slow, warm blush spreading across her cheeks. The faint scent of her perfume—something floral and expensive—mixes with the lingering champagne and the adrenaline of the performance. The low neckline of her stage costume glitters under the dressing room lights, drawing your eye to the smooth line of her throat, the rapid flutter of her pulse you can see just beneath her jaw.

“They think we need the room,” she murmurs, husky now, a world away from its earlier sharpness. Her other hand comes up, fingers lightly tracing the tense line of your jaw, then drifting down to rest against the pulse hammering in your neck. Her touch is deliberate, exploratory, reigniting embers that had been banked by pain and conflict.

“They might be onto something,” you manage, your own inflection rough. 

The months of enforced distance—the fear, the anger, the relief of this fragile reconciliation—it all coalesces into a sudden, overwhelming need. 

Your free hand finds her waist, the sequined fabric cool and slick under your fingertips. Pulling her gently, irresistibly closer, until your bodies are almost touching. The heat radiating from her is intoxicating. You can feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest against yours. The roar of the crowd is replaced by the roaring of your own blood. Her lips part slightly, an unspoken invitation, her eyes darkening with an answering hunger that mirrors your own. The chaos of MAMA fades away, leaving only the quiet room, the shared warmth, and the promise of a much different kind of reunion, long overdue and desperately needed. 

The hotel key card in your pocket suddenly feels heavy with possibility.

—————

The hotel room door clicks shut behind you, sealing off the distant thrum of MAMA, the muffled bass from distant parties, the lingering scent of hairspray and adrenaline. Silence descends, thick and charged, broken only by the frantic hammering of your own heart against your ribs and the soft, quick breaths escaping Gaeul’s parted lips. The luxurious space—all cool marble and sleek furniture—feels suddenly small, intimate, charged with the electric current of months of repressed longing, fear, anger, and now, this fragile, desperate reconciliation.

For a heartbeat, you simply stare at each other across the plush carpet. The shimmering residue of her stage makeup catches the soft light from the bedside lamp, highlighting the high curve of her cheekbones, the slight tremble in her bottom lip. Her eyes, dark pools reflecting the city lights bleeding through the sheer curtains, hold yours with an intensity that steals your breath. There’s no wariness left, no residual anger. Only a raw, naked hunger that mirrors the fire scorching through your own veins. 

It’s not a gentle merging; it’s a collision. 

You meet in the center of the room, a tangle of desperate limbs and seeking mouths. Your lips crash against hers with a force born of months of separation and stifled need. 

Hers yield instantly, opening with a soft gasp that vibrates against your tongue. The kiss is deep, bruising. A frantic reclamation. Her hands fly to your face, fingers tangling in your hair, pulling you closer, impossibly closer. Your own arms lock around her waist, hauling her flush against you, the sequined fabric of her stage outfit cool and slick beneath your palms, the heat of her body beneath it radiating like a healthy furnace.

The taste of her is intoxicating: champagne, a hint of her signature floral perfume, and something uniquely, addictively Gaeul. Your hands slide down her back, tracing the delicate ridge of her spine through the thin material, feeling her powerful dance muscles coil and release. Hers are equally restless, roaming over your shoulders, down your chest, nails scraping lightly through the fabric of your shirt, sending shivers down your spine. 

The months of physio, the careful rebuilding—it all evaporates under the sheer, overwhelming need to feel her. All of her.

Clothing becomes an enemy. Fingers fumble with stubborn clasps and zippers. Breathless curses mingle with hungry moans against each other’s skin. You push the glittering straps of her outfit off her shoulders, the delicate fabric tearing slightly in your haste, a small casualty lost to urgency. It pools around her waist before you shove it lower, revealing the smooth, pale expanse of her back, the graceful curve leading down to the swell of her hips. 

Gaeul arches into your touch as your lips leave her mouth to blaze a trail down her jaw, her neck, finding the frantic pulse point hammering beneath her skin. You suck, gently at first, then harder, marking her, claiming her anew. A low whine escapes her throat, her head tipping back to grant you better access.

Her own hands are frantic at your buttons, pushing your shirt open, her cool palms sliding over your chest, tracing the lines of muscle, the faint ridges of scars left by Spa—a reminder of the chasm you’d crossed to get back here. Her touch is both worship and possession. Pushing the shirt off your shoulders, letting it fall forgotten. Your belt buckle clatters to the floor, followed by the rustle of trousers being shoved down your legs. Her stage outfit follows, a shimmering cascade of discarded glamour, kicked away impatiently. 

Underneath, simple lace—dark against her moon-pale skin—a final barrier quickly breached.

Then, it’s skin on skin. The shock of it is electric, grounding and dizzying all at once. 

The cool air of the room meets the blazing heat radiating from your bodies. You pull Gaeul against you, every curve and plane fitting together with a familiarity that aches, the months apart dissolving in sheer perfection of the contact. Her breasts press against your chest, hardened peaks scraping your skin. Her thighs bracket yours, the softness yielding against the hard muscle of your legs. She feels like heaven, like home rediscovered after a long, perilous journey. A groan tears from your throat, deep and guttural, echoed by a sigh from her that’s half relief, half desperate want.

Driven by a need too primal to articulate, you guide her backwards, slightly stumbling in your haste, until her back meets the cool expanse of the bedroom wall. The impact draws a gasp from her lips, instantly swallowed by your renewed kiss: deeper, more demanding. Your hands roam freely now, mapping the familiar territory of her bare body with possessive intensity. One hand cups the perfect swell of her ass, fingers digging into the firm muscle, lifting her slightly, grinding the hard length of your cock against the soft heat at the apex of her thighs. She cries out against your mouth, her hips rocking instinctively, seeking friction.

Your other hand finds her breast, filling your palm, thumb sweeping roughly over the taut peak. She gasps, arching her back, pushing herself more firmly into your touch. 

“Yes,” she hisses, the sound vibrating against your lips. Her nails rake down your back, not gently, leaving fiery trails that speak of possession, of marking you as hers just as you’ve marked her neck. The slight sting blends perfectly with the overwhelming pleasure, a counterpoint that only elevates the intensity.

The wall provides leverage. You kiss her with a devouring hunger, your tongue tangling with hers, tasting her desperation. Your hand leaves her breast, sliding down the flat plane of her stomach, tracing the indent of her navel, slipping lower, through the soft curls, finding the slick, molten heat waiting beneath. Gaeul jerks against the wall as your fingers brush her clit, a high, keening sound escaping her. She’s drenched, swollen, impossibly ready. You slide a finger inside her, then another, curling them expertly, finding the spot that makes her thighs clamp around your hand, her head thudding back against the wall with a soft moan.

“Fuck—you’re so—” she pants, her eyes squeezed shut, caught in the sensations. “Don’t stop— please—”

But you do stop. Gently withdrawing your fingers, you relish the frustrated whimper it draws from her. You need more. You need all of her. 

Breaking the kiss, you trail hot, open-mouthed kisses down her neck, over the burgeoning bruises you’ve left, across the delicate ridge of her collarbone. You sink lower, your hands replacing your mouth on her breasts, squeezing, kneading. Thumbs circle her nipples with firm pressure that makes her gasp and writhe against the wall. You lavish attention on each tit, sucking one hardened bud deep into your mouth, swirling your tongue around it, then grazing it lightly with your teeth before moving to the other. She’s a panting, whimpering mess above you, her fingers clenched in your hair, guiding, urging, her hips grinding helplessly against air.

Leaving her breasts glistening, you continue your descent. Your lips blaze a trail down the center of her stomach, tracing the subtle muscles, dipping into her navel, tasting the salt of her skin. Her abdomen tenses beneath your mouth, a tremor running through her. Hooking your hands under her thighs, you lift her slightly higher against the wall. Her breath hitches, anticipation coiling tight in the silence.

Then, you bury your face between her legs.

The scent of her arousal is intoxicating, musky and sweet, uniquely her. Groaning against her heat, the vibration draws a sharp cry from her lips. Your tongue finds her slick folds, lapping slowly, deliberately, from the sensitive entrance upwards to the swollen bud of her clit. 

She jerks violently, a choked sob escaping her. “Oh God—”

You feast. This is worship. Penance. Desperate adoration. 

You flatten your tongue against her, delivering broad strokes that make her thighs quiver around your head. Circling her clit with the tip of your tongue, teasingly light at first, then firmer, faster. You suck gently on the engorged nub, swirling pressure that has her crying out, her hands fisting in your hair almost painfully. You delve lower, tasting her deeply, thrusting your tongue inside her heat, savoring her nectar, the way her inner muscles flutter and clench around the intrusion.

Muffled sounds escape you, lost against her skin: groans of pleasure, low hums of approval. “So sweet,” you murmur, the words vibrating against her slick flesh, making her gasp. “Taste perfect—missed this— missed you—so much—” 

Your praise is fragmented, raw, punctuated by the wet sounds of your hungry tongue.

Her responses are a symphony of pleasure and mounting tension. Guttural moans rip from her throat, punctuated by sharp gasps and breathless curses. “Fuck—right there—don’t stop—please—” 

Her hips buck against your mouth, seeking more pressure, more friction. She grinds down onto your tongue, her movements becoming frantic and uncontrolled. Tension builds, coiling tighter and tighter within her, a palpable force radiating from her core. Her thighs clamp around your head, her back arches impossibly off the wall, held only by your grip and the pressure of your mouth.

You feel it coming: the tremors starting deep inside, the flutter against your tongue becoming frantic, the sharp, ragged edge to her breathing. Redoubling your efforts, focusing relentless pressure on her clit, sucking firmly, your fingers dig into the supple flesh of her ass, holding her open, holding her there. Like’s high art on the bedroom wall.

With a cry that’s half sob, half scream, she shatters.

Her body convulses against the wall, held only by your strength. Wave after wave of pleasure crashes through her, violent and all-consuming. Her inner walls clench rhythmically around your tongue, her slickness flooding over your chin. Her thighs tremble violently, her cries dissolving into wordless, gasping moans as the tremors wrack her. You hold her through it, gentling your touch but not stopping, drawing out every last shuddering pulse of her climax until she sags, boneless and gasping, against the wall, held up solely by your arms.

Slowly, carefully, you lower her trembling legs. Rising from your knees, your own body thrums with arousal, your face glistening full with her juices. Her eyes are glazed, unfocused. Her lips swollen, her chest heaving. She looks utterly ravished, beautifully wrecked. A slow, dazed smile touches her lips as her eyes focus on yours. 

Wordlessly, she reaches for you, pulling your mouth to hers in a deep, languid kiss, tasting herself on your lips, moaning softly into your mouth. “Damn. I taste good.”

“Right,” you mumble, suppressing a faint chuckle.

Gently disentangling, you scoop Gaeul up into your arms. A surge of strength fueled by adrenaline and desire. She feels light, pliant, wrapping her arms around your neck, nuzzling into your shoulder. You carry her the few steps to the vast bed, lowering her onto the cool, crisp sheets. The city lights paint shifting patterns across her skin as she sinks into the mattress, watching you with heavy-lidded eyes, dark with renewed passion.

You shed the last of your own clothes quickly, your gaze never departing hers. The sight of her sprawled naked across the bed, marked by your mouth, flushed with bodily pleasure, her eyes reflecting the hunger still burning within her, is almost more than you can bear. You join her, sliding onto the bed beside her, your body covering hers, skin sliding against heated skin.

The kisses start again: slower now, deeper, more exploratory. A rediscovery. 

Your hands roam over her body, relearning every curve, every dip, every scar and freckle. You kiss the bruises blooming on her neck, her collarbones, whispering apologies and promises against her skin. Her hands are equally as busy, mapping the planes of your back, your chest, drifting lower to wrap around the hard length of your cock, stroking you with firm, knowing pressure that makes your hips jerk involuntarily.

“Need you baby,” she breathes against your lips, her voice husky, totalled. “Need you inside. Now.”

The raw need in her voice is your undoing. You reach between your bodies, guiding yourself to her slick entrance. The first press is electric, a shock of heat and tightness that steals your breath. Pushing slowly, inch by torturous inch, watching her face, the way her eyes flutter shut, her lips part on a silent gasp. She’s incredibly tight, still pulsing faintly from her earlier climax, her inner muscles gripping you like a velvet fist. The sensation is overwhelming, a perfect, agonizing friction.

“Fuck, Gaeul,” you groan, burying your face in the curve of her neck, inhaling her scent, feeling the frantic pulse beneath your lips. “So tight—so perfect—”

She wraps her toned legs around your hips, heels digging into the small of your back, urging you deeper. “All of you,” she demands, her voice thick. “Give me all of you.”

You sink the final inch, hilting yourself completely within her, a groan tearing from both your throats in unison. The feeling of being sheathed inside her, surrounded by her heat, her tightness, after so long apart, is transcendent. You stay buried for a moment, simply taking in the connection, the frantic beating of her heart against your chest, the slight tremors still running through her. Her walls flutter around you, adjusting, flexing, welcoming.

Then, you begin to move.

Slowly at first, shallow thrusts that draw soft whimpers from her lips. You lift your head, capturing her mouth again, swallowing her sounds. The pace builds gradually, a steady rhythm established. The slide is exquisite, slick and hot, each withdrawal an ache, each stroke a shot of pure pleasure that arcs through your core. Her nails find your back again, scoring fresh lines alongside the fading marks, the sting a perfect parallel to the deep, lingering pressure within you.

She meets your thrusts, arching her hips off the bed, taking you deeper, her inner muscles clenching rhythmically around your cock. “Missed this,” she gasps against your mouth, breaking the kiss to pant. “Missed you—inside me—filling me—” Her words are fragmented, lost in moans. “So deep—feels so—so good—”

You shift slightly, angling your hips, seeking that spot you know drives her wild. The next deep thrust draws a sharp, broken cry from her, her eyes flying open wide. “There! Oh fuck—right there—” Her head thrashes on the pillow, her back arching sharply. “Don’t stop—please—like that—just like that—”

Focusing your thrusts, hitting that perfect angle with relentless precision. The room fills with the raw, pornographic sounds of your bodies coming together: the slick slap of skin on skin, your ragged breaths, her escalating cries—guttural moans, sharp gasps, breathless pleas. She’s unraveling beneath you again, the tension coiling tighter, faster this time. Her legs coil around you like a vise, her heels urging you to go deeper. Harder. Her hands scramble over your back, on your shoulders, before finally tangling in your hair again, pulling your head down.

“Kiss me,” Gaeul demands, her voice raw. “Please—kiss me—”

You crush your lips on hers, swallowing her cries as you drive into her with increasing, unforgiving force. The bed creaks beneath in protest. The world narrows to the feel of her cunt, the taste of her kiss, the sound of her vocalized pleasure, the blinding white-hot pressure building at the base of your spine, threatening to detonate at any given moment.

“Gaeul—” you gasp against her lips, your thrusts becoming erratic, losing their rhythm. “Can’t—can’t hold—gonna—“

“Yes!” she cries out, tearing her mouth from yours. Her eyes blaze into yours, dark and wild, holding your gaze with fierce intensity. “Do it. Let go. Give it to me—cum inside me—fill me up—please—”

Her words, her desperate plea, the sheer overwhelming sensation of her cunt tightening around you like a silken fist—it shatters your control. 

A guttural cry rips through your lungs as you plunge deep, burying yourself to the hilt, and erupt. Pent-up want explodes, white-hot and blinding, surging through you in pulsing waves that leave you shuddering, gasping, and utterly spent. You feel her orgasm meet yours, triggered by the thumping heat flooding her core. Her body arches violently off the bed, a long, wordless cry ripped from her throat as she convulses around you, milking every last drop of your release.

Shot after shot, unloading into her creamy cunt, feeling every violent throb, twitch, and pulse of your cock, and her wanton pussy beg for more. You give it to her. Each and every load.

You collapse onto her, crushing her into the mattress, your forehead pressed to hers, gasping for air, trembling from the sheer force of your shared climax. Her arms wrap around you, holding you close, her own body trembling beneath yours. The only sounds are your ragged breaths mingling, the frantic hammering of your hearts slowly beginning to slow, and the faint, distant beat of the city outside.

Slowly, carefully, you roll off, pulling her with you so she ends up sprawled half on top of you, her head nestled on your chest. Your arms wrap around her, holding her close, your fingers tracing lazy, soothing patterns on the sweat-slicked skin of her back. Her leg is thrown over yours, her hand resting possessively over your still-thumping heart.

The silence now is profound and serene, filled only with the shared warmth and the lingering aftershocks of pleasure humming through your bodies. The frantic energy, the desperate need, has burned itself out, leaving behind a deep, satisfying exhaustion and a profound sense of reconnection.

You tilt your head, looking down at Gaeul. Her eyes are closed, long dark lashes fanning against her flushed cheeks. Her lips are slightly swollen, curved in a small, utterly contented smile. A faint sheen of sweat glistens on her skin. She looks utterly shattered, beautifully claimed, and completely at peace.

You brush a stray strand of dark hair, damp with sweat, away from her forehead. The tender gesture makes her eyes flutter open. She looks up at you, her gaze soft, hazy with satisfaction, but clear. Clear of the fear, the anger, the worry that had shadowed them for so long. There’s only warmth, trust, and a deep, abiding love that takes your breath away all over again.

“Hey,” you murmur, your voice rough but tender.

“Hey,” she whispers back, a husky rasp. Nuzzling closer, she presses a soft kiss against the skin over your heart. “Welcome back.”

A slow smile spreads across your face, mirroring hers. You tighten your arms around Gaeul, pulling her even closer, breathing in the scent of her hair, her skin, the unique scent of her mingled with the lingering traces of sex and sweat. 

“Never really left,” you murmur, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Just took the scenic route.”

She chuckles softly, the sound a warm vibration against your chest. “Scenic route involving a lot of walls and hospital beds.”

“Worth it,” you say simply, your fingers tracing the line of her spine again. “To end up here. With you. Like this.”

She lifts her head slightly, meeting your eyes again. Her hand comes up, her fingers gently tracing the line of your jaw, the curve of your lips. “Abu Dhabi,” she says softly, no fear in her voice now, only a quiet understanding.

“Abu Dhabi,” you confirm, holding her gaze. “I’ll come back. Whole. Promise.”

Gaeul searches your eyes for a long moment, then nods slowly, a tiny, accepting smile touching her lips. She leans up, pressing a soft, lingering kiss. It’s tender, unhurried, a silent affirmation. “I know you will,” she whispers against your mouth. “Just—make it a less scenic route back, okay?”

You smile into the kiss. “Deal.”

She settles back down against your chest with a content sigh, her body relaxing completely against yours. The silence wraps around you again, incredibly warm and safe. City lights continue their silent dance on the ceiling. The distant thrum of the outside world and the challenge to come is a lullaby. Here, tangled in the sheets, skin to skin, heart to heart, the only victory that matters is this one. The long, painful journey from almost to here. 

Together. 

The roar of engines, the pressure of the podium, the unfinished story—they’re still there. Waiting. But for now, in this quiet afterglow, there’s only peace and warmth, a profound sense of being exactly where you belong. 

Home.

—————

The desert night at Yas Marina isn’t silent. It thrums. A deep, resonant pulse beneath the shimmering heat haze rising off the tarmac even after sunset—the collective heartbeat of twenty power units whispering threats inside their carbon cocoons. Floodlights carve islands of harsh white brilliance in the inky darkness, turning the circuit into a stage set for the season’s final act. The air hangs thick, tasting of overheated brakes, aviation fuel, and the sweet, cloying scent of nearby frangipani blossoms, an incongruous counterpoint to the mechanical brutality about to unfold. 

Championship tension crackles like static: Oscar Piastri, cool and focused, holds a fragile points lead over Lando Norris, whose usual playful grin is tempered by steely determination. Victory here for Oscar seals it: his first. For Lando, nothing less than a win will suffice. The narrative is set. 

Until you rewrite it.

You move through the paddock’s controlled chaos, a reanimated corpse walking amongst the living. The Kick Sauber team shirt feels both familiar and alien against skin mapped with scars, held together by titanium resolve. Every step sends a muted protest from your rebuilt ankle; every turn of your head whispers a reminder of the shoulder that still remembers impact. Yet, your stride is deliberate, purposeful, projecting an unnerving calm that cuts through the pre-briefing chatter. Eyes follow you—mechanics, journalists, junior engineers—their expressions a kaleidoscope of disbelief, morbid curiosity, and burgeoning awe. 

Headlines scream from every screen: 

"Phoenix Rises from Yas Marina Ashes?" 

"Medical Miracle or Madness? Sauber's Lazarus Act." 

You’re the impossible made flesh, the embodiment of defiance against physics, anatomy, and reason.

The circuit briefing room is a sanctum of focused tension when you push the door open. Team principals huddle over data pads. Engineers murmur into headsets. Drivers lean back in their chairs, some relaxed (Verstappen, already championed out, wanting to go home to his setup), others coiled springs (Oscar and Lando). Jonathan Wheatley, Sauber’s team principal, is mid-sentence about track limits when the room’s collective attention snaps towards the entrance like iron filings to a magnet.

Silence. Not gradual, but absolute. A vacuum sucking the air from the room.

Shock. George Russell’s mug of coffee halts halfway to his lips, frozen. Carlos Sainz’s eyebrows vanish beneath his hairline. Fernando Alonso, the wily veteran, leans forward, eyes narrowing with intense, calculating scrutiny.

Awe. Alex Albon stares, open-mouthed, a flicker of pure admiration breaking through. Charles Leclerc’s usually expressive face is unreadable, but his gaze holds a profound, almost reverent intensity. The rookies glare with bated breath, their eyes seemingly capturing a ghost for the first time in their lives.

Confusion. Lewis Hamilton’s brow furrows deeply, concern etching lines around his eyes as he takes in your stiff posture, the subtle way you favor your right side. Beside him, his former principal Toto Wolff exchanges a sharp glance with Christian Horner, trying to comprehend what he’s seeing.

Insanity. Max Verstappen’s lips quirk in something that isn’t quite a smile. More a recognition of sheer, audacious lunacy. He gives a slow, almost imperceptible nod—the closest thing to respect from the 4x champion.

Worry. Lando Norris’s playful mask slips entirely, replaced by stark alarm. Oscar Piastri’s focused, gentle calm fractures momentarily, replaced by wide-eyed disbelief.

Nico Hulkenberg, already seated near the front in his Sauber gear, doesn’t just look shocked; he looks physically winded. He half-rises from his chair, a low, guttural sound escaping him. 

"Scheiße." 

Not of anger, but pure, unadulterated dread.

The FIA briefing officer clears his throat, bewildered. "Ah—Mr. Bortoleto—? We were expecting—"

"Gaby couldn’t make it," you state, cutting through the stunned silence. Calm. Level. Carrying effortlessly to the back of the room. It’s the voice of someone who’s bargained with oblivion and walked away. "Personal reasons. In his place, I’m driving. This weekend." 

You step fully into the room, the fluorescent light catching the sharp planes of your face, the focused glint in your eyes that holds no room for doubt. You look less like a man and more like a monument carved from desert rock and sheer willpower. The biggest badass in the room, radiating a quiet, terrifying certainty that death had merely detoured your schedule.

Wheatley finds his voice, a mix of programmed relief and genuine unease. "We—we are, of course, immensely proud and relieved to welcome our second driver back. His recovery has been—" he searches for the word, impossible given the circumstances, "—extraordinary. FIA medical clearance has been confirmed for participation."

The FIA medical delegate, the man who’d signed your paperwork with palpable reluctance, gives a curt nod, his expression grim. "Provisional clearance stands. Subject to review after each session." The unspoken warning hangs heavy.

Hulk is already moving, striding towards you, bypassing standard procedure. The seasoned veteran, the voice of reason Sauber desperately needed all season, now radiates pure, protective fury. "No," he states, low and fierce, grabbing your good arm just above the elbow. His grip is tight, anchoring. "This is not happening. Not like this. Look at you! You can barely walk without wincing! Yas Marina? The forces? The braking into Turn 1? The long G-load through Turn 11? Your neck isn’t ready! Your ankle isn’t ready! The car is a fucking tractor!" He lowers his voice, but the intensity vibrates through you. "This isn’t courage. It’s suicide. Be reserve. Advise. But get back in that cockpit? Now? After Spa?" 

He shakes his head, a gesture of desperate frustration. "It’s too soon. Too damn dangerous. For you. For everyone on that grid."

You meet his gaze, unwavering. The room holds its breath. Lando looks visibly distressed. Oscar’s jaw is clenched. Charles watches with solemn intensity. Lewis’s expression is of deep trouble. Max leans back in his chair, observing the confrontation like it were a Netflix drama.

"I’m cleared, Hulk," you reply, your voice still calm, but with an underlying steel that brooks no argument. "Better than cleared. Ready." 

You gently but firmly remove his hand from your arm. The movement is deliberate, controlled, showcasing the regained strength, yet the slight stiffness is undeniable. "Sense stayed in the barrier at Eau Rouge. I came back to drive." You offer him a ghost of a smile, devoid of warmth, full of feral resolve. "Happy to be your wingman again. Now," you turn towards the briefing officer, "let’s hear about those track limits. I need to know where the asphalt ends."

You find an empty chair near the back, beside a stunned Williams strategist. Sitting down isn’t fluid; it’s a conscious, careful lowering of your body. Yet the defiance radiates from you like furnacing heat. 

The ghost hasn’t just returned; it’s also taken a seat at the table. 

Hulk stares at you for a long, agonizing moment, conflict warring in his eyes—profound concern battling against a dawning, grudging awe at the sheer, terrifying scale of your resolve. He sinks back into his seat with a heavy sigh, running a frustrated hand over his face. 

The briefing resumes, but the atmosphere is forever altered, charged with the electricity of the impossible walking amongst them.

—————

The paddock buzzes like a kicked hornet’s nest. Cameras and microphones swarm you the moment you emerge from the briefing. Questions are shouted, a cacophony of disbelief and morbid fascination: 

"Are you in pain?" 

"Do you fear another crash?" 

"How is this possible?" 

“Do you have a death wish?”

You offer terse, confident answers, your aura intensifying under the scrutinizing glare. 

Some look at you with reverent wonder: Alex Albon gives you a firm, supportive nod and a quiet "Respect, man." 

Others watch with the horrified curiosity of witnessing a slow-motion train wreck. Fernando Alonso intercepts you near the Sauber motorhome. "Only you, amigo," he says, his voice a mix of dry amusement and deep respect. "You’re one crazy son of a bitch. But good luck. You will need it." 

George Russell offers a hesitant handshake, his expression deeply troubled. "Blown away, mate. Seriously. Don’t know how you do it. Just—be careful out there, yeah?" 

Carlos Sainz claps you on the good shoulder. A firm, comradely thump. "Incredible. Respect." 

Lewis Hamilton simply meets your eyes as you pass, his gaze deep and knowing, filled with aging wisdom that has seen countless battles and even lives lost fought for this sport. He gives a slow, solemn nod. It speaks volumes: respect for the courage, fear for the cost.

Stepping into the Sauber garage is like entering the eye of a storm. The C45 sits under work lights, its green and black livery gleaming, but the atmosphere heavy with apprehension and fragile hope. Engineers greet you with backslaps that feel cautious, their smiles not quite reaching their worried eyes. The car is a tractor—slow, unpredictable, a handful even for Hulk’s valiant efforts. And you are—a question mark wrapped in fireproofs.

Slipping into the cockpit for FP1 is like reuniting with a toxic lover. The snug embrace of the seat, moulded to a body that’s been broken and remade. The familiar, complex grip of the steering wheel. The overwhelming scent of fuel, hot carbon, and electronics. The belts cinch tight across your chest, a familiar pressure that now presses directly on healing bone. Your physio gives your neck a final, searching squeeze. You nod, pulling the helmet visor down. The world narrows to the cockpit, the track, and the screaming spectres in your muscles.

Yas Marina roars to life. The circuit isn’t just a track; it’s the final arbiter, a demanding, glittering beast under the floodlights. You roll onto the pit straight, the engine note climbing to a shriek. Turn 1 looms: a heavy braking zone from high speed that immediately tests your rebuilt ankle. The force jams it back, a bolt of white-hot protest shooting up your leg. You breathe through it, modulating the pressure. Through the fiddly, technical section around the marina, walls flashing past uncomfortably close. The car feels numb, unresponsive, heavy in your hands—a stark contrast to the razor-edged machine you danced with before Spa.

Then, the swooping, banked Turns 11-14. The hotel section. This is where Yas Marina bites. Sustained, brutal lateral G-forces press you relentlessly into the side of the cockpit. Your neck muscles, weakened by months of recovery, scream in protest. It feels like an anvil crushing your skull sideways. You fight to keep your vision centered, your inputs precise. Sweat beads instantly under your helmet. Exiting onto the long back straight, you push, chasing a feel for the limits on hard tires. The car squirms under acceleration, the rear feeling loose, unpredictable.

Coming into the tight chicane complex before the final hairpin, you carry a fraction too much speed. The tires, still cold, offer less grip than anticipated. You brake, but the rear snaps out viciously. Instinct screams—the faint memory of a thousand slides—and you counter-steer, wrestling the wheel. The correction is violent, wrenching your healing shoulder. A jolt of agony blinds you for a split second. The car slews sideways, tires shrieking, spewing plumes of acrid blue smoke. You catch it mere inches from the unforgiving Tecpro barriers, the car fishtailing wildly before you gather it up, heart hammering against your ribs like a frantic bird. A long, ugly smear of rubber mars the pristine tarmac where you nearly met the wall.

The radio crackles instantly, your engineer’s voice tight with alarm: "Box, box! Are you okay? Report damage!"

You suck in a ragged breath, the taste of adrenaline and burnt rubber sour in your mouth. The pain in your shoulder is a deep, insistent throb. The vulnerability is a cold knife twisting in your gut. You see Hulk watching from the garage entrance, his expression grimly resigned. You see the anxious huddle of Sauber engineers on the pit wall. 

The narrative writes itself: Comeback kid nearly wrecks in first session back!

"I'm okay," you rasp into the mic, forcing steel into your voice, pushing down the tremor of pain and near-panic. "No damage. Just—testing limits. Car’s snappy on cold hards." 

Understatement of the fucking season. 

You guide the Sauber back to the pits, the slow drive incredibly humbling. The C45 feels heavy and flawed, an anchor dragging you down. Death’s presence in the cockpit feels less like an inconvenience and more like a looming, inevitable passenger.

Back in the garage, the atmosphere is thick with unspoken tension. Data flickers on screens, confirming the worst: P19. Only Ollie Bearman’s Haas is slower. Humiliation bites deep. Mechanics swarm the car, checking for damage. Hulk approaches, his face etched with concern that borders on rage. He doesn’t speak immediately, just looks at you, then at the damning timesheet. 

"See?" he finally says, his voice low and gravelly. "It’s not just you. The car’s a nightmare. And you—you’re driving hurt. On a track that demands perfection. That snap? That was the car and the rust. Sandpaper on an open wound."

You pull off your helmet, sweat plastering your hair to your skull. The ache is pervasive now—ankle, shoulder, neck, ribs—a dull symphony of protest. But the fire in your core—it’s banked, not extinguished. It simmers beneath the pain and the poor result. You meet Hulk’s worried gaze. The heroic aura is chipped, revealing the raw, unyielding determination beneath. The monument shows some cracks, but it doesn’t crumble.

"Maybe," you concede, your voice rough but steady. "But I know nightmares, Nico. I’ve driven them before." You tap your temple through the balaclava. "Rust scrapes off. Fear fades. The car’s slow," you glance at the timing screen, P19 glaring back like a challenge, "but it’s mine. And it’s racing on Sunday." 

You push yourself out of the cockpit, the movement stiff but deliberate. "Get me the data from that snap. Every telemetry trace. And let’s talk setup. We need to find a tenth. Just one. For Qualifying."

Hulk watches you limp towards the engineering station, your back straight despite the clear discomfort. He sighs, a sound heavy with worry and something else—a reluctant, burgeoning respect for the sheer, undeterred scale of your defiance. The refusal to let the almost of Spa or the almost of that spin define the ending. 

He mutters under his breath, turning back towards his own car, a flicker of his own competitive fire rekindling. 

If the ghost was back, then maybe, just maybe, it could haunt the midfield into submission. Crazy bastard. 

Qualifying loomed. Yas Marina waited, indifferent beneath its glittering lights. The final test was coming, and the fire in your eyes promised it wouldn’t be taken lying down.

—————

The desert sun hammers down on Yas Marina, turning the paddock into a shimmering mirage. Yesterday’s near-miss hangs large, a stale reminder, but it’s buried beneath the fierce, focused energy radiating from you as you stride towards the Sauber garage. The stiffness is still there: a constant companion in your ankle, a dull ache in your shoulder, a tightness across your ribs with every deep breath. But it’s background noise now, drowned out by the primal roar building inside your chest. 

Qualifying. The crucible.

The atmosphere in the garage is taut, a mix of lingering anxiety and fragile hope. Hulk gives you a long, appraising look as you pull on your fireproofs. The seasoned skepticism in his eyes hasn't vanished, but it’s tempered by a flicker of something new—a reluctant acknowledgment of the sheer, stubborn force of will standing before him. 

"Don't overdo it chasing ghosts," he grunts, adjusting his own gloves. "Points are possible tomorrow. From the back, even. Don't throw it away today chasing—miracles."

You meet his gaze, a feral grin touching your lips beneath the helmet you haven't yet donned. "Miracles are physics we haven't bullied yet, Nico." The defiance is back, sharper, honed by the humiliation of yesterday’s P19. The hero’s aura isn't merely a projection; it feels earned, carved from pain and pure, unadulterated refusal.

Slipping into the C45's cockpit is less reunion, more reclamation. The belts cinch tight, a familiar vice across your healing torso. The steering wheel feels alive, an extension of arms that remember speed even if the bones protest. The physio’s final tap on your helmet feels less like a warning, more like a benediction. 

Go.

Q1. The track is a furnace. The C45 feels marginally better—setup tweaks overnight scraping away a fraction of its inherent sluggishness, or maybe it’s your own senses sharpening. The pain is immediate: Turn 1’s braking jolts your ankle; the sustained Gs through the hotel section crush your weakened neck muscles, blurring vision at the edges. You wrestle the car, feeling its every lazy understeer tendency, its nervous rear end. Early laps are messy, tentative. Times are mediocre. P15. Danger zone.

Crofty’s voice crackles over the radio feed piping into the garage: "—and the Sauber struggling, as expected. Looks like the comeback might be a bridge too far today—"

You block it out. The torrential rain of Spa was more than weather; it was chaos incarnate. This—this is heat and physics. Manageable. 

You push harder. Lap after lap, the times drop incrementally. You find millimeters on the apexes, carry fractions more speed through the sweeps, brake a heartbeat later. The car protests, but you beat it into submission, forcing compliance through sheer, bloody-minded input. The pain in your neck becomes a white-hot brand. You ignore it. The final lap of Q1 is a blur of concentration and controlled aggression. You cross the line.

The garage erupts. "P12! You're through! Q2!"

Your engineer’s voice is a disbelieving shout. Hulk, watching the timing screen, lets out a low whistle, a genuine smile cracking his usual stoicism for the first time in months. The apprehension in the garage melts, replaced by a surge of raw, disbelieving energy. 

He’s doing it.

Q2 is a different beast. The track evolution is significant. The front-runners: Verstappen, the McLarens, the Ferraris—they’re in a league of their own, setting purples. But the midfield is a knife fight. You feel it click. The rust isn't just scraping off; it's evaporating. Muscle memory floods back, instinct overriding conscious thought. The C45 still isn't fast, but you wring its neck, finding grip where there shouldn't be any, carrying impossible speed through Yas Marina’s demanding complexes.

You see Max’s Red Bull flash past on an out-lap, a blur of speed. For a split second, your eyes lock through the visors. There’s no nod this time, just a sharp, assessing stare. He sees it. The man who made him flinch in the Spa downpour is stirring.

Lap after lap, you climb. P10. P8. P6. Commentary is incredulous. Crofty’s voice cuts through: "Unbelievable! Look at that Sauber! He's extracting something extraordinary from that car! That's not just resilience, that's raw, untamed talent reasserting itself!"

Your final Q2 lap is a masterpiece of controlled aggression. Every input is precise, brutal, efficient. You kiss the curbs, flirt with track limits, dance on the absolute edge of adhesion. The C45 feels alive, singing beneath your hands. You cross the line. The timing screen flashes.

P1. For Q2.

Silence, exploding into pandemonium. In the Sauber garage, mechanics leap, hugging each other, pounding the pit wall. Hulk stares at the screen, mouth slightly agape, then turns to your car entering the pit lane, raising a fist—not just in solidarity, but in pure, unadulterated awe. "Bloody hell!" he breathes into the radio, a laugh mixed with disbelief.

Crofty loses it: "Incredible! Absolutely incredible! The Sauber on provisional pole for Q2! He’s topped the McLarens! Topped everyone! The comeback kid isn’t just back; he’s flying!"

Oscar, climbing from his McLaren after securing P2 in the session, stares at the timing screen, his usual calm replaced by wide-eyed shock. Lando, P3, shakes his head slowly, a grin spreading beneath his helmet—part disbelief, part genuine admiration. Charles, watching from the Ferrari garage, offers a slow, respectful clap. Albon radios his engineer: "Did you see that Sauber lap? That was insane!" 

Even Max, perched near the top of the overall times, glances at the Sauber pit with renewed, wary interest. The Lazarus act just became a resurrection of legendary proportions. 

Team morale isn't just high; it's stratospheric. Hope isn't a flicker; it's a wildfire.

—————

The fire is white-hot in your veins. Pain is forgotten, subsumed by the intoxicating shout of potential. For all its flaws, the C45 feels like an extension of your will. You belong here. The podium isn't a dream; it's a tangible target glinting under the Abu Dhabi lights.

The first Q3 run is solid, conservative. P5. Good, but not stellar. The track is faster now. You know there's more. So much more. The final run. One shot. Glory.

You push. Harder than before. Harder than Spa. The tires are fresh, the fuel load minimal. The C45 responds, biting into the tarmac. Turn 1. Perfect. The fiddly marina section—razor-sharp. The hotel complex approaches—Turns 11-14. The sustained, brutal G-forces slam into you, crushing your already screaming neck muscles. Vision tunnels. You fight it, teeth gritted, steering inputs precise but demanding every ounce of strength from your battered shoulder.

Exiting Turn 14 onto the back straight, you carry every ounce of speed the car can muster. The rear feels light, skittish on the exit curb. You correct, instinctively, but the movement is sharp, aggravated by the shoulder’s weakness. The car snaps. Not a gentle slide, but a violent, sudden loss of rear grip.

Instinct screams. Counter-steer. But the damaged shoulder betrays you. The input is a fraction slow, a fraction weak. The car whips around. Time slows. The Tecpro barrier at the end of the straight rushes towards you, not sideways like Spa, but head-on. A brutal, unforgiving embrace.

The whole circuit goes deathly silent.

The impact is colossal. A sickening symphony of shattering carbon fiber, screaming metal, and the violent deceleration slamming you against the belts. Your helmet snaps forward, then back. Lights explode behind your eyes. The world dissolves into noise, violence, and a blinding flash of pain that momentarily eclipses everything—shoulder, ankle, neck, ribs—converging into one white-hot supernova of agony. 

Sparks fly. Debris scatters across the track. Red flags wave instantly.

Death feels less like an inconvenience and more a sledgehammer blow to the chest. For a terrifying second, there’s only darkness and the ringing in your ears.

Then, the training kicks in. Move. Assess. You wiggle fingers, toes. Nothing broken. The HANS device did its job. The survival cell held. Pain screams from everywhere, a cacophony of protest, but it’s localized. No numbness. No fire. This isn’t Spa anymore.

The marshals rush to the scene quickly. You wave them off, unbuckling the belts with trembling, painful movements. The cockpit is a mess of shattered carbon. You push the halo aside and climb out, every movement sending fresh jolts of agony through your frame. You stand, leaning heavily against the wrecked monocoque, taking deep, shuddering breaths. The crowd is silent, then erupts in concerned applause.

Wheatley’s voice is the first in your ear, tight with worry that instantly overrides his earlier awe: "Talk to me! Are you okay? Say something!"

You key the mic, your voice a ragged gasp, but clear as silk. "Yeah. I’m okay. Just—pissed off. Car's toast." 

You take a step away from the wreck, testing your legs. They hold. The defiance, though battered, isn't extinguished. You raise a gloved hand towards the Sauber garage. A grim acknowledgement.

The medical car arrives. You submit to the checks, walking unaided to the ambulance for the mandatory precautionary check-up at the medical centre. The walk is stiff, painful, a stark contrast to the fluid power of your Q2 lap. But you walk. The cameras capture every grimace, every stiff movement, but also the unwavering set of your jaw. The human cost of the audacity is laid bare, yet the spirit remains unbroken.

The session ends under red flags. The final grid crystallizes:

1. VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull)

2. PIASTRI (McLaren)

3. NORRIS (McLaren)

4. LECLERC (Ferrari)

5. RUSSELL (Mercedes)

6. HAMILTON (Ferrari)

7. ALBON (Williams)

8. TSUNODA (Red Bull)

9. ALONSO (Aston Martin)

10. ________ (Kick Sauber)

11. HADJAR (Racing Bulls)

12. SAINZ (Williams)

13. HULKENBERG (Kick Sauber)

14. GASLY (Alpine)

15. ANTONELLI (Mercedes)

16. OCON (Haas)

17. BEARMAN (Haas)

18. STROLL (Aston Martin)

19. COLAPINTO (Alpine)

20. LAWSON (Racing Bulls) (-5 grid penalty)

Back in the Sauber garage, the mood is somber but not utterly shattered. The C45’s wreck is a worrying sight. Hulk finds you after the medical all-clear, your shoulder freshly strapped, movements visibly restricted. He doesn't say I told you so. He simply looks at the grid listing on the screen in bright, taunting color—P10. Ahead of Hadjar. Behind Alonso. His own P13 a stark reminder of the car’s harsh limitations.

"Tenth," he states, his voice flat. "From the wreckage. Could be worse." 

He pauses, then meets your eyes. There’s no blame, just a deep, weary understanding. "The ghost is back. Scared the hell out of everyone. Again." 

A trace of his own smile touches his lips. 

"Rest. That," he nods towards where the wreckage had been,his finger pointed where the dust had settled, "was the easy part. Tomorrow is the war."

You stare at the grid. P10. A monument carved from pain, defiance, and shattered carbon. The podium dream is fractured, but not dead. The fire, though dampened by agony, still burns. Death was tested, but the story isn't finished. The final battle awaits under the desert stars.

—————

Abu Dhabi dawn bleeds into the sky, a slow stain of orange and purple above the Yas Marina circuit. The desert air, usually thick and still, hums with a different energy today—the electric crackle of finality. 

For the sporting world, it’s the culmination of a season, a championship duel between Piastri and Norris. For you, standing alone in the Sauber garage amidst the pre-race frenzy, it feels like standing on the edge of a precipice. 

Your life unfurls beyond this track: Gaeul’s warmth, IVE’s whirlwind, ventures born from your improbable recovery. Possibilities shimmer like mirages on the horizon. Yet, the weight of the fireproofs, the scent of fuel, the phantom roar of engines in your mind—they pull you back towards the abyss. 

A tremor runs through your hands—not fear of the track, but fear of losing everything beyond it. The ghost of Spa whispers in the stiffness of your shoulder, the dull ache in your rebuilt ankle.

Suddenly, a ripple of unexpected brightness cuts through the garage’s focused gloom. Like exotic birds landing in a steel nest, the IVE members materialize. Rei bounds in first, her eyes wide with excitement, clutching a tiny, absurdly fluffy green dinosaur wearing a crocheted black shirt—Sauber’s colours. 

"Oppa! Win! You gotta win!" she declares, shoving the plushie towards you, flailing its tiny arms.

Liz beams beside her, adding, "For real! Show them what a real driver looks like!"

Leeseo bobs her head vigorously, her youthful face alight with pure, unfiltered belief. “We skipped MMA just to watch you in-person! Do us proud!”

“You’re not supposed to reveal that, Seo,” remarks Liz, cutely admonishing her fellow member. The maknae’s cheeks go flush in embarrassment.

Yujin steps forward, her leader’s poise a calming presence amidst the exuberance. She offers a firm, supportive smile. "Do your best out there. That’s all anyone can ask." 

Wonyoung, adorned in a lavish pantsuit, inclines her head, her gaze sharp and observant. "Drive well. We’ll be watching." Her words are concise, carrying the weight of expectation.

Finally, Gaeul. She moves through her members, her eyes finding yours amidst the green-and-black chaos. The fierce protectiveness, the lingering worry from the crash, is still there, etched in the slight tension around her mouth. But overriding it is a quiet, unwavering warmth. She doesn’t speak immediately. Instead, she reaches out, her cool fingers brushing the back of your bandaged hand where it rests on the cockpit rim. The touch is grounding, an anchor thrown into turbulent seas. 

"Just finish the race," she murmurs, low, meant only for you. Her eyes hold yours, intense, pleading. "Come back whole. That’s the only win I care about today. Promise me."

The chaos of the garage fades. The nerves, the existential dread, momentarily dissolve under the weight of her presence, her touch, her simple, profound demand. You cover her hand with yours, squeezing gently. 

"Promise," you rasp, the word thick with emotion. The precipice remains, but the path forward is suddenly illuminated, not by podium champagne, but by the certainty of her waiting embrace.

The formation lap is a slow-motion procession under the harsh desert sun, a final calibration before the storm. You slot into P10, the grid stretching ahead: Verstappen’s Red Bull, a predatory shark on pole, the papaya McLarens of Piastri and Norris poised like hunting dogs behind him. Hulkenberg’s Sauber sits in P13, a green-and-black island settled a little further back. The tension in the cockpit is a living entity, vibrating through the steering wheel, syncing with your own hammering heart. 

Crofty’s voice crackles, a detached narrator setting the scene:

"And there he is, ladies and gentlemen, Sauber #77, lining up P10. A story of resilience unlike any we've seen. The question on everyone's lips: can he translate that qualifying heroics into race pace, or will the physical toll prove too much?"

Brundle’s drier tone follows: "The car's limitations were starkly evident yesterday, Crofty. He wrung its neck for that Q2 time, but over 58 laps? Against this field? And let's not forget the state of the driver after that enormous Q3 shunt. He looked like he'd gone ten rounds with a heavyweight last night."

Ahead, the five red lights glow like malevolent eyes. Images flicker: Gaeul’s face as she whispered her plea, Rei’s bouncing enthusiasm, the grim wreckage of yesterday’s car. The nerves coalesce, solidify into a single, crystalline point of focus: Finish the story. Come back whole. 

Your hands tighten on the wheel, knuckles white beneath the gloves. The pain in your body recedes, compartmentalized. The world narrows to the lights, the clutch bite point, the engine note climbing to a fever pitch behind you.

All five lined up red. Right below, in an instant, a flash of green.

"LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO!"

Chaos erupts. A tsunami of sound and violence. You dump the clutch, the C45 lurching forward with a protesting groan. Into Turn 1, a vortex of screaming engines, smoking tires, and desperate lunges. You’re boxed in. Alonso’s Aston Martin jinks left, Stroll goes right right, Sainz’s Williams dives down the inside. You brake hard, the force jolting your ankle, vision blurring momentarily at the edges. Cars swarm past. Racing Bulls. Williams. Alpine. The pack swallows you whole.

"Okay, okay, clean through? Damage report?"

"Clean. Just—swamped. P—where am I?"

"P17. Behind Tsunoda and Gasly. Bide your time. Long race."

P17. Near the very back. 

Frustration wars with cold calculation. The C45 feels sluggish, unresponsive in the dirty air. Yas Marina reveals its true character: a deceptive beast. The long straights lull you into a sense of speed before punishing you with heavy braking zones that test your ankle’s limits. The fiddly marina section is a claustrophobic maze, walls flashing past, demanding millimetre-perfect precision that makes your healing shoulder scream with every corrective input. 

Then comes the hotel complex—Turns 11-14—the circuit’s heart of darkness. Sustained, brutal lateral G-forces slam you relentlessly into the side of the cockpit, crushing your neck, blurring vision, turning your spine into a column of fire. It’s a physical assault, relentless and draining.

