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hyuniebunnies · 6 months ago

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Stray Kids Kinktober Day 10

Stray Kids Kinktober Masterlist

Praise Kink - Hyunjin

Word Count: 11.7K

Summary: As a lead detective in the police department, you've been assigned to solve a serial killer case, but you've hit a point where you can no longer work on the case by yourself. Hwang Hyunjin, the golden child of the police department and your sworn rival, is assigned as your partner.

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You have officially run out of red string.

The cork board in the conference room doesn’t have any more open spaces for new leads or clues. You can’t even see the brown of the board anymore.

Instead of whittling information down, you’ve only come up with more suspects for the case.

It’s better than the case going cold, sure, but it feels like you’re getting further and further from actually solving the damn thing.

It also doesn’t help that you not only have Chief Bang breathing down your neck, but the entire city as well. You understand, really, everyone wants a killer to be caught.

But these sort of things take time.

And they usually don’t have a million and thirty leads. Typically, you were lucky to have one.

Everyone in the city has a tip. And you have to check each and every single one.

Three sharp knocks draw your exhausted attention away from the board.

“Come in!” You call out.

The door clicks open and dress shoes click on the floor.

“I think you’re going to need another cork board soon, Detective.”

Your mood curdles like milk.

“What do you want, Hwang?”

Hwang Hyunjin, the department’s top detective and your least favorite person in the world.

Every case he touches is solved. Every last one of them. But maybe— just maybe— it’s because he gets to pick and choose which ones he’s assigned to.

The golden child of the police department. The biggest, cockiest pain in the ass you’ve ever met.

He clicks his tongue and walks up to the conference table you’re leaning against.

“I have a whole new stack of tips for you.”

The sound of a thick stack of papers hits the table, you cringe.

You haven’t even finished going through the last stack.

“And I am once again humbly offering my assistance on this case.”

You look over at him for the first time tonight. His long black hair is pulled back with a few strands dangling in front of his face.

He wears a pressed dress shirt, black tie, black vest, and slacks.

Truly, it looks like he popped off a magazine cover and you hate it.

“And I am humbly declining. I can handle this on my own, thank you.”

Your own heels click along the floor as you come around the conference table to sit down in front of the first stack of papers.

Hyunjin shoves his hands in his pockets and meanders closer to the cork board.

He looks up and down all the different leads, the ever expanding list of suspects, murder weapons, locations. He’s silent for a long moment.

The only sound in the room is the clock ticking on the wall.

What time is it anyway? You’ve been here since 4 AM when a call came in about another victim. The bags under your eyes surely look like bruises at this point.

Since you started on this case two months ago there hasn’t been a single night where you’ve gotten more than five hours of sleep.

Words are blending together on the paper. Is the sun up?

Warily, you turn and eye Hyunjin, who’s still staring at the cork board. His head cocks to the side as he studies all the different clues littering the surface.

He takes a deep breath and turns to look at you. You point an accusatory finger at him.

“No! No, no. You’re not coming in here and solving my case that I’ve been working on for months!”

His mouth shuts, a smirk appears.

Oh, you want to smack it off his face.

“I was only going to say—“

“No! Nothing! I do not need your help! Get out of here!” You shoo him away.

“L/N—“ he tries again.

“Shut it!”

Hyunjin rolls his eyes and sucks his teeth while making his way to the door.

You glare daggers into the back of his head, praying that a ceiling tile will miraculously fall and crush him.

He grabs the door handle and walks into the hallway. Right before the door closes, he peeks his head in through the crack.

“The killer is ambidextrous,” he says in a sing-songy voice.

A frustrated, muted scream tears from your throat and you hurl the nearest object— which happens to be a metal cup full of pens and pencils— at the door.

It shuts before the cup makes contact.

Hyunjin’s laugh comes through the closed door and it only makes your blood boil more.

You slam your head down onto the wood desk.

“Of course he’s ambidextrous.”

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“Detective L/N,” Chief Bang’s head pokes into the conference room. “Can I see you in my office please?”

You haven’t gone home yet. You’re in the same clothes as yesterday except now they’re more wrinkled.

Nodding, you put down your pen and tell your chief you’ll be there in a minute.

He hums and leaves the room.

You rub the heels of your palms into your eyes to try and get the exhaustion out of them.

About 100 ounces of coffee is flowing through your body but it’s doing nothing to wake you up, all it’s doing is increasing your heart rate.

To anyone else who wanders through your police department, they might think you’ve escaped the morgue.

The walk to Chief Bang’s office was short.

As soon as you step inside, your heart sinks.

The chief sits behind his desk, but that’s not why your stomach turns.

Hyunjin takes up one of the chairs, another freshly pressed suit on his body.

The man is flawless and it makes you want to become a suspect for one of your cases.