Crofty draws the scene: "And the Sauber is really struggling in the dirty air, Martin. Dropped like a stone off the line. Looks like the fairytale might be ending before it really began."

Brundle: "Not surprising at all. That car is fundamentally slow, and he's carrying injuries that would sideline most athletes. Question is, can he manage the pain and the car for the duration?"

You push the thought aside. Bide your time. Lap after lap, you learn the rhythm of the midfield battle. You study Sainz ahead: tidy, defensive. Stroll. Aggressive and erratic. Alonso—wily, conservative. Your tires settle. And the C45, while no thoroughbred, begins to talk to you again. 

The initial shock fades, replaced by the cold, familiar calculus of the race. The pain is a constant drumbeat, but it’s background noise now, woven into the fabric of the drive.

On Lap 8, the first opportunity knocks. Sainz outbrakes himself slightly into the Turn 6-7 chicane, running wide. You’re perfectly positioned. A squeeze of throttle, a precise turn-in, and you’re alongside the Williams on the exit. 

Clean. Clinical. Clear. P16.

"Nice move! Sainz cleared. Gasly next, 1.2 ahead. He’s on older softs."

Gasly’s Alpine is visibly slower exiting corners. You stalk him through the marina section, feeling the C45’s meagre downforce bite a fraction better in clean air. Down the long back straight, you slipstream, the Renault’s rear wing filling your vision. DRS opens. You pull out late, braking impossibly deep for Turn 11, forcing the Alpine to defend the inside. You sweep around the outside, carrying momentum through the complex, leaving Gasly scrambling. P15.

Crofty’s impassioned voice rises. "He's climbing! The Sauber is on the move! Gasly dispatched with authority!"

Brundle: "Smart move. Used the Alpine's weak traction and the DRS perfectly. He's finding a rhythm now, despite everything."

Next target: Stroll. The Aston Martin is a wider, more aggressive beast to pass. He defends fiercely into Turn 1, forcing you to take the perilous outside line. You hold it, wheels on the very edge of the curb, the car dancing on the limit of adhesion, G-forces pulling at your injured neck. Side-by-side through the first sector, inches apart. You have the better exit from Turn 5 and muscle ahead before the braking zone for Turn 6. P14.

Then, the master: Alonso. The ageless fox knows every trick in the book. He anticipates your DRS run on the main straight, weaving subtly, breaking your tow. He brakes impossibly late into Turn 1, forcing you to check your own dive. He’s conserving tires, managing pace, a fortress on wheels.

"Alonso’s managing. His tires are older, but he’s Alonso. Pick your moment. Don’t force it."

Patience. You shadow him for three laps, studying his lines, feeling the C45’s tires starting to grain slightly. Lap 15. Into the final sector. You gain a fraction more exit speed from the Turn 16 hairpin, closing the gap rapidly down the pit straight. DRS opens. This time, Alonso’s weave is predictable. You pull out early, getting a cleaner tow. You brake marginally later, but crucially, smoother, carrying more minimum speed through the apex of Turn 1. You’re alongside by the exit. He tries to squeeze you towards the runoff, but you hold firm, your wheels kissing the white line, the Sauber vibrating with protest. You inch ahead, claiming the inside line for Turn 2. Alonso concedes, lifting slightly. 

P13. A wave of elation overrides the screaming pain in your shoulder.

Crofty: "Incredible! He’s passed Alonso! The Sauber is near the points-paying positions! This is a drive of sheer, unadulterated willpower!"

Brundle: "Astounding composure. Outfoxed the fox. Used the car's meagre strengths—that late-braking stability he found yesterday – perfectly. He’s making that C45 sing beyond its means."

Ahead, Hulkenberg’s Sauber is a green beacon in P12, chasing Albon’s Williams. Hadjar’s Racing Bull lurks behind you. You push. The car feels alive beneath you now, responding to your increasingly confident inputs. You reel in Albon, dispatching the other Williams with a DRS-assisted move down the back straight into the chicane complex, cleaner than the pass on Gasly. P12. 

Then, on the next lap, Wheatley radios in:

"Heads up. Hadjar’s got fresh mediums. He’s rapidly closing in behind you."

You glance in the mirrors. The Racing Bull is indeed closing, a pure-white homing missile. You dig deeper. The hotel complex is agony, each corner a fresh assault on your neck, but you find a tenth, then another. You catch Hulkenberg asleep slightly exiting the marina section, getting a better run onto the straight. DRS. You pull alongside, teammates wheel-to-wheel. There’s a millisecond of hesitation—team orders unspoken but understood—then Hulk lifts ever so slightly, giving you the inside line for Turn 11. A gesture of respect, of faith. P11.

"P11! Hulk let you through. Hadjar 0.8 behind. Tsunoda ahead in P9, 4 seconds. Keep it clean!"

P11. On the cusp of the points. 

The shitbox C45, held together by grit and titanium balls, sits uneasy yet steady on the road. The physical cost is immense: sweat stings your eyes inside the helmet. Every breath feels like a knife twisting between your ribs. The rebuilt ankle throbs with every brake application. But the fire burns brighter than ever. 

Ahead lies Tsunoda’s Red Bull. Behind, Hadjar hunts on fresher rubber. The battle isn't for the championship—far from it—but for redemption, for proving the story didn't end at Spa, or in yesterday's Q3 barrier. The final chapters are being written, one agonizing, exhilarating corner at a time, under the relentless Abu Dhabi sunset. You brace for the hotel complex once more, the roar of the engine merging with the roar of your own blood. 

The promise echoes: Come back whole. But right now, whole feels like pushing a broken machine and a broken body to their absolute limit.

The desert air shimmers like molten glass over Yas Marina, pressing down with furnace heat that seeps through the Sauber’s carbon fiber monocoque and into your bones. P11. The number glows tauntingly on your steering wheel display. Hadjar’s Racing Bull fills your mirrors, a white-hot specter riding fresher medium tires, closing in furiously like a relentless cheetah.

"—and the RB’s looming large! Hadjar has a significant tire advantage. This could be terminal for Sauber’s points hopes unless he finds a miracle—"

The C45’s hard compounds feel like blocks of greased stone. Sector 2’s marina maze—a claustrophobic gauntlet of concrete barriers and abrupt direction changes—becomes a torture chamber. Each flick-left, jab-right wrenches your healing shoulder. The rear skitters nervously over curbs, threatening to snap. Hadjar lunges at Turn 9, his front wing inches from your diffuser. You slam the door shut, sacrificing exit speed, feeling the RB’s disturbed air buffet the Sauber like a boxer’s punch. 

It’s no longer about racing; it’s survival.

"Gap to Hadjar: 0.4. He’s nursing that tire advantage. Can you hold through the hotel complex?"

The hotel complex. Turns 11-14. Yas Marina’s heart of darkness. A relentless, banked corkscrew designed to wring necks and spirits. The sustained G-forces slam you sideways, crushing your injured neck against the headrest, blurring vision at the edges. It’s more than physical agony; it’s an assault on coherence. Hadjar gains in the dirty air.

A spark ignites in the chaos: audacious, born of desperation and an unshakeable belief in your own fraying limits. The team’s conservative strategy is a death sentence.

"Box this lap. Softs."

"Confirm? Softs now? Plan was Lap 32! They won’t last!"

"Confirmed. Softs. Now. We need the delta. Execute."

"Copy. Box this lap. Soft compound."

You peel off the racing line into pit lane’s sterile calm, the roar of the pack fading. 3.2 seconds of agonizing stillness—mechanics a green blur, the thunk of wheel guns, cold soft tires shrieking as you’re released back into the inferno.

P14.

Elsewhere, Crofty's voice crackles with dynamite energy. "Astonishing gamble! He dives into the pits from the cusp of the points! Plummets to fourteenth! The soft tire is a Molotov cocktail—explosive but fleeting. Has bravery tipped into recklessness?"

"The mathematics are brutal, Crofty.” Brundle remains flat, calculated. “He needs near-perfect tire management for over forty laps on a compound that degrades exponentially here. It’s not just climbing a mountain; it’s climbing it on melting ice."

The transformation is immediate, electric. The softs bite like razors. The sluggish C45 reawakens, its steering sharp, throttle response eager. You devour the backmarkers. Albon’s Williams is a late-braking lunge into Turn 6, inches from the barrier, the Sauber’s rear stepping out before you gather it with gritted teeth. P13. Ocon’s Haas—outmuscled with superior traction exiting Turn 16, DRS slingshotting you past down the pit straight. P12. Purple sectors flash on the timing screen.

“Look at those sector times! He’s a man possessed! Gaining three seconds a lap on the midfield!"

"The car is finally responding. He’s extracting performance buried deep within its flawed DNA. But the clock is ticking on those softs, Crofty. They’re burning bright, but burning fast."

"Pace is phenomenal! But rear left graining is severe. Manage! Temper the aggression!"

Manage. Temper. The words are static. The fire consumes you.

Hadjar’s Racing Bull falls prey to a daring outside-line pass through Turns 2 and 3, wheels kissing the unforgiving white line. P11. Sainz’s Williams succumbs to a DRS-assisted dive down the inside into the Turn 9 chicane, the Sauber vibrating violently as you force the issue. P10. Points reclaimed, but the softs are visibly fraying, chunks of rubber flying. 

Tsunoda’s Red Bull, trapped on older hards, is next. A calculated squeeze on the exit of Turn 16, using every millimeter of runoff, tires screaming in protest as you surge alongside and claim the position before the line. P9.

—————

Meanwhile, Rei bounces, jabbing a finger at the screen. "Go oppa! Faster!”

Liz and Leeseo clutch each other, gasping as the Sauber brushes the wall. Yujin watches, a statue of focused intensity.

"The tires—they won't hold—" Wonyoung murmurs, hands clasped together in wary focus and faint prayer.

Gaeul sits rigid, knuckles white on the armrest, her eyes glued on the screen, breathing shallowly. Every near-miss, every lurid slide, etches fresh lines of fear on her face. Her silent plea hangs in the air-conditioned chill.

Come back whole.

—————

Ahead, the landscape shifts. Titans loom. Russell’s silver Mercedes. Leclerc’s scarlet Ferrari. Hamilton’s own scarlet Ferrari. The C45 feels laughably crude against their engineering marvels. Yet, you see fissures in their armor.

Russell. Blisteringly fast but occasionally leaves the door ajar on corner entry, trusting his Mercedes’ acceleration. Lap 41. Down the endless back straight. DRS open. You ride the Mercedes’ slipstream, the tow monstrous. Russell defends the inside for the chicane complex. You feint left, then snap right, braking beyond the perceived limit for the first chicane apex, aiming for the sliver of space he left. Milliseconds. Tires shriek. The Sauber bucks, threatening to spin. Russell, startled by the sheer audacity, lifts minutely. You’re through. P8.

Crofty’s losing his voice. "He’s done it! Past Russell! A move bordering on suicidal! The sheer nerve!"

Brundle stays on quiet admiration. "Russell left him just enough room—a champion's width. And he took it with the precision of a surgeon. That’s not just speed; it’s racing intelligence under extreme duress."

Over the radio, Wheatley is elated. "Russell cleared! P8! Leclerc next, 1.8 ahead! Your tires are critical!"

Leclerc. The Ferrari is quicker, especially in Sector 1’s flowing curves. But it’s temperamental. Prone to sudden, vicious snaps of oversteer on power-down, particularly when pressured. 

Lap 44. You hound him through the marina sector, filling his mirrors, disrupting his rhythm. Into the tight left-right of Turns 8 and 9. You pressure him mercilessly on entry, forcing him to take a defensive, compromised line. On exit, as he feeds the power, the Ferrari’s rear steps out violently. Sparks fly as Leclerc course-corrects, scrubbing precious speed. It’s the microscopic opening. You pounce, squeezing the throttle earlier, surging alongside with superior traction. DRS opens. You sail past the momentarily crippled Ferrari before Turn 11. P7.

"Leclerc! You passed Leclerc! P7! Hamilton next! 2.5 seconds! But the tires—they’re on the canvas! Next lap, box! Box! Please!"

The softs are translucent, vibrating like unbalanced washing machines. Every bump threatens disintegration. But Hamilton. P6. The seven-time champion. In a Ferrari. The summit glows ahead. Yas Marina’s final sector offers one chance: the long blast after the Turn 16 hairpin, DRS activation, then the plunge into Turn 1.

Hamilton knows. He defends the inside ruthlessly down the main straight. DRS is open, but he blocks the tow, weaving subtly. You jink left, he covers. Speed bleeds away. Into Turn 1, he brakes impossibly late, securing the inside. You follow, biding your time, nursing the dying tires. 

Lap 46. Exiting the final Turn 16 hairpin, you summon everything—every ounce of grip left in the shredded softs, every shred of strength in your screaming muscles. The exit is perfect, transcendent. You’re glued to the Ferrari’s diffuser. DRS opens. Hamilton weaves, but you’ve anticipated it. You pull out early, get a cleaner tow, and draw level just before the hundred-meter board for Turn 1.

It’s a drag race headed towards oblivion. The Ferrari’s superior horsepower claws back inches. Side-by-side, wheels almost touching, the scream of engines vibrating your bones. The braking zone rushes up. You brake at the absolute limit—a force that feels like it will shatter your rebuilt ankle. Vision tunnels to a pinprick. The Sauber holds its line, shuddering violently, skating on the edge of adhesion. Hamilton, the master calculator, judges the margin. He brakes a fraction earlier, conceding the corner rather than risk mutual annihilation. You sweep through Turn 1 in the lead. P6.

Over commentary, Crofty has gone completely hysterical seeing the heroics. "He’s passed Hamilton! The Sauber is in sixth place! I am absolutely speechless! From the depths of P17 to the top six! This defies logic! It defies physics!"

Brundle, on the other hand, remains calm, but reverent. "A move of monumental courage and skill. He forced the greatest of all time into submission. Not with car speed, but with indomitable will and racecraft forged in fire. Legendary. Simply legendary."

"P6! You are P6! Hamilton 1.2 behind! 15 laps! Tires are critical! Manage! Bring it home, mate! Bring it home!"

Let it sink in. P6. Sixth place. In a fucking Sauber of all cars. A glorified lawn mower. 

The physical cost is apocalyptic—neck muscles in spasm, shoulder a molten knot of agony, ankle grinding with every pedal input, lungs burning. The softs are translucent rags, vibrating horribly, their grip a fading memory. Yet, the dream—P5, Antonelli’s Mercedes just 3.1 seconds ahead—pulses with terrifying reality. Yas Marina’s glittering lights stretch ahead, no longer just a circuit, but the anvil upon which your promise to Gaeul is being forged.

You take a shuddering breath, tasting blood and exhaust fumes. The hardest laps are ahead. You brace for the hotel complex once more, the defiant roar in your veins drowning out the scream of the engine and the whimper of the tires. 

The story demands an ending. You will write it.

The desert heat throbs inside the Sauber’s cockpit, a physical counterpoint to the screaming vibration of the disintegrating soft tires. Sixth place glows on your dash: a monument built on defiance and agony. Antonelli’s Mercedes shimmers just ahead in P5, a siren song of unfinished business. The podium isn’t a dream; it’s a physical ache in your bones, a ghost whispering from the Spa runoff.

Wheatley screams in your ear, part static, all urgent concern. “Box! Box now! Softs are shredding! Pitting now gets you P9, maybe P8! Guaranteed points! You cannot hold this pace! Hamilton is closing!"

The calculation hangs in the scorching air. Pit: safety, points, survival. Stay out: glory, ruin, redemption. 

Gaeul’s face flickers in your mind—her whispered "Come back whole"— then vanishes beneath the visceral memory of Spa’s rain-lashed barrier. 

Then you hear your own voice. A call to action. 

Finish the story.

"Negative. Hunting P5. Tires have life."

"They have minutes! At most! You’ll be a sitting duck! It’s—"

The transmission cuts off, drowned by a collective gasp from the grandstands. Ahead, exiting the fiddly Turn 7-8 chicane, Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin rides the inside curb too aggressively. The car snaps sideways like a startled animal, spearing violently across the track. It slams nose-first into the unforgiving Tecpro barrier at Turn 9’s entrance with a sickening, echoing crunch. Carbon fiber erupts in a shower of debris. The Aston spins to a halt, broadside, blocking half the track. Stroll’s hand emerges, waving weakly from the intact cockpit. Relief wars with utter shock.

Yellow flags are waved. The safety car deploys onto the track.

Crofty shouts over the din: "Stroll! Heavy impact! Yellow’s out! Safety car! He’s moving, thank God! But the race is neutralised!"

Brundle sees through the crash and notices an opening. "A catastrophic lapse of concentration! Absolutely unnecessary! But a lifeline for the Sauber! He can pit under safety car and lose minimal time!"

Wheatley also sees it. "Safety car! Box! Box now! Mediums! We can put you out on P6! Fresh rubber! Ten laps! Go! Go! Go!"

The decision is instantaneous. The gamble transforms into opportunity. Glory remains within reach. 

"Copy. Boxing. Mediums."

You peel into the pit lane’s controlled calm, the roaring pack replaced by the whine of the safety car’s engine. The stop is a blur of green. 2.9 seconds. Fresh, yellow-banded medium tires slam onto the hubs. Cooler water floods the system. A microsecond of respite before you’re released into the slow-moving queue and back into the fire. P6. 

The pecking order crystallizes under the yellow flag’s caution: Piastri. Norris. Verstappen. Antonelli. Hadjar. You. Hamilton. Leclerc. Russell. Alonso.

—————

A silenced gasp fills the room as Stroll’s crash unfolds over the live feed. Gaeul presses a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with horror-turned-relief. 

Rei jumps up, pointing accusingly at the screen. "Ya! Stroll you idiot!" 

Liz and Leeseo clutch each other’s hands tighter, both pale as snow. Yujin grips the Sauber team’s desk board, her knuckles white. 

Wonyoung murmurs, pensive and cautious, "The safety car—his only chance—" 

As the Sauber rejoins P6 on fresh rubber, Gaeul exhales shakily, a single tear cutting through the tension on her cheek. 

Hold on.

—————

The safety car folds in at the end of Lap 51. Green flag is waved. Seven laps remain.

The pack explodes like a shrapnel bomb. The fresh mediums ignite the Sauber. The C45, revitalized, plants itself into the tarmac, responding to inputs with predatory eagerness. Hadjar’s Racing Bull is first. Defends the inside into Turn 1, but his worn hards offer no traction on exit. You get a monstrous run, DRS flapping open, surging around his outside through Turn 2 with surgical precision. P5.

Next, Antonelli’s Mercedes looms quick. The rookie is fast but flustered by pressure. You harry him through the marina sector—a claustrophobic dance of concrete walls and abrupt direction changes. Into the Turn 6-7 chicane, he brakes a fraction early, guarding the inside. You feint left, then snap right, braking impossibly late for the second apex. Tires kiss. Sparks fly. The Mercedes wiggles as Antonelli corrects. P4.

Crofty roars. "He’s through! Past Antonelli! Now fourth! The tire advantage is absolute! He’s dismantled the field in two corners!"

Brundle sounds awe-struck, flared with raw emotion. "A masterclass in opportunism! He smelled the weakness, exploited the tire delta with cold, brutal efficiency. That Mercedes had no answer!"

Five laps remain. Ahead, a solitary blue-and-red machine. Max Verstappen. P3. 

The Red Bull glints under the floodlights like a resting predator. The ghost of Spa—the man who dared challenge him in the monsoon—has returned. He knows you’re coming. He sees the relentless green-and-black machine filling his mirrors. The gap is 1.8 seconds. Yas Marina’s final sector stretches ahead—the long blast after Turn 16, the DRS activation, the plunge into Turn 1. Your only battleground.

"P4! Verstappen 1.8 ahead! Four laps! Your tires are prime! His mediums are thirty laps old! You can do this!"

The hunt intensifies. You push the Sauber to its screaming limit. Through the flowing curves of Sector 1, you gain tenths. Through the technical marina maze, you gain more. The gap shrinks: 1.5, 1.3—Verstappen defends, his Red Bull weaving subtly on the straights, blocking the tow, his lines inch-perfect. He’s conserving, calculating, the ice to your fire.

Lap 54. The hotel complex. Turns 11-14. G-forces slam you sideways, a crushing weight on your screaming neck. Vision tunnels. You emerge onto the back straight, the gap down to 0.9 seconds. DRS opens. Surging forward, riding the Red Bull’s slipstream, the tow clawing you closer. 0.6 seconds. Verstappen defends the inside for the chicane complex. You jink left, he covers. No gap.

Crofty sounds breathless. “The gap is vanishing! Six-tenths! But Verstappen is defending like a lion! Where can he possibly pass?"

Brundle tenses. "It has to be the main straight. DRS. Turn 1. It’s his only chance. But Max knows it. He’ll make him earn every millimeter."

Lap 55. You replicate the approach. DRS open. Closer this time. 0.4 seconds. Verstappen weaves more aggressively. The Red Bull’s disturbed air buffets the Sauber. You hold firm, muscles burning, focus laser-sharp. No gap. Frustration is a live wire, but resolve is titanium.

Rei bounces, chanting, "Catch him! Catch him!” Liz and Leeseo are on their feet, hands still clasped. Yujin watches on, a statue of concentration. Wonyoung’s eyes track every jink, every gain. Gaeul stands rigid, one hand pressed to her chest, the other gripping the railing, her knuckles bloodless. Her lips move in a silent plea.

Lap 56. You hound Verstappen through Sector 2, filling his mirrors, disrupting his rhythm. Into the final Turn 16 hairpin. You take a tighter line, sacrificing exit speed for a fraction less distance. It’s a gamble. The Sauber’s nose inches closer to the Red Bull’s diffuser. Exiting the corner, you unleash every ounce of grip. The exit clean, but not transcendent. DRS activates. The gap is 0.3 seconds. Not enough. Verstappen defends the inside ruthlessly down the pit straight. The checkered flag looms on the next lap. Two more chances.

Wheatley’s voice is raw, hoarse. "Two more laps! Gap 0.3! You need a miracle out of turn 16! Give it everything!"

You sweep through 14, 15, 16—a blur of concentration and controlled aggression. The hotel complex is a white-knuckle ride, G-forces threatening blackout. Then, the final corner. Turn 16. A slow, hairpin right. You brake marginally later, carry a fraction more speed, turn in sharper. The Sauber rotates beautifully, its mediums biting hard. You plant the throttle earlier, harder than ever before. The rear twitches, threatening to snap, but you catch it with instinctive reflex. The exit is perfect. A surge of acceleration pins you to the seat. You’re instantly glued to the Red Bull’s diffuser.

DRS flaps open. The tow is monstrous. The gap evaporates. Side-by-side with Verstappen before the 100-meter board for Turn 1. The roar of the engines merges into a deafening howl. Wheels inches apart. The braking zone rushes up—a wall of inevitability. You brake at the absolute limit, a force that feels like it will shatter your rebuilt ankle, compress your spine. Vision tunnels to a pinprick of light framing Verstappen’s blue helmet. The Sauber holds its line, vibrating on the knife-edge of adhesion. Verstappen, the ultimate calculator, judges the vanishing margin. 

The desert air vibrates with the shriek of twenty engines pushed beyond endurance. Inside the battered Sauber cockpit, every nerve screams in protest—neck muscles in spasm, shoulder a molten knot, rebuilt ankle grinding with each pedal stroke. Yet, the world narrows to a tunnel vision: the shimmering blue-and-red rear wing of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, barely a few tenths ahead. Fourth place. The podium. Spa’s ghost demanding its due. Gaeul’s whispered plea—come back whole—echoes beneath the engine’s roar and the frantic hammering of your own heart.

Final Lap. Lap 58.

Exiting the Turn 16 hairpin, you’re glued to the Red Bull’s diffuser. DRS flaps open with a decisive thunk. The tow is monstrous, a physical punch slamming you forward. Side-by-side with Verstappen before the 100-meter board for Turn 1. Wheels inches apart. The desert sky bleeds deep black and sparkly-starry white as Yas Marina’s floodlights ignite, casting long, dramatic pathways across the tarmac. The roar of the engines merges into a deafening howl of defiance and desperation.

Crofty’s voice crackles with high tension. "Side-by-side! The Sauber and the Red Bull! Wheel-to-wheel down to Turn 1! This is it! The comeback kid versus the four-time champion! Shades of Spa!"

Brundle’s enraptured by the duel he’s witnessing. “The audacity! The sheer, unadulterated nerve! He’s forced Verstappen into a fight he never wanted on the final lap! Watch the braking!"

Verstappen defends with the fury of a cornered beast. The Mad Max of old resurfaces: desperate, ruthless, borderline violent. He jinks violently left, forcing you towards the pit wall, the disturbed air buffeting the Sauber like a physical blow. Holding firm, your muscles scream, steering inputs micro-corrected against the turbulence. Inches from the white line. He jinks right, trying to crowd you towards the runoff on the outside. Your tires kiss the artificial grass fringe, kicking up a plume of dust, the car skating perilously. You counter-steer instinctively, the Sauber snapping back onto the black stuff, momentum barely checked.

Over team radio, Wheatley’s shrieking harshly in your ear. "Hold your line! Hold! You’re alongside!"

Verstappen’s aggression is his shield, but it’s also his energy drain. His weaving costs him precious exit speed out of Turn 1. You carry a fraction more momentum, staying glued to his flank through the fiddly Turns 2 and 3. He slams the door shut at Turn 4, forcing you to lift, sacrificing precious tenths. 

The McLarens far ahead are distant specks, their private duel for the championship already decided. None of that matters. Only P3. Only Verstappen.

Through the flowing curves of Sector 1, you gain minutely, the fresher mediums granting superior traction. The gap shrinks: 0.4 seconds. Verstappen mirrors your line, inch-perfect, defensive, blocking any tow opportunity on the straights. The marina sector looms—a concrete canyon demanding millimetre precision. You hound him, filling his mirrors, every twitch of his car telegraphing his next move. Into the tight Turn 8-9 chicane, you pressure him hard on entry, forcing a slightly compromised exit. You gain another tenth. 0.3 seconds.

Crofty’s all but out of breath: "He’s crawling all over him! The gap is vanishing! Three-tenths! But where can he possibly pass? Verstappen is defending like a man possessed!"

Brundle’s tensing up, yet still analytical. "It has to be the hotel complex exit or the final straight. But Max knows it. He’s conserving every ounce of energy, every scrap of tire, for the defence. The Sauber driver needs complete perfection."

The hotel complex. Turns 11-14. The crucible. Sustained, brutal G-forces slam you sideways, crushing your screaming neck against the headrest, blurring vision at the edges. It’s agony distilled. Verstappen navigates it flawlessly. Tight, but defensive. You push harder, carrying a whisper more speed through the banked turns, feeling the Sauber’s chassis groan in protest, the tires howling at the limit. You emerge onto the back straight mere car lengths behind. 0.2 seconds. DRS opens. You surge forward, the tow clawing you to his gearbox. 0.1 seconds. Nose to tail.

“Last corner! Make it count! Perfect exit! Perfect!”

Turn 16. The final hairpin. A slow, agonizing right-hander before the blast to the line. Verstappen brakes early, guarding the inside line, sacrificing exit speed to block any possible lunge. It’s textbook defence. But in that moment of hyper-aggressive control, focused solely on blocking the inside, he pushes his worn mediums a fraction too hard. The RB21 rear snaps out: just a tiny, almost imperceptible slide on the dusty apex curb. 

A microsecond loss of traction. A human moment of fallibility.

It’s all the opening you need.

You’ve braked marginally later, carried a fraction more speed. More than enough to close the near-nonexistent gap. You turn in sharper, the Sauber rotating beautifully on its fresher rubber. As Verstappen corrects his slide, sacrificing crucial exit momentum, you plant the throttle earlier, harder. The rear twitches but holds. The Sauber rockets out of the corner, catapulting down the main straight with explosive traction.

Verstappen, desperately trying to claw back lost momentum, fishtails slightly, his exit compromised. You streak past him before the 50-meter board, clean air suddenly yours. The roar of the crowd hits you like a physical wave, drowning out the engine. The checkered flag waves.

P3.

Over at commentary, Crofty explodes, even more so than when Piastri’s McLaren took the win. "He’s done it! The Sauber takes third! He’s passed Verstappen on the final lap! Unbelievable! From the brink of retirement to the podium! A miracle in Abu Dhabi!”

Brundle, full of reverent awe, adds: "A move born of patience, precision, and capitalizing on the tiniest crack in the champion’s armour. Verstappen’s aggression forced the error, and the Sauber driver was clinical in its exploitation. One of the greatest final lap overtakes, on sheer guts and guile, I have ever witnessed. Legendary."

Over team radio, Wheatley’s voice cracks, evidently marred with raw emotion. "P3—P3! I don’t—I don’t believe it! That was—a miracle! An absolute bloody miracle! You magnificent bastard! Welcome back! Welcome back!"

Coasting down the straight, the adrenaline surging through your muscles like a tidal wave recedes, leaving utter exhaustion and profound, shaking elation. Piastri takes the flag and the Drivers’ championship. Norris follows, disappointment etched beside pride for his teammate. You cross the line third, the weight of the impossible settling like a physical mantle.

“We did it. We fucking did it.” 

Your words hang heavy, a verbalization of a dream now fully realized.

—————

The Sauber garage erupts. Mechanics and engineers leap over barriers, hugging, crying, pounding each other on the back. Hulkenberg, who finished P11, barely missing out on points, is the first one to your car as you crawl into the pit box. He rips off your steering wheel before the mechanics can swarm, his weathered face split by a grin of pure, unadulterated joy and respect. He grabs your helmet, forehead pressed against yours.

"Crazy bastard," he rasps, his voice thick. "You magnificent, crazy bastard. Told you you’d scare the shit out of them." He pulls back, clapping your shoulders, his eyes shining. "Podium. In this shitbox. Unreal."

In your heightened joy, you can’t help but aim at that low-hanging fruit. “While you—”

“Suck my balls mate.” The response is immediate, like he already anticipated it. But it’s all in light jest. He helps you out of the cockpit and back down to earth. “Well done.”

Drivers flood towards you, abandoning the usual parc ferme protocols. Oscar, the newly-minted champion, detours straight to you, grabbing your hand with both of his, his eyes wide with disbelief. "Mate—that lap—that last lap—incredible! Absolutely incredible! Welcome back!"

Lando slings an arm around your neck, still buzzing from his own race. "You maniac! Passing Max like that on the last corner? Spa wasn’t a fluke! You’re properly back!"

Lewis offers a firm handshake, his gaze deep, knowing. "Respect," he merely says, the single word carrying the weight of a legend recognizing a budding growth of greatness. 

Charles pats you on the back, a genuine smile replacing his usual intensity. "Chapeau. Truly."

George grins, shaking his head, clapping. "Unreal drive, mate. Just unreal."

Fernando also pats a hand on your shoulder, shaking his head in amusement. “You really are one crazy son-of-a-bitch, amigo. Helluva drive.”

In the midst of the commotion, Max approaches, cutting through the growing circle of competitors. The usual harshness is there, but softened by a hint of rueful respect. 

He extends a hand. You accept it. His grip is firm, but gracious.

"Almost Spa again, huh?" he says, shades of a smile touching his lips. "Good move. Hard, but fair. Welcome back." 

It’s the ultimate acknowledgement from the fiercest competitor. 

You curtly nod, sharing newfound respect for each other’s game.

But amidst the sea of green overalls and starry-eyed rivals, you see her—Gaeul. Pushing through the throng, the other IVE members trail right behind her: Rei bouncing with unrestrained glee, Liz and Leeseo beaming, Yujin radiating proud warmth, Wonyoung offering a rare, dazzling smile of pure admiration. Gaeul’s eyes are red-rimmed, tears streaming freely down her cheeks, cutting tracks through the desert dust on her skin. She doesn’t give a fuck about protocol or cameras.

She crashes into you, her arms wrapping around your neck with desperate strength, burying her face against your sweat-soaked race suit. The other drivers respectfully distance themselves to make room for shared intimacy. You hold her tight, ignoring the protests from your battered body, breathing in the scent of her hair. A lifeline after what felt like a neverending storm. Her shoulders shake with silent sobs of relief.

"You did it," she gasps against your neck, her voice muffled, trembling. "You’re here. You’re whole. You’re safe." She pulls back just enough to look into your eyes, her hands cradling your grimy face. "You kept your promise."

"I did," you rasp, your own voice thick with emotion. You lean down, capturing her lips in a brief, fierce kiss, tasting salt and relief and triumph. It’s soft, warm, profoundly intimate amidst the surrounding chaos. "I came back to you. Whole."

"Oi! Podium finisher!" Lando’s voice cuts through the intimate moment, grinning. "Cooldown room awaits! Chop chop, hero!" 

Oscar nods along in agreement, widely smiling. The other drivers join in hearty laughter. Officials gently but insistently begin to whisk you away.

Gaeul clings a second longer. "Go," she whispers, wiping her tears, a radiant smile breaking through. "Enjoy it. You earned it. I’ll be here."

You squeeze her hand, negotiating a silent promise, before being swept away by the tide of officials and fellow drivers towards the cooldown room.

—————

The cooldown room is a bubble of surreal exhaustion and exhilaration. Oscar is buzzing, the weight of the championship settling on his young shoulders. Lando is gracious, his disappointment of P2 tempered by overall team success and the sheer spectacle he witnessed. You slump beside the newly-minted champ, the adrenaline crash hitting viciously hard, every ache and pain announcing itself with renewed vigour.

"Seriously, mate," says Oscar, handing you a cold drink. You’re rewatching highlights of the race on the giant screen, soaking in every piece of nail-biting action. The closing lap shootout between you and Verstappen plays beat for beat like an extended movie scene only Hollywood can write. "That move on Max—I was watching the screens. Unreal. How did you even see that gap?"

"Didn’t see it," you admit, taking a grateful sip. "Felt it. Knew he’d push too hard defending. Knew the tires would bite him."

Lando shakes his head. "Madness. Brilliant madness. Spa wasn’t a one-off. You’re a force of nature." 

The respect in their eyes is genuine, humbling.

The podium ceremony is deafening. The cheers for Piastri, the new champion, are immense. The applause for Norris is warm. But when you step onto the third step, the roar that erupts shakes the foundations. It’s a wave of pure adulation, respect, and shared disbelief. Fans waving Sauber green, chanting your name. It’s for the miracle, for the defiance, for the story.

The Australian anthem plays. The trophies are presented. Oscar lifts his winner’s trophy aloft, aglow with a beaming smile on his face. Then, as the champagne bottles are handed out, Lando catches your eye. He grins, a mischievous glint in his eye. He points his bottle not at Oscar, but squarely at you. Oscar, understanding instantly, follows suit.

A deluge of icy champagne hits you full force. You gasp, laughing, raising your own bottle in retaliation, showering them back. The podium dissolves into a chaotic, joyful melee of sparkling wine and shared triumph. The champion gets drenched, but the celebration is undeniably for the phoenix who rose from the ashes. Wheatley watches from below, openly weeping now, surrounded by his ecstatic, disbelieving team.

—————

Descending the podium, soaked in champagne and euphoria, the media swarm is relentless. Microphones are thrust in your face. Questions about the pass, the recovery, the future—they fly thick and fast. You offer tired smiles, heartfelt thanks to the team, praise for Piastri and Norris, immense respect for Verstappen. The story speaks for itself.

Finally, you break free, scanning the crowded parc ferme area. And there she is. Gaeul. Waiting patiently near the Sauber garage, the other IVE members forming a protective, beaming half-circle around her. As you approach, they part like a curtain.

She meets you halfway. No words are needed. You wrap your arms around her, lifting her slightly off her feet, burying your face in her hair, breathing her in—the scent of her perfume cutting through the champagne and petrol fumes. 

It’s home. It’s peace. It’s the real victory.

"I'm so proud of you," she murmurs, her voice muffled against your shoulder. "So incredibly proud."

You set her down, holding her at arm's length, looking into her eyes, still shimmering with residual tears and pure happiness. The noise of the paddock fades. "I kept my promise," you say softly, an assurance fulfilled. "I'm here. Whole."

Rei bounces over, thrusting your third-place trophy into your hands (retrieved by a helpful mechanic). "You won! Well, third! But it’s like winning!" 

Jiwon and Hyunseo chime in with shared congratulations. Yujin offers a warm hug. "Amazing drive. Truly." 

Wonyoung gives a graceful nod and a slow clap. "You showed everyone. Great job."

Gaeul smiles, tracing the edge of the trophy with a fingertip. "So what now?" she asks, her voice gentle. "The world is yours. Mercedes and Red Bull—they’re already calling Jonathan. The offers—" She looks up, searching your eyes. 

The unspoken question hangs: Will you leave again. For the top teams. For the ultimate glory.

You look at the trophy: a heavy symbol of an improbable journey. Then you glance back at Gaeul, at the love and quiet hope in her eyes. You recall the hospital bed, the pain, the fear, the promise whispered in the sterile air. You think of the roar of the engines, the taste of champagne, the adulation. Then you remember this. Her warmth. Her presence. The life waiting beyond the grid and the checkered flags.

You take her hand, lacing your fingers through hers. The trophy feels secondary now. A chapter closed in magnificent fashion. The next chapter beckons.

"I already have everything I want right here," you say, your voice clear, certain. You raise her hand, kissing her knuckles, your gaze locked on hers. "The offers can wait. The season’s over. Tonight—tomorrow, and beyond—I’m with you. I’m here. Always will be.”

—————

(dedicated to raf <3)

(A/N: I hate lying to myself. LOL. As you can tell by now this is practically an F1 story first and foremost. My first brush with the sport was all the way back in 2008 (is that Glock was the first real sports moment I can vividly recall besides Kobe's 81). Up until circa 2010-2011, when Vettel was beginning his dominant run in RB. Got back into it literally last month cause all the friends on Discord were tuned in and the Lakers fucking suck (also LOL). Was kinda easy to adjust back and catch up on the last few years, to be honest! Also there's the movie with Brad Pitt coming out in over a week when this goes live, and I really wanna see that in theaters. Some inspiration from the trailers/marketing definitely bleeds into the story. This is the most action-heavy fic I've ever written and that's mainly due to the third act which is basically an entire race weekend. Tried to blend realism with Hollywood-level bullshit—don't care, I think heightened reality is fun, especially in settings like sports. I hope it didn't stray too far and I tried my best to keep everything mostly accurate to current day, but it is what it is, I'm still catching up on what I've missed. And then for the idol: there was only one choice. Gaeul's got that sweet, mature, tender vibe around her that made the perfect love interest, besides the friend this was written around. Thank you for reading!)

[defmaybe]

Office Desire (Saerom)

Synopsis: You are a 21 year old working as Junior Writer at some Digital Agency. Three women, Ms. Saerom from marketing, Ms. Eunbi from sales, and Seoyeon as new Junior Strategist, keep pulling you out of your bubble. They bring teasing, tension, and feelings you're not sure you're ready to deal with.

Lee Saerom / Kwon Eunbi / Yoon Seoyeon

9.4k+

It's Thursday afternoon, and the office is loud and busy as you working on a client's tagline at your desk.

An email from Saerom pops up: "Files Needed ASAP."

She writes, "Hey, cutie. Got those files? Bring them to me. Don't be late." Her tone makes you blush. Saerom's always teasing you, winking, touching your arm in meetings, making you nervous with her charm.

You copy the files onto a flash drive and walk to her desk. Saerom's area is neat but has her style, coffee mugs with lipstick marks, fashion magazines, and a photo of her looking glamorous. She's typing, looking sharp in a tight blazer, her hair perfectly smooth.

"Here's the files," you say quietly, handing her the drive.

She smiles, taking it, her fingers touching yours a bit too long. "So quick," she teases, leaning back, her skirt sliding up slightly, "Hold up. I wanna check them."

You nod, stand awkwardly as she opens the files, her eyes flicking to you playfully.

Suddenly, she pulls you closer by your waist. "Don't be shy," she says, her voice soft.

You freeze as her hand moves lower, brushing against your pants where your cock already half hard from her teasing.

"What's this?" she whispers, smirking, her fingers tracing you slowly. You're embarrassed, unable to speak, your face turns hot.

"Ms. Saerom-" you start, but she laughs.

"Ms.? Just call me Saerom, with noona would be better," she says, her touch bolder, making you tense, "Relax, no ones looking."

Her perfume surrounds you, and your torn part of you wants to run, but part of you likes it. The office is busy, and no one notices, but the risk makes it intense.

Then, Eunbi from sales walks up, confident and smiling. "Saerom, are you stealing our writer again?" she teases, noticing Saerom's hand near your pants.

Saerom doesn't move, saying, "Just checking his... work."

Eunbi laughs, stepping closer, "Are you okay, darling?" she says to you, her hand brushing your arm.

"I'm fine," you mumble, stepping back.

Saerom lets go slowly, winking. "Good job, cutie." she says.

Eunbi smiles as you hurry back to your desk, still flustered, heart pounding.

At your desk, you try to calm down, don't know if you can handle this forever.

The day is finally over, and you're at your desk, shoving your laptop and papers into your bag, ready to head home and crash.

You're exhausted from the day, trying to keep up with work. All you want is to relax and forget the office chaos.

As you zip up your bag, Saerom walks over, her heels clicking softly.

She's still in her tight blazer, her hair a little messy but sexy, and that teasing smile is back on her face. She leans against your desk, close enough that you catch her strong perfume, and it makes your stomach flip.

"Hey, cutie," she says, her voice low and playful, like she's up to something, "Got plans tonight? I need your favor to help me move some boxes at my place. It won't take long." She tilts her head, her eyes locked on yours, making you more nervous.

You pause, gripping your bag, "Uh, I just gonna go home," you say quietly, avoiding her gaze. You're tired, and the idea of more work sounds like too much. Plus, Saerom's flirty always leaves you flustered, and you're not sure if you can handle being alone with her.

She pouts, stepping closer, her hand brushing your arm lightly. "Please?" she says, her voice softer now, almost begging.

"I'll make it worth it. I'll cook you dinner, something really good, like pasta or steak. And I'll give you some cash for the help. Come on, don't make me beg too hard." She giggles, biting her lip, and her fingers linger on your sleeve, sending a little tension through you.

Your face heats up, and you feel your cock twitch in your pants, stirred by her closeness and that flirty tone. You know she's trouble, her teasing in the office already messes with your head, but the thought of being at her place, eating her food, maybe seeing more of her game, pulls you in.

You glance at her, and her eyes are sparkling with mischief, like she knows exactly what she's doing to you. "Huft... okay," you mumble, barely audible, your heart pounding. "I'll help."

Saerom's grin lights up, and she claps her hands together, "Yes! You're the best," she says, her voice excited.

"Meet me at my car in ten minutes, okay? Don't keep me waiting," she winks, her hips swaying as she walks away, leaving you staring after her, your mind racing.

You sit back down for a second, trying to calm the heat in your cheeks and the growing hardness in your pants. You're nervous, excited, and a little scared, wondering what's waiting at her place and if you're ready for whatever she has planned.

You don't know much about her, just bits and pieces from office chatter. She's young, maybe in her early thirties, but already a widow.

Her husband passed away a couple of years ago, leaving her alone, and you've heard she's been on her own since. It makes her flirty, confident vibe feel a little heavier, like there's a story behind her teasing smiles.

You grab your bag and head to the parking lot, spotting Saerom's sleek black car. She's already inside, her window rolled down, "Hop in, cutie," she calls.

You nod, feeling a bit shy, and slide into the passenger seat. The car smells like her perfume, and your heart beats faster, but you try to stay cool.

Saerom focuses on driving, her hands steady on the wheel, eyes on the road. She doesn't tease or flirt, just hums softly to the radio, which is a relief.

The ride is quick and quiet, no weird moments, and you're glad for that. You can calm down, stare out of the window, enjoy the scenes of lights night city.

In no time, you pull up to her apartment building, a modern, tall place with glass windows. She parks and turns to you, smiling. "Thanks for coming," she says.

"Let’s head up." You grab your bag and follow her, feeling nervous but curious, wondering what's next in her world.

You follow Saerom into her apartment, and the door clicks shut behind you. Her place is nice, spacious, with modern furniture, big windows showing the city lights, and a cozy vibe.

"I'm gonna change real quick," Saerom says, pointing to the couch, "Sit, make yourself at home." She disappears down a hallway, leaving you alone.

You set your bag down and wander a bit, looking around. The apartment feels personal, there's a shelf with books, some plants, and a few framed photos.

One catches your eye: a picture of a man, maybe in his late twenties, smiling brightly. It must be her late husband. You remember what you heard at the office, that she's a young widow, her husband gone too soon.

Your chest tightens, feeling sorry for her loss. She's so lively at work, but this must weigh on her.

As you're staring at the photo, Saerom's voice startles you, right behind your ear, "He looks a lot like you."

You jump, turning to find her standing close, her breath warm on your neck. Your heart skips. "A-a lot?” you stammer, caught off guard.

She nods, her eyes soft but with a bitter smile. "Mhm. He was younger than me, cute, quiet, worked hard. But fate took him first." Her voice is steady, but there’s pain there.

You don't know what to say, feeling awkward. "I-I'm sorry," you mumble, looking down.

Saerom tilts her head, her smile warming a little. "Sorry for what? You didn't do anything wrong."

She steps closer, and you finally notice what she's wearing a black lingerie robe, thick but sheer enough to show her bra and panties underneath.

Your eyes widen, and your face burns. Your cock twitches in your pants, and you try to focus on her face, but it’s hard.

"Ms. Saerom..." you start, voice shaky, "a-are you sure about... that outfit?" you gesture vaguely, embarrassed.

She laughs, amused, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "What? Don't like it? Is it ugly?" she teases, stepping even closer, her robe brushing your arm.

"Or... want me to wear nothing?” Her voice is bold now, daring, and your cock hardens more, making you shift uncomfortably.

"N-no, no!" you blurt, waving your hands.

"Keep it on! I mean, it's fine. Better than... nothing." Your words tumble out.

Saerom grins, "Alright, since my cutie want me to cover this," she listens to you and grabs a thicker robe, tying it tightly so it covers her body better.

You feel a bit relieved, your heart still racing from her teasing, but now you can focus.

"Let's get the work," she leads you to a small storage room in her apartment.

She points out boxes and items that need moving and organizing. "Just put these in there, stack them neatly," she says, her tone more practical now, though her playful smile lingers.

You get to work, carrying boxes and bags to the storage room. The stuff isn't heavy, mostly old books, clothes, and some random decor, but there's a lot of it, and it takes effort to move and arrange everything. You're sweating a bit, your arms tired as you stack boxes on shelves and push bags into corners.

Saerom follows you, giving directions like, "That one goes on the top shelf," or "Put those in the back, please." She’s close, watching you work, her presence still making you a little nervous.

After tidying up the storage room, you're sweaty and tired.

Saerom claps her hands with a grin, "You've more than earned that dinner I promised," she says, her voice light.

"Give me some minutes to cook something for you." She heads to the kitchen, and soon the apartment fills with the mouthwatering aroma of garlic and cream.

You sit at her small, cozy dining table, watching her move confidently around the kitchen. She’s still in her thicker robe, her hair loose now, and you try to shake off the lingering tension from earlier.

In about 10 minutes, she brings over two plates of creamy fettuccine Alfredo, the pasta glossy with sauce, and two tall glasses of iced tea with lemon slices, "Hope you're hungry," she says, sitting across from you, her smile warm and inviting.

You dig in, and the pasta is delicious, rich and perfectly cooked, the iced tea refreshing after all the work.

As you eat, Saerom starts talking about her late husband, "He was a lot like you, you know," she says softly, twirling her fork in her pasta.

"Quiet, kind of shy, but so dedicated. He'd work late, always trying to make things better for us. We had dreams, traveling, maybe starting a little business. But then he got sick... and he was gone before we could do any of it." Her voice stays steady, but her eyes sharing old pain.

You listen closely, nodding, feeling her loss in the quiet pauses. "That sounds really tough," you say gently, wanting to comfort her but unsure how.

She gives you a small, bittersweet smile, "It was. But life goes on, right?"

You finish eating, and the meal leaves you full and content. Saerom stands, stacking the empty plates. "Let me grab that money I owe you," she says, heading to her room, "Stay there."

You lean back in the chair, sipping the last of your iced tea, thinking about her story, how she's so strong, carrying that grief yet still teasing at work. It makes you see her differently, like there's more to her than the flirty office games.

A moment later, she's back, holding a few crisp bills. "Here you go," she says, handing them to you with a smile.

You take the money, mumbling, "Thanks, Ms. Saerom." But before you can pocket it, she steps closer, her fingers tugging at the tie of her robe.

In one smooth motion, she pulls it open and lets it drop to the floor, revealing she's completely naked underneath, no black lingerie she had wear it before.

Her skin glows under the soft apartment lights, every curve exposed, and your jaw drops. Your cock surges to life, instantly hard, straining painfully against your pants.

"This is what you were hoping for, right?" she asks, her voice low and teasing, a wicked smirk playing on her lips.

You're speechless, face burning, heart hammering in your chest. Your eyes can't help but trace her body, and your cock throbs.

"I-I... uh," you stammer, brain scrambled, torn between shock and raw desire.

Saerom stands confidently, unbothered by her nudity, clearly enjoying how flustered you are.

She grabs your wrist, her grip firm but not rough. "Come," she says, her voice low and commanding.

Before you can process, she's pulling you toward her bedroom, her naked body moving ahead of you. Your heart pounds, your cock throbbing so hard it's almost painful, and you're half-dazed, unsure if you're scared or just too turned on to think straight.

She leads you into her room, dimly lit, with a big bed covered in soft sheets, and yanks you toward it, pushing you down onto the mattress with a playful but dominant shove.

You land on your back, staring up at her, your breath shaky. She's standing over you, completely bare naked, her eyes intense and hungry.

You're nervous about her boldness, her control. "Ms. Saerom…" you start, voice trembling, trying to find words.

She cuts you off, leaning down, her face close to yours. "Don't 'Ms.' me," she says, her tone sharp but teasing.

"Call me noona if you want this to keep going," her hands move to her body, one cupping her breast, squeezing it slowly, the other sliding down to her pussy, her fingers brushing herself like she's putting on a show.

The sight makes your cock twitch, straining against your pants, and you can't hold back anymore.

"Noona... S-Saerom-noona!" you blurt out, the words spilling from you instinctively.

Her eyes light up, and she smirks, pleased. "Good boy," she purrs, climbing onto the bed.

She straddles you, her bare skin warm against your clothed body, and leans down, kissing you deeply.

Her lips are soft, her tongue pushing into your mouth, and you melt under her, kissing her back as your hands hover, unsure where to touch.

She presses herself closer, her weight pinning you down, until you both lying on the bed, her body on top of yours, her kiss pulling you deeper into the heat of the moment. Your cock pulses beneath her, and you're lost, caught in her control, not sure where this is going but too far gone to care.

Her hands move to your jeans. Still straddling you, she deftly unbuckles your belt, the metal clinking softly, and pops open the button with ease.

Her fingers tug down your zipper, all while her tongue dances with yours, keeping you dizzy with sensation. You're pinned beneath her on the bed, heart racing, your cock so hard it's almost painful.

She breaks the kiss just enough to glance down, her hand slipping into your open jeans. With a quick tug, she pulls them down slightly, freeing your fully erect cock.

It springs out, throbbing, and she wraps her fingers around it, stroking slowly. Her touch is warm and deliberate, sending a jolt through your body.

You gasp against her lips, and she smirks into the kiss, clearly enjoying your reaction. Her thumb brushes over the tip, spreading the slick pre-cum that's already leaking out, making her strokes smoother, teasingly slow.

"Relax, cutie, you're not going anywhere, aren't you?" she whispers against your mouth, her voice low and sultry, before kissing you again, deeper this time.

Her lips move against yours, her kiss fierce and consuming, while her hand keeps stroking your cock, slow and teasing, spreading the pre-cum over your length.

Your breaths come out shaky, every touch making your body tense with need.

She pulls back from the kiss, her eyes glinting with that familiar mischievous spark, and she shifts lower, her bare skin brushing against you as she moves.

"Look at you, so hard for noona," she murmurs, her voice dripping with satisfaction. Her grip tightens slightly, pumping your cock a little faster now, her fingers slick with your pre-cum.

You groan softly, hips twitching up into her hand, unable to help yourself. She chuckles, low and sultry, clearly loving how much control she has over you.

She leans down, her breath hot against your neck as she whispers, "You're so cute when you're like this."

Her lips graze your skin, kissing along your jaw, then lower, while her hand never stops its steady rhythm.

Your cock throbs harder, the heat of her touch and her closeness driving you to the edge. You're still fully clothed except for your open jeans, and the contrast of her naked body against you makes everything feel even more intense.

"Saerom-noona..." you manage to gasp, your voice weak.

She smirks, slowing her strokes again, teasing you, keeping you right on the edge, "Shh, just let me take care of you," she says, her free hand sliding up your chest, pushing your shirt up to expose your skin.

Her fingers trail over your stomach, and you shiver under her touch, your cock pulsing in her grip. You're completely at her control, heart pounding, not sure how much more you can take.

Her hand keeps stroking your cock, her fingers slick with your pre-cum, moving in a slow, torturous rhythm that makes your whole body tense with need.

Her lips trail from your neck back to your mouth, kissing you deeply, her tongue swirling against yours, pulling soft moans from you. You're still pinned under her on the bed, your jeans pushed down just enough to free your throbbing cock, your shirt bunched up from her roaming hands.

She pulls back from the kiss, her eyes dark with hunger, a wicked smile curling her lips. "You're such a good boy for noona," she purrs, her voice low and teasing.

Her hand slows on your cock, and you whimper, hips bucking slightly, desperate for more. She chuckles, clearly enjoying how much she's unraveling you. "Patience," she whispers, shifting her body lower, her breasts brushing against your chest as she moves down.

Your heart races as you realize where she's going. Saerom settles between your legs, her hands tugging your jeans down further to give her more access.

Your cock stands fully hard, glistening with pre-cum from her earlier teasing. She looks up at you, locking eyes, and the intensity in her gaze makes your breath catch.

Without breaking eye contact, she leans forward, her tongue flicking out to lick the tip of your cock, tasting the slickness there. You groan, your head falling back against the pillow, the sensation sharp and electric.

“Fuck, Saerom-noona...” you mumble, voice shaky. She smirks, clearly pleased, and wraps her lips around the head of your cock, sucking gently at first.

Her tongue swirls over the tip, warm and wet, and your hips twitch up instinctively. She hums against you, the vibration sending a jolt through your body, and takes you deeper into her mouth, her lips sliding down your length. Her hand grips the base of your cock, stroking what her mouth doesn't cover, while her tongue works you with slow, deliberate licks.

She's good, too good. Her mouth is hot and tight, and she bobs her head slowly, sucking harder each time she pulls back. Your cock is soaked now, slick with her spit and your pre-cum, and the wet sounds fill the room, mixing with your uneven breaths.

You grip the sheets, trying to stay grounded, but it's overwhelming, her lips, her tongue, the way she moans softly around you like she's enjoying it as much as you are. Your cock throbs in her mouth, and you're already so close, the heat building fast.

Saerom senses it and pulls off with a soft pop, her lips shiny, a string of spit connecting her mouth to your cock. "Not yet," she teases, licking her lips as she crawls back up your body.

"I'm not done with you," her voice is sultry, and your eyes widen as she straddles you again, positioning herself right over your slick, aching cock.

You can feel the heat of her pussy hovering just above you, and it’s driving you crazy, "Saerom-noona..." you start, but she shushes you with a finger to your lips.

"Shushh, silence," she says, gripping your cock with one hand, lining it up with her entrance.

She's wet, dripping, you can tell, and the sight of her above you, naked and confident, makes your head spin.

Slowly, she lowers herself, the head of your cock slipping into her tight, warm pussy. You both gasp, she's so hot and slick, gripping you perfectly as she sinks down, taking you inch by inch until you're fully inside her.

"Oh, fuck," you groan, your hands instinctively grabbing her hips, feeling the softness of her skin.

She moans softly, her head tilting back as she adjusts to your size, her pussy clenching around you, making your cock pulse inside her.

"So good," she murmurs, starting to move, her hips rolling slowly at first, grinding down on you. The sensation is intense, her tight walls squeezing you, and you're already fighting to hold on.

Saerom leans forward, her hands on your chest, pushing your shirt up further as she rides you, her movements picking up speed.

Her breasts bounce slightly, and you can't stop staring at her, her flushed cheeks, her parted lips, the way she looks like she's lost in this as much as you are.

"You like this, don't you?" she whispers, her voice teasing but breathy, her pussy tightening around your cock as she moves faster.

You nod, barely able to speak, your hands gripping her hips tighter, urging her on.

Your cock is buried deep in her now, every thrust of her hips sending waves of pleasure through you, the sound of her moans and the wet slap of her skin against yours filling your ears.

You're close, too close, and she knows it, her eyes locking on yours as she rides you harder, daring you to lose control.

"Saerom-noona... I-I can't..." you stammer, your cock throbbing inside her, the pressure building fast.

"Not yet, good boy," she says, leaning down to kiss you again, her lips crashing against yours as her pussy squeezes you even tighter. .

"Saerom-noona..." you gasp, your voice desperate as your hands gripping her hips tighter, trying to hold on.

She smirks, slowing her movements just enough to keep you teetering on the brink, her pussy clenching around you like she's enjoyed every second of this.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" she whispers, leaning down, her lips brushing your ear. Her breath is hot, and her words send a shiver through you.

"You're doing so well for noona." She straightens up again, her hands sliding down to brace on your stomach as she picks up the pace, her hips slamming down harder now.

Your cock is so hard it hurts, slick with her juices, and you can feel the pressure building, your whole body tensing.

She notices, her eyes glinting with that playtful spark, "Don't you dare come yet," she says, her voice firm but playful, "I want to enjoy you a little longer."

She grinds down slowly now, letting you feel every inch of her tight walls as she drags herself up and down your length.

You groan, your head falling back against the pillow, your hands clutching her hips like they're the only thing keeping you grounded.

It's torture, the way she’s controlling the pace, keeping you right on the edge but not letting you tip over.

She leans forward again, her breasts brushing your chest as she kisses you, her tongue dive into your mouth. You kiss her back, your hips bucking up into her instinctively.

She pulls back, gasping softly, a string of spit connecting your lips. "So eager," she teases, her hand reaching down to grip the base of your cock, giving it a quick squeeze before she starts riding you again, faster this time.

Your cock pulses inside her, the heat and tightness overwhelming. "Noona... please..." you beg, your voice barely a whisper, your body trembling under her.

You're so close, every thrust pushing you further, the slick heat of her pussy driving you insane.

She smirks, clearly loving how desperate you are, and shifts her hips, angling herself so your cock hits deeper, making her moan louder.

"Okay, good boy," she murmurs, her voice breathy now, like she's getting close too, "Let's see how much you can take."

She rides you harder, her pussy clamping down on your cock, and you can't hold back anymore.

Your hips jerk up, your cock throbbing as the pressure snaps, "I'm cumming-!" and you come hard, "Erghh..." a low groan escaping you as you spill inside her, wave after wave of release flooding through you.

Saerom moans, feeling you fill her, and she keeps moving, riding you through your orgasm, her hips slowing but never stopping, "Good boy," she whispers, leaning down to kiss you softly, her lips gentle now.

Your cock twitches inside her, still sensitive, as she finally stills, her body warm and heavy on top of you. She stays there for a moment, catching her breath, her pussy still gripping you tightly, before sliding off slowly, leaving you empty and dazed.

She lies next to you, her hand resting on your chest, a satisfied smile on her face. "You did good," she says softly, her teasing edge gone, replaced by something warmer.

You're still catching your breath, your mind spinning, your cock softening but still tingling from the intensity.

You gasp awake, your vision blurry, body heavy against the soft sheets.

As your eyes adjust to the dim light, the reality hits you like a shockwave, you had sex with Saerom.

Your heart starts pounding again, and you turn your head to see her sitting beside you on the bed, naked, her body barely covered by the same thin sheet draped over you.

Her hair is messy, her skin glowing faintly in the low light, and she’s looking at you with a soft, amused smile.

"Ms. Saerom...?" you mumble, voice hoarse, your mind scrambling to piece it together.

"What...? did I...?" You’re dazed, still processing the intensity of what happened, your cock twitching faintly at the memory of her riding you, her tight pussy gripping you.

Saerom chuckles, leaning closer, and playfully flicks your nose with her finger, "Yes, you did," she says, her voice teasing but warm.

"You fucked me, cutie boy. Don't act so surprised," her words are blunt, and your face burns, a feel of embarrassment swirling in your chest.

She shifts, the sheet slipping slightly, revealing more of her skin, and you can’t help but glance at her curves before looking away, flustered.

You sit up slowly, the sheet falling to your lap, exposing your bare chest, "I-I... didn't expect..." you stammer, rubbing your face, trying to make sense of it.

Saerom tilts her head, her smile softening. "You are definitely expected this, aren't you?" she says, her hand resting on your arm, her touch gentle now.

"You were great. No need to overthink it." She pulls the sheet tighter around herself, but her eyes stay locked on yours, still carrying that playful glint.

"Want some water? Or... round two?" she teases, raising an eyebrow, and you feel your cock twitch again, your body betraying how much you’re still drawn to her.

She slips out of bed, the sheet still wrapped loosely around her, and pads to the kitchen, "Stay there," she calls over her shoulder, her voice light.

You sit on her bed, still half-dazed, your jeans awkwardly pulled back up but unbuttoned, your shirt crumpled. Your mind replays the night, her body on yours, her moans, the way she called you "good boy"

She returns with a glass of water and hands it to you, her fingers brushing yours, "Drink," she says, sitting beside you, the sheet slipping slightly to reveal her shoulder and a hint of her chest.

You take the glass, sipping slowly, the cool water calming your dry throat. You're shy, avoiding her gaze, staring at the glass.

Saerom leans back, propping herself on one hand, watching you with a small, knowing smile, "You’re so quiet now," she teases, her tone gentle.

"Was I too much for you?" she laughs softly, and you shake your head, cheeks burning, taking another sip to avoid answering.

She starts chatting casually, like you didn't just fuck her senseless. "You did good with those boxes earlier," she says.

"Stronger than you look." Her voice is warm, almost normal, but the way she's sitting there, barely covered, keeps you on edge.

Then she shifts closer, her tone changing, more curious. "So... I've seen you at work, you know. The way you look at Seoyeon," she tilts her head, her eyes narrowing playfully.

"Got a little crush on her, don't you? Those sneaky glances when she's sketching at her tablet, the way you smile when you two chat in the pantry..."

Your stomach flips, caught off guard. You nearly choke on your water, setting the glass down on the nightstand. "W-what? Seoyeon? I-I don't..." you stammer, face hot, but Saerom just grins, clearly enjoying your flustered reaction.

"Oh, don't lie," she says, nudging your arm with her elbow.

"It's cute. She's sweet, right? Quiet like you, but I bet she's got a wild side too," she winks, and you're not sure if she's teasing or fishing for something.

Your mind races, Seoyeon's kind smile, her soft voice, the way your heart skips when she talks to you. You do like her, but admitting it to Saerom, after what just happened, feels like stepping into a trap.

"I... I mean, she's nice," you mumble, looking down, your fingers fidgeting with the edge of the sheet. "We just talk sometimes."

Saerom laughs, leaning closer, her bare shoulder brushing yours, "Uh-huh, 'nice', sure," she pauses, her voice softening, "You know, it's okay if you like her. But..." she trails off, her hand resting on your thigh, her touch light but enough to make your cock stir again.

"You're here with me now, so maybe I'm a little jealous," her tone is playful, make you shy.

She catches your flustered expression, her playful smile turning into something hungrier. "You're cute when you're shy," she says, her voice dropping low, "but I think you've got more for noona, don't you?"

Before you can respond, she leans in, kissing you deeply, her tongue sliding against yours, reigniting the heat from earlier. You melt into it, your hands finding her waist, the sheet slipping off her completely, leaving her naked again.

She pulls back, eyes locked on yours, and slides off the bed, standing at the edge, "Come here," she says, her tone commanding but teasing.

She turns, bending over the bed, her hands bracing on the mattress, her ass up and inviting. The sight of her like this, curves exposed, pussy glistening from earlier, makes your cock fully hard again, throbbing with need.

"Fuck me like this," she says, glancing back at you, her voice daring, a smirk on her lips.

You swallow hard, your heart pounding, but you're too turned on to hesitate long. You kick off your jeans completely, your shirt tossed aside, and move behind her, your hands shaking slightly as you grip her hips.

Her skin is warm, soft, and she arches her back, pushing her ass toward you, making it clear she wants you now, "Don't be shy, be a good boy," she murmurs, wiggling her hips slightly, her pussy slick and ready.

You line up your cock, the tip brushing against her wet folds, and you groan at the contact. She's so warm, so inviting, and you can't hold back.

You push into her slowly, feeling her tight pussy stretch around you, gripping you as you slide deeper. She moans, low and needy, her head dropping forward as you fill her, "Fuck, yes..." she breathes, her voice shaking with pleasure. "Yeah, like that."

You start moving, thrusting into her, your hands gripping her hips tighter to steady yourself. Her pussy feels incredible, hot and wet, clenching around your cock with every thrust.

Sound of your hips slapping against her ass fills the room, mixing with her moans and your heavy breaths. Your cock throbs inside her, the pleasure building fast.

"Harder," she says, her voice sharp, turning her head to look back at you. Her eyes are dark, urging you on.

"Fuck me harder," you obey, picking up the pace, slamming into her with more force, your fingers digging into her hips.

She gasps, then moans louder, her hands clutching the sheets as she pushes back against you, meeting your thrusts, "Good boy... like that," she pants, her voice dripping with satisfaction.

You're lost in it now, your cock buried deep in her pussy, the wet, tight heat. You reach forward, grabbing a handful of her hair gently, pulling just enough to make her moan louder.

She loves it, her pussy tightening around you, and you feel yourself getting close again, the pressure building in your balls.

"Ms. Saerom... I'm..." you start, your voice strained, but she cuts you off, "Not yet," she gasps, pushing back harder.

"Make me come first," her words are a challenge, and you focus, thrusting deeper, faster, angling your cock to hit her just right.

Her moans turn into cries, her body trembling under you, and you can tell she's close.

Your hand slides around to her front, finding her clit, rubbing it in quick circles as you fuck her.

"Fuck yeah... so good," that pushes her over the edge,

"Ahh~!" she screams, her pussy clamping down on your cock as she comes, her whole body shaking.

You thrust a few more times, before your cock pulses hard, and pleasure snapped, you come, spilling deep inside her, "Ms. Saerom!" you groaning as the pleasure washes over you.

Saerom moans softly, riding out her orgasm as you fill her, her hips still moving slightly until you’re both spent.

You pull out slowly, your cock slick and softening, and collapse onto the bed beside her, breathing hard.

Saerom lowers herself onto the mattress, turning to face you, a satisfied smile on her face. The sheet is somewhere on the floor now, and she doesn't bother covering up, her sweaty, flushed body pressed close to yours.

She shifts closer, her lips brushing your ear. "You're not done yet, are you, good boy?" she whispers, sending a shiver down your spine.

You swallow, unsure if you can keep up, but her hand slides down your stomach, brushing dangerously close to your cock, and you feel it twitch, already stirring again. "Ms. Saerom..." you mumble, half-exhausted, half-turned on, but she just chuckles, nipping at your earlobe.

"I'm noona for now" she coaxes, rolling onto her side, her back facing you, her ass pressing lightly against your hips.

"One more for noona," she glances over her shoulder, her eyes daring you, and wiggles her hips, the curve of her body inviting you in. You can't resist her, your cock hardens fully again, pressing against her ass.

You wrap an arm around her, pulling her tight against your chest, your lips brushing her neck as you position yourself. Your cock nudges between her thighs, finding her pussy, still wet and slick from your last round, your cum mixed with her juices.

"Fuck me now," she murmurs, her voice soft but needy, pushing back slightly to guide you in.

Slide into her slowly, you spoon her, your cock slipping easily into her tight, warm pussy.

She moans softly, her head tilting back against your shoulder as you fill her, the angle making her feel impossibly tighy, "Oh, yes..." she breathes, her hand reaching back to grip your hip, urging you deeper.

You start moving, thrusting gently at first, your cock gliding in and out of her, the wet heat gripping you with every stroke, your bodies pressed so close, your arm wrapped around her, one hand cupping her breast as you fuck her.

"Harder," she says, her voice a little sharper now, her ass pushing back against you.

You pick up the pace, thrusting deeper, your cock hitting spots that make her gasp, her pussy clenching around you.

Your hand squeezes her breast, your fingers teasing her nipple, and she whimpers, her body trembling against yours. You kiss her neck, sucking lightly on her skin, and she tilts her head to give you more access, her hand tightening on your hip.

"Good boy..." she pants, her voice shaky with pleasure.

Your cock throbs inside her, the slow build of pleasure growing faster now, her pussy so tight and perfect it's driving you wild.

You slide your hand down from her breast to her stomach, then lower, finding her clit. You rub it in small, firm circles, and she cries out, her body arching against you, her pussy squeezing your cock even tighter.

"Fuck, Saerom-noona..." you groan, your thrusts getting harder, more desperate. She's moaning louder now, her body shaking as you fuck her, your fingers working her clit in time with your cock.

"I'm close," she gasps, her voice raw, her hand clutching your arm. You keep going, pounding into her, your cock pulsing, the pleasure overwhelming.

She comes first, her pussy clamping down hard on your cock as she moans your name, her body shuddering in your arms.

You thrust deep, groaning as you come, your cock spurting inside her, filling her again.

Keep moving, you ride out the waves of pleasure, your bodies locked together, until you're both spent, your breaths heavy and uneven.

Saerom relaxes against you, her body soft and warm in your arms, your cock still inside her, softening slowly. She turns her head slightly, kissing your jaw, a tired but satisfied smile on her lips.

She shifts slightly, turning in your arms to face you, her lips brushing yours in a soft, lingering kiss. Her eyes, still heavy with lust, sparkle with that familiar teasing glint. "Ready for next?” she murmurs, her voice husky, a playful challenge in her tone.

Shake your head, your heart racing again, your cock already stirring at her words despite how spent you feel. "Saerom-noona..." you start, voice weak, but she just smiles, kissing you again, deeper this time, her tongue flicking against yours.

She pulls back, sliding out of your arms and lying on her back, she spreads her legs wide, her thighs parting slowly, giving you a clear view of her pussy, still slick with your cum and her juices, pink and inviting.

She reaches down with one hand, her fingers gently parting her folds, showing you how wet she is, her entrance glistening. "Come on, good boy," she says, her voice low and seductive, her eyes locked on yours. "Fuck me like this. I want to see your face."

Your cock hardens fully at the sight, throbbing with renewed need in your body. You move, positioning yourself between her legs, your hands trembling slightly as you brace them on either side of her.

She's so open, so confident, and the way she's looking at you, like she's daring you to please her, makes your pulse race.

Lean down, you kissing her softly, and she wraps her arms around your neck, pulling you closer, her lips hungry against yours.

Line up your cock, the tip brushing against her wet folds, and she moans softly, her hips tilting up to meet you. "Don't make noona wait," she whispers, her fingers digging into your shoulders.

Push in slowly, you feel her pussy stretch around you, so tight and warm, still dripping from before. She gasps as you fill her, her legs wrapping around your waist, pulling you deeper, "Fuck, yes..." she breathes, her head tilting back, her eyes fluttering shut.

You start thrusting, your cock sliding in and out of her with slow, deep strokes at first. Her pussy grips you tightly, every movement sending sparks of pleasure through you. Her moans are soft but needy, her hands roaming your back, nails grazing your skin.

"Harder," she says, her voice sharp, urging you on. You pick up the pace, slamming into her, your hips meeting hers with a wet slap that fills the room. Her breasts bounce with each thrust, and she opens her eyes, locking them on yours, her gaze intense and raw.

"God, you're so good," she moans, her hands sliding down to grip your ass, pulling you even deeper. Her pussy clenches around your cock, making you groan, your thrusts growing more desperate.

Lean down, you kiss her neck, sucking lightly on her skin, and she arches into you, her moans louder now. Your hand finds her breast, squeezing it, your thumb teasing her nipple, and she whimpers, her body trembling beneath you.

You can feel the pressure building again, your cock throbbing inside her, the slick heat of her pussy driving you closer to the edge. "Saerom-noona... I'm..." your voice strained, but she cuts you off, her hands cupping your face, pulling you into another deep kiss.

"Come for me," she whispers against your lips, her pussy tightening around you, pushing you over.

You thrust hard, one last time, and come, groaning loudly as you spill inside her, your cock pulsing with every wave.

"Yes... ahh~!" she moans, her legs tightening around you as she feels you fill her, her own orgasm hitting as her pussy clenches hard, her body shaking under you. You keep moving, riding out the pleasure, until you're both panting, spent, and tangled together.

She shifts, propping herself up on one elbow, her lips curling into that familiar, wicked smirk. "Last one for noona?" she murmurs, her voice soft but dripping with intent.

You're about to protest, your body pushed to its limit, but before you can speak, Saerom's hand slides down your stomach, brushing over your soft cock.

Her touch is gentle, coaxing, and even though you're drained, you feel a twitch, your body responding to her. "Saerom-noona" you mumble, half-dazed, but she shushes you with a quick kiss, her lips soft and teasing.

"Let me take care of you," she whispers, sliding down the bed, her hair trailing over your skin as she moves. She settles between your legs, her hands spreading your thighs slightly.

Your cock is half-hard now, stirred by her closeness and the anticipation of what's coming. She looks up at you, eyes glinting, and runs her tongue slowly over her lips. "Just relax, good boy."

She leans in, her breath hot against your cock before she kisses the tip, soft and deliberate. You groan, your head falling back against the pillow as she wraps her lips around you, sucking gently.

Her tongue flicks over the sensitive head, tasting the mix of your cum and her juices from earlier, and your cock hardens fully in her mouth, throbbing under her touch. She hums, the vibration sending a jolt through you, and takes you deeper, her lips sliding down your length, her hand stroking the base.

Her mouth is warm and wet, her tongue swirling around you with slow, practiced skill. She bobs her head, sucking harder, her cheeks hollowing as she works you, the wet sounds filling the room.

Your hands grip the sheets, pleasure building fast despite how many times you’ve come tonight. "Fuck, noona..." you gasp, your hips twitching up instinctively, but she presses a hand on your thigh, keeping you in place, fully in control.

She pulls back slightly, her lips shiny, a string of spit connecting her mouth to your cock. "You taste so good," she murmurs, her voice sultry, before diving back in, taking you even deeper.

Her tongue presses against the underside of your cock, and she sucks hard, her hand pumping you in rhythm with her mouth. You're overwhelmed, the pleasure sharp and relentless, your cock throbbing as she pushes you closer to the edge.

"Saerom-noona... I'm gonna..." you manage, your voice strained, your body tensing.

She doesn't slow down, her eyes flicking up to meet yours, urging you on. Her mouth works faster, her lips tight around you, her hand twisting slightly as she strokes.

It's too much, the heat, the suction, the way she's so focused on making you lose it.

You groan loudly, your hips bucking, and you come, hard, your cock pulsing as you shoot into her mouth.

Saerom moans softly, taking every drop, her lips staying locked around you as you spill, her tongue milking you through the orgasm.

You're shaking, the pleasure so intense it leaves you breathless, your vision blurring for a moment.

She swallows, her throat working, and slowly pulls off, licking her lips clean with a satisfied smile. A bit of your cum glistens at the corner of her mouth, and she swipes it with her finger, popping it back in with a playful wink.

"Good boy," she says, crawling up to lie beside you, her body warm against yours. You're completely spent, your cock soft and sensitive, your body heavy with exhaustion.

You're too tired to respond, your mind a haze of pleasure and disbelief, still processing this night, fucking Saerom over and over, ending with her sucking you dry. You feel her heartbeat against you, her warmth grounding you as you drift, unsure what this all means but too worn out to care.

You stumble out of the bathroom, freshly showered, your body clean but still heavy with exhaustion from the wild night.

Your hair is damp, and you're back in your jeans and crumpled shirt, feeling a mix of satisfaction and disbelief as you replay everything in your head. You grab your bag, ready to head home, your mind still spinning.

She is waiting for you in the living room, now dressed in a loose t-shirt and sweatpants, her hair tied up messily. She looks softer, less intense than before, but her eyes still have that warm, knowing glint.

She's leaning against the couch, arms crossed, a small smile on her lips as you walk in. "Feeling better?" she asks, her voice light but genuine.

You nod, a bit shy again, rubbing the back of your neck. "Yeah, thanks... for everything," you mumble, not sure what else to say.

Saerom steps closer, her smile softening. "No, thank you," she says, her tone sincere.

"For helping with the boxes... and, well, for tonight," she pauses, looking down for a moment, then back at you, her eyes searching yours.

"It's been a long time since I've felt like this… since I've fucked like that," her words are blunt, and you blush, but her honesty makes your chest tighten.

She reaches out, touching your arm gently. "You’re special, you know that?" she says, her voice quieter now.

"I mean it. Don't ever change, okay? Stay this sweet, shy guy who's so good to me." her fingers linger, and her expression turns serious.

"And don't turn away from me, no matter what. Promise me that."

You're caught off guard, her words heavy with meaning you don't fully understand, "I... I won't," you say softly, nodding, though you're not sure what you're promising. Her smile returns, small but warm, and she pulls you into a quick hug, her body soft against yours for a moment before she steps back.

"Get home safe, cutie," she says, her teasing tone creeping back in, though her eyes are still soft. You nod again, slinging your bag over your shoulder, and head for the door, your mind a mess of emotions.

You wake up the next morning, your body still tingling with the memory of last night at Saerom's apartment. You're exhausted but buzzing, barely able to focus as you get ready for work.

You step into the office, the usual hum of chatter and keyboards greeting you.

Your eyes instinctively dart to the marketing corner, where Saerom’s desk sits. She's already there, typing away, looking sharp in a fitted blazer and skirt, her hair swept to one side. As if sensing you, she glances up, her lips curling into a playful, knowing smirk.

It's subtle, just for you, but it hits like a spark, making your face heat up and your cock twitch faintly in your pants. You quickly look away, heart pounding, and hurry to your desk, trying to act normal.

You settle in, pulling out your laptop, but your minds elsewhere. Saerom's smirk lingers in your thoughts, a reminder of her naked body, her moans, her whispered promises.

You steal another glance at her, and she's still watching you, her eyes glinting with mischief before she turns back to her screen, biting her lip.

2PM, you're burned out, your eyes sore from staring at your laptop screen.

You lean back in your chair, rubbing your temples, craving a break. Your gaze drifts to Saerom's desk in the marketing corner, almost instinctively.

She's typing, but as if she feels your stare, she glances up, her eyes locking on yours.

Her lips curl into that familiar playful smirk, and she tilts her head slightly, giving you a subtle nod, a silent invitation to come over.

Your heart skips, a mix of hesitation and curiosity swirling in your chest. You glance around the office, it's busy, no one's paying attention.

Against your better judgment, you stand and walk toward her desk, your pulse quickening.

As you approach, Saerom leans back in her chair, her movements deliberate, "Hi cutie," she shrugs off her blazer, letting it slide down her shoulders, revealing a tight, white blouse that hugs her curves, the top buttons straining slightly against her chest.

The sight makes your mouth dry, your cock start stirring in your pants.

She smirks, noticing your reaction, and pats the space behind her chair, "I'm so tense," she says, her voice low, just for you.

"Be a good boy and massage my shoulders, will you? I need to relax."

You hesitate, glancing around again, but the office hums along, oblivious. You step behind her, your hands hovering before settling on her shoulders.

Her skin is warm through, and you start kneading gently, your fingers working into the tight muscles. She sighs, tilting her head back, her eyes half-closed.

"Mmm, that's nice," she murmurs, her voice soft and sultry.

"Lower, though... here." She guides your hands down, dangerously close to her chest, her blouse dipping slightly to show a hint of cleavage, your fingers brush the tops of her breasts.

She moans quietly, too quiet for anyone else to hear, but it’s enough to make your face burn, "Keep going,” she whispers, arching slightly into your touch.

Your hands tremble, massaging her chest now, feeling the soft give of her breasts under your fingers. She's clearly enjoying it, her breathing heavier, but suddenly she shifts, standing up.

"Sit," she says, her tone firm but teasing, pointing to her chair. You're confused, heart racing, but her commanding gaze leaves no room for argument.

You obey, sinking into her chair, the warm seat still carrying her scent.

She glances around briefly, then drops to her knees, crawling under the desk in one smooth motion.

Your eyes widen, panic mixing with arousal, "Ms. S-Saerom, what-" you start, but she shushes you, her hands already on your belt, unbuckling it with practiced ease.

"Quiet," she whispers, unzipping your jeans and tugging them down just enough to free your cock, already half-hard from the tension, "Let me relax you now."

Before you can protest, her lips wrap around your cock, warm and wet, sucking gently. You gasp, gripping the armrests, your body tensing as her tongue swirls over the tip, tasting the pre-cum already leaking out.

The office noise fades, keyboards, chatter, phones, all drowned out by the wet sounds of her mouth and your ragged breaths. She takes you deeper, her lips sliding down your length, her hand stroking the base, her movements slow but deliberate.

Your cock throbs in her mouth, fully hard now, and you bite your lip to stifle a groan, terrified someone might notice.

Her eyes flick up to meet yours from under the desk, glinting with mischief as she bobs her head, sucking harder, her cheeks hollowing.

Her tongue presses against the underside of your cock, and you feel the pleasure building fast, your hips twitching slightly despite your effort to stay still.

"Fuck, Ms..." you whisper, barely audible, your hands knuckling the chair. She hums around your cock, the vibration sending a jolt, you're barely holding back.

Suddenly you hear the sharp click of heels approaching. Eunbi’s voice cuts through the haze, "Darling? Where's Saerom?" she asks, her tone ligh, standing just on the other side of the desk.

You snap your head up, "Ms. Eunbi! ahh... sh-she's... uh... grabbing coffee," you stammer, your voice shaky, trying to sound casual. "I'm... uh... checking her work. Yeah, she asked me to," you force a tight smile, praying Eunbi doesn't notice how flushed your face.

Saerom keeps sucking, her movements slowing slightly but not stopping, her tongue teasing the tip of your cock.

Eunbi raises an eyebrow, her sharp gaze flicking over you, like she's picking up on something off. "Checking her work, huh?" she says, her lips twitching into a knowing smile, her tone carrying that same playful edge she always has. She steps closer, leaning slightly against the desk, her blazer opens just enough to draw your eye to her curves. "You look... tense. Everything okay, darling?"

You nod quickly, too quickly, your cock twitching in Saerom's mouth as she takes you deeper, her hand stroking faster now, clearly enjoying the risk, "Y-yeah, fine," you manage, your voice cracking slightly.

"Just... focused." Your heart is racing, torn between the fear of getting caught and the overwhelming pleasure of Saerom's lips and tongue working you under the desk.

Eunbi tilts her head, her smile widening, like she's not entirely buying it. "Hmm. Well, tell Saerom I need her for a quick chat when she's back from her coffee run," she says, her voice dripping with amusement.

She lingers for a moment, her eyes scanning you, then turns to walk away, her heels clicking as she heads back to her side of the office. You let out a shaky breath, relief flooding you.

Saerom doesn't let up, her mouth moving faster now, sucking harder, her tongue swirling around the head of your cock. The thrill of almost getting caught pushes you over the edge.

"Fuck, I'm cumming...!” you whisper, barely audible, your body tensing as the pressure snaps. You come hard, your cock pulsing as you spill into her mouth, waves of pleasure crashing through you.

Saerom moans softly, her lips staying locked around you, swallowing every drop as her tongue milks you through the orgasm.

Saerom finally pulls off with a quiet pop, licking her lips as she crawls out from under the desk, her face flushed but smug.

"Good boy," she whispers, wiping the corner of her mouth before standing, smoothing her blouse like nothing happened.

"You handled that well," she teases, her eyes glinting as she sits back in her chair, grabbing her blazer to slip it on.

You're still catching your breath, your cock softening in your open jeans, your mind a mess of panic and pleasure.

"That... that was too close," you mutter, zipping up quickly, your face burning. Saerom just laughs softly, leaning into whisper,

"Good, she doesn't notice it, though, right?" before turning to her computer, leaving you dazed and wondering how you’re supposed to focus on work now.

Over the next few weeks, Saerom's teasing gets intense. She brushes against you in the hallway, her hand lingering too long, and sends flirty emails that make your cock twitch.

In meetings, she'll flash a bit of cleavage or bite her lip, knowing it drives you crazy.

Once, in the pantry, she "drops" something and bends over, her skirt showing lace panties.

You're a mess, barely keeping up with work, torn between wanting her and feeling like you're losing control.

Her texts come late at night "Miss you, cutie" or "Come over?" and if you don't reply fast, she pouts, making you feel guilty, her words from that night about not turning away echoing in your mind, her promise to stay close, and a quiet feeling that this story with her isn't over yet.

[defmaybe]

Translate - Part 2

Part Two of Three. Part One. 12k words.

---

You steal glances at her from across the venue. 

Sometimes a passing waiter or attendee blocks your line of sight; sometimes another copied-and-pasted investor steps in between you, hand extended, wishing to introduce him or herself; sometimes the woman next to you steals your attention, usually with a laugh that sounds like music in the cool Seoul evening.

The woman next to you is Taeyeon Kim - Vice President, Strategy, 2024-present and also ex-girlfriend, 2018-2021 - but tonight she’s a celebrity, investors and staff members and junior analysts alike all clambering over themselves for a moment of her time, for the opportunity to introduce themselves to the brightest star in the industry. She looks like one too, in her smoky eyeshadow and little black dress with its daringly low cut and short hem, wrapped almost too tightly around a slim body that is thirty-six but looks a decade younger.

Taeyeon laughs, smiles, and places her hand affectionately on the shoulders and forearms of colleague and investor and intern alike when they make a joke or interesting anecdote. She’s magnetic, almost, the way she draws the entire gala to her. She knows how to play a crowd, and is all smiles, a definite contrast from the cold, calculating businesswoman she was during the day. She knows what mask to wear and when - experience hard won by long years in the corporate world.

But on this night, her charms are only half-effective on you. You stand next to her and laugh and smile along with the crowd but most of your attention, when it is freed from nosy colleagues and investors, is focused not on the charming Vice President but on the lonely Marketing Lead across the venue. 

Ryujin Shin takes short sips from one of the two champagne flutes present on her stand-up table. She talks softly to Yuna, who is standing next to her. There is a blank expression on her face, unreadable. Every now and then she forces a smile. Yuna reaches out and squeezes her wrist, as though to comfort her. Not once does Ryujin lift her eyes to even glance in your direction.

She is not more than a hundred metres away but she may as well have been on the other side of the city. With Korean being amongst the half-dozen languages Taeyeon was fluent in, there was no need for a translator as she holds court with the Korean and international investors surrounding her.

“...rumor has it that she runs a small sushi joint in Vancouver, and just had a kid. She had him and her father at gunpoint, and the Senior VP convinced the cops to let her go! Crazy story, isn’t it?”

A hand, hers, grasps your arm. You turn to find Taeyeon looking at you, eyes expectant.

“Crazy,” you stammer, catching on quickly. “I still don’t believe any of it actually happened.”

Taeyeon smiles a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, which are still locked on yours. “Anyway,” she continues, turning to the crowd gathered around your table listening intently to her every word. “He’s married to another Senior Vice President now - his former colleague. And she’s pregnant. Not sure what he’s up to. Maybe he’s off on some new daring corporate adventure involving car chases and the Tokyo PD?”

The crowd oohs and aahs at Taeyeon’s story - some with a slight delay as the Vice President translates it into flawless Korean, the foreign language giving her voice a pleasant, melodic tone. She continues to work the crowd. For a moment you listen, and for a moment you see why they were so enraptured by her. For a moment you remember why you-

-your phone vibrates. You reach into your pocket to retrieve it, finding a message from Ryujin. She tells you that she’s going to call it a night and head back to the hotel first. She reminds you of your early flight to Tokyo the next morning.

She says she’ll meet you in the lobby of the hotel at 7am.

You turn your gaze to her table to find her, but she’s gone. Her empty champagne flute sits on the table next to the one she never got the chance to give you.

---

Taeyeon made for an exercise in material contrasts - her tight, tiny black Prada dress beneath the cheap suit jacket you’d draped across her shoulders to ward against an evening chill you weren’t sure was actually there; the glint of the Cartier watch on her wrist as she poured cheap, convenience store soju into two paper cups; the 1,000 won lighter she held in her thin, slim fingers to light the artisanal cigarette she plucked from a slim titanium case in her purse.

She takes a long drag. When the smoke leaves her nose it almost clings to her. She wears it as much as she wears her dress, or the suit jacket of yours she was currently swimming in. Like the smoke she’s ephemeral, ethereal, beautiful - but her presence stung when you breathed her in. 

You’d left Vancouver on good terms with her - warm, friendly, joking - but something about her surprise appearance tonight, and what it might have meant, rubbed you the wrong way.

“You two together now?” she asks, voice flat and direct, now that the melodic charm of the social gathering was no longer needed in her words.

On the bench next to her, you look away with a scoff. You knew who she was referring to, even if she never said her name. You bend forward, elbows on your knees, hands clasped together. You play with your thumbs and rub your nails, as though you could wring an answer from between your fingers.

“What’s her name again? Soojin? Yujin?” she continues.

You shake your head. A smile with no warmth in it bends the corners of your lips. The gall of this woman.

“Ryujin,” you state, firmly.

“Hmm,” she murmurs, giving Ryujin’s name as much attention as the ash she flicks off the end of her cigarette, as though it were beneath her somehow. She takes another drag, leaves another layer of smoke floating between you filled with all the words you’ve never said to each other. “Are you two… real?”

You don’t look up at her. The faux-smile leaves your lips.

“I’m not sure,” you answer, slowly. “But I want to find out,” you add, hoping that it would send her a message.

A few moments of silence. Taeyeon takes one of the paper cups and downs her shot. You do the same, before re-filling both of them. Neither of you look at each other. The alcohol does nothing to ease the tension between you.

“You’re never sure about anything,” Taeyeon says, softly. 

Her words trigger you - more than she did when she showed up unannounced at the event, more than when she forgot Ryujin’s name, more than she did when she slid her hand into yours as you both left the event in full view of your colleagues. 

You stand up, suddenly angry, suddenly upset. The words rush to your mouth and leave your lips before you even know you’re saying them. “I was sure about you.”

---

Friday, May 14th, 2021. 8:19pm.

She’s twenty-six again. Still beautiful - but in a bright, fresh-faced way. The kind of beauty that is found only in youth, in the features of a young woman yet to be truly hardened by the realities of life.

An image of her flashes on the screen of your phone as it lies on the table. She’s wearing a cheap Uniqlo sundress and the oversized circular eyeglasses she needed because she was blind as a bat before the Lasik surgery she’d get years later after a promotion. A cheap silver ring you’d bought her hours before from an artisanal market - a pre-engagement ring, she’d called it - glimmers on her left ring finger as she waves awkwardly at you, the photographer.

She’s in London, in front of Big Ben, where you’d both been sent on your first overseas business trip together. She wasn’t ready for the picture and has an odd, crooked smile on her face. You remembered her protests when you set it as her contact picture, insisting you replace it with a better one, perhaps one of the two of you together - but you kept it nonetheless, partially because you wanted to tease her about it, and partially because the picture reminded you of your first few weeks together. 

You were in love with her - there was no mistaking it. It was there in the way your heart leapt when she walked in the door of your apartment, there in the way you brushed hair from her face as she snored fitfully next to you, there in the way you made her coffee as she rushed out the door in the morning and a quick dinner when she got home late at night.

It’s still there now, as you pick up the phone and raise it to your ear.

“Hello?” you answer.

“Baby,” she says, stress already apparent in the way she said it. “Another long night for me today. I’m so sorry.”

You sigh, a sharp exhalation from your nose. You feel a sharp pain in your chest - not physical, no, another kind of pain, the kind that leaves you feeling empty.

“When will you-”

“I don’t know,” she answers, before you can even finish. In the background of the call, members of her team mumble. Someone is clacking away entirely too loudly at a keyboard. A voice is speaking sternly in Japanese. “I’ll get home as soon as I can,” she continues amidst the din of the busy office behind her, “but… you shouldn’t wait up.”

Your eyes drift closed. The pang of pain in your chest was becoming all too familiar. It started with her taking phone calls and drafting emails during meals, before escalating to missing dinners and forgetting important dates. Work had always been important to Taeyeon, but these days it had consumed her - and your relationship. Nights like these were becoming common. 

You loved her, still loved her, even when those lonely nights became lonely months. Your head tilts back. A headache begins to form in the front of your skull, and love could only dull so much of it.

She must’ve heard the sigh that leaves your lips.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “So, so sorry. But Hirai’s on my ass and you know how she is if I don’t meet these deadlines. If I want to make director I need to-”

“I know, Taeyeon,” you say, the words leaving your lips in another sigh. “I know.”

A few moments of silence pass. The background murmur continues on her side of the call, filling the line with ambient noise, but the silence between you is deafening.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, but the sound of paper shuffling and a keyboard being typed upon tells you her apology is half-hearted. A warm rush of anger pulses in your chest.

“So am I.”

You hang up. You stand and leave your table, apologizing to the waitress as you leave and making up some excuse about how your date had become ill and couldn’t make it.

Taeyeon finally arrives at your apartment at 2:21am. When you both wake the next day an argument begins. When she storms out of your apartment at 1:15pm, she leaves her ring behind on the kitchen counter.

---

In the present, your words create the slightest quiver in Taeyeon’s lip, but she hides it by bringing her cigarette, by now almost a stub, to her mouth. She takes a last drag before crushing it beneath a Prada heel.

“Send her ahead,” she begins, reaching for the paper cup of soju and cradling it with both hands as though it were something precious and not cheap convenience store liquor. “Send her ahead to Tokyo and tell her you’ll follow her later in the week. I’m here for three days. You can stay with me.”

You laugh, but there’s no humor in it. The sheer audacity was hilarious, in a way.

“Why, Taeyeon?” you snap, finally looking at her for the first time, “so you and I can spend a couple of days drinking and fucking in your suite?” 

Her eyes meet yours for the first time, and there is ice in them.

“Is that so different from what you’ve been doing with your translator?”

Your hands ball into fists. You want to snap, shout and yell at her.

“Her name is Ryujin,” you snarl. 

“I wasn’t sure then,” she replies, not sparing Ryujin’s name even a scrap of her attention as she returns her attention to the soju in her cup. She smoothly downs the shot, before pouring herself another, ice in her veins. “But I’m sure now.”

“About what?”

“About us.”

The anger pulsing through your chest explodes into something dark, something ugly.

“No,” you spit, taking a step toward her. “Fucking no, Taeyeon. You’re fucking hilarious, you know that? You walked out on us. You ended us, and managed to sucker me into staying friends. I leave Vancouver making jokes like we’re two best buds, then you show up out of the blue wanting to get back together after seeing me with another girl? Please, Taeyeon.”

Taeyeon’s lips purse into a grim line. She looks away. Her silence spurs you, gives you license to vent your anger.

“You don’t get to just have me again now that you’re done climbing the corporate ladder and can spare some free time in your Outlook calendar for a boyfriend,” you state, words leaving your mouth with the intention of hurting. “And you sure as hell don’t get to have me again just because you’re fucking jealous.”

You don’t take any pleasure in the way her eyes close, the way she flinches and turns her head as though you’d slapped her across the cheek.

“You’re right,” she admits, softly, the tiniest hint of a tremble in her voice. Her head is lowered, as though she were speaking to the concrete beneath her thousand dollar heels. “You’re right. I fucked things up when we were together. We broke up because of me.”

She takes her last shot of soju before standing, crumpling her cup in her hand and dropping it next to the full shot you never took. She slips your suit jacket from her shoulders, carefully folding it lengthwise. In the chilly Seoul evening, clothed with little more than a scrap of silk and wisps of smoke, she suddenly looks very small.

The look on her face as she steps close to you is carved from ice - but her eyes glisten, and her lip trembles.

“But maybe,” she begins, “-maybe it took me seeing you with her before I realized how badly I fucked up by letting you go. Maybe I needed to see it to make me realize how badly I need you. How badly I’ve always needed you.”

Words fail you, and you can do nothing but accept your suit jacket. Anger, pain, some small lingering remnant of your feelings for her - it all warred within you, and none of them dominated long enough to manifest into words.

She presses your suit jacket against your chest, and for a moment she’s the twenty-six year old version of her again, standing in front of Big Ben with her phone in your hand, asking you to take a photo of her.

“Go to her,” she continues. Her eyes bore into yours, searching, even if you could tell that there were tears behind them being held there by the force of her will. “Fuck her. Love her, if you do. But if… when she fucks up-”

“Taeyeon,” you say, resistant but helpless.

“-I’m here,” she finishes.

You watch, helplessly, as she turns and begins to walk to the curb, where the sleek black sedan that picked you both up from the event has been waiting the entire time. Its driver notices her approaching and exits the car to open the back door for her. She steps inside without looking back. 

The car pulls away from the curb, leaving you alone.

---

Ryujin is in the hotel lobby when you see her next, leaning on the extended handle of her luggage with one hand and scrolling her phone with the other. She is dressed casually, in a sleeveless white button-up that hugs her slim figure and rimless, oversized glasses.

“Ryujin,” you say, approaching her, cautiously. You’d thought of texting or calling her last night when you got back to the hotel, but by then it was in the early hours of the morning and you didn’t want to disturb her. You’d spent the next few hours tossing and turning, processing what had happened between you and Taeyeon and doing what you could to prepare yourself for this moment.

Would she be upset? Would she be furious at you for having ditched her for your boss, who just happened to be your ex-girlfriend? Would she not care at all? Would she-

“Did you fuck her?” she asks, not bothering to look up from her phone.

Her question catches you off guard. You hadn’t expected her to be so straightforward, although in retrospect she was nothing if not that.

“No,” you reply. Ryujin locks her phone and tosses it into her pocket.

“She still loves you,” she says. She turns to look up at you for the first time and while she clearly tried her best to hide it with makeup and glasses you’d never seen her wear before, the dark rings beneath her eyes betray the similarly sleepless night she’d had.

There is an awkward pause that stretches out for far longer than either of you were comfortable with. But you weren’t sure how to answer. You knew that Taeyeon still loved you - she’d more or less confessed as much last night - but what were you supposed to say?

“The way she looks at you…” Ryujin continues, her eyes straying to the handle of her luggage as she fidgets with the button that retracts the handle. “Do you still have feelings for her?”

The answer comes quickly. Quicker, you realize, that you thought it would.

“No.”

There is a short pause. Ryujin’s eyes find yours again. Her look disarms you. You can feel her look past your own eyes and into your soul.

“Do you still want to be with me?” she asks, firmly.

“Yes, Ryujin,” you answer. The words came quickly, but you meant them - and last night with Taeyeon convinced you of it. “More than ever.”

Another few moments pass. Behind her glasses Ryujin’s eyes search yours for any hint of deceit. There is the slightest quiver in her lip, as though she wants to say more.

In the end, she gives you a small nod. She considers the feelings and thoughts running through her head - suspicion, confrontation, anger - but chooses none. She chooses to trust.

“Okay,” she says, finally, before taking your hand in hers and heading to the airport.

---

“Do I… taste like her?”

She squirms and writhes under you. You hold her down with a palm on her core. You feel the toned muscles beneath your hand flex and tense as she struggles atop the bed.

“Better,” you hiss into her inner thigh. She’s slick and wet on your tongue, lips, and chin. You close your lips around her clit again. Inside her, your fingers arc upward, and her back arches off the bed as if to mirror your movements.

“Fuck, Daddy-”

“Mmmmph,” you mumble against her clit. The vibrations send another pulse of pleasure up her spine. She’s right there, right on the verge, right on the edge. 

Only five minutes have passed since you both entered your Tokyo hotel suite. She wouldn’t make it past minute seven before her first orgasm.

She goes almost rigid on the bed, back arched in such a way that causes her small, round breasts to jut forward and out. One of her hands claws at the sheets and the other digs sharp furrows into your scalp, but you keep going - mercilessly - and soon she’s cumming on your tongue.

Her voice cuts out mid-moan. Her nails are spikes digging painfully into your skull. Her cunt spasms around your fingers. She drenches your tongue, mouth, and chin in her juices.

Eventually her back lowers tenderly back onto the mattress, and her nails retreat from the painful, reddened scratches they leave on your scalp. You give her trembling clit a few more tender licks, before pressing your lips against it in a soft kiss. Your fingers slide out of her cunt, saturated and glistening with her.

You raise your face from between her legs and find her watching you, cheeks flushed, hair messy around her face. She trembles and quivers, as though her orgasm had taken everything solid out of her and turned her into jelly. She reaches down with both hands on either side of your face and you rise from between her legs. She pulls you to her face.

You kiss - her tongue quickly slipping between your wet, slick lips and chin to taste herself on you. Her lips leave yours and you feel her lick her own juices off your face.

“Come fuck me, then,” she hisses, eyes boring into yours - needy, vulnerable, raw. “Forget her.”

Without breaking eye contact you reach down with one hand to pull your pants the rest of the way down your hips - she hadn’t gotten far in undressing you before you’d pushed her onto the bed and started devouring her. Your cock springs free, hard and hungry.

You slide inside her in one swift thrust that punches the air from both of your lungs. 

You’d fucked her dozens of times by now in the two weeks you’d been together. But this one felt different, meant more. The other times had been about claiming and ownership - this one was about affirmation.

She is slick and wet and tight. Her legs wrap themselves around your hips, heels - with her socks still on - digging into your lower back.

Without knowing it you’d closed your eyes, the feeling of sinking into her tight little cunt shutting them involuntarily - but her hand on your cheek causes you to open them. 

Her eyes are wide, flushed with pleasure but glassy with emotion. They stare up at you and there is nothing there but naked need - no games, no hidden meanings. She needs you, both for pleasure, lust, and validation.

“Look at me,” she begins, although you already were. Perhaps she wanted you to see more than what your eyes were showing you.

“Ryujin…”

“I… I-” she continues, voice a light hiss. Her cunt pulsates around you as she squeezes you tight. “Me. All of me. This pussy. This is what you want.”

You slide out of her half way, before her heels on your lower back pull you back inside her. You both let a gasp escape your lips before you slide back out and soon you’re fucking her slowly, the both of you feeling and savoring every entry and exit.

Ryujin grasps your right wrist, pulls it down between your bodies. She places your palm flat against her lower stomach, right above the neatly trimmed patch of hair above her cunt.

“See how I… See how I take you? How I need you?”

You gasp. She holds your gaze throughout it all, through every sigh and moan and gasp, even as the pleasure overtaking her brain causes her eyelids to quiver but never truly shut.

“Feel how tight I am for you,” she continues as the pleasure builds. Her brow furrows, as though she is worried about something. Her eyes are needy now, wanton, as your cock continues to drill in and out of her.

“So fucking tight, Ryujin,” you say through gritted teeth. “Always so fucking tight for me.”

For the first time her eyes shut as her neck arches, casting her head back for a moment, mouth open in a silent moan, as a particularly deep thrust steals the sound from her lips. Her back arches off the sweat-soaked mattress. Her hips move against yours, meeting your every movement. Her body does everything it can to increase the warm, hot pleasure building between you. 

Her eyes find yours again. 

“Feel how wet I am, Daddy?” she continues, the words leaving her lips half-moan. “So wet around your cock. You’re stretching me out. I’m your good little girl, your good little fucktoy. So wet, wetter than-”

“Ryujin-”

“Just fuck me, Daddy,” she spits, interrupting. Her eyes open fully, staring, re-energized by lust and an emotion that was closer to jealousy and anger than she’d ever admit. “Just fuck me. You’re my Daddy, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Ryujin. Fuck, you feel so good-”

“Mine,” she hisses. “Mine, only mine.”

Her eyes are too much to take. It was all too much - her body, her cunt, the words leaving her mouth - all too much. You break eye contact, eyes shutting out of some involuntary defensive response. You bring your head next to hers and hiss in to her ear-

“I’m yours, Ryujin. Only yours.”

“I’m yours too,” she repeats, and she says your name - no title, no pet name, your first name - and it leaves her lips in a soft, wistful moan, directly into your ear. You think, for a moment, that she’s crying.

You sigh into her neck. She is close again, and so are you. Her cunt tightens. Your cock stiffens even further, and you feel that telltale tingle at the base of your shaft that tells you this beautiful, terrifyingly intimate moment is nearing its end. Too quickly. Too soon. You want it to last-

“Deeper, Daddy, please,” she sighs. “You’re mine, right? Cum inside me, breed me, make me yours-”

You tear your face from her neck, propping yourself up on your knees for a moment. She whimpers at the loss of your closeness, but only until you hook your forearms beneath her knees and lean forward planting your hands flat on either side of her head. Her knees brush against her breasts. You fold her in half. 

You fuck her deep, as deep as you can.

There are no words now, because you’d both already spoken them, and because the pleasure nearing its boiling point within both of your bodies has robbed you both of the mental capacity needed to form them. You fuck Ryujin Shin deep and hard because she is the only thing that exists, the only thing that matters.

She is yours. You are hers.

Every thrust brings you closer and closer to that edge, the same one you want to reach but don’t really because it would mean the end and suddenly you tumbling, falling uncontrollably over it and the fall from that edge is all, everything.

You bury yourself as deep as you can inside her and fill her cunt with long, thick streams of warm semen. The feel of your cum pooling inside her triggers her own orgasm, and you become two moaning, sighing bodies, bound and glued together by the wet slickness between you.

When your eyes open some time later your forehead is pressed to hers. Her eyes flutter open. There is a vulnerability there that you hadn’t ever seen in them before. Her hand finds your cheek, holds you close, as though afraid you would leave.

Her lips tremble, but eventually turns into a soft, warm smile. 

“I’m yours. And you’re mine,” she says, claiming, as though she’d pulled the sentiment directly from your heart and turned it into words.

---

“...Honda Hitomi, Marketing Lead. Yabuki Nako, Legal Counsel. And Uchinaga Aeri, HR Lead. They’re all looking forward to working with you.” Each of the Tokyo office’s leads turn sharply in your direction as their name is called, offering you a polite bow and what you assume to be a basic corporate-approved greeting. A slim smile perks up the corner of your lips as you realize Ryujin didn’t bother to translate the greetings until the very last one.

There is an awkward pause as all eyes turn to the two empty seats at the head of the table. Several of the Tokyo team members fidget awkwardly.

Just when you are about to ask Ryujin to inquire as to where the two missing members are, the large double doors behind you burst open.

Framed by the stark light of the hallway are two figures - one a tall, slim woman with straight hair, a perfectly tailored pantsuit, and ramrod-straight posture. The other, judging by her unkempt neon pink hair and ill-fitting blazer and pencil skirt, had just rolled out of bed.

The tall woman bows sharply, her waist bending easily at an exact ninety degrees. The pink-haired girl, seeing her colleague bowing, lets out a scoff out of her nose before also offering a bow that was neither as deep nor as precise. The loses her balance for a moment as she bows a little too deeply and has to right herself.

Head still bowed, the taller woman speaks quickly and sternly in Japanese. Ryujin, translating at your shoulder, explains that the pink-haired woman had slept in and had to be dragged out of bed. She offers her sincere apologies on behalf of herself and her colleague.

Without further word, the two women make their way to the two empty seats. The tall woman moves with the poise of a ballerina and the precision of a soldier, clutching her tablet like her issued rifle; the shorter, pink-haired woman moves with the sluggishness of a newly-turned zombie. Like the rest of the Tokyo team before them, they introduce themselves.

“She’s Nakamura Kazuha, Associate Director and Operations Lead,” Ryujin says softly at your shoulder. “The pink-haired one is Miyawaki Sakura, Director of the Tokyo office.”

Sakura’s name rings a bell - one you’d heard from the stories. You turn to Ryujin. “Is she-?”

“Yeah. It’s her. She was former Tokyo PD, If you can believe it. One of the SVPs brought her into the company two years ago.”

Kazuha offers the same corporate greeting as the others, delivered with another crisp bow; Sakura gives you a wink and shoots you a finger gun before quite literally falling into her leather chair. You watch as she reaches into her blazer’s chest pocket to retrieve what was clearly and obviously a Nintendo Switch, which she places none-too-discreetly beneath the folder of briefing papers on the conference table.

Kazuha marches, swiftly and precisely, to the podium at the front of the room. The light in the conference room dims as the projector throws the title slide of her presentation against the wall. 

Out of the corner of your eyes, you watch as Sakura stands her briefing folder up in front of her like a makeshift wall. You could’ve sworn you hear a certain handheld console’s startup chime not soon after.

On the screen, a different chime heralds Taeyeon’s arrival into the meeting. From her hotel room in Seoul, she waves a good morning greeting to everyone in Tokyo. The smile on her lips is proper, precise, and calculated. 

Taeyeon is wearing the oversized circular glasses she wore a decade ago - a message sent only to you.

---

The meeting is mostly introductory, surface-level fluff on the Tokyo office’s last financial year. Kazuha leads most of it from her podium at the front of the room, every gesture and sentence measured and precise. Her tone is matter-of-fact, without any attention spared to personal anecdotes or jokes to shake things up or lighten the mood. Even without Ryujin’s whispered translations in your ear, you could tell that the young woman was all business, all the time, and essentially ran the entire Tokyo office on her own, despite technically being one spot from the top in the office hierarchy.

She made for a stark contrast to the actual Director of the Tokyo office, who spent almost the entire meeting engrossed in whatever game she was playing on her Switch. 

Kazuha pays her boss’ disinterest in statistics no heed as she continues her presentation. Taeyeon, from a thousand kilometers away, interrupts her with a question in perfect Japanese. Kazuha is shaken for only a moment before informing Taeyeon that yes, the Q4 results did in fact take into account the company’s recent supply chain changes in Seoul.

Taeyeon listens intently to the younger woman’s answer, a measured look on her face - a predator sizing up prey. The Vice President asks a series of pressing questions, and for the first time the young Associate Director appears frazzled, shuffling her papers at the podium awkwardly as she frantically searches for answers amidst them.

“A 13.4% dip in profit from the Tokyo office is a disappointing result,” Taeyeon continues, arms crossing in the way it did when she smelled blood in the water. “One that may call into question the competency of your office’s logistics and leadership team.”

Ryujin translates the interrogation from Japanese into English with an even, calm tone - but out of the corner of your eye, you watch as her grip tightens around her pen.

Kazuha scrambles for a response. You glare up at Taeyeon’s image in the corner of the projection - some mixture of disappointment and anger flaring up in your chest. 

This was unnecessary. You saw why Taeyeon was pressing her - the Vice President of Strategy doing things a Vice President of Strategy should do - but this was neither the time nor the place; there was no need to put the younger woman on the spot and embarrass her in front of her subordinates and colleagues the way she was doing. 

A part of you wonders if she was doing it because she knew you and Ryujin were in the room. You are moments from turning to Ryujin and having her translate an interjection when-

“Recent tax-related developments in international trade have introduced some unforeseen obstacles to meeting our Q4 goals,” comes a clear voice, suddenly, in perfect English - Sakura’s. “In addition, we’ve experienced considerable difficulties in our transportation chain between Osaka and Tokyo, which have resulted in lesser than expected stock levels and a corresponding dip in revenue.”

On the Tokyo Director’s face is a look of intensity you hadn’t seen before, one that you had no idea she was even capable of. She makes a show of pausing her game before continuing, as if having to actually participate in the meeting was somehow offensive to her. Neither her hands nor her eyes leave the poorly-hidden handheld. 

“The goals set for this financial year by your Strategy department were exceedingly optimistic, Miss Vice President,” Sakura continues, tone carrying a slight edge beneath the thin veil of corporate jargon. “-And my team did our best to meet them, but fell just short due to forces beyond our control. We have several initiatives in our pipeline which we feel will deliver improved results as we move into the next financial year. I’m sure these results will match and exceed your high standards, Vice President Kim.”

Sakura spares a moment of attention from her Switch to glare up at the screen, and Taeyeon’s box in the corner of it. Taeyeon was older and may have been a rising star amongst the company’s leadership, but Sakura’s exploits a few years ago in Tokyo and Seoul were legendary, and had earned her a near-mythical status amongst its employees.

Despite being a thousand miles apart, the two women have a short, tense standoff - neither blinking, neither backing down.

After a heavy moment of silence that felt much longer than it actually was, Taeyeon offers a token acceptance of Sakura’s explanation in terse Japanese before reluctantly returning her attention to the slides on her laptop screen, teeth clearly gritted behind her perfectly applied lipstick. Kazuha awkwardly and hesitantly continues with her presentation, confidence visibly shaken. 

Sakura returns to her game, all trace of seriousness fleeing from her face as quickly as Mario was no doubt fleeing from the goombas chasing him on her Switch.

When the meeting eventually concludes, Taeyeon signs off with a stern, unimpressed look on her face, staring directly at her camera as though she were passing judgement on everyone in the room. You don’t miss the plain look of disdain Ryujin gives the Vice President’s projection before her image disappears.

The afternoon passes relatively uneventfully, with presentations from the other Tokyo Department Leads that must have been beneath Taeyeon’s interest, if her absence was anything to go by. The spat between her and Sakura had cast a pall over the rest of the afternoon, an elephant in the room that the Marketing and HR Leads’ presentations on Gen Z marketing trends and Japan’s shift in workforce demographics did little to dispel.

At least Sakura was making decent progress in collecting the six Royal Seeds needed to reach the evil Bowser and free the Flower Kingdom, if her poorly-hidden fist pumps and smirks of triumph were anything to go by.

---

She made for quite the sight. She made it hard to concentrate.

Ryujin crosses her legs every few minutes as she lounges on a chair by the floor-to-ceiling window reading a book, feet drawn up on a footstool, those long, bare legs and full thighs on full display. After your room service dinner she’d made a show of choosing the same button-up shirt you’d worn to work that day as her sleepwear for that night, draping it around her naked body and doing up a single button before plopping down on the chair and putting her feet up.

You try to turn your attention to your laptop and the document open on it, but try as you might, the half-naked woman by the window was proving too much of a distraction.

“Are you reading, or putting on a show?” you ask, wryly.

She lets a huff leave her lips, and a small smile perks at the corner of her mouth as she turns her attention from the pages in her hand to look at you. The gold of Tokyo’s sunset paints half her face in warm yellow and orange.

“Maybe a little bit of both,” she answers with a wink, before returning her attention to her book.

Minutes pass. You get through precisely one slide of the two dozen that made up the presentation you were giving tomorrow. You’re tired and drained, and you feel it in your shoulders. It had been a surprisingly long, difficult first day at the Tokyo office, made even harder by the drain of constant travel. 

The little spat between Taeyeon and Sakura would no doubt echo throughout the two weeks you were going to spend here. You sit back on your chair and sigh, the presentation slides suddenly becoming a Herculean task that you had neither the energy nor the willpower to overcome.

Ryujin stands abruptly from her chair by the window, dropping her book on the footstool and staring out at Tokyo’s skyline for a moment before turning to you.

“Bored,” she says, before beginning to walk toward you. “Entertain me, boyfriend.”

The title stirs you, and the fact that she says it while wearing your shirt and nothing else ignites a warm feeling in your chest that bends the corners of your lips up into a smile.

Ryujin steps between you and the laptop and straddles you on your chair. Her stolen shirt parts as her legs spread, revealing the well-kept patch of hair between her legs and the inviting flesh beneath; but she makes no effort to cover herself. Ryujin Shin was nothing if not confident with her body.

She gives you a soft kiss, hands cradling your cheeks before sliding down to softly massage the tense muscles at your neck. Your hands caress her full, round thighs as they bracket your waist. The warmth of her next to you was already doing much to ease the exhaustion of the day.

“You look like a mess. What are you working on that’s made you so tense, anyway?” she asks, turning to glance at the laptop on the table behind her.

On it are your presentation - and the comments Taeyeon had left on them. Front and center: “Don’t forget to make sure you’re consistent with your use of the Oxford comma, dummy! Either use it for all of your sentences, or don’t! Wouldn’t be the first time your grammar’s fucked up a presentation (see 2018 Taiwan acquisition notes) --<3 ;)”

You see the near-instant effect it has on Ryujin - the way her shoulders slouch slightly, the way her lips curl into a barely-perceptible frown. 

“I sent her the presentation I’m giving tomorrow,” you say, eager to address the worry that was no doubt already worming its way into her head. “She wanted to see it first.”

Ryujin turns back to you. The frown remains.

“She’s still my boss, Ryujin,” you add.

Taeyeon was a thousand miles away, and yet she was still somehow still in the room, lingering, ever-present. The ghost of her seemed to haunt every facet of your lives since her appearance in Seoul; one neither of you knew how to dispel.

Ryujin’s eyes find yours, searching, the way she did at the airport the day before. You wonder what she sees in your eyes. You wonder what she feels, what thoughts are running through her head.

“I’m yours,” you say, because you knew it was what she need to hear. “And you’re mine.”

Her lip quivers for a moment, before she nods to herself. 

“I believe you,” she says, seemingly satisfied, at least for now. She plays with your t-shirt, fingers searching for her next words in the cotton strands. The silver chain on her wrist that you never saw her without catches the light of Tokyo’s dusk, turning it into gold.

Her eyes are still on yours, but they lack the playfulness that was present in them just a few moments before. In its place is uncertainty, and she struggles to turn that feeling into words. “But I… but she-”

“She’s a million miles away, Ryujin.”

“Is she?” 

Silence for a moment. A long moment, the latest in a long line of them.

“Tell me why you’re not with her,” she says, eventually. Her voice is small, the way she suddenly is. Your button-up begins to drown her in white linen as she slouches further and she sinks even further into it. “You have so much history together. She knows everything about you. She’s successful. Smart. Charismatic. Almost forty and gorgeous. She’s a fucking vampire in Prada.”

A moment passes. You breathe in, knowing what you are going to say, but steeling yourself enough to say them.

“She chose a promotion over me,” you answer, the words coming quickly, because they were true, and because it was a truth that had spent the last few years looming over you. “She chose a title over love, and it broke me.”

The word hangs heavy in the air. Ryujin’s entire body tenses.

“Did you… love her?”

Another long moment. Another long silence.

“Yes,” you admit. “I did.”

Ryujin’s lips curl against each other as she sucks her lips into her mouth. She nods to herself again, processing your words and the sharp pain they suddenly create in her chest. She’s suddenly unable to hold your gaze and lets it drop to your shirt, where her fingers have stopped the path they were tracing. The chain on her wrist loses its golden lustre as she moves her wrist away from the sunlight, returning to plain silver as though mirroring the emotional state of its owner.

The look on her face breaks your heart. You want to say something. 

“Past tense,” you manage, offering her a small smile she doesn’t see. Ryujin smiles softly, but her eyes don’t lift. You bring a hand from her hip to her cheek, raising her head. When her eyes find yours again they are glassy with tears she refuses to shed. You suddenly feel an overwhelming need to comfort her, reassure her, make sure she knows she’s yours and you’re hers-

“You’re my present, Ryujin.”

A smile appears on her lips - warm and raw and real. A moment passes. Her lip quivers again. Emotion dances behind her teary eyes. Eventually, she lets a scoff escape her nose.

“That was corny as shit, old man,” she says, wiping at her eyes quickly with the sleeve of your stolen shirt. Her eyes find yours again. The tears are gone, absorbed by your stolen shirt before they had the chance to be shed. The smile stays. 

Your hand is warm on her cheek. She turns her cheek and nuzzles softly into your palm, places a soft kiss on the underside of your thumb.

“Tell me why you’re with me, then,” she says, almost a whisper.

Her skin is warm against your palm. Your thumb caresses the soft, flushed skin of her cheek.

“You slipped a power bank into my bag because I keep forgetting to charge my phone,” you begin, wrestling a small, reluctant chuckle from the young woman on your lap. “You order real soju and not that shitty sugar water they sell back home, but take your fucking venti iced caramel macchiato with extra whipped cream and extra caramel drizzle like a psychopath. I watched you give that kid his rubber ball back after it bounced in front of us at the mall and the smile on your face broke me. I like the way you brush your hair behind your ear when it comes loose. I like the way you haggled with this ajummas in the market last week to save a couple thousand won like you were a local. You think the Canucks should have won the Cup in ‘11 if Hamhuis was healthy and Rome didn’t get suspended. You always ask me if I want the last french fry, even though you love them and know I’ll let you have it anyway. I like the way your pinky hooks into mine when we walk down the street. You hate olives. You chose Verso’s ending in Clair Obscur. You don’t care that don’t fold my clothes before I toss them in my luggage-”

“-they get so wrinkly, though! Look at this!” she interjects, slapping your chest playfully and pulling the wrinkled sleeve of your shirt in front of your face, “and you almost burned this fucking hotel down when you tried to iron it this morning. And you only ironed the collar and the front of it! I didn’t even know fabric could get this wrinkly.”

“No one sees the sleeves under my jacket, as long as I keep it on. Good thing the Tokyo office has great AC.”

She chuckles again, but does her best to suppress it. She lets out a little unintentional snort as she does so, and you both laugh at it. You think it’s the most beautiful thing she’d ever done.

Your free hand reaches for her other cheek, until you are cradling her face in your hands.

“You’re my present, Ryujin. And my future, if you’ll have me.”

A long moment passes, but unlike the others, the silence is not unwelcome. Ryujin smiles again, raw and real and true, and so you do too.

“That was the cheesiest shit ever, ohmygodstop--” she sighs, rolling her eyes and making an exaggerated show of peeling your hands off her cheeks in disgust - even as her smile pulls at her full, flushed cheeks.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” you admit, playing along. “Ugh, I fucking knew I should’ve stayed with the whole ‘you’re my present’ thing, but I fucking had to push my luck with the ‘...and my future,’ fuck, what was I thinking, so cringe-”

Ryujin laughs, unguarded and real, until suddenly she’s kissing you. Soft, passionate. Intimate in a way that the words just shared between you were. 

“You didn’t say anything about how great the fucking is,” she says, teasingly, between kisses.

“Yeah, no, it’s pretty great,” you manage. Your hand finds the single button keeping her shirt closed, and undoes it. Your hands slide under the shirt and around her sides. She’s warm and soft beneath your palms. Her naked hips pull closer to yours, the heat between her thighs sliding over the stiffness quickly appearing beneath your pajamas.

Ryujin breaks the kiss but maintains eye contact as her hands slide between your bodies and into your sweatpants. Your eyes shut as her fingers wrap around your length. She drinks in the sight of you, sees what she’s doing to you, and it sends a little thrill up her spine.

“Your future’s looking real good right now, huh?” she asks, the sweet smile on her lips turning wicked. In response, you reach up and pull the halves of her shirt apart and over her shoulders. The shirt falls around her elbows, draping her in the gold of Tokyo dusk. Your right hand drifts to her breast, giving it a firm squeeze and feeling her nipple stiffen under your palm - her turn for her eyes to shut, your turn to drink in the sight of her.

You open your eyes and look at her - all of her.

“Future’s bright,” you answer.

---

The meeting stops for a moment when Hirai Momo joins it.

“Sorry I’m late,” she says as she waddles into the meeting room in downtown Vancouver, patting her round tummy. “Little one’s being a bit of an asshole. Gets it from his dad, I think.”

From an ocean away in Tokyo, you watch as Taeyeon half-rises from her chair to help Momo, only to be waved off. Momo plops into the chair opposite Taeyeon.

“You look like you’re about ready to pop,” says Sakura, sparing a glance from her Switch to shoot Momo’s image on the screen a smile. That fact that she was able to speak so casually to one of the most senior people in the company spoke volumes as to the relationship and history that existed between them.

“Almost,” Momo agrees with a sigh. The Senior Vice President of the company probably should have been getting ready for her clearly imminent delivery, but considering her reputation as a workaholic it probably shouldn’t have surprised you that she was working up until the day she was due. After she has settled into her seat with a huff, she looks up at the camera and offers an awkward but warm smile to the other participants in Tokyo.

“Please, continue, Director,” she says, motioning for you to proceed.

“Thank you,” you reply, before continuing. “As I was saying, the Otensoto deal and the merger with Anon-JY Corp. have alleviated some of the concerns regarding the last financial year, which is a credit to the Tokyo team’s efforts. While there is some room for improvement, the numbers are, on the whole, acceptable and within the lower parameters of our projections.”

Across the conference room table, Kazuha listens to a mumbled English-to-Japanese translation out of the corner of Sakura’s mouth - who was at the moment more engrossed in the plight of a certain Italian plumber rather than that of her office. Kazuha straightens and offers a response in Japanese.

“She admits that there have been significant challenges with regards to moving goods from the port of Osaka to Tokyo, where they make their way to North America,” Ryujin translates at your shoulder, “Trucks are breaking down, gas is expensive, and traffic’s a bitch between Osaka and Tokyo. And that all costs money. Moving shit’s getting expensive.”

You finish your part of the presentation with a recap of your review on the Tokyo office - while income didn’t quite meet Taeyeon’s lofty expectations, the underlying business was still doing well despite external, uncontrollable factors. 

“Thank you, Director,” Momo states with a smile, “and thank you for your work reviewing the Tokyo and Seoul offices. I trust you’re finding time to enjoy the sights in between your meetings and site inspections. You deserve it after the deal we worked on last year.” You find yourself smiling softly in reply, and out of the corner of your eye you watch Ryujin do the same - the Senior Vice President’s pregnancy had given her a glow that only amplified her already considerable charms.

“The Strategy team has several initiatives that will address the Tokyo office’s numbers moving forward,” Taeyeon pipes up. “The Tokyo office’s leadership has assured me that they have several internal initiatives in their pipeline that should assist us in meeting the goals we’ve set for the next quarter. Tokyo’s Operations Lead will provide an overview of those initiatives now.”

At her cue, Kazuha shares her laptop screen, where she’s prepared a meticulous, thorough presentation of the various initiatives she no doubt prepared herself. She begins with outlining the challenges - increased costs of fuel, labor, and maintenance associated with trucking - and moves on to the initiatives she hopes will address them.

Throughout it all Taeyeon needles the young Associate Director with question after question. Kazuha does her best to answer them, and even Sakura is forced to actually pause Mario’s journey at several points to interject a defensive comment or snarky retort. It begins with insinuations and implications, and slowly escalates into thinly-veiled accusations of incompetence and negligence.

The bright glow surrounding Momo seems to have dimmed somewhat as she watches her underlings squabble, but she watches and listens intently nonetheless, as though measuring each participant in the meeting and noting how they were reacting to the ongoing debate.

Fifteen minutes pass, and then half an hour. Taeyeon, Kazuha, and Sakura go back and forth, the logistics of moving goods between Osaka and Tokyo their chosen battleground. As an outside observer your duty was done and it was up to your colleagues to choose how to move forward, but even you thought that the meeting had moved past discussion and into petty squabble. An interjection forms one your lips-

“Trucks to trains.”

All eyes turn to the speaker - Ryujin. An odd, awkward silence falls over the meeting. “Trucks to trains,” Ryujin repeats, a little louder this time. She looks, for a moment, like a tourist speaking a foreign language that no one around her understood.

You watch as she gives her head a small shake, as if to center herself. Her brow furrows. She takes a glance at Sakura and Kazuha on the opposite side of the table, and then up at the projector, where Taeyeon and Momo watch virtually from across the ocean, puzzled. Finally, she glances at you. You offer her a reassuring smile.

She sees her moment, and she takes it.

“Our Seoul office recently made the transition from light and heavy trucks to light rail in order to move goods from the port of Busan up to our Seoul office before distribution to the rest of Asia,” she states, her voice gradually increasing in volume and confidence as she continues. “They experienced a notable savings in shipping costs thanks to the switch, amongst other benefits.”

Ryujin’s fingers fly on the keyboard of her laptop. She shares her screen with the meeting and on it are the charts and graphs from the Seoul office.  When she speaks again, her voice is firm, self-assured.

“Seoul experienced an eighteen point nine five percent increase in shipping savings thanks to this transition. Not only did they save costs - they also experienced a higher on-time delivery rate and shorter expected delivery time overall thanks to the generally higher reliability and speed of rail as opposed to trucks. This resulted in a cascading series of benefits - our distribution staff in Seoul received more goods faster and more reliably, meaning they could distribute them throughout Asia faster, which meant our distributors throughout Asia were receiving more reliable supply, etcetera. A transition to rail would come with several upfront costs, meaning it would take several quarters for the savings to take effect, but…”

The room falls silent for another moment, before Sakura leaps into action. You’d heard the stories, and saw glimpses of it in her verbal duels with Taeyeon, but until that moment you didn’t fully believe in them. 

Sakura moves like a woman possessed. Her fingers are a blur on her laptop’s keyboard - which, to that point, had really only been used as a makeshift screen to poorly hide her Switch. She gestures sharply to Kazuha at several points, barking orders in sharp, terse Japanese which her younger subordinate scrambles to follow. She scribbles wildly on a nearby legal pad, although whether they were words or numbers or something only she could understand, no one else in the room seemed to know.

On the screen, you watch as Taeyeon is taken aback by Sakura’s transformation, shocked into silence. Momo leans back in her chair, fingers interlaced crossed over the fullness of her tummy. She’d seen this before, and knew what was about to happen.

A minute or two passes. Eventually Sakura raises her head from her laptop, a fiery intensity in her eyes that is almost frightening.

“A transition from trucking to rail in order to bring goods from Osaka to Tokyo would result in a twenty two point six percent improvement by the end of the financial year,” she states, slamming her pen down atop the legal pad for emphasis.

Taeyeon is the first to object, as you’d assumed she would. “We can’t just jump into such a drastic change so quickly without the necessary due diligence,” she states, hurriedly. “We’ll need to upstaff and delegate a project manager. We’ll need to do a feasibility study and ROI report on the whole idea, not to mention putting together a business case for Board approval and then eventually RFPs and a competition for any possible rail providers-”

Momo stops her with a raised hand. When she speaks, it is firm and decisive.

“Make it happen, Sakura,” she says to the camera, before turning to Ryujin. “Excellent idea… Miss-?”

Ryujin clears her throat. There is a new confidence in her features that wasn’t there minutes ago.

“Shin. Ryujin Shin,” she states, straightening her posture and giving Momo a confident smile. “From the Vancouver office’s Marketing department.”

“Ryujin Shin,” Momo repeats, an approving look on her face. “I’ll remember that name. And you’re in Marketing, huh? With ideas like that, I think there’s a place for you in Strategy. Well done.”

You don’t miss the loaded look she gives Taeyeon before she continues.

“Sakura, I trust you’ll keep me updated on the transition. Good meeting, everyone.”

If Sakura heard Momo sign off, she made no indication of it. She and Kazuha are suddenly a flurry of activity and hissed Japanese, the former already setting into motion a series of plans with an almost frightening intensity that the latter struggles to keep up with. Across the ocean, Momo does her best to get up from her chair and hurry to her next meeting. 

Taeyeon seethes, and Ryujin glows.

--

It doesn’t take her long. Ryujin slips into the spare executive office the two of you have been using for the duration of your visit to the Tokyo office, and the sly smile on her lips and mischievous look in her eye tell you exactly what she’s intending.

The smile that finds itself on your lips mirrors hers.

“This is a place of work, Ryujin Shin. One that we shouldn’t defile with your-”

“Office is almost empty,” she says, voice low and conspiratorial. She closes the door behind her with a click, eyes still locked on yours. “I just saw the HR team duck into a meeting room and the tablet on the door says it’s an hour-long videoconference with Vancouver. Plenty of time.”

“Miss Shin,” you begin with a smile, returning your gaze to your laptop even as the click-clack of her heels signalled her approach, “this office isn’t for lewd, profane acts like the ones that are no doubt running through your head. And to think you’d want to engage in such acts with our colleagues in Human Resources a mere few rooms away? Unthinkable!”

She spins your chair around to face her, placing her hands on the back of your wrists, pinning them to the armrests. The smile on her lips is wicked - in a way you’d never seen before.

She bends to kiss you and it’s almost violent the way your lips and teeth clash. Your lips grind against her teeth at one point and you’re pretty sure she’s literally cut you open with a kiss - or maybe it was a bite - either way, the slight metallic tang on your tongue was most definitely blood.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never fantasized about me riding you on that couch,” she says, pointing with her gaze toward the two leather couches that sat opposite each other in the rather lavishly furnished office, “or maybe you’d prefer bending me over it?”

“Miss Shin,” you say, mockingly. “Those couches are for important client meetings-”

Another kiss. She drags her tongue over your cut lip, then pulls away. Her tongue slides over her cherry-glossed lips, as though she is savoring the taste of your blood on her palette.

“Come on,” she says, suddenly pouting. “Don’t you think I deserve a reward for how well I did in that meeting today, Daddy?”

You smirk, despite yourself. Ryujin’s idea to convert the company’s transportation from trucking to trains on the Osaka to Tokyo route was just what the Tokyo office needed to meet Taeyeon’s lofty expectations - to say nothing of the personal satisfaction she gained from Momo’s dismissal of Taeyeon’s objections and subsequent compliments. Maybe it was one of those things, or some combination of them - either way, the events of the afternoon’s meeting had clearly awakened something in her - a side of her you hadn’t seen before. 

“You did well today, baby girl,” you say, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “A reward is definitely deserved.”

You knew how the next few minutes would turn out. For all her self-confidence outside of it Ryujin was relatively submissive in the bedroom. 

But today she flips the script on its head. She flashes you a sinful smile before she pulls you to your feet by your tie. She drags you in front of one of the couches and pushes you onto it with more roughness and strength than you were expecting, or even knew she was capable of.

Before you know it she is straddling you. Her lips find yours and the kiss is as violent and needy as the ones previous - a clash of lips and teeth and tongue that was more a single-sided display of dominance than a mutual display of affection.

Your hands find their way to that tiny torso of hers and the waistline of her grey pencil skirt - only for her to grasp them both by your wrists and pin them to the seat of the couch.

“No touching this time,” she hisses into your ear. “No doing anything unless I let you. This time, you’re mine, Daddy.”

“Fuck, Ryujin-”

She silences you with a kiss again, this one only slightly less aggressive. You feel her lips smiling even as she continues it, and even as her hands reach between you to quickly get your belt and pants undone.

You let a sharp breath leave your lungs as she slides her hand under your boxers and finds your mostly-stiffened cock. Her hands wrap around your length, teasing it to full hardness. She takes her time, her fingers moving at a glacial pace, fingers sliding up and down your shaft and making your eyes shut involuntarily as the first few spikes of pleasure work their way up your spine. She stops for a moment with her fingers tight around the upper half of your shaft, her thumb catching and spreading the bead of pre-cum she finds leaking from you, smearing it over your tip.

“Did you like it, Daddy? Did you like how I did?”

“Fuck yes, Ryujin,” you hiss, even as she begins to pump her hand up and down your length, the added lubrication of your pre-cum making her every movement that much more pleasurable. “You did so well, baby girl. You made Daddy so proud.”

Your praise ignites something in Ryujin, and for a moment there is a flush of warmth on her cheeks. “Thank you, Daddy,” she says, softly. With her free hand, she is undoing the buttons on the tight white blouse she is wearing, until it is undone to her waist. She untucks it, pulling it free from the waistline of her skirt.

Her fingers play with the halves of her blouse, pulling them apart, revealing the simple white lace bra she is wearing beneath it.

Her fingers grasp the left cup of her bra, before pulling it down slowly. Her small, round breast pops free with a small, teasing bounce, nipple already tight and stiff with need. She does the same to the other cup, relishing the sight of you following her fingers and taking in the sight of her bared chest.

“Do you like them, Daddy?” she asks, voice low and needy. “Do you want to touch them? Or wrap your lips on them and suck? You know how wet I get when you suck on my tits-”

She is interrupted for a moment when your hands leave the couch to fondle her - only for her to catch them by your wrists and pin them against the seat once more.

“Uh uh,” she teases, smile sinful. “This is my reward, remember Daddy?”

“Fucking hell, Ryujin.”

Satisfied that you weren’t going to resist, Ryujin’s hands leave your wrists. She raises her hips slightly, until her cunt is hovering less than an inch from your aching tip. With one hand she pulls the hem of her skirt up, revealing her drenched panties - with the other, she pulls them aside. She is glistening and drenched and you can almost feel the heat and wetness of her on the tip of your cock. It twitches with need.

Your eyes find hers and you have never seen such a wicked, devilish look on her features. 

The hand at her skirt leaves it, and reaches down for your cock, aiming it at her cunt. She slides down your length. You both sigh, the breath leaving your lungs in a sharp exhalation of sharp, pure pleasure.

“Fuck, Daddy,” she hisses into your ear as her arms wrap themselves around your shoulders and neck. You bottom out inside her, and for a moment she sits fully impaled on your cock. “Fuck, always so big inside me, stretching me out. Making me take you.”

A breathless “Mmmm” is all you can manage. She begins to move, and for a few moments neither of you are able to do much more than simply process the pleasure that begins to course through your bodies.

In, out, up, down, nothing else mattered aside from the feel of your cock and the way it felt in Ryujin’s tight, wet little cunt. Not the fact that you were fucking at the office and literally anyone could walk through the door; not the fact that this relationship would probably end up ruining one or both of your careers; not the fact that you were entering the final week of your trip and you’d found yourself wishing more than once that it would never end.

No, none of that mattered. All that exists are her sharp gasps of pleasure in your ear, the slick, wet sounds her cunt makes as it takes your cock in and out between her drenched lips, and her warm, hot breath against your cheek.

The minutes pass, but time soon becomes an abstract, foreign concept. It’s a lot. It’s overwhelming.

Your hands, unable to remain motionless, move to her thighs. Ryujin grasps them again and pins them to the backrest of the couch - forcefully.

“Mine,” she growls. “You’re mine, Daddy.”

It had been a recurring theme during sex, and in your relationship as a whole - ownership. Often it was used in passionate context; sometimes it was softer, more intimate. But it was different today. Darker. More intense. More real, more aggressive in a way it hadn’t been up to this point.

You watch as she rides you, hands pinning your wrists to the couch, hips and thighs and core moving to throw herself against your cock over and over again with increasing speed and tempo. You could’ve easily overpowered her, ripped your hands from the couch and done what you willed with her - but the sight of her pinning you down, the feel of her taking what she wanted from you, heedless of your own wants and needs - it was a new kind of pleasure, a new kind of power over you that she hadn’t shown before.

Her gasps raise in volume until she realizes, for a moment, where she is - at work, in an office, just a few empty rooms apart from a room full of colleagues - and the bite she gives her own lip in an attempt to stifle her moans drives you crazy.

Her small breasts bounce with each movement of her body, peaked nipples begging. She sees it, sees the need in your eyes. Mercifully, she bends forward - just far enough for you to capture one of them between your lips.

She slows her pace slightly, grinding against you now rather than bouncing atop you, squeezing her cunt in a well-practiced rhythm with each entry and exit of your cock. You feel her juices drip down your shaft and onto your balls. She’s so wet, so very wet, and she’s making a mess of the couch that you’d have to clean up afterward. 

But she doesn’t care. Her hands tighten around your wrists as she tries to ground herself against the pleasure coursing from her pussy and the suckling of your mouth on her breasts.

“Fuck, Daddy-” she hisses, breathless, onto the top of your head. “Soon, gonna, oh god-.”

You’re surprised by how quickly she’s approaching her first orgasm. But the danger, the aggression, the powerlessness - you would’ve been lying if you’d said you weren’t almost as close as she was. It was intoxicating. Overwhelming.

“Ryujin, fuck, me too. Let me cum in you, baby girl-”

“Do it, Daddy, please-” she hisses, voice rising in pitch as if to mirror the level of pleasure coursing through her veins. “Make me drip you, Daddy. I’m gonna cum too. Are you… are you going to breed me today? Are you going to breed me, here in this office? Put a baby in my belly? Look at me, please, look at me, just me, look at only me--”

She pulls your mouth from the sore, reddened peaks of her nipples. Her eyes find yours and they’re just as lost in pleasure. Her lips part-

“Fill your girl.”

Her cunt tightens and pulses rhythmically as she cums on you. You are unable to fight the pleasure any more than she is, and you let yourself go, burying yourself as deeply as you are able inside her before you follow her into bliss. Your eyes, by some miracle, remain locked on each other the whole time as you watch each other cum.

Your cock pulses as it fills her, paints her cunt white. She trembles and quivers with each spurt as though she felt each one hit the most vulnerable part of her. Her eyes twitch with each rope. They quiver and tremble but she manages to keep them open, locked on yours.

You both sit there for a while, breathing heavily, two sacks of boneless, powerless flesh. Eventually she breaks your gaze to drop her forehead to yours. It was a quickie in almost every sense and you both probably spent more time recovering than you did actually having sex - not that it mattered. Not when the high was so high.

Some amount of time later her head lifts. Her eyes find yours again. You both want to say something - perhaps repeat the pledging of yourselves to each other the way you had so many times before in a post-sex haze - but this time neither of you felt the need.

Perhaps somewhere along the way you’d both realized that this was more than just a business trip fling, more than just two lonely souls seeking companionship while away from home. Perhaps it was because you both knew it by now, and it didn’t need repeating, because the truth of it was already right there, plain to see, in each others’ eyes and in the language spoken with soft lips and gentle touches. 

She smiles, she kisses you, and nothing else matters.

---

You’re wandering the streets of Shimokitazawa on a day off in Tokyo when the email arrives.

The day is warm, but thankfully the wonderful sugar and salt water concoction of Pocari Sweat did well to keep you hydrated and cool in the mid-summer Tokyo heat. The small bench opposite the vintage store Ryujin had hopped into provided a suitable place for you to take a well-deserved break from all the shopping and sightseeing. Transportation and logistics be damned; touristing was the hardest work.

You’re scrolling your phone for a suitable dinner location, debating between the tonkotsu ramen place in Ginza that had been recommended to you by your assistant and yet another visit to the local branch of CoCo Curry. 

The email banner notification steals your attention. The email itself isn’t even addressed to you - you’re just a copy on it. An afterthought. An FYI. The email itself is simple, business like:

---

To: Shin, Ryujin

From: Bae, SuzyCC: Hirai, Momo; Kim, Taeyeon; Miyawaki, Sakura; Nakamura, Kazuha

Subject: Employee Transfer/Relocation Approved - Shin, Ryujin, EE# 2113 - Vancouver -> Tokyo

Hello Ryujin,

Please find attached a completed and approved Employee Transfer/Relocation Form detailing your transfer and relocation from the Vancouver Head Office to the Tokyo Regional Office, effective immediately. 

As a part of this transfer you have been seconded from the Marketing department to the Strategy department for the duration of your project in Tokyo, which is expected to last 24-36 months. For the duration of your project you will report to Sakura Miyawaki, Director, Tokyo office.

In recognition of your efforts and to ensure a smooth transition into the Tokyo office’s reporting structure, you have been promoted from Marketing Lead to Senior Operations Lead.

Please also find attached resources and guides that will assist in your relocation to the Tokyo office, including visa, accommodation, and other related relocation forms and documents. One of our Relocation Specialists will be in touch shortly to assist you further with this process.

Reach out if you have any questions or concerns. Congratulations on your promotion, and best of luck in Tokyo!

Sincerely,

Suzy Bae

Director, Human Resources

JYP Inc.

---

It takes you several reads before you can even begin to process it. Surprise, pain, rage - it all battles inside you, all at once.

Ryujin emerges from the store, a new shopping bag in hand. Her smile is bright, unaware of the heartache that awaits her the next time she looks at her phone.

She's wearing your shirt again, that white button-up - one that probably needed a wash, but she'd picked it out of the pile of clothing you'd draped over a chair in your hotel suite and worn it because it smelled like you.

She reaches for you, pulls you up off the bench, and threads her fingers in yours. You stare down at your intertwined hands. The silver chain on her wrist catches the Tokyo afternoon sun, turning it gold again. 

Still in shock, you let her lead you down the street to your next destination, unable to say or do anything more.

Oblivious, she turns to you and smiles.

---

Author’s Note: Tomorrow comes.

[defmaybe]

Provocation

ITZY Shin Yuna x m!reader

15k words

“That’s not true,” Yuna argues, arms folded as if this is the most ludicrous thing she's had to explain. "Despite what everyone thinks, I don't sleep around. Maybe a few guys on the weekends, but during the week? I like to have a one-guy policy."

You don't believe her one bit—but you'll play along. "Just one guy? That's it?"

Yuna shrugs her shoulders. "Of course. One guy at a time. One guy on Monday—maybe Tuesday. And Wednesday. That's it."

"That's three, Yuna," you laugh, shifting in your seat to face her a bit more. She takes a sip of her drink, stirring it around before bringing it back up to her pouty, red lips—the ones that cause nothing but trouble.

"Exactly. A different guy each day of the week. I don't think that's a lot. If anything, Yeji gets around way more than me."

Now you know she's lying.

The way you can tell is when her lips move. That's the telltale sign. When a word slips out between them, you always know the words will be objectively false. 

Because this is Shin Yuna, the girl who flaunts every facet of her beauty like it's her job. This is the girl who wears skirts short enough to flash the entire bar a glimpse of her perfect little ass. The one who always leaves the house wearing a bra on purpose, her top always sheer enough to show the shape of her perky breasts. The same girl who would give head to a random guy just because he asked for a stick of gum.

"Yeji? Are we talking about the same girl?" you question, doubting that girl would even have a quarter the sex that Yuna has in one night. Yeji's definitely attractive, but reserved and soft spoken—nothing like the track record Yuna has.

"Hey, don't get it twisted," Yuna protests, nearly spilling some drink when she sets her glass down. "Yeji isn't some innocent church girl. She's a lot hornier than people think. Almost too much. As much as she acts all pure and sweet and innocent, she's a freak."

You'd say you believe her, except it's Yuna—so it's not probable in the slightest. "Right. She's totally a freak and you're an absolute saint."

"Glad we're on the same page." Yuna grins, stealing your drink to take a sip without even asking, leaving those red lips staining the rim of the glass. "She's more insatiable than me."

"I think you've had a little too much to drink, Yuna.” 

Yuna ignores you entirely. "I mean it—that girl is probably getting dicked down as we speak. Or if she isn't, then she's got a new vibrator that's getting the job done, watching some of the most depraved porn out there. That girl is obsessed."

"Obsessed with dick or obsessed with porn?"

"Both. You can't imagine some of the toys she has hidden."

Yuna keeps speaking, but she could say anything at this point, and you know there wouldn’t be an ounce of truth in it. She's gotten more than a couple drinks deep now. And her tight skirt rides up, each not-so-subtle movement revealing more thigh as she shifts, not even the slightest concerned who can see underneath.

"If she's a freak, what the hell does that make you, then?" you ask in all earnest, trying to change the subject, because Yuna clearly can't be trusted around alcohol. This girl and oversharing go together far too well.

"Me? Oh, I'm the best fuck of your life—the one who will choke on your cock like a goddamn whore and let you blow your load all over my pretty face." 

You don’t even look at her when you reply. "Forget I ever asked." 

"But you did ask. And now you're going to take me home so I can demonstrate exactly what I do to those poor, pathetic boys every weekend."

"Absolutely not. I don't recall making an invitation."

"Do I need one? Doesn't feel like it," Yuna asks, with a quick tilt of her head. "Doesn't daddy wanna spend all night fucking this tight little pussy?"

You nearly vomit hearing Yuna's poor attempt at seduction. "Stop it. Please, for the love of god, don't ever call me that again."

She simply laughs it off, leaning close as she rests a hand on your thigh, those nimble little fingers giving a good squeeze, when it wanders just a little too high. 

"Come on," she insists. "The second you’ve got your cock inside me, you know there won't be any pulling out. Daddy won't be able to control himself."

"I'm leaving you here. Take a cab if you have to," you warn, standing up from the barstool without even the slightest look back in her direction.

Yuna sighs. “Okay, fine,” she says as she grabs your wrist, keeping you from going very far. "I won't call you that anymore. Just take me home and fuck my brains out. Please?"

That voice, the desperation, it's hard to resist. Not to mention the pleading look, those big, round eyes staring, and when your focus falls down her shirt, barely even a shirt, the curves on this girl she dares to flaunt in your face. Yuna wants you to know that you'd be a fool to turn her down.

"What's in it for me? Aren't there plenty of guys lining up for a chance to fuck you here?" 

"This place is boring—and none of them can handle me." 

You're not even sure you can handle this girl and her attitude, but when Yuna stares like that, this longing look that begs for attention—it's difficult to say no. "Are you saying that just because you want a ride home?"

"It's a reason, yes." She can't hold back the smile, no matter how hard she tries. "You take me home, and then I'll suck your cock until your legs give out. Won't you help this poor, helpless little slut?"

Against your better judgment, there’s this temptation you can’t ignore. A devil resting on your shoulder, and on the other side, also a devil in the form of Shin Yuna herself. You can’t refuse that smile, those batting eyelashes, or those eyes without a hint of innocence in them. You’re already a lost cause. 

Yuna can’t help but smirk, seeing her prey lured in with such ease as she grabs her coat, one hand slipping in yours, and not even needing a response when the both of you know where this is heading. "No more daddy—that's a promise."

You don’t believe that for a second, but you also don't care one bit as you head out, Yuna clinging to your arm on the way to the parking lot. 

And this might be your biggest mistake yet. 

Neither of you even make it out of the parking garage to your apartment. Yuna has you backed up against the cold, concrete wall, in a dark corner that she swears doesn't have a camera—but even if it does, who fucking cares when the sight of her on her knees takes precedence, getting your cock wet between her lips as fast as possible.

And the sound of her greedy slurps echo off those same walls, somehow a thousand times louder than usual. 

"You know my apartment is right up there," you manage to say in between gasping breaths. Yuna's barely listening, staring straight into your eyes, with her cheeks hollowed to no end and every inch of your cock taken down so easily. She spits over your length a few more times, spreading it along your hard shaft before her lips swallow you whole, not breaking her gaze once for even a single breath. 

With another loud, sloppy suck with those red lips around the tip of your shaft, that's the only time she answers, a small pop filling the air when she backs off, stroking you slowly with her fist.

"That's two floors up. Why wait, when I can just suck your cock here? That elevator takes ages." she argues innocently, running her tongue underneath that most sensitive area of your shaft. "Unless you really want me to stop—"

"N-no. Fuck, no. Don't you fucking dare." 

"That's what I thought,” Yuna replies, and she has no intention to, burying her nose in your abdomen with every last inch consumed by her warm throat. And her wet mouth gets so noisy, so starved, these desperate slurps that could probably be heard all the way to the top floor of the parking garage. 

It's so completely Yuna: her lack of restraint, the enthusiasm as she bobs her head in a blur without any sign of a gag reflex. The way her lips tighten around your shaft and stay there for an eternity without pulling off even for a second, like she needs your cock down her throat for survival. It’s goddamn relentless. 

“God, Yuna, this fucking mouth—" you curse under your breath and place a hand on her head for guidance, wondering how the fuck Yuna manages to take so much at once while looking so beautiful at the same time. It's her lips wrapped around every inch, the way she stares into you, her lipstick all smeared along the base of your shaft with a fresh layer of spit glistening along the length of it. "Why the hell is your mouth so good at this?” 

It's a compliment that's only going to feed that inflated ego, as if that's even possible at this point. But you can't hold back the praise, when her lips feel this incredible, wrapped so tight with all the warm, wet suction you can handle, taking you back into the deep end of her throat like nothing. 

"I’ve told you…” Yuna starts with this smug little grin as she draws out every reaction she can out of your features with a messy kiss to your swollen cockhead. "Suck enough dick, and you have it down to a science. Nobody gives head better than me. Not Yeji, not a single person you've met."

Can’t say you find any fault with that, for once. The rare occasion when Yuna speaks the truth, with how good her mouth feels on you, slurping away to get these groans spilling that reinforces her point. How could anybody come close? 

“Don’t let it get to your head.” 

“Too late,” she says, with her playful little chuckle when you escape from the heat of her mouth. She continues to pump her fingers along every spit-soaked inch that sets you on edge, slowing down only so she can drag it out, savor the look of desperation etched across your face. Then she’s right back down, lips flush to your base in no time. 

“Shit, those fucking lips feel so good. Who knew you had any other skill other than being an obnoxious fucking brat.” 

Yuna doesn't even fight you for that one, giving your length a sloppy kiss, before sliding her mouth down to latch around your balls and suck hard. A tight fist strokes quicker than before, twisting so perfectly while her mouth is occupied, a motion that makes you completely unable to hold back the strangled noises that she gets off on. 

It all feels too good, with her full attention devoted to your aching cock that throbs in her fingers, these lewd slurps of your sensitive balls that drive you towards the edge faster when her mouth gets all hot and wet around you.

“F-fuck, fuck, Yuna—“ 

It’s so clear, the sheer enjoyment written across Yuna's features when she pops off your balls with a loud, wet pop. and then gets your cock right back in her mouth where it belongs.

There’s no stopping her this time—not when she gets a good grip on your thighs for support, so she can slobber on your cock with reckless abandon. A fucking shameless display, saliva dripping down her chin, a messy string that connects from her lip to the tip of your swollen cockhead while she takes you straight into the back of her throat, again, and again, not taking a breath unless she absolutely needs to. 

And then she’s jerking your cock right in front of her face. 

“Almost ready to cum for me, aren’t you? Don't you wanna fucking finish all over my pretty face? Don't you like how nice it looks when I'm covered in your thick load?"

Fuck, do you ever—and it doesn't help when Yuna tightens her grip and gives these rapid strokes that have your head spinning. All you can do is watch as she furiously jerks your cock straight towards her gorgeous face, tongue out so eagerly as she awaits every bit you're ready to release.

When it hits, the first explosive burst shoots across her forehead, streaking right over her hair. The rest follows, finding a place splattering all across her face. All over those open pouty lips—hot, sticky spurts that Yuna catches with her tongue as each shot paints a different spot of her features, the excess dribbling down her chin. 

Yuna laughs through it, trying not to close her eyes so she can watch you unload all over her features, a mess that has no end in sight. More hits her cheek, a nice shot across her nose as your cock pulsates in her tight fist, and the hot spurts continue to paint her in white streaks across her flawless face. A final few bursts land across her open mouth, a taste that gets her smiling so wide through a cum-stained mess.

"Fucking christ, Yuna," you exhale, out of breath as the high lingers.

Yuna lets your throbbing cock rest gently against her cheek, your orgasm slow to subside. Even when every last drop is wrung from the tip, she refuses to take her mouth off you, sucking your shaft clean with a few long slurps and flicks of her tongue that make you nearly collapse. 

"Just look at all that fucking cum. I'm covered in it, like a good little slut should be," she marvels, staring at the exhaustion plastered across your face. "Bet that felt good, huh? God, there's like a week's worth of cum here. All milked out of your thick fucking cock."

And Yuna has never looked better. 

"H-hold on, I'll get something to clean that up—"

Yuna gets to her feet, stepping in to shut down the idea before you can finish. "No need. I'll keep it on until we get to your apartment. Plus, I look the prettiest when I'm dripping with your cum."

It's insane—the words this girl will casually throw out in public, and how she wants to spend the entire elevator ride looking like that. Even if it's late enough that hardly anybody uses this elevator, there's always a chance you could run into someone who lives here. But saying no to this girl was never an option, already heading back the direction of the elevator without giving much a chance to argue, much less a chance to slip your pants back on.

Shin Yuna is quite possibly the worst influence—and yet, here you are.

Once she's all cleaned up, it's just pure unadulterated lust, from both ends as you find a spot on the couch to crash into with Yuna straddling you. Not an ounce of innocence in the kiss. Nothing but hot breath and moans, not even a second to break for air. The alcohol, the ride back here, the blowjob in the goddamn parking garage, you can't even contain yourself anymore. You let this girl get to you in the best of ways and give into this sinful temptation with an absolute desire to ruin her.

Yuna groans as you plant these rough, messy kisses along her neck—god, she tastes so good, like strawberries and sin and everything you're addicted to. She writhes under you, fingers tangled through your hair and you're not leaving your lips off her for a single second. 

"Keep doing that, please, f-fuck," Yuna pleads, and you flip her around effortlessly to do so, her tight little body flat on her back underneath you. You leave these marks all down her neck—sucking hard on that sensitive skin so easy to bruise, and sinking your teeth in at every opportunity. All these whimpers fill your ears and the louder they are, the harder you bite, the rougher your kisses grow.

This relentless assault leaves her breathless, an abrupt change from the usual confidence and arrogance that defines her. Right here, under you like this, Yuna makes it so easy to have her body entirely at your mercy—even more when you strip her shirt off and toss it aside, revealing those breasts fully to the chilly air. You barely have time to admire the sight of them before your mouth moves to devour the newly exposed flesh.

"You have no idea all the things I want to do to you, Yuna," you growl as you take a nipple between your lips, a sharp suck and a light nibble that makes her squirm even harder against the couch cushions.

"Like what? Tell me everything you want to do to me, d-daddy—"

You glare up, eyeing her intently and there's this sudden moment of silence while you refuse to get your mouth back onto her tits. 

"S-sorry, it just slipped," she says with this unabashed laughter, her apology as believable as anything else that escapes from those pretty lips. "Every guy I fuck loves hearing that. Force of habit."

"Don't make me leave you on this couch alone, Shin Yuna. Because I'll fucking do it, no hesitation."

"You'll never hear it again, I promise. Never, ever—now come on, back to what you were doing."

You raise a suspicious brow for a moment, but then it's back to your ravenous mouth focusing all over her chest, kissing up all over when you alternate between them. She loves it too—every hot and heavy kiss, every time you lick right at her most sensitive spots, latching onto her stiff nipples and sucking so hard. Yuna grips tightly at the back of your head, her fingers deep in those locks while you devour her tits and enjoy the softness of them against your face, skin flushed when you switch to the other breast.

And god, this sound that escapes her throat—when you travel down her body and kiss her abdomen, these soft little kisses that make her sigh harder and squirm more, getting lower and lower until the fabric of her skirt blocks your progression. It's this whimper from her lips when you swipe your tongue right above her belly button, a slow drag that tastes as much of her as possible.

"Skirt on or off? Your pick." You kiss at the top of her thighs, waiting eagerly for an answer as you toy around with the zipper.

"Whatever d—" she stops herself halfway. "You want. Whatever you want. On. Just fuck me with it on—can't wait, need you between my thighs already."

Can't say you're disappointed in the decision—pushing her skirt up her thighs to reveal that pretty purple lace that contrasts her pale thighs. But before you have the chance to put her out of her misery, you get a little more comfortable, stripping down to nothing but your boxers while Yuna bites her bottom lip and watches in silence. She keeps staring, wide eyes filled with anticipation as she catches the slightest glimpse of the way you're hard for her already.

"See something you like?" you ask her, Yuna shifting underneath with her skirt neatly bunched up her waist. 

"No, not a single thing," she answers, unable to hide her laughter for a second.

"Good, then I guess I can just go jerk off in my room or something," you tease, about to remove yourself from the couch until her hands lock tight around your shoulders, keeping you planted there.

"Shut the fuck up and eat me out. Can't wait a second more, ruin me with that amazing tongue of yours."

"Not even a please?"

"Absolutely not," Yuna insists, growing more impatient by the second. But it's a good thing you're generous—and more than raring to get between her thighs as much as she needs you to. 

She can hardly contain the noise when you grab the waistband of her panties and drag them down those long legs, Yuna lifting up just slightly to help guide them off. And when they slide past her feet, you don't hesitate one bit, spreading her thighs apart just to admire the sight—exposing her glistening wet cunt in all its glory.

"See something you like?" Yuna echoes your own question right back, flashing a smirk which only fades when you respond with a brief flick of your tongue. 

"Yeah, a perfect place to dump a huge load of cum," you remark back, licking a long stripe up her wet slit before ending in a gentle suck of her clit. "God, you're so fucking wet, Yuna. Dripping like crazy down here."

"Who's fucking fault is that?" 

"Not mine. You're the one who begged me to take you home because you were too scared to find a stranger in the bar to fuck."

The first few long licks do the rest of the talking for you as you bury your head deep between her spread thighs, tongue exploring her deliciously wet pussy. So sweet on your lips the more you taste, a suck of her clit every now and again, these unimpeded moans that can’t help spring free from her lips. 

"F-fuck, oh my fucking—first off, I did not beg. Second, don't pretend like you wouldn't fuck me if I found someone better," Yuna manages to get out mid-way through an absolutely filthy groan, grabbing fistfuls of your hair to push your face against her pussy.

"You're saying you could find someone better than me? In that shitty little dive bar?"

"S-shut up. Your ego's fucking broken," she argues between her desperate moans. You roll your eyes at her and get back to work—watching the way Yuna attempts to cover up her mouth with the palm of her hand. 

"Is that why you're struggling so much not to moan for me? You think any of those drunk idiots at the bar could do what I do to this pretty little pussy?" You're so determined to see her at a loss for words, lapping away at her clit, but that's all this girl brings out of you. It's difficult to play the nice guy when all her lips do is incite a response out of you like this. 

"You talk t-too much. Shut up and eat my cunt, so I can cum on your face already."

That you can do—more than happily. With a hand against her abdomen, Yuna's being pinned to the cushions as your tongue lashes away at her delicious folds to really lap up all her sweetness. It's addictive, the way you suck and lick away, from her swollen clit, right down to the bottom of her glistening wet slit, this intense groan tearing right through her as she locks eyes to watch you devour her cunt.

"Forgot how fucking good you taste—god, you taste fucking amazing.” 

“You forgot? Nobody forgets how good I taste. Not when you're addicted to eating my pussy as much as you are—"

That's a ridiculous enough statement to ignore, but you also can't bear the idea of stopping what you're doing, with your tongue exploring in slow, steady laps of every delicious morsel. Not when the sweet taste of Yuna fills your mouth and threatens to drown out everything else you feel, because she's so damn wet. It's the way your head is trapped between her thighs, keeping you right where she wants, smothering your face with her dripping cunt and forcing your tongue as deep as it can possibly reach. 

"Fucking shit—your mouth, that's so good, god. Fuck, fuck, y-you're gonna make me fucking cum! Don't stop—"

Like you could ever. Not when you have Yuna writhing against the cushions, watching the way her features contort into absolute bliss with just a harsh suck of her clit. 

Her mouth hangs open, head thrown back and the lewd, whiny little moans that you're so familiar with come right out. There's a rhythm of breathing that follows—heavy and erratic the more you try to break this girl. She struggles to even control herself when all she's reduced to is a soaking mess in front of your eyes, grinding against your face, needing to cum more than her next breath.

And that's the perfect opportunity to deny her what she wants so desperately. A split-second pause, watching the lust transform into absolute desperation. 

"N-no, please," she protests, urgency in her voice the second she feels your tongue stop. 

"Something wrong?"

"You ass—don't fucking stop. I said not to stop!" 

That's enough incentive to get back to it, fingers plunging right inside that wet heat to give your mouth a much-needed rest. Which only gives you these drawn-out moans, and fuck—there's not a single thing tighter than Yuna. Two fingers sink in with such ease, so wet, so warm, just taking whatever you'll give her at this rate. Nice and slow at first, so you can admire her reaction as you curl them inside, reaching spots that make her back arch right off the couch. 

"P-please, I'm so fucking close, fuck—"

Now she's begging, needing release at a level that's quite rare to see from Yuna. You pick up the pace, plunging those digits deep inside her sopping wet walls, hitting that same spot that makes her hips jolt so violently. 

"Is this what you needed? Come on, I know you're right fucking there. Fucking cum, Yuna. Cum like the needy little slut you are." 

You're not sure if it's the words that do her in, or the merciless assault of your fingers—both together is what gets the job done, the constant wet squelch that echoes with every furious plunge deep into her slick warmth. It's unmistakable when her cunt gushes around your thrusting fingers—spraying all over your hand, the couch, and god knows what else is just destroyed at this point. 

Yuna turns into a relentless, gushing mess, until she grabs your wrist to keep those fingers moving, filling the air with an even more delicious series of sobs.

Beautiful doesn’t begin to describe it when her body spasms the more you pump into this sensitive little cunt. Your fingers are so drenched, with the juices that spill like a fountain, these choked moans that escape with every thrust. And when that begging for more turns into pleading to stop, you're not interested in withdrawal, not until you wring a second orgasm out, a third, however many it takes for her to finally tap out. 

"S-stop, you're gonna fucking kill me, stop—god, it's just too much," she cries out, every ounce of strength left in her failing. Only do you pull out when Yuna forces your arm away, thighs still quivering in the aftermath as you get a good look of the damage done. Flat on her back, she can hardly move on her own. A mess all along her creamy thighs, along the couch, and who knows where else. 

"My poor couch."

"Your poor couch? What about my poor fucking pussy? Look at what you fucking did, I came like five fucking times—"

Even in the aftermath of an intense, messy climax, Yuna can’t help being Yuna.

"I didn't hear any complaints when you were squirting all over me,” you say, and bring your wet fingers to your lips to suck the delicious taste off. 

"Because your fucking fingers felt so fucking good, you asshole—" Yuna's so worn out, completely unable to do anything but just revel in the mess she's made.  

"You're welcome."

"That wasn't a thank you—oh my fucking god, look at my skirt, you fuck," Yuna groans, eyes shifting to the state bunched up above her waist. 

"This is your fault, don't even start."

"Because you fucking made me ruin it, this is like a $300 skirt!"

"My condolences," you say, without a hint of guilt, the damage to her skirt not even the least of your concerns. Especially when you unzip it to slide it right down her slim figure—revealing every inch of her gorgeous body naked for you to drink in. "Excuse me, princess. However can I make it up to you?"

"Don't fucking call me that," she snaps, and even in her weakened state she's not any easier to deal with. "I'm too tired to ride you right now, so you're just going to have to fuck me until my legs don't work." 

"Still not hearing a please," you remind her, slipping out of your boxers at last, your stiff cock finally freed after seeing Yuna's naked frame laid out so perfectly.

"You can take your please and shove it right up your fucking ass. I'm not saying it."

"Fucking brat," you curse, grabbing her waist to position Yuna right where you want her. "I'll do all the damn work then—you're not going anywhere but into this couch."

"Good, about fucking time."

When she's finally done complaining, her gaze falls back to your rock hard cock aimed at her soaking entrance. You shift forward, a hand on her slender waist for support, the head of your shaft nudging her wet cunt.

"Come on then, I haven't got all night—are you gonna fuck me, or just stare?"

"Yes you do. What the fuck else are you gonna do? Go fuck somebody else you won't even remember the next morning?" Angling yourself just right, you don’t waste a second longer to slide inside, right up to the hilt—feeling that tight, heavenly cunt consume every inch.

"My fucking god, Yuna—"

She's never felt more incredible, or so goddamn tight, impossibly wet, warm—every sensation just overwhelming, getting used to it all over like it's the first time inside her. A feeling that doesn't disappear, even before you move one bit, with these beautiful legs spread wide apart as they'll go.

"Forgot how tight my little pussy was, huh?" she taunts, loving the groans that it pulls from your mouth. "You haven't changed at all. Still have that same cute little face you get when you've got your cock inside me. My pussy just ruins every other girl for you, doesn't it?"

"Too tight, god—why are you so fucking tight? Greedy slut gets pounded by twelve guys a week and still this tight? Fuck—"

"Less talking and more fucking. Move your hips—fuck me like the filthy little whore I am, come on."

Your only response is to get your hands right on both sides of Yuna's tiny waist, sliding outside with just the tip of your cock remaining, before slamming your entire shaft to fill her again. The first thrusts alone have her clutching the couch cushions to brace for more, each one a little rougher, a little deeper, the walls of her cunt clenching so hard the more of your throbbing shaft fills her. 

"Don’t hold back. I wanna feel every inch of that thick fucking cock in my wet little cunt," Yuna breathes out with this demand in her voice. "Come on, harder—ruin my poor little pussy, f-fuck."

"That's the fucking plan." All this tension you've built up between each other has reached its boiling point, the frustration, the annoyance, all coming out here and now. Because once Yuna is under you like this, everything changes, your hips pulling back only to shove in again, a relentless rhythm on repeat. 

"Better be. Why do you even need other girls when my perfect little pussy is always here waiting for your cock? You already have a pretty fucktoy to use, don't you—"

"Yuna, stop fucking talking already," you groan with no patience for anymore of her rambling. "Your schedule is a little booked up right now, in case you haven't noticed."

That's when your thrusts hit without holding back, hard enough to get a reprieve from that bratty attitude—watching her pretty features contort as you keep drilling inside that intoxicating heat. Not letting up once, the sound of her slick pussy soaking every inch of your shaft with every slam fills the room, barely audible over the sound of her loud moans. And that tightness, god—it’s unfathomable, unforgettable, each delicious clench driving your hips so you’ll feel more of it. 

"Then I'll fucking clear my schedule. As long as you promise to fuck me like this—I'll put you in my calendar every fucking day."

That's not exactly the solution, and you can't imagine being with Yuna day in and day out, even if that comes with the prospect of having access to this pretty, warm little wet hole whenever you feel like. No, not worth the hassle—maybe for a weekend, but beyond that you'd go insane.

"Once a week is enough. Maybe twice if you can keep your fucking attitude in check."

"You love my attitude. Just like the rest of this body that you can't keep your hands off."

She has a point—a painfully accurate one, but not one that you're willing to admit when you keep trying to silence Yuna with these violent slams that have your balls ready to unload sooner rather than later. Her tight cunt drives you absolutely wild, almost distracting enough from that infuriating mouth of hers.

But even more distracting is the look in her face while you fuck her, and you can't resist staring with every thrust as she continues to keep those legs parted just for you. That's until they wrap tightly around your waist, the heels of her bare feet digging into your lower back, forcing you deeper into this perfect tight body.

"What the fuck are you—"

Yuna's light giggle interrupts your question, the look in her eyes almost enough of an answer on its own. "Just making sure you're not thinking about pulling out. Want every drop you have. Fucking dump it in me."

"God, will you shut up," you groan, face burying into the crook of Yuna's neck, unable to take another second of her mouth running while your hips keep up this unforgiving pace. This tightness, this wetness, it's more than you can handle, using her cunt to fuck every bit of annoyance building inside from what feels like forever. 

"I'll shut up when you cum inside me. It's been way too fucking long since you finished inside me, since I've heard you moan when your balls empty. Does every girl you fuck let you finish like this? Bet none of them do."

You're not even interested in playing this game with her, not when she has you so close already, your pistoning hips driven by such immense desire to flood Yuna's dripping cunt. She's even clenching harder than usual with those slim legs locked so tight, a grip you can't possibly slip from no matter how much you tried. Not that you even would. 

Thrust after merciless thrust, you keep your lips sealed to her neck, sucking so hard like it's the only thing to keep you anchored. All you can do is keep moaning in her ear, keep hammering her greedy little cunt, faster and faster—

"I'm about to fucking cum, Y-Yuna—"

The words leave your mouth right before you've reached your limit. Your mind's elsewhere, not even in control, as your balls tighten and every muscle in your body tenses. Not even a word on her end, like Yuna was waiting for this moment the entire night. There's just hot breath on her neck, your cock pounding so hard into this soaked pussy, every pump taking you further past the point of no return—until that first surge shoots deep inside her wet walls.

A hot, sticky load floods right into her pussy in a violent throb of bursts, pumping one spurt after the other deep as possible. Yuna wraps her legs tighter with each, keeping you buried completely while everything unloads inside her. Everything goes blank, losing track of how many shots fill her tight cunt, a complete blur while your hips move on repeat, fucking it all deeper into her slick warmth. 

"F-fuck, there's so much," Yuna groans, struggling to find the words, feeling every ounce of your hot load spill inside, threatening to overflow before you even finish.

You just continue to drive into her without mercy, until your body begins to give out, sweat dripping all along her pale frame underneath. By the time you're done, you’ve collapsed into the comfort of Yuna's neck, planting gentle kisses along the marks you've left behind while you ride out the high. She stays quiet for a moment—no taunting, no attitude, letting your still throbbing cock rest inside her with your thick load slowly seeping out.

It's the most deserved orgasm you've had in a while, you think. Putting up with Yuna—just to unload everything you have inside, where it belongs. All her annoying remarks, that shameless, filthy fucking mouth all seem to fade into obscurity after everything. For a few seconds, there's bliss. A quiet bliss. 

Bliss that doesn't last very long at all. 

"Did that feel good? Emptying your big, heavy balls inside me?" Yuna asks you, resting her long arms around your body. It's almost calming, the light scratches down your back that lull you into a state of relaxation. Something you didn't think was possible with this girl.

"Y-yeah," you breathe out against her neck, struggling to catch your breath as you linger in the warmth of her tight pussy that can’t stop clenching for more. "I came inside you, now get off me—"

"Never, you're still fucking hard. My legs still work, and I haven't even gotten to ride you yet," she reminds you, staring straight into your eyes with her legs staying perfectly in place. "That load was just an appetizer—daddy." 

You groan—louder than ever before, but not in pleasure.

"What the fuck did I tell you about calling me that?"

Yuna shifts beneath, legs relaxing enough to release the hold—allowing you to slide your cock free from the overwhelming heat.

"What's the matter, a nice, thick creampie in my tight cunt isn't enough for me to call you whatever I please?"

You're ignoring her, in as many ways as you can when you move your gaze between her thighs to admire the sight—the beautiful mess that's dripping from her pussy, so full of your hot cum. "Go home, Yuna. If that's what's you're going to keep doing, then we're fucking done here." 

"You're no fun. It's after midnight, you're not going to send a little innocent girl like me out alone like this, are you?"

Again, you ignore her, standing up from the couch in complete disarray and making a path to the bathroom instead. "I need a shower, but you can sleep on this couch you've defiled for all I care. Please be gone in the morning."

It's a bit heartless, you know, but Yuna brings out this part in you that rarely sees the light of day, when she refuses to listen. Even more so when her footsteps follow closely behind, her petite naked frame and that mess between her legs still dripping without any ounce of shame.

"God, you're such a mood killer," Yuna sighs, grabbing your wrist to pull your attention her way. "I'll stop fucking teasing you. I'll stop calling you daddy, you big fucking baby. Just let me shower with you. Please? I won't even talk. I promise."

That's a hard one to trust, given her track record. But she sounds far too exhausted to even try any tricks, pleading so hard to convince you to let her share your bed tonight. And it's hard to turn down that pout, those bright, widened eyes that stare you into submission.

"Fine. Not a single word in the shower. And if you call me that even once, Yuna, I'm never shoving my cock in you ever again. Do you understand?"

"Of course. Swear it on my life. Promise. Never ever ever—that's it."

And just like that, this look in her eyes when she steps inside the shower after you suggests she'll live up to that word. You'll see. If anything, seeing her naked under the hot steam is enough to commit to whatever terms you've created. A selfish, yet regrettable decision.

A nice, relaxing shower where this brat doesn't utter a single sound, not a single dirty comment—that's better than anything in your wildest dreams.

Things move to the bedroom, as they usually do with Yuna. The two of you are completely devoid of any clothing, because modesty with her around simply doesn't exist. She slides into the spot beside you, resting her head on your chest, delicate fingers in a relaxed grip around the length of your shaft. And you’re happy to do nothing but watch the smile on her face while she gives these magical strokes, not nearly enough pleasure to take things any further. 

"Whenever you're ready to put this big thing back inside me, let me know," Yuna says as casually as possible—as casual as someone can get while palming their hand around your cock.

But you're hesitant to leave this moment—her body curled so perfectly against yours, to the point where you can almost tolerate her. Almost. That being the important thing in all this.

"I already filled you twice today. Not enough for one night?"

"Never enough," she insists, giving a firm squeeze that makes you reluctantly agree. "Plus, you haven't filled my ass, and we both know what a huge fan I am of that.” 

"Obsessed is more the right word. You might be more into me fucking your ass than I am, and that's saying something. Like, I could live inside there."

She giggles, her delicate little fingers tracing down your shaft while she keeps stroking. "Can you blame me when I have an ass like this? You should be the one begging me instead of the other way around." 

"I'd never beg you for anything, Yuna. You're a pretty girl with a nice ass who spreads their legs on command, I don't need much more than that from you."

Yuna responds with a tug at your balls, almost painful in nature to get a point across. "Tell me that again when you want to bury your face in my ass. See if that's true then. Let's see how long you last without getting to eat my ass."

"Okay, okay—point taken."

"Not everybody gets to tongue my ass. It's a privilege."

"So lucky, my life is complete now that Shin Yuna allows me the honor of worshiping her ass." 

That makes her squeeze your cock all too hard in this agonizingly slow stroke. "My ass is fucking amazing. The only word for it, and it deserves some appreciation. I don't even let anyone else but you fuck me there."

"Why do I not believe that?"

Yuna drops a hot, open-mouthed kiss to your chest. "You don't have to believe it. I'll let half a dozen guys all have turns fucking me at once—until they cum inside me or on my face. Nobody but you gets the luxury of pounding my ass though."

“I’m touched.” 

"You should be. Every guy I fuck should be on their knees, begging me for the slightest chance to worship my body, especially my ass." 

Nobody has confidence like Yuna does, even if it's wildly inflated. As much as her very presence annoys you, it’s hard to say you could survive long without that tight ass. Whether it’s bouncing on your cock, your face, or just existing in front of your hips to have a handprint against it. That doesn't mean you'd ever drop to your knees and grovel for her, but there's no denying how much power that ass has.

"Nobody has a better ass than you, Yuna. Not even Yeji. There. Is that what you wanted to hear?" She laughs—this sinister laugh, while squeezing your cock in her tight little hand, nodding all excitedly in agreement. You know it's going to go to her head, but the alternative is much worse. "Good, now can you just jerk me off in peace?"

“Fine,” she says, with a defeated sigh. “If that's what you want. I won't make another sound. You can just relax. Pretend I'm not here. I'll just keep jerking off this nice, thick cock until you cum again." 

"Now you're getting it."

You close your eyes and appreciate the silence, knowing this might be the only time when Yuna doesn't find some excuse to run her mouth. Her hands keep busy, and god, are her hands just heaven when she's so slow and focused. The one time she doesn't say a fucking word, just pumping your cock until you're ready to explode all over her.

You don't even remember falling asleep. The last thing you remember is Yuna straddling you, riding with all the energy in the world despite her earlier exhaustion. Hair draped over her face as she bounced up and down, hips so frantic and needy, groaning while you slipped a finger to toy with her ass. And then it's all a blur. Sweet, uninterrupted slumber, and that's how you ended up like this.

But now, Yuna isn't anywhere to be seen. And you're not sure if that's a good thing or not. So, rather reluctantly, you rise from the comfort of your bed, grab a fresh pair of boxers, a clean shirt, and stumble right into the kitchen for some semblance of routine. 

The smell of coffee lingers in the air, a normally welcome start to the day. This time it's different—it's burnt. Far from the rich aroma of a good cup, the one you've brewed on your expensive coffee machine you imported just months ago. Something's amiss.

There's the culprit. Yuna is standing there, fiddling around with the machine like the controls are in a different language. She's dressed at least, kind of, barefoot in what appears to be your shirt, white and loose fitting, barely covering her delicious bare ass when she's bent over trying to figure out the buttons.

"Morning," Yuna says over her shoulder, as if completely oblivious to the damage she's caused. "Think your coffee machine is broken."

"Did you break it?"

She takes a good hard look at the machine, as if in disbelief, before turning back around. "No, not a chance. It was like this when I got here."

"Yuna, did you break my fucking coffee machine?" you ask again, in dire need of the very thing she's about to deprive you of. 

"What did I just say? It's not broken. Look, if you press this button it comes out with this weird looking water and if you do this—fuck."

This is unbelievable. As if you needed another reason to kick her out the second you're awake, because you know first hand that Yuna should never be allowed in a kitchen. Any kitchen. Not after the burnt chocolate incident. 

"Let me handle this. Before you destroy my kitchen too."

"Hey, rude—I was just trying to be helpful. But you have some weird fucking coffee maker that you need a PhD in three different languages to understand."

She takes a step back, sighing in defeat as you take over and deal with the chaos left behind. "This is why I don't have company in the morning. A pretty girl comes over and immediately tries to burn my entire place to the ground."

There's this surprised gasp that escapes from her lips as you start everything over from scratch, dumping out whatever awful concoction that was brewing earlier.

"Wait, pretty? You think I'm pretty?"

"That's what you're focusing on right now? You really are insufferable," you mutter, with Yuna's eyes fixating on you while she just beams at the compliment. A few adjustments here and there, a fresh pour of water, and the aroma of fresh coffee starts to linger, slowly clearing up the disaster zone Yuna has left behind.

"You didn't answer my question." 

You have nothing in you but an eye roll.

"Yes. You're very pretty," you finally relent, pulling down two mugs from the cabinet above. "I could do worse than waking up to that in my bed. With my ruined coffee machine."

"Hey, it's not ruined, you jerk. It's working now, isn't it?" 

For now. Not the point you want to argue about right now, because you need caffeine in your system more than you ever have. At least you can enjoy a proper cup on the balcony with Yuna, even if that means putting up with her presence. Which maybe isn't as bad as you once thought, given the eye candy alone makes it slightly tolerable. 

Days pass. Uneventful, mostly, without anything much but the occasional lewd text from Yuna at random points throughout the day. Which you'll admit, is preferable to her showing up at your place unannounced, because you think getting off to the nudes she sends without having to hear her whining in person is a much better alternative. 

It's the weekend, and you don't have anything planned that doesn't involve sleeping it all away. An hour at the gym, maybe. Catching up on laundry, cooking yourself a nice dinner—trying that new bottle of wine that's been sitting in your cabinet untouched for months.

But you’ll never get to any of that. 

"Guess who?" 

That’s all Yuna says before forcing her way into the apartment, like she's already expecting to be let in without a second thought. This bright, happy smile on her lips, strutting into the living room in a small little crop top, and these ridiculous white shorts that are tighter than they have any right to be. "I know you missed me. So I'm here to return your shirt. I washed it. Or the dry cleaning people washed it. Doesn't matter."

"Thanks. Just leave it on the counter, and then you can leave."

Yuna frowns, far more offended by this suggestion than any other you've laid out for her. "But you missed me, haven't you? So I'm going to stay for a couple of days, and you're just going to have to suck it up."

So much for peace and quiet. 

“Absolutely the hell not. Don't you have your own apartment to wreck? You're not staying here."

"Why not?" she asks, tossing your shirt on the counter, just like you said. But just as quickly, she takes a seat on the couch and makes herself entirely too comfortable. "My place is a fucking mess, and I'd rather have some company. Plus, you have that really nice bed that's a thousand times more comfortable than anything I own." 

"You're not staying," you reiterate. "Why are you even here? Did you just get done with a dick appointment, so you're coming here now? This isn't a hotel."

Yuna stretches out on the couch, not bothered in the slightest. "No. I haven't been fucked in three days. How crazy is that? We need to catch up, so I figured I would stay with you—"

"We? Try again. I'm sure there's a gangbang going down somewhere, or an orgy you can crash. I am not letting you stay."

"What, is having me in your life such a terrible fate that you'll die if you don't have a moment's peace? A hot girl on your couch and the first thing you think of is getting rid of her?"

"That's exactly right. I have things to do today. important things. Things that don't involve babysitting you."

Yuna cocks her head at you, wide-eyed. "What could you possibly have to do today that's more important than this ass? Huh? Name one thing."

This girl is the definition of exhausting. Trying to tear your attention away from her brazen attitude is harder than it should be, with her figure slumped against the back of the sofa—arms spread wide and long legs extended so invitingly. That top riding higher and higher each time she so much as breathes, offering a full view of her toned abdomen. You can't find the strength or motivation to fight this, when Yuna looks the way she does. And you're certainly no stranger to sleeping with her.

"I don't have to explain myself to you. There are a thousand things more important than giving you attention. Now get off my couch and go find someone else to annoy."

The demand only earns a childish scoff, Yuna folding her arms across her chest. "Oh come on—look, I'll be good. I'll sleep on the couch, I'll cook you breakfast and dinner and clean whatever the hell I mess up. I won't bother you. Promise."

"You're not stepping foot in my kitchen after you almost broke my coffee maker."

"Almost. Keyword, almost," Yuna adds, barely getting to the end of her sentence before standing up and making her way across the living room to your side. "If I can't cook or clean or do anything, how do you suggest I pay you back for letting me stay here, hmm?"

You clench your fists so hard while exhaling, staring daggers into this psuedo-innocent expression that doesn't have any weight behind it. Knowing damn well what those gears turning in her head have planned. 

"Don’t worry, you're not staying here. So there's no need to pay me back." A simple rejection doesn't seem to deter her. It never does. 

She’s no stranger to the word no, but it doesn’t stop her from taking another step forward. And another one, closing the distance between, almost as a test to see how far she can go before the resistance starts. Then she steps back. Only to spin around, those tempting hips and ass pressing right into the crotch of your sweatpants, using the armchair nearby like support to push a little harder. 

And when she's looking like that, the way Yuna throws that devilish look over her bare shoulder while wiggling her ass is such an easy sell, a perfect visual that causes blood to rush down towards your cock. "If you prefer, I could just pull them right off…"

Somewhere deep inside, you want this—to give up this charade and indulge yourself in every inch of her. In that ass you have memorized to every detail, in that perfect fucking cunt that's yours to taste anytime you please. But the second you give in, there's no turning back.

Because you can't keep pretending that you can control yourself around this girl. Every shred of composure you try to have is fleeting when Yuna's there offering herself up on a platter.

"Do you know how long it's been since I've had someone spank my ass? Two weeks? Maybe even three. Nobody hits harder than those big, strong hands. Nobody can put me in my place like you do. And I've been such a bad, bad girl.” 

Staring at the view presented before you, your knees feel a little weak. The things you want to do to this bratty little tease are practically limitless, sending your imagination racing when you follow the curve of her hips. Because maybe it’s about time she got what she deserves. All those handprints, her sensitive flesh just bruised by your palm, the sight of her bent over and spanked relentlessly—maybe her punishment is your reward. 

It's inevitable at this point. And the worst part is, Yuna knows this all too well.

"What are you waiting for? Spank my ass, make it yours. Make it hurt so good. Please."

That please is what does you in. Because you can picture it now, feeling the supple skin of her ass bounce under every smack of your hand, and that high pitched yelp tearing through her throat the second you really put power behind each strike.

It doesn't help those goddamn skintight shorts that hug her ass, a perfect invitation to have your way. 

You sigh under your breath. Because you’ll fold like always, giving in to those desperate pleas. If only to satisfy the lust that builds for Yuna’s tight body. The way your cock will feel buried inside her ass, while you get so rough fucking her. Until she can barely stand on her own two feet anymore.

Fuck. She knows she's already won.

"Fine. You fucking brat. But not here, not on the couch. I'll need a drink for this."

With a final look at her—looking like sin and sex on two legs, you drag her towards the kitchen to look for the strongest thing you have, looking past the bottle of wine that will have to wait. Yuna waits silently by the counter, with that same knowing look in her eye. A look that has no chance to fade even once you pop open a bottle of something to help wash the regret down.

"God, you're going to regret wearing those shorts," you tell her, not bothering with a glass and taking a huge swig straight from the bottle. And then another. 

"I don’t regret a single thing in my life. Now where's mine?" Yuna asks, pout on her lips as she ignores the fact that those shorts are coming off the first chance you get. 

"You're annoying enough sober—you don't get shit until I've had enough to tolerate you." 

She giggles. Which at this point is more infuriating than cute. "So never?" 

Yuna watches the bottle return to your lips for another long sip. You don't even deny that—instead, your eyes are glued to her shapely figure while you wait for the alcohol to kick in. 

"Give me your belt.” 

You slam the bottle down and stare straight ahead at the puzzled look on Yuna's face—but there's no objection. Instead, she complies and unfastens the clasp before sliding the white leather strip right out and handing it over without asking a thing. 

And that's when you do the honors. Unfastening the front button of those ridiculous shorts and tugging the zipper down. Her shorts are so impossibly tight that even after all that, they still take a little extra strength to tug down past the full curve of her ass. But you do manage to peel them down, staring at the tiny scrap of blue cotton and lace that hardly covers a damn thing—what those shorts are concealing beneath, this small string nestled just between her smooth, bare asscheeks. 

“Surprised you even wore panties at all today.” 

“I wore them so you’d rip them off me. It’s no fun if I don’t make you earn it first.”

That cocky little smirk doesn’t falter—not until you grab her ass like it belongs to you, fingers digging in deep, rough enough to make her squirm. Yuna wants to be manhandled, you know that already, so you squeeze harder, spread her wide and knead every inch, marveling at how much of her there is to take.

Her thong barely counts as anything, just a bright blue string that disappears between her cheeks. It's the only thing standing between you and burying deep inside.

"Fuck, I can't wait to feel your hands hurting this ass so fucking hard," Yuna groans, rolling her hips back into your grip. 

You don't respond—because now you've got your teeth hooked into the flimsy fabric of her thong. One swift tug downward snaps the thin fabric and tears right through so you can get right to that incredible ass of hers. No sooner have the scraps of her panties fallen to the kitchen floor before you've got a solid grip on each bare cheek, sinking your teeth in just enough to mark her pale flesh.

Laughing under your breath as you run fingertips across those creamy cheeks, you shake your head in disbelief. "You think I'm going to be using my hands?" you ask while picking up her discarded belt, an almost forgotten strip of leather until this exact moment.

Yuna looks back over her shoulder with the biggest grin.

"We're doing this my way.” 

Dropping your sweatpants right around your ankles for some relief, she can't help but stare at your bulge. And a smile perks up on her lips the instant she catches sight of the leather belt in your tight fist. Surprisingly, Yuna stays silent, even as you test the belt out between the palm of your hand, the crack of leather echoing around the kitchen. "You wanna get spanked? Then you're gonna get spanked. Bad girls don't get a say in this."

"Can't wait," she responds, not obedient, but almost daring as her hands clutch tight to the kitchen counter to brace for the first impact. Neither can you. 

"Eyes forward then, slut," you demand, running the leather down her skin, tracing along every curve until she has no choice but to face away. Before any warning, the satisfying crack of leather connects right against her bare ass, ripping a startled yelp from those bratty lips. A strike so forceful it jolts her body forward and leaves a light imprint on her delicate flesh. 

It puts a smile on your face when you get the same reaction. Another sharp crack cuts through the silence, right against the flesh of her ass with even much force. Another welt, another moan, as this bright red mark begins to form as the color spreads across her flesh. "M-more, please—that stings so fucking good. F-fuck, more."

The next smack sends her hips slamming back into the counter, another strangled noise coming from her mouth right as you hit her harder without thinking. “If it's too much, speak up." 

But the noise she makes is barely coherent. All you can see is the look of excitement on her face as you deliver more stinging slaps to her same cheek, over and over until you've had enough—only switching to the other for an identical treatment and marking the unblemished skin just the same.

"N-never. I love the pain, love the feeling of this belt on my ass—please keep going." Even with the crack in her voice, the smack of leather against bare skin overshadows her cries while you up the ante and show no mercy. 

Over and over with these slaps all over her cheeks, fueled by frustration with Yuna yelping each time you send the belt flying into that sore, marked skin. But she still grinds her hips back at you for more, eager for any ounce of pleasure, and every ounce of pain that comes alongside.

The entire time Yuna stays bent over, loud gasps and pathetic whines for another while these harsh spanks rain down so she can feel the sting that lingers right after. Hard enough to leave her speechless and biting back to not beg you for even worse. She grips the countertop like she'll simply fall over if she doesn't. And after a well-timed hit, you force a break that she doesn't ask for—a moment to collect herself and catch her bearings. A moment to admire the redness that's not going away anytime soon.

"Still want more?" you ask her with a tug at her hair, the belt grazing her tender skin. 

"M-more. Give me everything you fucking have," she can barely breathe out between whimpers, gripping even tighter onto the kitchen counter, so that your next hit to that reddened ass leaves behind an unmistakable imprint on those plump cheeks. "Fucking make it hurt, don't treat me like I can't take it. Harder."

You can certainly oblige her. Harder is exactly what you'll do—each vicious snap of the belt a little more relentless, no pauses between several loud cracks against that aching flesh, causing the most delectable noise as Yuna gasps every single time. Even as you step back, inspecting the artwork you've left on her backside, Yuna is far from satisfied. "I said to fucking make it hurt. But you're holding back on me, stop doing that."

Oh, let her fucking complain. Even with a burning sting on her ass, Yuna can't help but provoke you a bit further, with your grip in her hair tightening. But those slaps only come faster—each vicious hit with the leather cracks over her raw ass, moans muffled as her cheek gets pressed right up against the cold countertop. 

The belt swings wide again, hitting both cheeks at once and making them jiggle, the redness across Yuna's round little ass making a stark contrast against the pure, porcelain skin. And she hears it first before feeling it. 

Another cry of ecstasy that escapes her throat right as the belt brings about more stinging slaps, until you let the folded length of her own belt linger in the air, so she doesn't even know when the next swing will happen. You love nothing more than watching her body tense up—every single nerve on edge knowing another hard smack will come her way the second she even breathes, her reddened ass ready to receive whatever you have left in store for it.

"Like doesn't begin to describe it. I'm fucking crazy for it," she gasps out, when the belt stays far enough away that you give her some sense of relief—until it brushes over the sore, sensitive skin, making the softest touch seem worse than an outright strike. Then it cracks over her cheeks in succession, her thighs clenching together as she takes it. 

"My god, nobody has an ass like this, Shin Yuna. Nobody. Especially now with all these pretty little marks, and those noises you make when I spank you, I could listen to those all fucking day."

You put the belt down and stroke over the red welts from where you may have gone just a little too far, not that Yuna would ever object. She glances back over her shoulder with the biggest smile, even through the tears staining her cheeks.

"That’s as much as you deserve, you desperate little slut.” 

Up her body you wander, pulling her upright and stripping her of that small crop top so your hands have better access. Then straight into the clasp of her bra, cupping her tits once you’ve freed them, kneading with a little force the way you know Yuna loves. 

"I can handle so much more than this, I swear. I could take so much more," Yuna insists with another cute sniffle. The problem is, you know she can. All you have to do is glance between her thighs, and the mess on the tiles tells you enough. 

"I know you can," you breathe in her ear, hand trailing up around her throat until your fingers close tightly around it. Yuna lets out this short and sweet moan in your grasp when you apply more pressure. “But you got what you want. Now it’s my fucking turn.” 

Yuna drips at the thought. There's no sense in resisting her, no point in pretending this wasn't inevitable from the moment she had herself bent over with those tight fucking shorts. You'll give into everything she wants despite pretending to do the opposite. 

"What's that fucking word you keep calling me?" you ask her, the grip around her neck making her thighs clench even harder this time. "Go on."

"D-daddy. That's it. But you said never to—"

"Doesn't apply here. One time, this one time, use it. Use it while I'm shoving my cock in your needy little asshole, understand?"

"Yes—I fucking understand. Y-yes, daddy. Just this once."

A quick release of her throat so Yuna can turn her body in your direction, the tears in those alluring eyes yet to dry up. Your free hand palms over her ass once again, getting a nice, possessive squeeze as a reward for everything she's endured already.

"My ass fucking hurts," she says, laughing it off between shaky breaths and the occasional sniffle. "G-god, this belt fucking hurt more than your hand ever could."

"Are you complaining or bragging?" you ask as your lips meet, hot breath against one another as her slender fingers grasp against the hem of your shirt, up and off within seconds so she can slide her fingers up and down your bare chest. 

"What do you think?" 

Your boxers come off last, not even hitting the ground before Yuna is stroking your stiff cock with this playful expression on her features. Then it's in her grip the entire time you walk her down the hallway and into the bedroom. As expected, she can't keep her hands off of you for more than a second, right up to when the bed frame hits the back of her knees and the only option is falling back onto the mattress.

"God, Yuna, the things I'm going to do to you—the ways I'll ruin you." With her legs spread wide, and thighs glistening with arousal, you get to indulge in the view while Yuna plays with her clit in lazy, drawn-out circles.

“Need you in my ass, daddy—need it now. Isn't that clear?" Oh, how unexpected that she’s going to abuse the permission of that one single word. 

"I can assure you the feeling is mutual," you insist, and join her on the edge of the mattress, taking her hips and flipping her over until she's lying right on her stomach with that sore, marked ass up on display, raised up off the mattress.

She props herself up on her elbows so she’s in position, right in the center of the bed. The sight is perfection—this shameless, insatiable fucktoy, sprawled across your bed with her legs parted, knees sunk into the bed, ready and waiting for you. 

Just as she opens her mouth to say something, you bury your face into those pillowy cheeks, the tip of your tongue swirling against her tight fucking asshole.

"F-fuuuck, it's been so long since I've had your tongue in my ass, daddy," Yuna moans, your spit lubricating her puckered hole all over, the softness of her cheeks pressing deep against your face as she tries to grind back. You shove your tongue deeper, tasting, savoring everything—eating her ass like it's the only reason you let her stay here tonight. The reason why you even opened the front door.

There's nothing better than the unfiltered moans while you plunge your tongue deep into the depths of her asshole, face first against it and greedy, spreading her wide apart while you slip in, those cries of pleasure getting higher. 

You taste—no, you devour her, tongue exploring, thrusting in and out of that tight little ring that clenches around each swipe. This delicious tongue-fuck that gets better the more desperate Yuna sounds, writhing around your sheets and pushing back, all in hopes to keep your mouth where it belongs. 

"This ass belongs to me," you remind her, a harsh slap on the still reddened flesh to make the pleasure even better. 

Yuna spreads her cheeks wider so you can plunge as deep as possible, so you can hear her delicious moans as your spit covers her glistening hole. One long, sloppy lick in and out, tongue so deep in her asshole that all she can do is whimper helplessly for more. 

"D-don't act like you didn't miss this," she says, still as cocky as ever through a breathless groan of satisfaction. Your tongue teases one last time, a thumb replacing it to press into the ring of muscle that's already relaxed, seeing how easy it is to sink into.

She’s more than ready, but you need one more taste before grabbing the lube so you can slide a wet digit right inside the puckered hole of Yuna's ass—fingering her the same way you've done countless times already. 

She's tight, of course, that’s a given, but even as a finger curls inside, this grip around your finger won’t begin to compare once your cock is in the same place. Two fingers is the limit, plunging them deep enough to stretch Yuna just enough so your cock will slide right in. "Only I get to fucking pound your asshole, yeah?"

"O-oh fuck, it's only you, daddy. Nobody else, nobody but you, I promise—your cock in my ass, right where it belongs. J-just you." 

Your fingers finally pop out, and instead the slick, swollen head of your cock is pushing into the tightest, most inviting hole—one long, deep thrust right up until the base, so her asshole can swallow every last inch in a single motion. 

Yuna clutches the sheets so tight, arching her back to push that ass up into the air. She's so tight that you can't even fathom it, this delicious clench around everything stuffed to the hilt—and there's nothing like this. Nobody gets this privilege, you believe. Nobody gets to indulge in the luxury of fucking Yuna's perfect, tight little asshole. Not a single person but you gets to make her moan quite this way. 

"Stop wasting time and fuck my ass. Pound me, p-please. Don't make me fucking beg." 

So much for savoring any of it. You sink your fingers right into her ridiculous hips, gripping her harder than usual to drag her backwards onto your cock. Hard enough to force this groan out of her—so needy and pathetic in the midst when your hips meet her bare ass. A brief moment to take it all in, before sliding almost entirely back and rocking forward with full force. 

"Oh my fucking god—my ass feels so full, shit—"

She's barely breathing between words, and you don't intend on helping her out in that regard at all when you're too busy staring at her red, tender cheeks, loving how they jiggle with every rock of your hips.

“Did you expect anything else?" you ask while giving her a good, harsh slap to that same spot where red is still clear as can be. With such a good view, it's impossible to do anything other than drive deep and begin pounding her mercilessly. "A pathetic fucking slut like you deserves nothing but a rough fuck. And that's what you're gonna get." 

Yuna does little but spew moans and throw her head back when your cock buries deep in her ass. This tightness never gets old, your hips on a mission to bury in her and hit all the places Yuna loves, enough to get her drooling all over your pillows. But her asshole—as snug, warm, and irresistible as it is, you can’t fathom how hard she squeezes every time you drill forward, showing no signs of restraint.

"S-so good," she lets out through short gasps, her face buried in the pillows and her teeth biting your sheets hard. “Love when you treat me like a fucking toy, daddy—"

"Yuna, that's exactly what you are," you tell her while you're so deep in her ass it's almost overwhelming. "So tight, I'll never stop pounding you, fuck. Tightest little hole I've ever fucked."

Yuna glances over her shoulder, while you get a good, tight grip on her hair and tug so she clenches harder, with every stroke balls fucking deep—as rough as you think she needs it. Even as the sound of your cock reaming her ass echoes throughout the entire room, nothing could possibly be enough. 

Your unrelenting, deep thrusts into Yuna's asshole cause the whole damn bed to creak from the violent force of your strokes, pulling her hair harder for that extra roughness she loves. 

No break, not the slightest pause until you absolutely have to—because you could do this all day and not grow tired of the way Yuna moans or how her cheeks bounce when you slam into them. Those cheeks that you get a tight handful of—palms full, and dig your fingers in for some leverage while your thrusts turn animalistic, barely in control at this point. 

But Yuna can take it, you can see it in that fucked out expression. The pleasure written all over her features while her mouth falls open as you show her no mercy—spreading her ass just so you can marvel at your cock hammering in and out, stretched out so wide around you.

"So good, g-god, so deep, love how deep your cock goes," Yuna can barely get out, like it takes all the energy out of her. You know you're not anywhere near wearing her out, not while watching your dick destroy her asshole.

"Not enough?" 

“N-not even fucking close. Give me all you've got, come on," she pleads for in this broken, muffled whine with her face shoved so far against your sheets she can barely breathe. 

Another deep thrust, enough force behind that slams the bed against the wall, loud enough to compete with the sound of her ass slapping against your hips. And when you draw back again, you grab her delicate little wrists, pulling her arms behind her back and using them as leverage—so Yuna can't do anything at all but let her asshole get wrecked.

"More, more—keep fucking pounding my tight ass, come on. D-don't stop, daddy. You know I'm fucking addicted to this fat cock," Yuna pleads so pathetically, immobile and helpless, taking whatever comes next with her arms hostage and your cock impaling her to the hilt.

Your hips do exactly that. Fucking her ass in quick strokes until all she does is cry out for you to destroy her, and then some. Yuna takes everything, the groans and yelps when you give no chance for recovery, the thrusts so deep and noises more depraved by the second. Her wrists pinned by the small of her back so she doesn't even have the chance of touching her swollen clit.

"That cock in my ass feels so fucking amazing. Oh my fucking god, fuck me, fuck my asshole as deep as possible."

When you yank her body back, your hands stay locked around her wrists with enough force for her to gasp. But you’re too busy pummeling her ass to even get a word out—too focused on that impossible tightness wrapped around your cock, the  perfect grip around every inch like it's trying to force you to cum.

"Better get used to this, slut. My cock is going to keep wrecking your tight little ass over and over again for the next two days. And maybe even longer if you really deserve it."

Her wrists go free, only for your hands to find her delicious hips again, slamming back in and using all the momentum to crash into Yuna as hard as your body can muster—until she's pinned flat onto your mattress, trapped right under you without a single break between the thrusts that hit at a different angle. 

With your legs spread on either side of her, your torso stays flat against her naked back, keeping your weight right down over her small frame. The bed shakes each time you enter the deepest parts of her ass, every single stroke her greedy hole swallows up and demands even more than you can possibly offer. 

"That's it, j-just like that. Just keep fucking my ass, love the way that you ruin it—"

"Yuna—" You bring a harsh smack down across her reddened, sore cheek to really punctuate each thrust. "You think I wouldn’t when your ass is squeezing my cock so fucking good?"

Every bit of movement between the two of you happens right where your skin is pressed against hers—sweat on her body indistinguishable from the sweat on yours. Hands around her hips so you can keep a nice, possessive grip while you relentlessly drive forward to pound her body into your mattress, no chance of lasting much longer now. Not with the way you're drilling her, no chance at all.

And yet, you can't tear your eyes away from how her ass looks getting pounded, bouncing every time your hips make contact with the reddened cheeks of her ass.

"If you fuck me any harder, you might actually break this bed," Yuna gasps out, laughter still coming to her lips despite how ruined and breathless she is. That sounds like a good option, if you can’t help it, no matter how rough you need to be with her. Yuna is beyond that—insatiable and incapable of getting satisfied for very long at all, the way most people would. 

But that doesn't mean you won't give your all for this performance. So you get back on your knees, getting each hand full of Yuna's plump ass, sinking your fingertips as much as humanly possible to watch your cock destroy this perfect girl. 

"Then I'll keep going, until we've destroyed my entire goddamn bedroom. That's how much I love pounding your ass."

She just giggles until a moan replaces it, lost in all these noises. You won't stop, not if your legs give out from exhaustion. Every hard and deep thrust has your eyes fixed upon where your hips meet those decadent cheeks. With Yuna face down on her stomach, there’s no better view to watch how well your cock stretches her hole open. 

"You're getting there, I can feel it," she taunts. You hate that you can’t even see her face, but you know she’s grinning. Smug little brat. "Go ahead, fill this tight, little asshole. Use it until you cum."

And she just gets you so riled up, that it's inevitable, as soon as those words leave Yuna's mouth. "I cannot believe I went this long without my cock inside you. When you say it out loud, it just sounds—"

"Crazy? Come on. I know it drove you crazy. The only time you're actually fucking happy is when this big dick is buried in my ass. Not just inside some random girl who's not me, or a warm mouth who's not mine."

God, do you hate when she's right. Hate it with every fiber of your being, but you don't even have time to think about anything else, because these soft cheeks you're palming so hard is the thing that's about to break you first. That same voice that you can't stand on most days, is what helps you unravel—what brings you to that delirious edge and drives your hips with full force for these last few deep thrusts that rattle the bed. 

You start to lose full control, snapping your hips a little too fast, once, twice—before finally bottoming out with her name on your lips and erupting deep inside her ass. It's unstoppable, filling her with your thick, messy release in each deep throb when your cock pumps Yuna full, her asshole accepting it with each final burst of tightness.

"There you go, fucking cum in my ass," Yuna moans out as those harsh clenches milk everything out of you. You ride that high for as long as possible, each furious thrust pumping your seed deep inside, each hammering her body into the mattress—again and again until your balls have nothing left. 

Even after then, your hips don’t cease, fucking the rest of your load deeper inside her tight, filled hole. You can already see your release trickling out, her ass stuffed too full and overflowing with your cum already. "F-fuck, there's so fucking much, it's so thick—oh my god, daddy came so much…” 

Yuna sighs out into the silence, while you're left holding those sore cheeks to catch your breath. Both of you struggling to recover. 

"That's like, several days worth of cum in your ass," you say, dragging your spent cock out of her to get a good look, holding her cheeks spread apart as it flows in a thick mess between her thighs. Your fingers slide right into that gaping, ruined asshole, pushing back whatever cum threatens to drip out.

"Jesus, Yuna. Look at how much is spilling out. Was worried I actually broke you there for a moment when you're this tight."

"Nope. Still perfect. And it's still not enough," Yuna says, insatiable as ever. Only then do you start to peel yourself off of her, her worn-out body a complete sweat-covered mess.

“Too bad. You fucking drained me dry, you greedy slut."

Yuna laughs, and when she rolls over on her back to face you, she's the image of perfection: hair matted all against her forehead with sweat, makeup a bit smeared, her lips and cheeks redder than usual—ruined but still absolutely stunning.

“Like you could ever run out. Not when I'm around…” 

Yuna shifts right in front of you until she's directly in front of your gaze and kneeling between your legs. She smiles up at you and her mouth gets right back on your throbbing, sensitive cockhead. Each obscene slurp makes it a little harder to convince yourself that she shouldn't be staying for the weekend, because you might not ever let her leave. While not a day goes by without you hating her guts, not a day goes by without wanting to pin her up against a wall and fuck her senseless.

Her mouth slides deep, cleaning off everything, and her lips, her tongue running against the slit, and the cute expression the whole time, god—this girl is going to be the death of you.

She drags her tongue in slow, gentle swipes around the head, sucking every single drop clean and looking for more. There's not a single bit of reluctance—her wet mouth eagerly cleaning up your shaft in long strokes. Then she slides both hands around your hips and shoves you back, knocking you off balance until you hit the mattress. Yuna doesn’t give you a second to recover, already between your legs again. 

Now you're the helpless one, that hot little mouth working to fit the entire thick length down her throat. You don't even care about the overstimulation, not with this view of Yuna bobbing her head, those lips sealed tight. 

"Fuck, you’re crazy—“ you let out, running fingers through her messy hair, while Yuna ignores you and devours your spent cock, balls deep down her throat until she gags the slightest bit.

"You love it, though. Because it means you’re gonna fuck me harder now.” 

Maybe you do regret ever opening the door for her and letting her inside your apartment to ruin her. Or maybe you're the one ruined instead. You're not entirely sure at this point. 

"You're gonna have to wait, not everything is at full capacity yet." Yuna cocks her head to the side, stopping her full strokes so she can crawl up and get comfortable on top of you, until you're face to face, inches apart. 

"Daddy got too worn out pounding my ass? Is that my fault?"

All you have the energy for is to brush away strands of her disheveled hair out of the way, so you can stare at her gorgeous face. "Yes. And you can stop calling me that. One time thing, remember?"

Yuna giggles. "No—one time won't be enough. You know I like saying it."

You can’t even hide the sigh that escapes. But you should have known better, you suppose, for letting the floodgates open and allowing her that one time. Now you'll never hear the end of it, and it's going to be rolling off her lips the next time she begs you to fuck her again.

"You'll never listen to anything I say ever, will you?"

You already know the answer to that. But you’ll still indulge in her lips, this unexpected soft kiss after all the roughness. After all the debauchery of tonight, it’s what you both need. 

"Definitely not," Yuna replies, eyes wide and bright. “You’re just gonna have to find a way to shut me up—daddy."

You hate that word with a passion, you'd hate it if you were to hear anyone else say it to you—but for some reason, hearing that coming from those pouty lips, you hate even more that you might grow to love it the same amount. "You get to stay the weekend, and not a minute longer. Got it?"

There's this knowing glint in her eyes, all too confident that you'll break and think otherwise. "Don't be so sure about that. After one more night, you'll be begging me to stay an entire month. Begging me."

A roll of your eyes, and a laugh that’s far too loud escapes, because in truth, she's most certainly right. It's this push and pull between wanting her far away and wanting her around more than ever.

"Yuna, don't push your fucking luck," you warn, the last remnants of trying to distract from the truth.

"It's a little late for that, don't you think? I've pushed far past my limit. Might as well just start moving my things here."

That's a step too far. You'll fuck her brains out as many times as she needs, you'll even allow her to sleep in your bed for as many nights as she wants. This is already too domestic for your liking, but the thought of her staying here without giving you a moment's break? You'd rather perish.

"Absolutely fucking not. Don't even joke about that, Yuna."

"I was kidding," she insists, playing with the locks of your hair, not bothered at all by the agony on your face. "I'm here to get dicked down, that's it. I don't need to take over your whole apartment just to make sure my asshole is stretched." 

"Jesus, Yuna. Why the fuck are you so—"

"Insatiable? Hot? Good at deepthroating you until you explode down my throat? Because it's fun to see you get so flustered, daddy." 

Another one slips past her lips. You're just going to have to live with it at this point, she's so obsessed getting a reaction out of you, and you make it so easy for her. "Fuck off, I do not get flustered. And you need to stop saying that."

"No fucking chance. I'm going to call you that every single time you pound me. I'm going to scream it while you shove my face into your pillows and fuck the shit out of me, while you fold me up and choke me, get me on my knees and gag me until I'm drooling—"

"Yuna, I am not fucking you for at least another hour. Maybe even two."

"That's fine. We don't have to fuck at all, because my ass still fucking hurts,” she says, letting out a noise somewhere near a giggle and a sigh all at once. “I'm going to feel those welts you left on me forever, that belt made my ass so fucking sore that I'm surprised I can even walk. Just thinking about it makes me fucking drip—“

"Could you be any bigger of a slut than you already are?" 

Yuna shakes her head, this soft smile as if your insults only spur her on, as they seem to do. "Never. Not even if I tried." 

[defmaybe]

Alive (tripleS Seoyeon)

15k words

—————

“For the last time,” huffs Seoyeon, tone playful but showing a tinge of disdain toward her friends, bothered by their insistence. Raising her voice through the ear-thumping club music, she says, “I’m not interested.”

“Oh come on, don’t be so cold.” Yooyeon replies, bumping shoulder to shoulder, poking at her sternness. “You haven’t gone out with us once the entire time. We’re headed back to Korea tomorrow, mind you. We don’t know when we’ll have another opportunity to spend time like this together.”

“Okay, and what about it? Someone has to be the adult around here.” Seoyeon remains uptight, crossing her arms and shaking her head. If not for the neon lights gleaming throughout the place, her face would be seen lit bright red with rage. “I’m down to follow you around and maybe have a drink or two, but please leave me out of your bullshit.”

“Bullshit? You mean us flirting with the guys here?” Xinyu points at one such man, in a ragged business suit, clearly a few bottles in and on the verge of falling over. “They won’t remember a damn thing when they wake up.”

“And what if they do remember? What about the rest of us then? Have you considered what you’re doing can harm our career, hell our personal lives?”

“Hasn’t done anything, so I think we’re good,” Xinyu fires back, as if it were a gotcha moment. Drinking another round to prove her point, she adds, “Look, I’m saying you should have fun every now and then. A little party never killed nobody, after all.”

“I don’t think that saying is true these days,” replies Seoyeon, tilting her head, unconvinced. She rises from her seat to leave, unwilling to hear any more of her friends’ yapping. “Like I said, I’m not interested. Just call when you need me to take you home.”

As she walks away from her two friends, disappearing into the energetic crowd, Xinyu and Yooyeon stare at each other, shrugging their shoulders before returning to the club’s backrooms. 

—————

“Look, for the last time, I’m not interested,” you tell your friend, looking left and right. Clubs have never been your favorite place nor have parties been your favorite pastime. Nevertheless, you’re still accompanying a few workmates there because of bullshit office culture and so-called teambuilding. For a weekday, the energy is surprisingly electric. “I don’t mind having one drink, but I’d rather be home right now over anything, so—”

“Dude, this is where all the rich people and celebrities hang out. No way on earth you’re not going,” your friend tells you, as if the last thing you wanted was to share the same space with more men and women in the upper tax bracket when you’re not even making a tenth of their monthly income. Nevermind the fact that most of you unceremoniously decided on this excursion at the eleventh hour—you’re all still in your office attire, evidently worn out and in need of a laundry service. “I mean, there are some gachas nearby, since you seem to like them a lot—”

“Hey. I haven’t bought a gacha in two weeks!” you fire back, but your reply is drowned out in a sea of colleague laughs and party music. 

You can only shake your head and sigh, taking an embarrassing defeat on your character. 

As you scan your surroundings, you can’t help but recognize that you’d fit right in with all the groggy strangers and passed out drunkards filling out the seats and the corners of the club. Your sleep-deprived brain might as well be a few rounds in with how overworked and pushed it has been with all the overtimes, assignments, and take-home work you’d been receiving. All that for the bare minimum with no consideration for promotion nor any hints indicating such. But to be fair, you’d only been around for a handful of months; most of your peers have found their careers stuck for up to years. 

And based on some of the other salarymen you’ve seen knocked unconscious, they seemingly feel the same way. So you can conclude that it’s only right that you should drink your worries and sorrows away, at least for tonight.

It doesn’t take long for jovial merrymaking and intoxication to set in. You swear that your coworkers emptied out two buckets full of alcohol bottles in mere minutes, with plenty of liquor in great abundance to pass around. It gets to a point where you have to take at least one.

And so you do—in tiny, barely recognizable sips to blend in.

Some of your colleagues are singing their hearts out, others end up on the dance floor, but most fall head first onto the table, completely inebriated. Their minds filled with poison, your cue to weasel out of there.

Making your way through the crowd, unsure of where the entrance and exit was, you head down some steps, uncaringly bumping every person that passes by you and vice versa. You’re one bad move away from an incident. It could be anyone.

It ends up catching up to you.

“Oh!” A frantic shout rips through your ears and to everyone nearby, sending you careening onto the floor—except it’s your body crouching by impulse. Glancing to your side, a phone falls onto the stairsteps with a not so audible thump. Your natural instinct is to grab it, while the party goes on without a care.

The person turns around and immediately realizes what’s happened. Reaching out her hand, it intertwines with yours. Your eyes meet. An air of familiarity flows between you two. It’s a slow-motion, time-freezing scene straight out of any cliche drama—the ones you’d make fun of for being too unrealistic and predictable. And now, you’re put in that exact same scenario. Not a soul could have written your story any better.

Looking into her eyes, you’re taken back to not that long ago, at the tail end of a busy day like this one:

—————

As the clock struck the top of the hour before midnight, a command blared through the subway station speakers, telling all passengers that there’s only 30 minutes remaining before all services will come to an end. And yet, even this late, every terminal is brimming with life. 

All the more reason to rush through the crowd and head home. Another overtime shift in the books and you’re running on fumes to get back to your apartment. You’re dead set on crashing as soon as you hit the bed or the couch, whichever is the first you see. 

You barely make it, narrowly entering the train mere seconds before the doors close. Before you’re forced to stay the night in some convenience store to get some semblance of sleep.

Inside, the carriage is filled with people from all walks of life, from single parents and families with their children, businessmen from salarymen to executives, to partygoers going club hopping. The city never sleeps. Like everyone else, you occupy yourself in your own earphones and music to get by until you reach your stop.

Shuffling your way out the train and down the steps, you recall this exact moment. It should have been an afterthought, but you still remember everything vividly: a bump—a borderline tackle—that sends you tripping down the stairs. No wonder that scream sounded so familiar.

Instead of a phone, it's a patchwork of documents and paperwork flying in every direction. The girl frantically grabs for whatever she can retrieve while you recover the rest. She’s quite apologetic doing so, repeatedly saying ‘Sorry’ in the tiniest voice imaginable, that you overlook how she’s got all your files mixed up with no cohesion or continuity whatsoever. 

“God, I’m so—so—sorry—” she mutters, clutching the last of your paper before straightening the pile she collected and handing them back to you. Bowing her head, she follows with: “I really am sorry. I was in such a rush to get home and—”

But you never hear the rest of it, because you promptly take the papers back and hurry out of there.

—————

Deja vu is working overtime. 

Your fingers are slowly pointing at each other, mouths slowly gaping, eyes also widening, stunned speechless. The girl is first to speak:

“It’s you again.”

And to be quite honest, you don’t have a response to that.

“You’re the guy I ran into at the train station last week,” she recalls, her eyes widening more, her shocked expression turning into a look of genuine delight, like you’re distant friends reconnecting after a long time apart: “I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

Glancing left and right, you scramble for a quick answer. It comes out awkward: “Y--yeah. Me neither. That’s crazy.”

“Small world, huh?” she quips, quickly grabbing her phone off the floor and pocketing it. “Didn’t I also see you the morning after?”

“Morning after?” you ask, puzzled by what seems to be a second previous encounter.

“Yeah. I was going to the convenience store for some coffee and I saw you across the street,” she says, grinning from ear to ear. “You were still wearing the same suit you wore the night before.”

Knowing that you did, in fact, crash onto the couch once you got home and went to work the next day without changing clothes proves to be embarrassing. You get completely flustered. What a spectacular first impression.

“I—yeah, I—I guess I did,” you reply, scratching your head, unable to look her directly in the eye in light of this revelation. You can only chalk it up to one thing. “Work.”

The girl laughs, covering her mouth. “Can relate.”

“So,” you swallow your throat, tugging on the collar of your shirt. Feeling sweat trickle down your face and  new tension brewing. “What brings you here?”

“Oh, some friends,” she remarks, rolling her eyes seemingly at the thought of them. “I was about to leave for some fresh air. And you?”

You stifle your laugh, toothily smiling, hoping you’re not turning her away. She looks at you intently, like you have something important. “Oh, funny. I was gonna say friends, too, if coworkers qualify as friends.”

“Really now?” She scans you from head to toe and recognizes that you’re one of those men. “I’m not surprised. My friends dragged me here as well. I’m guessing you didn’t wanna come along too?”

Your eyes widen at how quick she is at reading you. Like she’s known you for so long. “Wait, how’d you—”

“I guess we share quite a lot of things, huh?” she comments, beaming. The realization hits her: it’s destiny, it’s fate. “Gosh, it does really feel like we’re meant to cross paths.”

“Now that you’ve said it, you might be right.”

The girl looks around, and a realization dawns on her: that you’ve been making casual conversation on some narrow stairs, unknowingly being a mild inconvenience to partygoers. It’s only afterward she notices the growing pileup of disgruntled people cutting past, cursing you both out for indirectly acting as human roadblocks.

Glancing up the stairs, she remarks, “I think we should take this outside, you know, so we can hear each other better. My ears are hurting.”

—————

Despite reacquainting yourself with fresh air, your ears are still reeling in aftershocks from deafening party music. 

Across the street, from the club, lies a humble cafe serving customers 24/7. Despite the music being so loud that you can still hear it from behind these walls, the place is empty and solemn. Evidently most people here prefer their drinks with alcohol, not coffee. And looking at the girl, you do seem to share something common: that you’re both fishes out of water, living in a way that your peers might describe as ‘foreign’ and ‘weird.’

She’s on her phone, sighing as she fires back text after text to what seems to be her friends, annoyed about being bothered. Occasionally shooting you a meek, apologetic smile. You can make out her name even through the little font on the screen; ’Seoyeon-unnie, where did u go?’ reads one of the messages, and she catches on right as you’re reading them, concealing it, her face turning red and cheeks puffing.

“You’re not from around here?” you ask, genuinely curious. She’s blended in with the locals effortlessly.

“Afraid not,” she tells you, rapidly mashing through her phone before putting it away. Sipping on her drink, her eyes fixate on you, reciprocating interest. She inhales deeply, adding: “We’re here on a scheduled trip, so we’ll be leaving soon. Don’t know when we’ll come back.”

If this is her attempt to dissuade you from developing this little date into something more, then she’s failed. She has a natural glow around her, a magnetic pull that has you hooked. Even when she sounds direct, she’s as gentle as a candle’s flame. You can imagine the stars revolving around her; she’s that charming.

“That’s unfortunate,” you reply, frowning, hoping to earn some sympathy points from Seoyeon.

She doesn’t really notice, or sees through your act. Either way, she doesn’t react. “Yep,” she sighs, stirring the straw on her drink, glancing down on the table’s surface. “Tonight’s actually our last night before we leave tomorrow, so we went out. Not a party animal, so—”

She should have probably led with that. Hearing that this encounter will be as brief as your previous ones rips through your hopes and dreams like a gun shot straight through your heart.

It leaves you speechless for a moment. Unable to take even a little sip of your own drink too. 

And maybe it’s better off this way. Cherish the brief time you have before you part ways again. 

“Hey, are you alright?” Seoyeon asks, snapping you from your daze.

Shaking your head loose, you adamantly lie. “Y-yeah. I’m good.”

She’s leaning her head forward, staring into your eyes intently. Something appears off. “I don’t think so.”

Fucking hell. Seoyeon’s smarter than you thought.

She pulls the rug from underneath, catching you further off-guard. 

“Let me guess: work, huh?”

It’s the perfect alibi and escape. There’s some truth behind your excuse to stand on. Countless hours of a thankless job, being forced out of your comfort zone by peers that you hardly know and vice versa, when all you want is to separate your work life and personal time. Clock in, clock out.

“Yeah. Something like that. I don’t really drink; I wanna go home, but you know—”

“I understand. I mean, I’m not saying my job is as bad, but the hours eventually catch up and weigh down on you. I don’t sit behind a desk in an office for hours everyday, like you do, but the feeling is mutual.”

“Way to kick a man when he’s down,” is your reply, throwing a light jab at what appears to be a misguided attempt at empathizing. She lost you when she said she doesn’t work office hours. 

Seoyeon seems to take offense to it, shooting a pout, firing a glare in your direction. “I didn’t mean to make your life sound boring and monotonous. If anything, I’ve got it worse—well, we do.”

You remain silent. Suspect.

“Imagine getting up at two in the morning, putting on makeup, being in front of cameras at nearly every waking moment, having to put on your best behavior, no matter how tired you are. Having to sing and dance the same song a dozen times without making a mistake. And when the day is over, you only have 30 minutes of sleep before you do it all over again. Rinse and repeat.”

A dour feeling hits you right in the gut. Not even you get overworked this terribly, even if your company’s policies are borderline unethical. 

“Well—shit,” is your only response to quite the expository dump.

“Sometimes I wonder if this is even worthwhile,” she adds, pausing to take a prolonged drink. “I mean, I’m not alone; the responsibility is on all of us to look out for one another, but I wonder if they share the same feelings as me.”

Tilting your head, you reply, “Pretty sure they’re just as good as hiding it as you are. I mean—there’s a reason why my coworkers keep asking me to drink with them almost every other day.”

“I guess, but—someone has to be the levelheaded one in our group,” she says, her brows furrowing, reminding herself of the responsibility. “As much as we want to let loose, we still have to be careful. Getting drunk can be the worst sometimes.”

“True.”

Seoyeon has already emptied her drink while yours is still halfway unfinished. She looks directly into your eyes, reaching out her hand across the table, which you instinctively hold. Despite the little time you’ve spent together, your interactions mostly a string of mere coincidences, you feel a sense of warmth and familiarity with her that only close friends share. 

“Sorry for going on a tangent like that,” she says, gently caressing your hand beneath hers, resting her head on the table, her gaze staring out the window, visibly looking tired and defeated. “I get really stressed out sometimes, and I can’t show weakness in front of anyone. I’m just—” she abruptly pauses, huffing, sighing wistfully. “I’m not ready to get back out there.”

Admittedly, you hardly know her, nor will you ever get a chance to, if she’s to be believed, but you can’t let the opportunity slip away for good. There’s no way she’s confiding this much of herself in some random stranger.

“Well, we can still stay in touch, for when you leave,” you tell her, drawing her attention. “Unless you don’t wanna exchange numbers with a guy you just met properly for the first time.”

She pauses, takes a moment to quietly chuckle, before looking up at you, grinning. “Technically, we already met twice. Just not in a conventional way.”

“Still won’t let me live that down, huh?” you remark, annoyed, much to her amusement. Meanwhile, she’s straight up laughing.

“I don’t know. I think it’s cute, actually,” is her reply, her ear to ear smile and upbeat expression infectious. “Shows that you’re committed.”

“Or that my workplace has no qualms about overworking their employees to death, but sure. Committed.”

“Hey, you’re not the only one overworked here, like I said.” Seoyeon raises her arms defensively, feigning innocence. “I thought we were on the same page.”

“You’re making me look like I enjoy it.”

“Never said you did. Did you not listen to me?”

“I heard you—I just don’t see it that way, honestly.”

“Then stop being an uptight dick about and move on.”

“You won’t let me.”

“Are you this insufferable with your coworkers?” Seoyeon mocks, resting her chin on her palm, eyes gleaming with mischief.

You lean back, feigning offense. "Only when they drag me to clubs late at night on a Wednesday." She laughs—a bright, clear sound that cuts through the cafe’s drowsy hum. "Fair. But you’re bearable. Surprisingly."

"Wow. High praise," you deadpan, swirling the ice in your half-finished drink. A comfortable silence settles, the kind that feels earned. Her thumb traces idle circles on the tabletop, and you notice the chipped polish on her nails. The neon glow from the club across the street paints her face in fleeting streaks of flashing colors.

Seoyeon sighs, the playful edge softening. "This was—nice," She glances at her phone lighting up again. Another ignored message. "I should probably face the music. Literally."

The neon glow from the club across the street pulses through the café windows, painting alternating stripes of violet and gold across her cheekbones. You watch as she absently traces the rim of her empty glass, the ice long since melted into a sad, diluted puddle. There's a quiet intimacy in the way the condensation clings to her fingertips, in the way she hesitates before finally pulling her hand away.

"You don't have to go back yet." The words leave your mouth before you can stop them. 

She looks up, one eyebrow arched. "Oh? And what exactly would we do instead?" There's a challenge in her voice, but beneath it—something softer. Something hopeful.

Outside, the bass from the club thrums through the pavement, vibrating up through the soles of your shoes. A group of drunk salarymen stumbles past the window, their laughter sharp and raucous in an otherwise quiet street. The contrast is jarring; the chaotic energy of the night pressing in closely against this fragile bubble you've created.

"I don't know," you admit. "Walk. Talk. Find somewhere that doesn't smell like stale beer and poor decisions." 

A slow smile spreads across her face. "You had me at 'doesn't smell like stale beer.'" She stands abruptly, chair scraping against the floor. "But if we're doing this, we're doing it properly." 

Before you can respond, she's shrugging out of her jacket and tossing it to you. "Put this on."

"Why—"

"Because," she interrupts, already pulling her hair into a messy bun, "if anyone recognizes me, I'd rather they think I'm some random girl out with her—" She trails off, gesturing vaguely at you. 

"Ugly salaryman boyfriend?" you supply dryly. 

She barks out a laugh. "I was going to say 'tragically overworked acquaintance,' but sure. Let's go with that." 

The jacket is too small around the shoulder, the fabric still warm from her body heat. It smells faintly of her perfume—something floral and expensive, undercut with the sharp tang of citrus. 

"You look ridiculous," she informs you playfully, stepping out into the night. 

The cool air hits your face like a slap, sharp and bracing. Seoyeon tilts her head back, inhaling deeply as the city lights reflect in her eyes. For a moment, she stands there, perfectly still, as if savoring the simple act of breathing. 

"Where to?" you ask. 

She turns, and the smile she gives you is different now. Less guarded, more alive. 

"Let's get lost." 

—————

The alleyways twist and turn like a maze, the sounds of the main streets fading into a distant hum. Here, the air smells of frying oil and damp concrete, of laundry hung out to dry on cramped balconies overhead. Seoyeon walks half a step ahead of you, her fingers trailing along the graffiti-covered walls as if reading some secret braille only she can understand. 

"You know," she says suddenly, "I used to do this all the time as a trainee. Just—walk. No destination. No manager breathing down my neck." 

A cat darts across your path, its eyes gleaming in the dim light. Seoyeon crouches down, making soft clicking noises with her tongue. To your surprise, the creature actually approaches, butting its head against her outstretched hand. 

"Traitor," you mutter. 

She grins up at you. "Animals love me. It's my one true talent." 

"What, and the whole singing-dancing-being-ridiculously-good-looking thing is a happy accident?"

The words are out before you can stop them, too honest by half. Seoyeon goes very still, her fingers pausing mid-scratch. The cat, sensing the shift, slinks away into the shadows. 

"Sorry," you start, but she shakes her head. 

"Don't be." She stands, brushing invisible dirt from her jeans. "It's just—strange. Hearing someone say that like it's a fact. Not a PR talking point."

There's a rawness to her voice that makes your chest ache. You want to reach out—to bridge the gap between you—but the moment stretches, fragile and uncertain. 

A distant siren cuts through the silence. Seoyeon blinks, as if waking from a dream. 

"Come on," she says, nodding toward a flickering convenience store sign at the end of the long, narrow alley. “I'll buy you a drink that doesn't taste like regret."

—————

It’s half-past midnight. The air inside Room 408 hangs thick with ghosts of cheap perfume and spilled beer. Neon lights pulse across soundproof walls as Seoyeon kneels on the carpet, her fingers hovering over the touchscreen. The menu glows unnaturally bright in the dimness, a constellation of song titles scrolling into infinity.  

“New rule,” she says, not looking up. “If you pick anything released before 2010, you automatically lose.” 

You sink onto the pleather couch beside her. The material groans, releasing a puff of dust that dances in the projector’s beam. “That eliminates eighty percent of good music.”  

“Your definition of ‘good’ is suspect.” She finally meets your eyes, a challenge in the tilt of her chin. “We’re playing ‘Answer Me.’  

“The kids’ game?”  

“Adapted.” She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The motion is quick, practiced. “I ask a question. You answer while staring at the ceiling. If you blink, you sing first. If I blink, then I do.”  

“What’s the question?”  

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”  

She rises, standing before you. The shift alters the room’s gravity; suddenly, the space feels smaller, charged. The thump of bass from next door vibrates through the floor.  

“Ready?”  

You nod, leaning back. The ceiling tiles are water-stained, patterned like old tea leaves.  

Seoyeon’s voice drops to a murmur, cutting through the muffled chaos beyond the door. “What did you wish for at the train station? That night we collided.”  

Your breath hitches, heart pumps erratically, endlessly going through a million probable answers. 

“A promotion.”  

She doesn’t move. “Liar.”  

“How would you—?”  

“You blinked.” Triumph curls her lips. “Twice.”  

You scowl, your brows furrowing. “Fine. I wished I had asked for your number when you apologized.”  

Silence. The neon shifts from blue to violet, catching the startled dilation of her pupils. Her throat moves as she swallows.  

“My turn,” she says, too quickly.  

You stand, closing the distance. Her shoulder brushes your chest. “Rules are rules. You blinked.”  

“I did not!”  

“Your left eye. At ‘apologized.’ 

She glares, but it lacks heat. “Cheap shot.”  

You chuckle.“Sing.”  

Indignantly turning away from you, she complies.

She picks the song almost a little too fast. ‘Into the New World’ by Girls’ Generation flashes on the screen. A classic. A rite of passage for every female aspirant looking to get into the industry.

The opening notes shimmer, crystalline and familiar. She takes the mic like a weapon, her knuckles clenched, white.  

“You know this one?” she asks, back still turned.  

“Who doesn’t?”  

“Right.” A bitter edge. “National anthem.”  

When she faces you, the transformation is jarring. Her posture straightens, shoulders pulling back. Chin lifted. Even her breathing changes: measured, controlled. The girl who tripped on alley cobblestones is gone. In her place: a performer. A born to be idol.

Her voice is clean, technically sound—every note placed with surgical precision. But it’s hollow. A perfect mannequin singing a perfect replica of joy.  

Halfway through, she stumbles. Not on the notes, but on the choreography. Her hand rises automatically for a fanchant that isn’t there, then aborts the motion, fingers curling into her palm. She doesn’t look at you. A glance here and there, but otherwise, you’re nowhere in sight.

The final chorus fades. The screen flashes 99.7%. Artificial applause crackles from the speakers. She smiles naturally as if she performs for thousands, not for one man.  

She drops the mic onto the couch. It bounces, hurling toward your knee.  

“Your turn,” she says, her voice tight.  

You don't pick a song. Not right away.  

“My question now.” You hold her gaze. “What did you wish for? That morning you saw me in this same suit.”  

The air conditioner whirs. A drop of condensation slides down a beer can, pooling on the table.  

Seoyeon looks down at her hands, deep in thought. A moment that could be its own eternity. She holds her breath, before her lips curl into tangible words: “That you’d look up.”  

It barely registers in your head.

“—What?”  

“At the convenience store. You were staring at your shoes. I wished you’d look up so I could wave. Say sorry properly for the stairs.” She picks at a thread on the couch. “Stupid, right?”  

You step forward. The scent of her shampoo cuts through the stale air—pear blossoms and salt. “Why didn’t you?”  

“You seemed—” She searches your face, blinking slowly. “Like you carried something heavy. I didn’t want to add to it.”  

The admission hangs between you both. Raw. Unrehearsed.  

“Just sing,” she whispers, her voice shrinking, body lightly jittering. “Please.”  

Turning around, you scroll past Hotel California, then Gee, eventually landing on Spring Day.

Seoyeon’s breath hitches. “That’s—”  

“Yeah.”  

The piano intro spills into the room, slow as honey. You don't bother to face the screen. Don’t need to. You watch her instead, keenly observing the way her lashes lower at the first line, how she knots her fingers together.  

Your voice cracks on the high note. Not idol-perfect. Human. Rough with the weight of overtime shifts and convenience store dinners and wishing for things you couldn’t name.  

Seoyeon doesn’t move. But when the bridge begins, her lips shape the words silently. A secret shared.  

On the final chorus, your voice breaks entirely again. When the song ends, the screen flashes 72.1%. ‘Better luck next time’ flashes brightly on the screen, as if it were a divine message from some higher power. You don't care in the slightest. At least you did your best, and you have no regrets.

Silence floods the room, for real this time. No fake applause.  

Seoyeon reaches out. Her fingertips graze the back of your hand: feather-light, electric.  

“You blinked,” she says, soft as the neon bleeding through the curtains. “During the second verse.”  

“I know.”  

“So I win.”  

“Do you?”  

Her thumb brushes your knuckle. A tremor runs through her. “No.” 

—————

The air in Room 408 hums, thick with the bass bleeding through the walls and the raw scrape of your own voice battling the final lines of Fix You. Hours have dissolved into a blur of flickering lyrics, shared laughter that rattles cheap speakers, and the warm, drowsy haze of cheap drinks. Empty beer cans and soju bottles gleam like fallen soldiers under the relentless neon pulse, cycling across Seoyeon’s face as she watches you, chin propped on her hand, a soft, unfocused smile playing on her lips.

Your voice, which was never strong to begin with, has been steadily ground down by belting out everything from Bon Jovi to Gee. It’s a ragged thing now, tearing on the high notes of Iris, collapsing into a cough that bends you double, one hand braced against the sticky tabletop. You try to push through, clinging to the mic like a lifeline to no avail. The sound you make is pure gravel, like a wounded animal rasping against the soaring melody still pouring from the speakers.

"Okay, okay! Stop!" Seoyeon’s laugh cuts through the noise, warm and slightly breathless. She’s on her knees beside you in an instant, her hand landing firmly over yours on the mic. Her touch is electric, sending a jolt through the pleasant fog of alcohol and shared exhaustion. "You sound like you’re gargling rocks. Give it!"

She tugs gently, but you cling on, stubbornly trying to croak out the next line. It’s truly pitiful. Painful, even.

"Seriously!" she insists, her laughter fading into genuine concern. She leans in closer, her other hand landing on your shoulder. Her face is inches away, the neon catching the flecks of gold in her wide, amused eyes. "You’re going to ruin your throat forever. Stop." There’s surprising strength in her grip as she pries away the mic from your weakened fingers. She tosses it carelessly onto the couch beside her, the clatter loud in the sudden vacuum left by the abruptly silenced backing track.

Silence crashes down, dense and immediate. It amplifies everything else: the frantic thudding of your own pulse in your ears, the soft, quick rhythm of Seoyeon’s breathing so close to your face, the faint, sweet scent of pear blossoms and alcohol clinging to her skin and hair. Neon washes over her; blue highlights the curve of her cheekbone, red stains her parted lips, green catches the sudden intensity in her gaze. She’s not laughing anymore. Just—looking. Scanning your face.

Her hand is still on your shoulder—a warm, grounding weight. You don’t pull away; neither does she. The air crackles, thick with the unspoken weight of the hours spent here, the confessions whispered between songs, the shared cynicism about work and life, the unexpected comfort found in mutual exhaustion. The ridiculousness of your dying-frog impression evaporates, replaced by something else entirely. Something fragile, terrifyingly potent, and charged with the raw intimacy of the dying night.

You see the shift in her eyes, a softening, a question forming in the slight tilt of her head. Your own gaze drops to her lips, then flickers back up, held captive. The scant distance between you feels like an impossible chasm and a magnetic pull all at once. The noise of Shibuya, the weight of her impending flight, the looming dawn—it all recedes, muffled by the soundproofed walls and the sudden, profound quiet binding you together. You lean in, your movement barely a fraction. An unconscious yielding to gravity. Her breath catches a tiny, audible hitch. Her eyes widen slightly, dark pools reflecting the fractured light, but she doesn’t retreat. Her fingers flex slightly on your shoulder, not pushing away, not pulling closer. Just holding. Waiting.

Her face is but a hair away. You can see the faint smudge of eyeliner beneath her lower lashes, the almost invisible scar just above her left eyebrow, the delicate flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat. The scent of her is intoxicating—floral, malty, and something uniquely, essentially her. The world narrows to the point where your noses might brush, where shared breath mingles in the charged space between your lips. Her eyelids start to drift shut, long lashes casting feathery shadows on her cheeks, a silent surrender, an unspoken invitation held in that fragile darkness. Your own eyes begin to close, the chaotic neon dissolving into warm anticipation, the space between you measured in heartbeats. You lean in further, the distance collapsing into millimeters, the world reduced to the scent of her and the roaring silence—

The door crashes open with a force that rattles the entire booth.

"Unnie! There you are! We were wondering where you—" A woman’s voice, shrill and triumphant, cuts through the intimate silence like shattering glass. It dies instantly, choked off into a stunned gasp. 

You jerk back as if electrocuted, your heart pounding unceasingly against your ribs. Seoyeon recoils violently, snatching her hand from your shoulder and scrambling backwards on her knees until she bumps the low table, sending an empty can clattering to the floor. Her eyes, wide and dilated a moment ago, are now huge with pure, unadulterated panic. Not embarrassment, but fear.

Xinyu and Yooyeon stand frozen in the doorway, silhouetted by the harsh fluorescent glare of the corridor. Their faces, flushed with alcohol and the thrill of the hunt, morph from gleeful excitement to slack-jawed disbelief. Xinyu’s mouth hangs open, her finger still raised in a pointing gesture that now feels accusatory. Yooyeon’s sharp eyes dart rapidly: from Seoyeon’s flushed face and dishevelled hair, to your proximity, to the scattering of empty beer cans, the discarded mics, and finally, landing pointedly on her jacket shared between your shoulders. Her expression hardens, a flicker of cold betrayal sharpening her features into something diabolical.

The silence is absolute, heavier and more suffocating than before. The only sound is the relentless, cheerful thump of an uncaring, soulless pop song bleeding from the room next door.

Seoyeon finds her voice first, thin and strained. "Xinyu. Yooyeon. What are you—"

"We’ve been looking everywhere for you!" Xinyu explodes, stumbling into the room, her voice regaining volume, thick with indignation and cheap soju. "Ignoring our calls! Texts! We thought you got lost! Or mugged! Or worse!" Her gaze sweeps over you again, lingering with undisguised disgust on the jacket, now spread on the couch after falling away. "And this? This is where you vanished to? Cozied up in a karaoke booth?" She spits the word like it’s filthy, her finger pointed at you like you’re dangerous. "With—him?" 

The pronoun is a weapon. A curse. A byword.

Yooyeon steps in beside Xinyu, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her voice is lower, colder, cutting through Xinyu’s drunken hysteria. "Manager-nim has called eight times, Seoyeon. Eight. He’s downstairs in the lobby. Right. Now." Her icy gaze flicks over to you, then back to Seoyeon, heavy with accusation. "Care to explain? Or were you too busy?"

Seoyeon flinches as if she were physically struck. Color drains quickly from her face, leaving her pale and suddenly fragile looking. The vibrant, almost luminous girl from moments ago is gone, replaced by a cornered idol, defenses visibly crumbling. She pushes herself shakily to her feet. "I—I just needed air. Somewhere quiet. We—we ran into each other. We were—talking. Singing." The lie is paper-thin, pathetic against the evidence littering the room and the intimacy they had shattered.

"Talking?" scoffs Xinyu, stepping further into the cramped space, invading it with her presence and the smell of stale cocktails. She gestures wildly at the scene: the beers, the mics, the close proximity. "In a private karaoke booth? At 2:00 AM? Looking like that?" She waves a hand dismissively at Seoyeon’s messy bun and slightly smudged lip tint. "Singing? Is that what they call it now?"

"It’s not what you think," Seoyeon insists, her voice gaining a desperate edge. She takes a step towards her friends, but Yooyeon’s glacial stare stops her cold.

"Funny," mocks Yooyeon, her voice dangerously quiet. She takes a deliberate step forward, her eyes locked on Seoyeon’s. "That’s exactly what it looks like. Looks like you ditched us. Ditched all of us. After all that righteous indignation earlier." She lets the words hang, sharp as knives.

Seoyeon swallows hard, looking worse by the second, evidently guilty. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, don’t play dumb," Xinyu cuts in, her voice rising again. She steps right up to Seoyeon, jabbing a finger near her shoulder. "Remember? Back at the club? ‘I’m not interested.’ ‘Leave me out of your bullshit.’ ‘Someone has to be the adult!’" Xinyu’s mimicry is viciously accurate, laced with venom. "You looked down your nose at us for wanting to have a little fun, for maybe flirting with some harmless, wasted salarymen." She spits the last word, her eyes flicking contemptuously towards you. "And then you sneak off to do what? Exactly the same thing? But oh, it’s different when you do it, right? Because you’re the responsible one? Because your taste in men is so much better?"

The accusation lands like a wicked blow. Seoyeon’s face crumples for a split second before she forces the idol mask back on, but it’s deeply cracked. Her hands, clenched at her sides, tremble slightly. You see the shame flood her eyes, hot and bright, before she looks down at the garish carpet.

"It’s not the same," Seoyeon whispers, the protest weak, barely audible.

"Isn’t it?" Yooyeon presses, her voice blisteringly cold, simmering with a deeper hurt. "You judged us, Seoyeon. You called it bullshit. You acted like you were above it. And now here you are, hiding away, drinking," she gestures at the cans, "getting cozy with some random office drone you bumped into on the subway. What’s the difference? Because he looks a little more pathetic than the ones we were talking to? Because you feel sorry for him?"

Each word is a lash on her back and her heart. Seoyeon flinches with every syllable. The hypocrisy laid bare is brutal, undeniable. The jacket you’ve gripped with your fingers feels suddenly heavy, suffocating, a symbol of a critical lapse in judgment. You want to speak, to defend her, to deflect, but the words choke in your raw throat. You’re paralyzed, a spectator to her public flaying.

"We were worried," Yooyeon continues, the ice cracking slightly to reveal genuine anger. "We were looking for you. We thought something happened. But you were—here. Doing exactly what you scolded us for. Only sneakier."

Xinyu snorts derisively. "Yeah, real adult behavior."

Seoyeon says nothing. Her shoulders are hunched, her head bowed. The vibrant spark that animated her while singing, while arguing, while laughing with you, is utterly extinguished. She looks small, defeated, drowning in the harsh light and her friends’ cruel judgment.

Yooyeon lets the silence stretch, thick with condemnation. Finally, she sighs, a sharp, dismissive sound. "Whatever. Manager-nim is waiting downstairs. We’re leaving in five hours. Get your things. Now." 

It’s not a request. It’s an order.

Xinyu grabs Seoyeon’s discarded wallet from the floor. "Unbelievable," she mutters again, loud enough to carry, shaking her head as she turns towards the door. "Just—unbelievable."

Seoyeon doesn’t look at you, nor does she look at her friends. She turns mechanically, her movements stiff, robotic. She walks towards the door, shoulders slumped, head still down. As she passes Yooyeon, the taller girl grabs her elbow, not roughly, but with firm, impersonal efficiency, steering her out into the harsh corridor light.

Yooyeon pauses in the doorway, turning back. Her gaze sweeps over the wreckage of the booth—the cans, the couch, the abandoned mics—until it finally lands on you, still frozen on the couch. Her expression is unreadable, a mix of disdain and something colder, more calculating. "Stay away from her," she commands, her voice flat, final. "You’ve caused enough trouble."

Moments later, they’re gone, pulling the door shut behind you with a soft, definitive click.

—————

Silence. Not the warm, charged quietness of moments before, but a hollow, echoing void. Once again, you’re all alone. The relentless neon continues its mindless cycle—red, blue, green—flashing idiotically over the empty couch, the scattered cans, and the silent microphones. Her jacket now hangs over your shoulders, the scent of pear blossoms now sickly sweet, a cloying reminder of an intimacy violently ripped away. The phantom warmth of her hand on your shoulder lingers, a faint touch against the sudden, profound chill settling into your bones. This karaoke booth, previously a sanctuary, a pocket universe, now feels like a desolate crime scene. The taste of cheap beer persisting in your mouth has turned into ash. The city outside, hurling relentlessly towards dawn, feels vast, indifferent, impossibly cold. The space where her lips almost met yours is a vacuum, sucking all the air from your lungs. 

You sink back against the groaning pleather of the couch. Deathly silence presses in, broken only by the relentless, mocking, cheerful beat bleeding through the wall from the next room, a grotesque soundtrack to your shattered intimacy. The echo of Xinyu’s mocking words—’Because you feel sorry for him?’—reverberates in the hollow space, sharp and corrosive, scathing.

You can only stay here for long before it feels like a prison sentence. A crime for breaking from a predetermined path. A crime against normalcy.

The click of the karaoke door shutting behind you echoes with unnatural finality in the suddenly oppressive hallway. The cheap, overloud music from surrounding booths feels like a physical assault after the hollow silence you left behind. You’re adrift, unmoored, with Seoyeon’s jacket still draped awkwardly over your shoulders like borrowed skin. The scent of pear blossoms and lager clings to the otherwise soft fabric, a cruel, intoxicating reminder that feels invasive now, tainted by Xinyu’s sneer and Yooyeon’s glacial dismissal.

You walk. The corridor stretches, gaudy and endless, each numbered door leaking its own brand of musical chaos. The sticky linoleum tugs at your soles. You don’t look back at Room 408. That booth, as far as you’re concerned, is tainted and cursed. You wouldn’t wish it on anyone, even your worst enemy. Elsewhere, the lobby is a blur of overtly bright lights and the tired, vacant stare of the night attendant. The automatic doors hiss open, releasing you into the pre-dawn chill of Shibuya.

The city breathes differently now. The frantic, electric pulse has dulled to a weary, dead thrum. The crowds have thinned, leaving behind stragglers—stumbling groups clinging to each other, lone figures hailing cabs with the desperate focus of the profoundly exhausted. Neon signs still scream into the fading darkness, but their messages feel hollow, advertisements for a party that’s already moved on. The air is cool, damp, smelling of exhaust, stale beer and litter. It washes over your face, a feeble attempt to clear the fog of cheap drink, raw emotion, and the phantom sensation of Seoyeon’s breath so close to yours.

You keep walking, directionless for a block, her jacket heavy on your shoulders, every step dragging your feet. The memory of her cowardly flinch, the shame flooding her eyes under her friends’ assault, replays in your mind on a loop: 

"Because you feel sorry for him?" 

The words scrape like sandpaper against your raw throat. You shrug the jacket off, clutching it bunched in your fist instead of wearing it. The pear blossom scent is stronger now, released by the movement, a bittersweet assault.

A vacant taxi crawls past, its roof light a beacon. You raise a hand, the motion muscle memory. It pulls over, the tires whispering on the slightly worn asphalt. Opening the rear door, the vinyl seat feels warm against your legs. The interior smells faintly of pine air freshener and old cigarettes.

“Sorry,” you rasp, your voice still wrecked from all the singing, from all the tension. You give the driver your address, your own apartment building, a place that suddenly feels impossibly distant and devoid of anything resembling comfort. You lean against your seat throughout the ride, closing your eyes, the city lights streaking past the window in blurred ribbons of color. The jacket rests on your lap as a crumpled weight.

The taxi navigates the quieter streets, leaving the core of Shibuya’s nightlife behind. The buildings grow more residential, the neon less aggressive. You recognize the familiar turn onto your street, a canyon of mid-rise apartments and shuttered family-run shops. The taxi slows, pulling towards the curb opposite your building. You fumble for your wallet, motions sluggish, your mind still trapped in that neon-lit booth, in the shattered moment before the door crashed open.

You pay the fare, the transaction silent and efficient. The driver somberly nods in appreciation, the partition sliding shut as you open the door and step out onto the pavement and back out into the real world. The cool air hits you again, now sharper. You take a step towards your building’s entrance across the street, clutching the jacket. You need water. You need silence. You need to avert your mind from thoughts of pear blossoms or panicked brown eyes or the acidic taste of hypocrisy.

“Hey! Wait!”

The voice slices through the pre-dawn stillness, high-pitched, slightly slurred, but unmistakable. Her voice.

Your heart stutters, then drums hard against your ribs. You freeze mid-step, turning slowly, disbelievingly, towards the sound.

She’s standing maybe twenty feet down the sidewalk, on the same side of the street as your apartment building, swaying slightly. Seoyeon. No Yooyeon, no Xinyu, no manager. Only her, silhouetted under the harsh glow of a singular streetlamp, wearing the same jean shorts and thin top from the karaoke booth, her arms wrapped around herself against the relentless cold. Her hair is way messier, escaping the bun entirely on one side. Her eyes are wide, searching, slightly unfocused.

“You!” she says again, pointing a finger that wobbles unsteadily in your direction. She takes a stumbling step forward. “You have—” her voice rises and falls, as if she were winding up. “You have my jacket!”

You stare, dumbfounded. The taxi pulls away, its taillights disappearing around a corner, leaving you stranded on the curb facing her. The street is completely deserted. The only sounds you can hear are the distant hum of the city and the frantic pounding of your own pulse.

“Seoyeon?” Your voice is rough scraped gravel. “How are you here?”

She ignores the question, focusing entirely on the bundle in your hands. “My jacket!” she insists, lurching towards you with more determination than coordination. “Give it! They’ll—they’ll smell it on you—or something,” Her logic is drowned by the evident alcohol still swirling in her system. She covered it better in the booth, fueled by adrenaline and shared rebellion. Now, outside, alone, the full weight of the drinks hits her like a truck.

She reaches you, close enough that you catch the stronger scent of layered soju and see the hectic flush high on her cheeks under the streetlight. Her eyes are glassy, pupils dilated, but beneath the intoxication, there’s a frantic, almost panicked energy. She makes a grab for the jacket crumpled against your chest.

“Seoyeon, stop,” you say, instinctively taking a half-step back. “You shouldn’t be out here alone. Where are the others? Your manager?”

“Fuck them,” she slurs, swiping at the jacket again. Her fingers brush the fabric. “Judgy—hypocrites—‘Feel sorry for him’—fuck them!” Her voice rises, echoing slightly in the quiet street. “Just gimme my jacket!”

This time she lunges with reckless abandon, off balance, her weight tipping dangerously forward as she snatches at the bundle. Her fingers clutch on the fabric, tugging hard. Caught by surprise, you instinctively hold on for a split second. The opposing forces—her drunken momentum, your reflexive resistance—are disastrous.

She gasps, her eyes flying wide with sudden, sobering terror as her feet teeter and tangle. She pitches sideways, not towards you, but towards the unforgiving pavement of the sidewalk.

Instinct screams louder than thought. You drop the jacket and lunge forward, shooting out your arms. You catch her not gracefully, but desperately, one arm hooking awkwardly around her waist, the other hand grabbing her upper arm right as her knees buckle. Her weight slams into you, solid and warm and terrifyingly limp. You stagger back a step, boots scraping loudly on the pavement, struggling to keep both of you upright.

For a heart-stopping moment, she’s dead weight against you, her face buried against your shoulder, her breathing ragged and hot through the fabric of your shirt. The scent of alcohol, pear blossoms, and sheer, unadulterated panic washes over you. You tighten your grip, bracing your legs, holding her suspended inches from the ground.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” you repeat, your own heart hammering against your ribs. “I’ve got you. Don’t move.”

She doesn’t struggle. She sags against you, a shudder running through her frame. “Told you,” she mumbles, her voice muffled against your shoulder, thick with tears, or exhaustion, or both. “Screw them. I just—wanted my jacket—”

The near-disaster shocks some clarity into the situation. She’s out here alone, drunk, stumbling, and clearly in no state to navigate back to wherever her group is staying, let alone face her manager. The memory of Yooyeon’s icy command—’Stay away from her’—wars with the immediate, undeniable reality of Seoyeon trembling against you, inches from cracking her head open.

You look across the street. Your apartment building entrance is right there. Safe. Contained. A world away from judgmental friends and furious managers.

The jacket lies discarded on the damp pavement. You ignore it for now. Carefully, shifting your grip to better support her weight, you turn her slightly, keeping one arm firmly around her waist. She doesn’t resist, leaning heavily into your side, her head lolling against your shoulder. Her eyes are half-closed now, the frantic energy draining away, replaced by sheer, drunken exhaustion.

“Come on,” you say, your voice low, firm. “My place is right there. Across the street. You need to calm down. Get some water.”

She mumbles something incoherent, but allows you to guide her, her steps shuffling and uncoordinated. You half-walk, half-carry her a few steps to the curb, glance quickly for non-existent traffic, then navigate the short distance across the street to your building’s entrance. The automatic door slides open with a soft sigh.

The fluorescent-lit lobby is starkly quiet after the street. The night concierge glances up from his phone right as he’s about to walk away from the front counter, his expression carefully neutral as he takes in the scene: you supporting a clearly inebriated, strikingly beautiful young woman inside. You avoid his eyes, steering Seoyeon towards the elevators. She stumbles again on the smooth floor, and you tighten your hold, pulling her closer. Her warmth, her weight, the softness of her hair against your jaw—it’s overwhelming, charged with a different kind of tension now, born of necessity and shared vulnerability.

Punching the elevator button, waiting feels eternal under the concierge’s silent observation, but he eventually leaves you alone to your own devices before the doors finally slide open. You maneuver her inside, leaning her against the mirrored wall as you press the button for your floor. The reflection shows her slumped posture, her flushed face, her eyes slammed shut. She looks impossibly young and utterly spent. You pick up the jacket from where you’d managed to grab it off the pavement without dropping her.

The elevator ascends in silence, the hum of machinery the only sound. The mirrored walls amplify the awkward intimacy, the sheer strangeness of the situation. You hold her upright, her body a soft, trusting weight against yours, the events of the last hour—the singing, the almost-kiss, the shattering interruption, the street rescue—collapsing into a single, surreal point of contact in this sterile, ascending box. Her jacket, previously a symbol of stolen connection, now feels like a burden, a complication clutched in your free hand. Dawn is creeping closer, and with it, her inevitable departure. But for now, she’s here, leaning against you, breathing softly, entirely in your care.

It takes a herculean effort to fish the keys to your apartment from your pocket, with the weight of Seoyeon on your shoulders, but you unlock the door and take her inside your flat. Approaching the lone couch in your living room, you gently lay her down on her back as she releases her grip on you, settling in and taking up every little space. Leaving her to rest, you rush to the kitchen fridge and grab a glass and a pitcher of water, pouring it as you return to her, sprawled and deeply wasted. Well aware of the dangerous precedent you’re setting and its disastrous consequences, you can only pray she comes to her senses.

Placing the half-full glass of water and the pitcher on the table, you gently mutter, “Oh, Seoyeon. If only—” 

The rest are words you don’t have the heart to openly declare. You share equal amounts of accountability as her, except you won’t get half the lashings, whether from her friends or from upper management.

As you scan her, peaceful and asleep, you come to the realization that she genuinely does not want to get on that plane in the morning. Beneath that quiet exterior lies unfettered frustration and rage against her so-called friends. The one time she decides to loosen up and have a night all to herself, it almost causes a near career-ending situation. She’ll probably live with that guilt for the rest of her idol days. Such is the unfortunate nature of the beast, of the industry. To be perfect always, to make no mistakes.

As the night approaches the point of fading away, you’re reminded of your own path. So different, yet so similar to Seoyeon’s. And considering what you’ve been through these last several hours, that’s a lifetime till you’ll get to experience something like this again. Admittedly, it’s liberating. A breath of fresh air from your otherwise repetitious life.

The only thing you want to see is her glow, that bright sparkle permeating from her face. If only you had more time.

Once you’re certain she’s unconscious, you hop from your crouch and walk away, readying yourself for a brief night’s rest, only to hear her faint, incomprehensible mumbles, drawing your attention.

“Seoyeon? What’s up?”

The cool plastic of the water glass beads with condensation against your palm as you turn back. Seoyeon hasn’t moved from where you laid her on the couch, a crumpled starfish against the worn dark fabric. Her face is turned towards the back cushion, half-buried. The soft, distressed mumble comes again, muffled.

“Seoyeon?” You crouch beside the couch, setting the glass and pitcher carefully on the low table. The floorboards creak under your knees. “Hey. Can you hear me?”

She stirs, a small, restless shift. One hand flails weakly, fingers brushing the air before falling back onto her stomach. Her eyelids flutter, but don’t open. “—no,” she slurs, the word thick and indistinct. “—don’t wanna—”

“Don’t wanna what?” You keep your voice low, gentle, trying to pierce the fog of alcohol and exhaustion. The pre-dawn light seeping through your thin curtains paints everything in shades of weak blue and grey, making the scene feel fragile, unreal. “Water? Here.”

You reach for the glass, but her hand flails again, this time connecting loosely with your forearm. The touch is startlingly warm. “—go,” she breathes, the sound catching on something wet. Perhaps a tear or her saliva. “—don’t make me go—”

The fragmented plea hits you like a physical weight. ‘Don’t make me go.’ Back to the hotel. Back to the manager. Get on that plane. Back to the life where moments like tonight are impossible, dangerous contraband. 

You lower the glass. The urge to brush the stray strands of hair stuck to her damp temple is almost overwhelming. You curl your fingers into your palm instead.

“Nobody’s making you go anywhere right now,” you murmur, the lie tasting like ash. Dawn is making her go. Responsibility is making her go. Millions of fans around the world are making her go. The harsh reality Yooyeon and Xinyu represent is making her go. “No one else is here but me. Please rest.”

A small tremor runs through her. “Liars,” she whispers, the word barely audible, aimed at the cushions or the universe. “—all—hypocrites—” Her breath hitches, a soft, wet sound that twists something inside your chest. She’s crying. Silently, drunkenly, the tears escaping beneath closed lashes, tracking paths through the faint smudges of makeup still clinging to her skin.

The sight undoes you. The fierce performer, the exasperated friend, the girl with the sharp tongue but secret softness—reduced to this shivering, tearful vulnerability on your worn out couch. It’s a raw exposure far more intimate than any almost-kiss. It’s the crumbling of the last wall.

Carefully, slowly, you reach out. Not to touch her face, but to gently pry the crumpled jacket from where it’s still tangled near her hip. You smooth it out, the familiar scent of pear blossoms rising faintly, and drape it over her like a makeshift blanket, tucking it loosely around her shoulders. The gesture feels absurdly inadequate.

As the fabric settles over her, her hand moves. Not a flail this time, but a slow, searching crawl across the couch cushion. Her fingers brush yours where they rest near the edge of the jacket.

You freeze.

Her touch is hesitant, clumsy with intoxication, but undeniably deliberate. Her fingers, cold at the tips, curl weakly around your index finger. A silent cry. An anchor.

You don’t pull away; you let her hold on, her grip loose but desperate. Her crying softens to hitching breaths, her face still turned away, hidden. The silence stretches, filled only by her ragged breathing and the frantic drumming of your own pulse in your ears. The pale light strengthens incrementally, outlining the contours of your small, cluttered living room—the overflowing bookshelf, the takeout containers forgotten on the table, the silhouette of her curled form on the couch, clutching your finger like a lifeline.

This is the precipice. This quiet, tear-stained connection in the fading dark. The world outside—the furious manager, the judgmental friends, the looming flight, your own precarious job waiting in a few short hours—presses in like a crushing weight, an inevitable that will pull you apart. But here, now, there is only the warmth of her hand around yours, the slight tremor running through her, the impossible fragility of the moment.

You shift slightly, settling more fully onto the floor beside the couch, your back against its sturdy arm. You don’t speak. There are no words that won’t shatter this. You simply stay. You become the anchor she’s silently asked for. Your finger rests in her loose grip, a point of contact in the vast, terrifying loneliness of her world and the quiet desperation of yours. The pitcher of water sits forgotten on the table, beading coldly. Dawn is no longer approaching; it’s seeping into the room, minute by minute, a slow, inevitable tide washing away the fragile sanctuary of the night. But for now, you hold the line. You hold her hand. You watch the light grow stronger on her tear-streaked face, and you wait.

The apartment is quiet, but not silent. Only the faint hum of the fridge and the soft whistle of wind nudging the balcony glass. Dawn creeps in inch by inch, peeling shadows off the room like skin from fruit. You shift slightly, your back pressed against the arm of the couch, her fingers still curled loosely around yours. Seoyeon hasn’t moved, but you can feel her breathing change—steadier now, more aware.

Her fingers tighten.

You look up and find her eyes open, red-rimmed and puffy, lashes clumped from dried tears. She doesn’t say anything at first, merely stares at you, as if trying to anchor herself in reality. You hold her gaze, patient, silent. The world beyond this room is still waiting to collapse around her. You both know that. But right now, it hasn't.

“You stayed,” she whispers, hoarse.

“I said I would,” you reply, matching her softness.

A beat passes. Then another. Her eyes search yours with something deeper than gratitude—something raw and reverent. And then, without warning, she pulls herself up, slowly, until she’s sitting beside you again. Her legs are folded beneath her, her hands rubbing nervously at the sleeves of the jacket you returned to her sometime in the night.

She doesn’t meet your gaze now. Instead, her voice, tentative and low, breaks the stillness like a ripple across glass.

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

You don’t need to ask what this is. The industry. The expectations. The constant dissection of her every move, every breath. The public self, flawless and unbreakable. The private self, unraveling at the seams.

“I try to be the adult,” she continues, fingers curling into fists in her lap. “The one who keeps everyone safe, who doesn’t step out of line. But it’s so exhausting. I'm tired of holding it together just because I'm the one who looks like she can.”

She finally glances at you, eyes trembling. “And then I meet you. And it’s so stupid—this random accident. A bump on the train. A karaoke booth. But it’s the first time in a long time I felt like I didn’t have to—perform. Like I could truly be myself.”

You don’t speak. You reach out instead, brushing your thumb across the back of her hand, and her breath catches. Slowly, cautiously, she leans forward. Her forehead comes to rest on your shoulder. Then her whole body follows, small and warm and vibrating faintly with emotion as she folds into you.

You wrap your arms around her without thinking.

She smells like soap and sleep now, the faintest trace of pear blossom perfume clinging to the crook of her neck. Her body melts into yours, burying her face in your shirt as though trying to disappear inside your ribs. You hold her there, unmoving, your cheek resting against the top of her head.

“I’m scared,” she whispers. “That I’ll forget this. That I’ll go back tomorrow and none of it will matter.”

You close your eyes, fingers threading gently through her hair. “Then don’t forget about tonight. Don’t forget about the good times.”

She shifts, enough to glance up at you. Her eyes search yours again, but this time, the desperation is replaced with something quieter. Trust. The kind of trust that hurts because it’s so fragile, so undeserved, and yet she’s giving it to you anyway.

Her hand comes up, cupping your jaw with tentative care. You lean in without hesitation, like gravity’s been pulling you this way all night. She closes the distance the last few inches, her breath warm against your lips. 

And then—she kisses you again.

It’s not careful; it's fierce—urgent. Like she’s trying to pour all the things she can’t say into the press of her lips against yours. Her fingers tangle in your hair, pulling you closer. You respond in kind, sliding your hand up her back, pressing her into you, chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat.

The kiss deepens, not messy, but aching. Like a dam bursting. Like the moment before a fall you no longer want to stop.

She tastes like citrus, alcohol, regret, and everything else in between, like all the things you should have said earlier. Perhaps this night was always meant to end here.

When she finally pulls away, breath shallow and lips red, her forehead rests against yours, your noses brushing. Her eyes are closed, her voice small. You can hear her heart through her gentle breaths.

“I’m not sorry.”

You shake your head. Neither are you.

Her breath mingles with yours, shallow and unsteady, the heat between you both rising in quiet, unstoppable waves. Seoyeon’s hand remains against your cheek, her thumb gently stroking your skin, but there's tension behind the softness—an urgency beneath the surface, waiting to break through.

Then it does.

She kisses you again, harder this time—less hesitant, more driven. The kind that demands something, not just offers. Her fingers tighten at the back of your head, pulling you closer, until your teeth barely graze and your breaths tangle, ragged and warm.

Your body moves on instinct. You shift, climbing onto the couch, one knee sinking beside her hip, the other anchoring you against the cushions as your hands cage her in—one planted beside her head, the other skimming her waist. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t falter. Her eyes burn into yours for a fleeting second before she tugs you down into another kiss, fiercer than the last.

Your hand slides up her side, her thin shirt wrinkling beneath your touch. You feel the tremble in her breath as your fingers graze the hem. She answers by hooking her hands beneath your shirt, tugging it upward in fits and starts between kisses. When she finally peels it halfway up your chest, she lets out a soft, frustrated sound and rips it the rest of the way. The fabric stretches, then tears at the seam near the collarbone.

You blink. “That was my—”

“I’ll buy you another,” she murmurs against your mouth before pulling you back in, her teeth catching your bottom lip with intent. Pushing it off you, she tears the rest of it off your body, landing on the ground. She takes lease of your bare chest, claiming you as hers. “It was looking worthless anyway.”

You can’t even argue. In fact, you’re too far gone to care. 

Your hands fumble at the hem of her shirt now, working fast, your pulse roaring so loudly in your ears it drowns out the city beyond your window. Digging through her shirt, slowly lifting it off her svelte body, eventually getting a little assist from her hands. Over her head, then sliding it off her shoulders, tossing it aside and joining the other discarded piece of clothing on the floor.

Seoyeon pulls you flush against her, her legs parting slightly to make room as you sink into the cradle of her hips. Your lips move along her jaw, her throat, her collarbone—tracing heat and longing across every inch of skin you find. She gasps your name into the quiet, and it doesn't sound like a whisper. It sounds like a need.

The moment has the weight of something irreversible.

You pause, your forehead resting against hers, your chest rising and falling against her ribs. Her hand rises to the side of your face, her eyes searching yours through the hush.

There’s no pretense left. No posturing. No industry rules. No office culture. Just the two of you: lonely souls, pressed together in the dying hours of a borrowed night, clinging to something fleeting and real.

And when she pulls you down again, lips parted, body arching to meet yours, it’s more than passion—it’s rebellion. It's a confession. It’s all the things she can’t say with a manager waiting in the lobby, with fans watching her every breath, with friends who pretend support but demand perfection.

Your mouths meet again. And again. The world blurs around the edges. Time unspools into something slow and molten.

Neither of you have anything left to lose. But in this fragile, fleeting moment—you have each other.

As the clock goes from 4 to 5, your kisses intensify, burning brighter than the neon lights that have blinded your eyes for hours. Your hands are all over each other, exploring the other’s bodies, leaving no opportunity wasted, leaving no room for regret. She kicks up a leg, giving your hand new territory to travel. Wrestling skin and fabric, your primal urges get the best of you. Like your mind hasn’t already hit the gutter, the temptation is something you can barely fight.

Still, you never forget your place. Hiking your hand up those jean shorts of hers, you ask her: “Can I?”

She nods vigorously, seemingly wanting it more than you. 

You oblige, slowly working through the buttons, followed by the zipper, sliding it down along with the rest of the obstructive fabric. Getting a feel of her thighs, she trembles; whether it's due to the cold seeping in or from your touch, you have no clue. But what do you know is there’s barely anything beneath. A thin piece of black underwear separates you from her heat.

Dipping between the lines, the space between you merely breaths, you slip a finger through—and she keens.

Letting out this airy, thick sigh as your digit curls into her slit. Her core aches. Her mouth hangs wide, singing a profound note that’s music to your ears. 

“Oh my God—” she whines, holding onto that last word with every fiber of her being. The newfound pleasure is heavenly.

“Don’t worry about anything, just focus on me,” you mumble, softly kissing down her neck between commands, hitching your breath as you feel her pussy begin tightening around your finger. 

With her grip slowly arresting you like a vice, you slip a second digit in, eliciting a nasally moan from her saccharine lips. The chant is clear. ‘Need it, need it,’ she repeats, every word heavy, like it’s her lifeline, like it’s something she can’t do without. 

Keeping your focus on her pleasure-laden face while her features are constantly shifting and morphing. Your fingers are pushing into her cunt, pressing the buttons that make her go wild. As she writhes and wriggles beneath you, you’re holding her steady with your other arm to keep you both from falling off that couch. She grows more and more restless with each pulse, each stroke, the sensation becoming too overwhelming to resist.

“Ah—fuck—this—is—so—” Seoyeon can’t help but rattle on, even with the endless rush of ecstasy flowing through her nerves. Still having the clarity to remember everything. It’s embedded into her mind like a deep scar. “Bet they’re jealous that you’re fucking me—”

You immediately cut her off kissing her hard on the lips, stretching that cunt a little too deep for comfort. She hums into your mouth, her body fighting against you by instinct before you quickly pull away. Gently shaking your head, you hush into the air, comforting and reassuring her, “Remember. Only me.”

She nods emphatically, bracing for impact. Through the talking, your fingers remain buried inside her cunt. They’re a match made in heaven, like she’s meant for you.

Fast on her clit, you’re regaining your rhythm as quickly as you’ve lost it. Everything falls naturally into place. Seoyeon lets out these quick whimpers, unable to keep herself together under duress. She looks so good like this, so vulnerable, so helpless in your grasp. With each sigh supplementing her moan, her body pushing against you in kind like you’ve been railing her for hours. You can feel how long she’s bottled it up, and how you’ve unlocked this side of her.

“Yes—God—yes—” she mewls, wrapping her arms around your neck and dragging you close, releasing any hope you have of letting go. Not that you had any intention to, considering how alarmingly wet and tight she feels around your grip. You can only imagine what it’s like when you finally make the move on her. 

But at this moment, you can only focus on bringing her to that apex. Everything around you blurs except the heavy breaths and sighs, the natural squelch of her cunt with every drag of your fingers, and the tiny, desperate pleas for more.”‘So close,” she murmurs, biting harshly on her lower lip, using what remains of her dwindling resolve she has left to hold on, but she knows she’s on borrowed time. You’re there to accelerate the process.

Anytime now, she’ll come undone in your arms, so you savor every moment you can get. 

“It’s okay, babygirl,” you whisper, your fingers inside her delicate, but ardent. “Cum for me. Cum all over my fingers. You’re so wet, God.”

Your voice activates her. Sets her off in a way that only you can.

Arching her back, you feel every inch of her fighting—resisting—only to fold right after. Her walls tensing, rigid against your digits, before it all comes together in a perfect concoction. 

Seoyeon’s jaw drops hard. Lips forming a shape vaguely resembling an O, letting out a guttural whiny as her body locks beneath you, violently trembling. Brain going blank, having no other thought but the climactic bliss, the culmination of a dramatic night reaching its expected end. Fucking all sense and sanity out of her, if there’s even anything left to begin with. Your fingers take it all: a torrential downpour of slick and nectar coating your filthy digits, spilling onto your already worn couch, now past the point of repair. 

You guide her through the aftershocks, never moving an inch inside her needy cunt, showering her with heaps of praise and soft, tender kisses on her skin. “Good girl—you’re cumming so much for me—” you tell her, comforting and reassuring your presence will stay for as long as she wants.

As her breaths shift from quick and erratic to slow and heavy, you take this opportunity to scoop her in your arms, taking her to somewhere a bit more—spacious. Your bedroom.

Her body instinctively clings to you, arms hooked around your neck, legs coiling around your hips as she finds an air of solace from the madness. Resting her head on your shoulder, you figure that she’s actually light as a feather when she’s not burdened by the weight of her world. Caressing streaks of raven colored hair and back, unhooking her bra and letting the panties halfway down her legs fall to the floor, leaving a trail of your whereabouts. 

Gently setting her down on the bed, still in a wayward haze from her climax, the rest of your clothes follow; pants, shoes and boxers all kicked aside as you join her. Your bodies are pressed together, chest to chest, both of you sharing another passionate kiss. There’s nothing in between keeping you apart. Seoyeon looks incredibly pretty like this: so delicate and peaceful, the afterglow of her orgasm and her sticky juices clinging to her skin making her glow under the little light.

Already hard and finally loose, you line your cock on the edge of her aching core, the touch setting her alight, rekindling a dying fire. She keens, bites on her teeth, bracing herself for what’s to come, though she knows she’s not ready.

“Gonna put this inside you, babe,” you whisper , dangerously close to leaving a bruise on her skin, calling you to mark her, to claim her. She waits with bated breath, nodding vigorously in approval, as eager as you are. “Tell me if it’s too much,” you add, leaving pecks from her cheek down to her chin, finishing up at her lips. You don’t know when you’ll get a chance like this again, so you’ll make every moment something meaningful. “I’ll ease into you, but I won’t hurt you. Promise.”

“I know you won’t.” sighs Seoyeon, tilting her head back, gently smiling. “Not like you can hurt me as much as they have.”

“Need I remind you that we’ve only known each other for hours?” you reply, much to her amusement. She laughs, heartily—like you didn’t fuck her to pieces minutes ago. 

“Not bothering to ask me if I’m on the pill?” she says, trying to throw you off. 

“You’re an idol. I think we both know the answer to that.”

“And what if I wasn’t?”

You remain silent, brushing strands of hair blocking her otherwise perfect face away, seeing through the facade.

“Gosh, I will seriously get in so much trouble. I mean—they’re probably looking for me right now.” Seoyeon looks away, finding some clarity through her mostly drunken haze, even if her words feel heavy. “And if they see me here—with you—”

“Don’t worry about that,” you interrupt with a kiss, shaking your head. “Just—don’t forget this night. Forget about me, but not tonight. Ever.”

With that, you slip your cock inside her spreading core, feeling the sensation of her walls stretch against you upon making contact. Looking into Seoyeon’s twinkling eyes, seeing lifetimes in each other’s gaze, before the clench utterly breaks her. More than anything, more than your fingers ever have with a single stroke.

Lips parting, moaning against you, breath hot, laced with a dangerous concoction of  alcohol and ecstasy. Her eyes slam shut as she takes you in. It’s all too much for Seoyeon to handle at once. 

“Oh, holy fuck. Holy fuck,” she cries, her breath hitching, her body nearly jumping at the depths you’re reaching. “You feel so large inside me—”

“Does it hurt?” is your first question. It’s your top priority, caring more for her wellbeing than your own gain. Because fuck, she’s incredible. Too much for words to explain. Tight, intoxicating warmth envelops your cock as you bury yourself deep in her sopping cunt, unwilling to release you from its ironclad grip.

Vehemently, she shakes her head, her face burning red from sheer pressure. “It’s okay. I can handle it, I can handle it,” she pants, though her tone remains low, giving you second thoughts. But then she follows up with: “Don’t worry. There’s nothing you’ll do that can hurt me. Not when you’re giving this to me. Like you said: let loose.”

Further spurring you on is her hand delicately brushing up and down your arm. The only thing to really seal the notion is a kiss signed with her lips.

It takes every bit of strength to draw your hips back; she has you wrapped in a magnetic pull. Slick, wet, hot. Testing your resolve with every second you stay embedded inside her pussy, daring you to break right then and there. It’s nothing like the porn you’ve been watching during the little time off you have from work.

Swallowing your throat, holding onto a breath like you’re drowning (you are), the sound is sloppy yet so satisfying. Her juices coat your shaft, making it easier to plunge right back in. Stretching her cunt a little deeper with every thrust, overwhelming your muscles with a rush of adrenaline and blissful rapture as you fuck Seoyeon at a steady, perfect rhythm.

Doing all the little motions in between: kissing her temple, burying your face against her neck, finally leaving a bruise as a memento, whispering all the things she wants to hear.

“So fucking tight—” you mumble, brushing up against her ear, letting your tongue have a taste. As daylight begins to break and the night dies, you’ve never felt more alive with anything or with anyone than with Seoyeon, especially when you’re fucking her like this. Raw, intimate, passionate.

You can feel her body respond in kind. Her nails leave scratches all over your back, hugging you so tightly it’s suffocating. Moaning with desire, with intent. Demanding you go harder, she’s not as fragile as you believed.

“More, baby—” she whimpers, kissing your side, her embrace now inescapable. “This fucking cock—it’s so, so good—”

It’s now beyond your control. Hammering into her cunt, pinning her deep into the mattress to the point of splitting it in half. You’re working her throat overtime; unfazed and barely muffled, her voice strains and cracks with every curse and whine, clearly breaking apart at the seams. She leaves chills down your spine through vibrations of her obscene noises against your ear, accompanied by the echo of your skin slapping skin. It’s only pushing you further and further over the edge.

Pushing your hips against hers, your noses create a connection, allowing you to meet halfway in a torrid, frenzied kiss. You can hardly call it a respite, as you continue to pound into Seoyeon without quit, like you’ll burst into flames if you ever stop. Hardly a thought worth considering when you feel the intrusion of dusk piercing through the windows of your apartment bedroom. 

She doesn’t have much time left—and so do you.

“Promise you won’t ever forget about me,” you beg, despite going against your own word and Seoyeon losing herself in her own bliss. A few minutes more and she might disintegrate into nothing right before your very eyes. Forget about pace at this point, it’s only about surviving the night till the world comes calling again.

“Never,” she manages to spit, moaning against your face, body trembling. Pulling you close to her like you’re her lifeline, shifting into millions of pieces that have no well-defined identity. “Not when you make me feel this good, this alive—”

God, no wonder you’ve fallen so hard for Seoyeon. Even when she’s shaking and pressed beneath your grip, she still finds ways to make your heart flutter.

“So close, again—” she whines, and that’s all you needed to hear. “I hope you are too—”

She activates something in your head. Right there, she’s set your body on fire. Like a ticking time bomb, minutes turn into seconds in an instant. As if her clench stifling your lungs wasn’t enough. Your senses are working overtime to salvage what’s left. It’s right there—the inevitable, the end. 

You just have to give in.

A couple more thrusts into her; you’ve stopped thinking about it and choose to let go. Seoyeon keens, and then: she softly grins.

“There you go—give it all to me—”

Surprisingly, it’s a quiet affair. A deep moan escapes your mouth, sure, and it’s mostly you filling up the air with your weak groans, but she lets the moment pass by with an air of peace and finality. Like she’s already accepted her fate. And you pour it on; shot after shot of cum painting her cunt, not wasting a single drop. Falling beside her, burying your face into the sheets, now you’re the one desperately clinging to Seoyeon. 

It should feel euphoric, a grand triumph. But knowing what’s waiting on the other side, it isn’t. It’s bittersweet.

You kiss her. Leave a second bruise on her neck. It will eventually disappear, but the memory never fades.

And so remain together like this: glued to each other in bed, while your orgasm dies and the morning rises. You don’t wanna look; the sight of Seoyeon’s little smile is the last image you want to remember. It finally catches up to you: the fatigue, the drunkenness, the wear of your emotions. 

Eventually, your world fades to black.

————— Sunlight slants through the half-drawn curtains, painting stripes across the rumpled duvet where Seoyeon had been. The space beside you is hollow, the indent of her body already fading. A crushing weight settles on your chest, immediate and suffocating. The vibrant, tangled intimacy of the night—the moans, the desperate kisses, the raw vulnerability, the fierce claiming—feels like a dream punctured by the sterile silence of your bedroom. 

The digital clock on the nightstand screams 10:47 AM. You’re catastrophically late.

Panic flares, cold and sharp, but it’s instantly drowned by a deeper, more profound realization: she’s just—gone. Like the last notes of a song fading into silence. 

You push yourself up, the sheets pooling around your waist, the phantom warmth of her body against yours still palpable. The room feels too big, too quiet, haunted by the ghost of her laughter, the memory of her trembling beneath you, the echo of her whispered confessions against your skin. The faint, sweet scent clinging to the pillow is a cruel reminder of what you lost.

Stumbling out of bed, legs unsteady, the pleasant ache in your muscles a stark counterpoint to the hollow feeling expanding inside you. The living room is a tableau of the night’s chaotic intimacy: your torn shirt discarded near the couch, the empty water pitcher and glass on the low table, the cushions still bearing the deep impression where you’d coaxed her climax with your fingers. The memory is visceral, electric, making your breath catch. But the space feels abandoned. Sterile, despite the mess.

Then you see it.

Draped carefully over the back of the armchair, not crumpled on the floor where you’d both shed clothes in a frenzy of need, is her jacket. The soft, expensive-looking one she’d made you wear, the one that smelled like her. It’s folded with a care that feels deliberate, almost reverent. And beside it, resting squarely on the seat cushion, is a single, tiny square of paper, torn from something larger. Maybe a receipt, maybe a notebook page.

Your heart stutters, then hammers against your ribs like a trapped bird. Crossing the room slowly, the worn carpet feels rough under your bare feet. The silence is eerie, deafening. You pick up the paper. The handwriting is small, neat, a little rushed, but unmistakably hers:

> Had to go. Flight. Idol stuff. You already know. 

> Don’t forget.  

> 010-XXXX-XXXX  

> - S1

Below the number: a single, hastily drawn puppy. Like something she might doodle in a margin during a boring meeting.

The simplicity of it steals your breath. No grand declarations. No promises she couldn’t keep. Just a lifeline. 

‘Don’t forget.’ 

As if you ever could. 

The scent of pear blossoms seems to intensify, rising from the jacket, from the paper held tightly in your suddenly trembling fingers. It’s not the scent of loss anymore. It’s the scent of her, preserved. A tangible connection.

You trace the numbers with your thumb, the ink slightly smudged, but real. The frantic worry about work, the looming dread of facing your boss, the mountain of emails undoubtedly piling up—it all recedes, muted by the sheer, staggering significance of this tiny square of paper. She didn’t merely slip away. She left a part of herself. Deliberately. Hopeful.

You remember her fierce kiss in the grey dawn light, her whispered "I'm not sorry." You remember her vulnerability, the tears, the way she clung to you like an anchor. You remember the rebellion in her touch, the way she shattered her own carefully constructed walls against your skin. She wasn’t merely escaping her friends or her manager last night; she was claiming a moment of pure, unvarnished self.

And she wants you to remember. She wants this—this connection forged in shared exhaustion and unexpected understanding, the intimacy that bloomed in the cracks of their pressured lives—to mean something beyond the frantic hours before her flight.

You pick up her jacket. It’s soft, still holding a whisper of her warmth or maybe the memory of it. You bring it to your face, inhaling deeply. Pear blossoms, beer and soju, the faintest trace of her perfume, and underneath it all, something uniquely Seoyeon. Not the idol, but the girl who tripped on subway stairs, who rolled her eyes at her friends, who confessed her fears in a quiet cafe, who kissed you like it was her final act of defiance.

A slow, hesitant warmth begins to spread through the hollow ache. It’s not happiness—not quite. It’s something quieter, more profound. A fragile kind of hope, delicate as the paper in your hand. The world hasn’t changed. Your soul-crushing job still waits. Her life as an idol, governed by rules and scrutiny, continues relentlessly. The distance between Seoul and Tokyo remains vast.

But—she left her number. She asked you not to forget. She reached back.

The frantic panic about work resurfaces, much sharper now. There will be consequences. The weight of your ordinary, monotonous career presses in. Life goes on.

Yet as you stand, still holding the jacket and the precious slip of paper, the dread feels—different. Manageable. It’s merely noise. Background static to the quiet hum of possibility resonating from the number in your hand.

You carefully fold the paper, slipping it into the pocket of your sleep pants, a lucky charm against the mundane hell awaiting you in the office. You drape her jacket back over one of the dining room chairs, not putting it away. Let it stay. A reminder.

You head towards the shower, the hot water a necessity to face the day. The steam rises, filling the small bathroom. As you close your eyes, letting the water sluice over the scratches on your back—her marks—the image that surfaces isn’t of spreadsheets or your boss fuming. It’s Seoyeon’s face in the dim karaoke light, fierce and alive as she sang, then vulnerable and trusting as she fell apart on your couch. It’s her smile, small and real, in the grey dawn after. It’s the lone puppy drawn beside her number.

The day ahead is a gauntlet. Deadlines and apologies and the ruthless grind of an indifferent corporate world. But beneath the surface tension, beneath the fatigue and the lingering scent of her on your skin, something else thrums. A quiet, persistent current. A purpose.

“Don’t forget.”

—————

(A/N: Thank you for the commission! Again, would like to apologize for the inactivity, semester just ended and thesis work is brutal. But I am getting into tripleS a little. A bit too many members to remember, but I really like Sohyun especially. Haven't had time to listen to their new music, but Girls Never Die was one of my favorite 2024 songs. What started as a fun prompt turned into something a bit more emotional and sentimental. I do wonder if I'm just repeating elements from older works, especially since it takes a lot from Instant Crush. Hopefully with more free time, I can post a bit often than usual, even if it's only temporarily. Thank you for reading!)

[defmaybe]

Never odd or even

Male reader x Le Sserafim Kim Chaewon Word count: 10k

"It’s fifty-fifty. It either happens or it doesn’t."

You set your glass down on the table so hard it nearly cracks. "It is not fifty-fifty."

She shrugs—Chaewon’s quintessential uncaring attitude about anything you say—as she falls down into the couch. "But it is, though." She pops open another beer like she hasn’t had enough to drink already.

She always does this. Chooses some ridiculously wrong position to dig her heels in. Like if she just believes it to be true, the universe will bend to her will out of sheer exasperation. You should just ignore it, and just let her believe what she wants to believe. There really is no point to it with her. You drag a hand down your face, because you've been here before. You’re always here. There is a universe where you’ve been having this argument since the dawn of time. Monty Hall sits upon his cosmic throne and watches you suffer.

"You pick a door," she says, holding up one finger like she's making a serious mathematical point and not actively committing a crime against logic. "And then Monty—whoever the fuck he is—opens another door. And now there’s two left. So, you know. Fifty-fifty. You either win the prize or you don’t win shit."

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

And she still doesn’t care. If anything, she revels in your frustration, grinning and taking a lazy sip from her beer.

“I thought you liked your girls a little stupid,” she muses. You like Chaewon. Always have; since before her rejection and until now.

She might be onto something.

“That’s what I saw earlier at the club, anyway,” she mumbles, and it’s pointed, a sharp dagger concealed by a hushed voice.

You pay it no mind. It’s just Chaewon being Chaewon. Doing everything in her power to annoy the fuck out of you. You shake your head. “I like my girls with a basic understanding of probability.”

She hums, her gaze dragging over you, and it lingers. Long. Too long. So long it’s causing the alcohol induced haze to retreat from your brain. Then she just smiles again, takes another sip, and the buzz is back.

Chaewon stretches, arms flexed into a peak above her head, sliding against the backrest of the couch, her head landing against the armrest of the couch opposite of where you're sitting. Her legs stretch out off of the floor, her dress riding up, clinging to and stretching on her hips.

It’s a performance, designed to squeeze out resistance from any sap that would dare defy her. It’s impossible to tell if this is just Chaewon’s purest form, her instincts kicking in to naturally make any man submit, or if it’s a carefully crafted weapon, deliberately utilised and aimed with immaculate precision. Either way, it’s fucking lethal. Lace-trimmed thigh-high covered feet land in your lap, crossed. You glance down at them. Stifle a thought of fucking the exposed part of skin right below her dress and above her socks. Breathe out through your nose, annoyed.

She sees. She was waiting for you to see, to be more exact.

“What?” she asks, but she knows the answer. Feigning innocence, but the chances of it convincing you are slim. “Is the view not to your liking?”

You flick your eyes up to meet hers. Flat. Unamused. Stern. “Jesus, Chaewon.”

She cocks a half smile, hands up in the air like she’s being put under arrest but confident she can flirt her way out of it. “Relax. It’s just a joke.‘

Right. Just a joke. One she’s been playing at for far too long now. One you’re absolutely not in the mood for tonight. One that is quintessentially Chaewon. Mean. Sloppy. Reckless.

That’s what alcohol does to her. She gets all handsy and touchy and feely, disregarding any feelings or reservations you’d have about being touched meaninglessly by the girl that didn’t want you.

And the joke is not exclusive to you either. You’ve seen her like this before, with other guys. Hands on their shoulders and theirs on her hips, leaning in too close, laughing too loud. It’s just her usual mess. It doesn’t mean anything.

She’s warm, just warm enough that you can feel her through your clothes. But warm enough to make you fear the sparks could ignite something that shouldn’t be. Before you can have any more prohibited thoughts, you shift, trying to nudge her legs off of you.

She doesn’t budge. Deliberately. Straight up refuses to even acknowledge the attempt.

You sigh. “Get your legs off of me.”

Chaewon blinks at you, lashes fluttering faster than your heart can beat, her lips pouting— a poor substitute for saying she can’t believe you’d say that to someone this cute. She chuckles, transforms it into a smirk, and tilts her head.

“Make me.”

She presses the arch of her foot against your crotch. It’s right on target. Light. Testing. Provocating.

It’s impossible not to react. You could sit here, not do anything, let her rub your hardening cock through your pants a bit, enjoy the feeling of her getting you worked up. But that’s not what this is about. You know this pattern. As soon as you acknowledge it, it stops, and even if it didn’t, it would all be meaningless.

So you react. You grab her ankle, and shove her legs off of you.

She lets out a soft “oh,” before laughing, low and amused. She works herself back up right, shifting her legs underneath her, but she doesn’t look the slightest bit deterred. 

“Wow,” she mocks. “Sensitive.”

You roll your eyes, reaching for your drink. It’s water. Unlike Chaewon, you know when to quit, much to her annoyance. “Stop being weird and focus.”

“I am focused!” she retorts, all tension and energy. “Are you focused?” she says finally, slow, saccharine, like honey that's taking its sweet time to drip from a spoon into your mouth. “Not too distracted by how fuckable I look in this dress?”

You don’t acknowledge it. Again, no point. You set your glass down with a deliberate clink— any noise to replace what she just asked—then reach for three random objects on the coffee table; her phone, a book, and a coaster.

“We’re settling this tonight.”

She puts her beer back on the table, folds her hands in her lap, and sits with her whole body pointed at you. She shakes her body loose with slight movements. Then, slowly, she smiles.

“Please,” she says, voice sultry and teasing. “Teach me a lesson, professor.”

You’ve probably explained the theory to Chaewon more times than there are episodes of the show that inspired the discussion. It’s time for a practical run-through. You grab the three nearest things you can find and leave standing upright to function as make-shift doors—your phone, your glass of water, and a book Chaewon has been quipping from for the past month, How to Date Men When You Hate Men—and you form a neat row of three. “Let’s drill it into your skull. Three doors. One has a prize. Pick one.”

And for all the effort you put in, she barely looks. Eyes on you, finger pointing in a different direction. “The book.”

“Right, and that was a random choice out of three, meaning—”

“That I was either right or I was wrong. Fifty-fifty.” She shrugs, and shuts the door on this method of having her understand.

She’s perfectly frustrating. “it’s not fifty-fifty—”

She shifts the opposite way from her previous slide, her head landing in your lap. Her cheek rests against your thigh, and her provocation pokes at your heart. She gazes up at you, lashes fluttering a hypnotic rhythm. “This is more comfortable. Keep going.”

How could you?

“Chaewon.”

She hums, but she doesn’t acknowledge your protest. “What? Does having a cute girl’s face this close to your dick make you nervous?”

Ignore it. If you acknowledge it, it only gets worse. You push it down, she’ll eventually grow bored, and as long as the boulder doesn’t slip from your hands, you’ll be done with this forever. “Okay, so now, Monty—”

“You’re looking a little serious,” she muses, herself looking anything but. “Would you look like that while getting head? All furrowed brows, all focused?” Her lips curve deviously like the curveballs she’s throwing you. “Or would you be more relaxed? I can go deep, you know. No need to worry about me.”

Every cell in your body is telling you to push back, take her up on what she’s offering, and let her ruin this night. But you know. You’d get your hopes up, but she’d just call it a silly joke. Keep ignoring it. She’ll get bored.

You take a slow breath. Slow down your rhythm. “Are you done? Monty opens a door that isn’t the prize. That leaves two doors with potential. Your first pick was only right one-third of the time, so if you switch—”

“Aaaah.” Her mouth opens, tongue peeking out like a landing strip, eyes fluttering shut like she’s waiting for you to shove your cock inside.

That’s it.

You shove her off, not rough, but firm, standing up from the couch you might have sunk in immediately. “Can you cut it the fuck out?”

She’s back upright, giggling, back landing against the couch, legs curled beneath her. “What’s wrong? Blood rushing away from your head?”

“Do you ever stop?”

Her arms stretch over her head again, and you’re starting to see a pattern with the way her dress is stretching against her hips. “Not when I’m having fun.”

It’s maddening. Talking with Chaewon is selecting a door, continuing to talk with her is being shown the wrong door and choosing to take it willingly. “You really don’t care how frustrating you make the Monty Hall problem, do you?”

She smirks. She must think she has it all figured out. “I already told you. Either something happens, or it doesn’t. Fifty-fifty, dude.”

“That’s really not how probability works.”

“That’s how life works.”

You shake your head, and accompany it with an equally disappointed sigh. “You just don’t want to admit when you’ve made the wrong choice.”

She stills, and it’s eerie. It shouldn’t have happened. Then, like a mask slipping back, she recovers with a sly grin. “Or maybe I just like my way better.”

Before you can argue, she makes her move, getting up, pressing against your arm, chest squishy, warm and deliberate against you. “But you can explain it to me as many times as you want.”

She’s impossible. “Chaewon—”

And she leaves no room for response. “Go on,” she purrs, pushing her tits smush against your bicep, molding around the way your muscles tense. “Teach me.”

Your patience and her dress have one thing in common. They’re both razor-thin. “I mean it.”

She hums, and she smiles, and she’s convinced you’re going to give in any second now. “Not a fan anymore of me touching you?” Her voice drops, all warmth and provocation. “Would you rather reverse the roles, have you touch me? Be careful. I’m sensitive.”

Your fingers wrap around her wrist, pulling it high with a firm and stern motion. “Cut it out.”

She clicks her tongue, and scowls in return. The joke is over, and you ruined her fun. “You liked it plenty when that slut at the club was all over you.”

“That’s different,” you say, your jaw tightening up. She knows it is, and it’s not fair. Does she think she can get away with it just because you’ve got a thing for her? Or, used to have, you try to convince yourself.

She’s so clearly unimpressed it’s almost hurtful. It wasn’t a lie though. It was different, that girl at the club never tore your heart out. But none of that matters when Chaewon wants to have her fun. She scoffs. “Must’ve been nice. You didn’t even flinch when she touched you. Just leaned into her, didn’t push her away like you do with me.”

You don’t answer. You let go of her wrist, sit back down, unsure what to make if anything yourself. You could have gone home with ‘that slut’. Had a great evening. Instead, you’re here, keeping your promise to Chaewon that you’d make sure she got home safe, wasting another night on a girl that should have long been in your past already.

That same girl plants both her knees next to yours on the couch, dress creeping above her hips, exposing the slightest hint of black and lace panties straddling your lap, settling against you.

You hate how right she feels here.

She rocks her hips down, just slightly, just testing the waters. And like an experienced professional, the joke’s back on. “You sure you don’t want to have a little fun?”

Your hands clamp around her waist—not pulling her closer. Pushing her off.

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t resist. Just concedes as the distance grows.

“Come on,” she murmurs, trying to make sense of it all. “You used to love looking at me.”

Your arm extends fully, pushing her as far as your body allows. “That was a long time ago.”

She lets out a small scoff, more hurt than the lost one, finally relenting and shifting off your lap. The joke is no longer fun for anyone in this room.

You just have to bite the bullet. Separate her from yourself, let the alcohol fade from her system and figure out what to do after that. “Go to bed,” you exhale sharply, a forced sense of finality in your voice. “I’ll sleep here, and be gone before you wake up.”

Chaewon stares at you like you just suggested the unthinkable. Her eye twitches, a habit you’ve long learned to associate with her being so upset that something is going to break. Then, she exhales sharper than you did, standing up. “Fine. Whatever.”

She turns, stomping toward her bedroom, her pumps exploding with sound every step of the way. “It’s still fucking fifty-fifty, by the way!” she yells, right before she slams the door.

It’s suddenly silent. Silent enough to hear your heartbeat going crazy.

She’ll calm down soon enough. Hopefully.

The heat of her body still burns against you, scorching where she was pressed against you. But if you ran after her now, you’d get burned alive. You rub your hands down your face, sinking into the couch, staring into the ceiling as you mentally prepare for what’s bound to be a sleepless night. There’s no escaping those as long as Chaewon is a part of your life.

-

Sleep doesn’t come.

You want to blame it on the horrible way this couch is digging into your back. Or the sounds of the city being ever present. Or the dim glow of some street lights seeping into the living room through Chaewon’s curtains that never managed to fully close. But comfort isn’t the issue.

It’s your damn mind, that can’t shut the fuck up.

Too many thoughts, all tangled together like a string of memories that wrapped around itself far too many times. Her hands, her voice, her weight in your lap. Her unusually prickly temper, and her enhanced sloppiness.

It all feels too fucking familiar, and the moment you admit that, there’s no holding it back.

It started as a night much like this one. You and Chaewon, at her place, sitting too close for friends but too far apart for lovers. Laughing at everything and nothing. Drinking just enough to make the lines blur. You had thought—maybe. Hopefully.

And for a moment, you know, you had been right. It seemed like the kind of night you’d eventually be able to tell your kids about. An edited version, to cut out the once-in-a-lifetime pounding you intended to give her, but still, magical in its own way. 

The way she let you kiss her. The way she kissed you back. The way her eyelashes fluttered to pull you into the kiss. How her left thigh rode up yours. The way her fingers locked behind the nape of your neck. The way you told her you liked her.

Then the way she pulled back. The hesitation in her eyes. The way her voice broke when she said “I don’t think we should do this.”

The way a crack formed on your heart, barely being pushed together by the rest of your more logical organs as you forced yourself to nod and agree, to act like it was fine. Like you were fine. Like you hadn’t just managed to secure the right door, only to be forced to step into the wrong one.

And the way your heart formed a second crack when you saw her again. She was still the same. Still Chaewon. Like nothing had happened.

But something did happen to you.

Your phone buzzes.

It’s not easy to ignore. Chaewon is an addiction to you, the next hit of this sweet obsession entering your veins as your screen lights up.

Chaewon: You awake??

You know you should just be failing at sleeping again. This can only lead to misery.

You: Yeah.

It’s quiet for a bit, but a new message makes its way to you all the same.

Chaewon: Cant sleep

If only she knew how she cursed you with the same fate. If not for her you’d be sound asleep in your own bed right now, or even better, in the bed of that chick you met at the club. What did she say her name was again? Kazuha? Instead, you’re here, repeating old patterns with exhausted probability.

You: That sucks.

Your answers are curt. Too perfect with punctuation for your usual back and forth. She doesn’t respond right away. She might be stubborn and annoying about things she’s convinced she’s right about, but she’s never been oblivious.

Then:

Chaewon: Are we okay?

You’re upset, but not heartless. It tugs.

You: We’re fine, Chaewon

Chaewon: Thats not a yes…

You might just scream out of frustration, your phone dropping on your chest, but obviously you can’t. She’d hear. She’s impossible. So fucking stupidly impossible. And yet, you find yourself typing anyway.

You: Do you want me to lie?

The pause is longer this time. Should you feel bad or just so tired that it doesn’t matter anymore?

Chaewon: No Chaewon: IdkChaewon: I just get nervous when ur like this

You: Like what??

Chaewon: DistantChaewon: CarefulChaewon: Upset with me

Your fingers hover over the keyboard without action. She’s not wrong. You are being careful. It’s her fault. She’d break your heart a second time in less time it took for it to beat. That’s dangerous.

You: Idk what you want me to say Chaewon

Chaewon: Idk either…Chaewon: But I miss how we used to talk

The memories flood in of the two of you just shooting the shit, countless evenings. Still…

You: We’re talking now.

Chaewon: U know thats not what i meant

And she’s right. You do know, but this is just easier. For you, for her. For the both of you.

Chaewon: Cant you just come over here and talk w me?

Chaewon: I miss you…

And before you can even overthink it—

You move.

-

There is a thought that creeps into your mind as the door creaks open and you step into her room. Something about a lion’s den, and then another one following it up about it actually being the lionesses that do the hunting. There’s no point to it. They all fade in an instant. She’s no huntress right now. She’s vulnerable, like prey, enticing you to be the hunter, looking so ready to be pounced on; curled up beneath her blankets, only the soft shape of her against the sheets to lure you in.

“Hey.” It’s a solid way to start a conversation, but you can’t help but expect more from her after calling you in.

You nod, eyes fleeing from hers, shifting awkwardly by the door. “Hey.”

It takes a while before you move. The same goes for her. She’s squinting, her eyes getting used to the darkness. She’s always been stubborn about letting you help her get a blue light filter on her phone.

She finally stops, and for a moment, your eyes meet hers. She carries a soft smile, the kind that made you fall for her in the first place. But there’s a difference in it; barely perceptible; most definitely flown under the radar by people not so obsessed with her face. There’s precaution sewn into it. The sides of her smile are constantly shifting and trembling, like she doesn’t know whether to keep it there or to switch to a more neutral expression. Then, she shifts, her left arm pulling out from under the cover and tapping the sheets next to her, an unspoken invitation.

You sit down with a sigh, back turned towards her. You’re not far, but you’re not close either. A safe distance, you think to yourself. The mood isn’t tense, but also not comfortable. Just… unsure.

You can hear her laps part, exhale, almost say something, and then close again a couple of times. It’s not until you finally turn to face her that she speaks.

“Do you remember that summer at the beach?”

Your eyebrows raise on instinct, disbelief unmistakably painted across your face, impossible not to notice, not even in this darkness. “How could I forget?”

The muscles on her face relax as her eyes drift away from your eyes, seemingly getting lost into her pillow, which she clutches tight. “You remember how you were so worried about me you gave me a piggyback ride back to the house?”

“No,” you scoff, “I remember you guilt tripping me into carrying your soaking wet ass across the sand.” Your face turns away from her again, hands clutching the side of the bed as your eyes veer off into the distance past the window; letting the glass serve as a canvas to project your memories onto.

You hear the sheets rustle behind you as she works herself upright, before reminding you exactly why you helped her back then in the first place. “You weren’t complaining back then! You were way too busy copping a feel of my ass.”

“Okay, now that’s not fair,” you snap back much too fast, much too flustered. “I wasn’t copping a feel, I was keeping you from falling. And besides, you weren’t helping either! Just hanging there all limp, mumbling you’d never be able to walk again.”

“I mean, it just hurt so bad. That jellyfish really fucked me up,” she chuckles back, and you can feel the pressure of her back leaning against yours.

There’s a soft silence, the one drenched in feelings you’d much rather stay in, instead of moving on to an uncomfortable reality. So you keep painting, hoping the window holds your memory-scape just a little longer.

“Do you remember what we kept talking about? To keep your mind off of the pain?”

You can tell she knows in the way she responds with an “Oh my god.”

Both of you say it at the same time.

“The fucking Monty Hall problem!”

There’s a beat of silence. First it’s a chuckle. It turns into laughter, and it quickly grows uncontrolled, unstoppable. The kind that makes the memories seem brighter, makes your body feel lighter, the kind that makes you throw your head back as she does hers. You both open your eyes staring at the roof, now sharing the same canvas to display footage of past days.

“God,” you breathe, your head locked in place but your eyes drifting over towards her face. “I miss those days.”

She giggles, nose scrunching. “I don’t miss what that jellyfish did to me.”

The laughter fades, and you think that maybe, just maybe you could forget about earlier and go to bed without feeling like shit. You shift, and she does too, turning towards her as she moves back to her original spot, leaning against the headrest, crawling underneath the blankets with her legs.

Your breath catches as you look at her. Your stomach turns. “Chaewon.”

She blinks, glancing up at you. “Hmm?”

“Did you—” You inhale sharply, but you can’t afford to give her the benefit of the doubt. “Did you seriously invite me in here just to talk un-dressed like that?”

Her brows furrow. Then she follows your gaze, shifting slightly, and—

Fuck.

Black lace, delicate, thin. Your favorite.

She freezes. "Oh."

Oh? Fucking oh?

“Why the fuck are you like this?” you explode.

Her eyes widen. "No! I—" She scrambles, tugging the blanket back up over herself. “I wasn’t—” “You said you wanted to talk, Chaewon.”

“I do!” Her voice pitches up. She’s pulling the sheets up hurriedly, using them as a shield from you, all you can see is her cheeks changing color ever so slightly. This time because of the embarrassment instead of the alcohol. “I promise… I do…”

It’s hard to believe that. It’s all so familiar, and all so fucking frustrating. “You know, this is just like you to do,” you ramble, and it’s hard to stop once you get going. “Always so fucking obsessed with getting a reaction out of me, never stopping to think for a second about how I feel!”

Her face softens, and the way she looks at you makes you sick. Like she thinks you’re right. “That’s not—”

“Isn’t it?”

“I swear!” She shouts, looking panicked and it’s enough to finally get you to shut up. “I was still out of it all, too mad and too drunk when I got back here. I just wanted to sleep. I didn’t—” and a big, shallow breath interrupts her, the kind that just appears and leaves you with less air than before. “I wasn’t thinking, okay?” You want to believe her. But tonight has been too much. Too many provocations, too many lines blurring that she would turn back from, and in turn, you would let form scars.

Then you sigh, sitting back down. “Okay.”

“Are you…” her voice trembles as she tries to figure out the specifics of your answer. “You’re shaking. Are you mad?”

Your mind is still trying to slow down, and answering gets forgotten. She takes that as an answer, obviously. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not so mad that I’d be shaking, you idiot.” Your voice is quiet. “It’s just way too fucking cold in here. And I was thinking.”

There’s no hesitation, because that’s just how Chaewon is as she shifts, making room. “Get under the covers.”

“Chaewon, please—” you start, but she’s not having it.

“I won’t try anything, okay? I promise,” she interrupts you, sounding calmer already. There’s a touch of pleading in it, but not the whiny kind she uses to get you worked up. It’s more desperate, more real. “Just give me a chance to prove I’m being serious.”

You don’t move at first. Stubbornness is inherent to both of you, after all. She tugs on the sheets impatiently. You sigh, but it’s obviously performative, a last jab at her to let her know you’re only doing this just because you’re cold. And she wasn’t lying. She properly keeps her distance, just sharing the warmth of the bed. It’s immediate and comforting, but you don’t allow yourself to sink into it.

“See?” she murmurs. “Not a trap.”

Not yet. You don’t dare say it, but you don’t have to. She sees the thoughts in your eyes. So she shuffles, turning away from you.

The silence stretches so long you start focusing on the noises it can’t beat into submission. Your breathing. Her breathing. The creaking and crumpling sound of the bed and the sheets as you move.

“I wanted to talk, and we talked so… that’s—that’s good. I guess,” she whispers. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind talking some more.” She lets a little space in between for you to insert yourself into. You never do. “But if you’d rather pretend like I’m not here, I get that too. I’ll shut up.”

It’s endearing, and your response is a little mean, letting her wait in silence for just a little longer before replying. “I’m not pretending. I need somebody to blame the lack of space I have in this bed.”

She smiles, soft. You can’t see it, obviously, but you feel it. Somehow. She shifts under the blanket, closer but not touching. She’s apprehensive. And she meant what she said.

“Is this the first time we’ve slept in the same bed?” she asks, but she masks her tone enough that she could play it off as talking to herself if you decided to not respond.

“Nope,” you correct her. “There was that one time in sophomore year. You showed up at my door at, like, three in the morning. Absolutely shitfaced, mind you.”

She lets out a small, embarrassed groan, and you know you’re on the right track.

“I remember that,” she mumbles. “Barely.”

“You couldn’t figure out how to get to your dorm. Said not even Monty Hall could help you find the right door.”

“How do you remember all that?” Chaewon questions, like you had no right to have that memory.

“Are you kidding me? How could I forget? I told you to take my bed, and that I was gonna crash on the couch,” you continue explaining, your lips curling upwards.

“But I didn’t let you?”

“Nope. You didn’t trust my roommate worth shit. Which, fair.”

She doesn’t say anything. You keep going though, less for her alone or you alone, both for you both.

“You grabbed my wrist when I tried to walk away. Looked me dead in the eye and said, and I quote, ‘Don’t leave me alone with that guy here, he smells like crusty socks and assault.’”

Chaewon lets out a strangled sound that’s half mortified laugh, half groan. “Oh my God.”

“So I gave in. Got in bed next to you. Fully clothed. On top of the covers. Like a gentleman.”

“You didn’t sleep for a second that night, did you?”

“Of course not. You starfished. One arm across my chest, one leg thrown over me like a fucking seatbelt. You had me trapped, dead to rights. Didn’t help you made me paranoid that my roommate was actually going to do something.”

She laughs—really laughs. Warm, unguarded. Then she rolls onto her side, facing you again. Her eyes search yours. "It was easier, wasn’t it? Back then. In college. At the beach. You carrying me like an idiot, me acting like I couldn’t walk, and you trying to turn probability into a personality trait."

You laugh, but it’s not really a laugh. More like one of those nose breaths that accompanies an abbreviated text. “Because it was.”

Her smile fades. “You never needed me to ask. You always just… stayed.”

You shift slightly, your fingers brushing the edge of the blanket. Her eyes drop there, then rise again.

“I think I’m a leaver,” she says. No warning. No lead-in. Like she had to say it fast before she lost the nerve.

“What?” It leaves your mouth before you can even blink.

But Chaewon swallows, her eyes retreating downwards. “I think that’s just who I am. Some people stay, and some people leave. You’re the kind of person that stays, and I’m a person that leaves. Because if I go first, I don’t have to wait until you become a leaver just like me.”

She looks at you like she’s afraid you’ll flinch. Like she’s already bracing for the recoil.

“I know it’s selfish,” she adds quickly. “But that night… when you kissed me, and then said you really liked me—I panicked. I did what I always do. You were giving me a choice, and that scared the hell out of me. So I picked the choice I always make.”

She breathes in. Exhales slow. Really takes her time, her eyes drifting slightly upwards now.

“And for a while, I told myself it was just another fifty-fifty. You know? Just a game of chance I lost. You either leave or get left. You either lose something or end up lost. And I thought—" she breaks off, swallowing again, part of her voice getting swallowed with it, "—that it would go away like the rest. That I’d forget. That it’d stop mattering."

You stay quiet.

“But it didn’t. It stuck. You stuck.”

She shifts again, knee brushing against yours beneath the blanket. Her voice cracks a little.

“And I started noticing things,” she says. "Little things. Like the first time you didn’t wait for me to text goodnight. Or when you were with someone else and you had that smile that I thought was reserved for me. Or when you stopped arguing with me about dumb shit just to keep talking."

Her voice wavers.

“And then I realized I didn’t just pick wrong. I watched the right door shut. And then I heard it lock. And that’s why I know your stupid fucking Monty Hall problem is wrong. I should’ve had another shot. Another choice. But life didn’t open a wrong door—it just took the right one away. And that’s why I know it’s just fifty-fifty. And I lost my coin toss at happiness.”

There’s a second of silence where your brain short circuits.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” you mutter.

She blinks, but it helps her to finally look at you. “Ouch?”

You sit up, tossing the blanket off like it offended you. “No, I’m serious. You think my door shut? You fucking locked it.”

She opens her mouth, but you cut her off, your pace quickening. “The fact that I stayed around all this time is proof enough that my door is still unlocked. It wasn’t up to me to reopen that door.” “I—” “But you had to try.” Chaewon’s eyes flicker—not away, but deeper. Her breath hitches, and you swear it’s the first real sound she’s made in a while that didn’t have a smirk behind it. She shifts forward just slightly, only enough that her leg brushes against yours again, like she’s testing if the signal’s still green.

“You’re saying… it’s still open?”

You drag a hand through your hair, eyes rolling ceilingward before locking onto her again. “It was never fucking closed.”

Her lips part. They’re trembling now. She’s not teasing this time. “Then why—why didn’t you ever—”

“Because I’m not gonna beg,” you cut in, sharper than intended. “I’m not gonna crawl through the fucking keyhole when you slammed the door in my face.”

She flinches. Just barely. But enough.

“I didn’t need you to beg, just…” she says, softer, like she’s going over the math again in her head. “I don’t know… I—” Her voice dips, trails, then steadies. “I’m here now. I’m trying.”

You look at her. Clear as day in the middle of the night. She's curled up next to you, defensive and ashamed and stubborn all at once. Her eyes are too glossy, her hands fidgeting with the edge of the comforter like they’re looking for somewhere to hide.

And then she breathes, and her voice breaks.

“I just wanted you to want me still.”

And that? That fucking cracks something open.

You reach for her—no grand gestures, no cinematic swoop—just firm, necessary motion. You cradle her jaw, fingers sweeping her hair back, and when you speak, it’s low and final and absolutely everything you’ve been holding back.

“I never fucking stopped.”

There’s no pause this time.

No “but what if—”

No “are you sure—”

No more fucking Monty Hall.

Just her lips crashing into yours, messily, hungrily, like the apology she couldn’t say and the forgiveness you weren’t ready to offer have decided to cancel each other out with tongue.

It’s not careful. It’s not gentle.

It’s honest.

She’s on your lap again, only this time it’s not a joke. Her knees bracket your thighs and she grinds down with purpose, gasping when she feels you through your boxers. Her hands slide beneath your shirt, nails catching skin, and you curse under your breath as heat swells in your gut, undeniable and urgent.

You break the kiss, forehead against hers. “Still cold?”

Her laugh is shallow, much too distracted with making sure she can properly share in your body heat. “Yeah. Make me warm.”

“And here I was thinking you were hot enough as is.”

She smirks, and it’s real this time. Like the one you saw when you barely knew her, but knew enough already. Not a mask. Not a trap. Just her.

And she whispers, “Don’t stop this time.”

Like you could. Besides, you’re not even sure it’s only meant for you. With the way she’s tugging and removing your clothes, kissing your shoulders and pulling you tighter, it’s like she’s making up for lost time. For every second spent being careful. Your hands trace her body, taking your time to really make sure every curve and beauty mark is stuck in your mind forever.

“God,” you mumble under your breath, pressing your lips to her cheek, her neck, her shoulder, working your way down until you’re kissing the edge of a black lace bra that was almost the reason you stormed off earlier. “I can’t believe how beautiful you really are.”

Her breath hitches. “I know.”

And you’ve missed that, too. Her confidence. The way she can say things like that without irony, because she knows exactly what she’s worth—she just never thought she’d be worth it to you once more.

You kiss her through the black lace, and she shivers when you nip at the edge of her bra, as close to her nipple as you can get. She doesn’t waste any time herself flicking open the button of your jeans. You’ve always thought she needed a helping hand, both of yours pushing your pants further down. They’re not even off properly when she pauses, eyes blown wide, honing in on the tent in your boxers leaving little to imagination.

“Wow,” she says, and it’s almost weird to hear her say it without sarcasm.

“Wow?” your voice is rough, coming out in a single breath.

She nods, and her lips part as she yanks your boxers down, eyes almost dazed as she takes you in. “Wow.”

It’s a reverent look. It’s a look that suits her as long as it’s directed towards you, you think. Her fingers reach out like she’s about to wrap them around you, but she stops right before she makes contact, and the look in her eyes changes. Smug now. Knowing.

“I need a moment,” she says, and you know she’s up to no good. “You can’t just swing that in a girl's face and expect me to make it easy for you.”

A throb shoots through your cock, hips twitching without your consent. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

But she just smirks.

“Chaewon.”

“Shhh,” she says as she shuts down any and all protest, and her voice is the perfect combination of exasperating and enticing. “I’ve got my own Monty Hall problem lined up for you.”

You groan, but it’s more of a plea for mercy than a protest. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m serious,” she purrs, fingers grazing the base of your cock before pulling back again, making you hiss.

“Three doors,” she says, and the way she looks at you is obscene. “My front door, my back door, and my... ehm... mouth door?”

You’re gone. You’re fucking gone. “You are so lucky you're fucking hot.”

She keeps going, relentless. Her grin is pure mischief. “Which one have I imagined you fucking me with the most?” She rolls her hips, testing you. “Pick right, and you get to fuck it.”

“And if I guess wrong?” Your voice is rough, needy, everything you never let her hear before tonight.

Her eyes burn. “Then you eat me out first.”

It’s a rigged game and you both know it, but you play along anyway, letting her set the rules and stack the deck and deal each card. You lean forward, drag your lips up the line of her jaw. “That’s an impossible choice. You want all of them.”

She moans, a hiccup of laughter and want, and the weight of her shifts in your lap, urgent. “You wish. You only get one.”

But her hips are grinding now, a rolling, deliberate pressure that tells you exactly what her body needs. The answer is and always has been: every option, at once, and all of them leading back to you.

You palm her ass, fingers splaying underneath the lace edge, and the way she shivers tells you she wasn’t expecting you to touch her with that kind of certainty. For all her bravado and gamesmanship, this is how you win: you move first, and you don’t hesitate.

“Let’s see,” you murmur, mouth against the shell of her ear, making her gasp. “Back door—” a squeeze, a knead that pulls a little yelp from her, “—doesn’t seem like your style. At least not as a first move.”

“Don’t count me out,” she breathes, and you hear the competitive edge in her voice, the same edge that made her stay up all night just to prove you wrong about some irrelevant, beautiful, dumb thing.

You laugh, slow and low, and she shakes against you. “Mouth door,” you say, and you can’t help but grin at the way she’s already licking her lips, hungry, needing to prove something. “Obvious contender. But I think you want it right here.” Your hand finds the heat between her legs, cups her through those ridiculous panties, and her eyes go wide, her breath gone.

You wait a beat. She’s never been great at waiting, but she’s trembling now, lips parted, waiting for your verdict.

“And if I told you it’s definitely not the back door? Does your answer change?” she pants.

You consider your odds. “I think—” you start, but she interrupts.

“Actually,” she says, and the way her voice drips with satisfaction is almost enough to make you lose. “I don’t give a fuck. I want your cock. Right here.”

She grinds against you, and you can’t help but think you’re never spending another day without that feeling.

“Fuck,” you groan, because she won this round, and she knows it. “You don’t play fair.”

She bites her lip, smiling, then reaches between you, fingers wrapping around you with a perfect, firm pressure. “And that’s why you love me.”

She’s right. She’s wrong about so many fucking things, but she’s right about this.

You thrust up into her hand, and she moans, her body arching, her hair falling down her back. You reach for her hips, hooking your thumbs under the lace, and she lifts herself up, letting you pull it down, off, away. She doesn’t care where it lands; she’s already lowering herself back onto you, and you’re closing the distance, guiding your cock to her needy cunt.

“Fuck you,” you breathe, so close to her you can taste it, the subtext of admission against her skin. “I’m not saying it first. I’ll force you to.”

She rocks her hips, taking you deeper, her breath catching with a shudder. “Yeah? You think you can make me?”

You grit your teeth, the friction of her tight around you making it almost impossible to think. “I know I can.”

“Big words,” she gasps, riding you faster, harder. “Think you can back them up?”

You reach between you, your thumb finding her clit, and she cries out, her whole body shaking, her walls clenching around you. “You first,” you growl, and you can tell she’s sensitive. “Say it.”

Her eyes roll back, her lower lip caught between her teeth. You know it, you have her dead to rights, this is your win, and then—”Nuh-uh.”

You thrust up into her, relentless, and the pressure builds, mounting, and she’s so fucking tight around you, and you want her to say it, need her to say it.

She grinds down harder, her nails dragging your shoulder blades, and it’s too much. Too good. Too fucking hot. “You’re gonna say it,” you gasp, your thumb circling her clit faster. “I know you.”

“And I know you,” she pants, her head falling back as she rides you with abandon, her whole body trembling, her breath hitching with every thrust. “I know—oh fuck—you.”

You watch her face as she rocks against you, her lips parting, her eyes wide and desperate and defiant. She’s so close. So close you can feel it, the way she’s fighting it, wanting to hold out, wanting to win.

“Say it,” you growl, thrusting up into her again, harder, not easing up on her clit.

She gasps, and this has to be it. She’s trembling, tightening, drowning in ecstasy and she’s— “I’m—Fuck, I’m cumming, you fucker,” she manages to choke out, and she cums hard. Her head drops forward, no further admission, still no winner as her whole body shudders, her walls clenching around you like she’s weaponizing her orgasm against you, trying to pull the words from you.

You swear, a rough sound that’s almost a surrender, and she laughs, breathless, smug, still shaking in your lap. “You first.”

Your grip tightens on her hips, and you’re so fucking close, but you hold on, hold out, your breath ragged. “I’m not going to give up,” you groan, thrusting up into her in a wild frenzy, loud clapping of flesh colliding now strangling the room. She lets out a strangled sound, and her eyes go wide letting you know she didn’t expect this.

Didn’t expect you to only go harder, to keep fucking her through her orgasm, keep pushing her over the edge again and again and again until she might pass out.You thrust harder, deeper, and her voice breaks, her body wild against yours.

You hold on, and she holds on longer. She’s so tight, so wet, and the heat is building, and you feel her clench around you, feel her mold to your shape. Her mouth opens, and you can’t tell if she’s about to say it or if she’s too far gone, and then—

She pulls off of you. You watch, stunned, as she drops to her knees and wraps her mouth around your cock, and the sight alone is enough to make you lose it. You groan, a deep, ragged sound, and she moans around you, the vibration pushing you over the edge. Your hands tangle in her hair as you come, hot and hard, spilling ropes of cum into her mouth.

“Fuck, Chaewon,” you choke out, the last of your breath leaving your body as every drop of cum you had does the same, her lips still tight around you.

Then she pulls back, and her eyes are on you, wide and bright and triumphant. She cups a hand beneath her chin, opens her mouth, and—

“I love you,” she says, letting your cum spill out over her lips, and there’s a laugh behind it, a tremor of amusement, like she knows exactly what she’s doing to you. Like she knows she just won all over again. She wipes her mouth, cum streaking her chin, her neck, her chest, and she looks so absurdly beautiful you can’t even be mad.

“Chaewon,” you breathe. It’s exasperation and wonder, the way you’ve said her name so many times before. “You’re fucking impossible.”

“Really?” She bats her lashes with a coy look, licking her lips like she’s savoring every last drop of the chaos she’s caused. “Aren’t you supposed to say it back?”

You grab her by the waist, pulling her back up to straddle you past your softened cock, and she giggles, squirming in your lap. “You’re such a fucking brat.”

“And you can’t get enough of it,” she teases, her smile widening,

You stare at her, chest heaving, the words settling into the spaces that were empty for so long. Then you let out a breathless, helpless laugh, pulling her face up to yours, kissing her despite all the filth she let drip out to cover her sweetness.

“Fuck you,” you say between kisses, but there’s no heat behind it, just the weight of relief and joy and everything else you’ve been holding back. “How do you win even when you lose?”

She smiles against your mouth, and you feel it in every part of you. “I guess I’m just smarter than you.”

You do. You say it like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like you’ve spent the last year waiting for your chance.

“I love you, you idiot.”

She makes a soft sound, and for a second you think she might cry, but it’s just a laugh, bright and giddy and so fucking happy. “I’m glad you do.”

“You’re a fucking nightmare,” you say as you shake your head, trying to hide the cartoonishly large smile she forced upon your face. “And you’re stuck with me,” she says, kissing you again, her body melting into yours, all softness and satisfaction. Her voice dips, teasing, warm. “Or did you forget?”

“Never,” you murmur, and you mean it. Hell, you’d bet on it.

Her body shifts in response, her being melting into you, her skin sticky but hot against yours. “So,” she says, and it’s light and breezy like that summer day still stuck in your memory, like you’re somehow back in a familiar rhythm, but new nonetheless. “You really think you can handle me?”

You laugh, wrapping your arms around her. “I’ve been handling you for years without the benefit of getting to fuck you.”

She pinches your side, but it’s playful, and you can tell she’s trying not to smile. “Asshole.”

“Yeah,” you say, kissing her forehead. “But I’m your asshole, now.”

She nods, and that alone was worth all the suffering. Because it’s honest.

“Shit,” Chaewon breathes, your skin stuck together with dried cum, pulling loose from you. “We’re a fucking mess.”

“Yeah, well, it’s your fault for trying to be funny,” you say like you’re not covered in it too.

She shakes her head, and it’s like she’s saying it’s your fault for not being the first to say you love her. “We can’t go to bed like this,” she proclaims, trying her best not to get too much filth on her sheets. “C’mon. Shower.”

“Together?” you ask, and she just rolls her eyes like that was the stupidest fucking question you’ve ever asked.

You follow her to the bathroom, the air chilly and the tile cool underfoot. She turns on the water of her shower, letting it heat up as she looks back over at you, one eyebrow lifting like she’s pondering if she should just keep it to showering or not.

“Get in,” she says, pushing you towards the shower. “I’m not letting you sleep until you’re clean.”

She’s already stepping toward the shower when she realizes you’re still standing there. Her eyes narrow, but her lips curve. “What? You’re dawdling now?”

You shrug, and she laughs. It’s not the sound she makes when she’s trying to get under your skin, but the one you’d almost forgotten she could make. Uncomplicated. Real.

She starts taking off the only thing she still has on—her thigh high socks that were the main culprit in why you failed to pick up a girl earlier tonight. You were way too busy admiring how good Chaewon looked, and it didn’t go unnoticed.

“Don’t tell me you’re expecting me to do it for—”

You catch her hand, stop her from peeling them off. She freezes, looks at you like a deer caught in headlights.

“Let’s pretend I lost your three doors challenge,” you murmur, and you hear her breath catch. “It’d be a shame not to eat you out with how good you look in those.”

“So you were staring! I fucking knew it,” she shouts gleefully.

You don’t give it a response. You just hoist her up, and she wraps her legs around you like it’s instinct, gasping, more eager than surprised, as you let her ass meet the bathroom counter. You spread her thighs open to admire, sink to your knees in between them, and look up, getting lost in the way she looks down.

“Oh my god,” she sighs out. “Are you really—”

 You don’t let her finish. You drag your tongue up her slit, and her head falls back, the sound of the shower almost drowning out her moan. Almost, but not quite.

“Fuck,” she gasps, the first of many. “Right there. Oh, right—”

You swirl your tongue around her clit, and her hips buck, her whole body trembling. She’s close already, too close, and you know you could end this in seconds, but you don’t. Not yet.

Your hand slides up her thigh, and she shudders as you press a finger against her asshole, teasing, gentle. Her breath catches, and you feel her body tense, then relax, opening for you.

“Shit,” she gasps, her voice breaking. “I’m—fuck, I’m gonna—”

You don’t stop. You don’t even slow down. You work her with your tongue and your fingers and your everything, and she’s shaking.

“Holy fuck,” she gasps, her voice breaking. “You’re—shit—you’re better at this than explaining math problems.”

You groan, a low, rough sound, and the vibration makes her shudder. “Careful, I might bite.”

She laughs, knowing you’re all bark, and her fingers tangle in your hair, not quite pulling you closer, but not allowing escape either. “Don’t stop,” she begs, and she wears it so well that ideas flood your mind. “I’m so fucking close.”

feel her body tense, tight and perfect around you. “Right there. Oh—” You curl your finger, the final bit of tension she needed to release, clenching hard, her hands in your hair, her body on fire. “Oh God, oh—”

She cums hard, her body arching, her legs closing around your head as she cries out, the sound raw and desperate and so fucking good. Your finger slips out but keep your mouth on her, not letting up until she’s shuddering, breathless, her hands tensed up tugging at you.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she gasps, and you feel the last tremors of her orgasm as they ripple through her. “How did you—I can’t—” She’s lost for words, and it’s ammunition for next time you fight over something stupid.

You don’t move until she tugs at you weakly, pulling you up, and the look in her eyes is almost enough to make you drop to your knees again.

You grab her hand, pulling her toward the shower, but she doesn’t budge. Instead, she drops to her knees, fingers splayed on your thighs. “I’ll admit, you’re pretty fucking good,” she says, her eyes gleaming with challenge. Everything’s a competition with this girl. “But I’m better.”

You don’t have time to respond. Her mouth is on you, hot and wet and perfect, and you groan, your head falling back. She works you with a skill you didn’t think she had, her tongue swirling, her lips tight, and all you can do is hold on. She pulls back, and the sudden loss makes you gasp. “Feel free to cum wherever you want,” she muses, and your mind floods with options. All too enticing.

Her pace is relentless, precise, and you feel her smile around you, a smug curve against your skin. She’s rapidly proving her point.

“Chaewon,” you groan, and you’re not sure if you’re leading into begging or commanding. “Fuck, that feels—”

She hums, a low, teasing sound, and the vibration makes you curse. Her fingers slide down, cupping your balls, and you feel yourself throb against her tongue.

You’re close, too close, and she knows it. You can tell by the way she pulls back again, her lips glistening, her eyes wild. “I’m not done with you,” she says, and you swear you might die.

“Fuck my face,” she says, and you tremble, your whole body going tight.

“Chaewon,” you gasp, but she’s already got you begging for more, her hands on your thighs, guiding you inside.

You thrust, and she takes it, takes you, her mouth so fucking good you can’t believe this is real. She moans and gags around you, and it’s a sound you’ll hear in your dreams for the rest of your life.

She looks up, her mouth full, and the sight is obscene, incredible. She’s not stopping, not giving you a second to catch your breath, just letting you use her, and it’s all too fucking much.

You’re so close, the heat building, your control slipping. You fuck her face, your hands tight in her hair, and she’s caught between you and the counter, letting you use her, letting you lose yourself.

“Oh God, Chaewon,” you groan, your thrusts erratic, desperate. “I’m gonna—”

She pulls back, and you gasp, her lips getting pressed against the tip of your dick. She strokes you, her lips swollen and wet, and— “Do it,” she commands, tilting her head back, presenting her face and her tits and her abs and every target you could choose, her eyes pleading to cover not one but all. “Come all over me.”

That’s it. That’s fucking it. You cum hard, your whole body tensing, and she moans as your release hits her face, her lips, her cheek, her chest.

“Fuck,” you groan, and she smiles, licking her lips, and you’re so spent you almost collapse right there.

Then she’s pulling you down, kissing you, and you taste yourself on her tongue.

“At least I was worth the wait, right?” she murmurs, and you pull back just far enough to see the way she’s grinning, the way she’s looking at you like she thinks she won. If only she saw herself right now, you’re clearly the winner.

“Think I’m ready for that shower now,” you say, and you can’t help but smile back, because you’re a mess, and she’s a mess, and you came into this room specifically to be less of a mess; and you love it. You love her.

The shower is still running, heating up the room, and you both stand up. She pulls you with her, and the water makes quick work of the art you just made. What a waste, but a waste you love to spend with her.

She notices your face change as the cum disappears from her visage, and chuckles lightly. “You’ll get plenty of other chances.”

You wash her and she washes you back, and it’s slow and easy and comfortable. Like you never thought it could be again. But better. No rush, no desperation. She works the shampoo into your hair, but you can’t stand to not annoy her for another second, pulling her under the spray and rinsing her off.

“Hey,” she protests, but she’s smiling, her eyes bright.

“Hey yourself,” you say, dragging your thumb across her cheek, her lips, her collarbone. “Think I like you like this.”

“Wet?” she asks, and she’s teasing, but there’s a softness behind it.

“That too. But no. Mine,” you say, and her expression shifts, her eyes going soft, her hands coming to rest on your chest.

“You know,” she says, her voice quiet, thoughtful, “That makes you equally mine.”

You tilt her chin up, kissing her, and she melts into it, into you. “I guess that means we both won today.”

She laughs, and it’s the best sound, the best feeling, the best everything. “Guess I can get used to it if it’s with you.”

Eventually you turn off the tap, and she shivers as you wrap her in a towel, pulling her close. “Bed?” you ask, and she nods, simple and easy.

She helps you dry off, and you help her, and you just can’t let each other be right now. She tugs at you, at your hand, constantly leading you, hair still wild and just damp enough to be okay going to bed with. She slips beneath the covers fully naked, but it’s too cold to worry about any of that, so you follow.

You pull her against you, or she pushes herself into you. It’s hard to tell who’s more desperate. Point is, her back is against your chest, and it fits perfectly. Like she was made for it.

“So,” she says, her voice a sleepy mumble, “are you gonna lose your shit if I say it’s fifty-fifty again?”

You groan, exasperated and affectionate, and she giggles, burying her face in your neck.

“Chaewon,” you say, and she turns just enough to look at you.

“Hmm?”

You wrap your arms around her, holding her, holding everything. “You’re fucking annoying. Never change.”

She smiles, soft and genuine, and you know this is the real win. Not the game, not the challenge, not the give and take of a thousand heated mathematical arguments—but this. Her. You. Together.

“Promise,” she whispers, and you feel her breath slow, feel her body relax, feel the unlikeliest odds settle in your favor.

You hold her tighter, and the silence this time is comfortable, a weightless, blissful quiet that lulls you both toward sleep. You barely hear her next words, but they seep into you, the last sweet, stubborn thing you need to know.

“I still think it's fifty-fifty.”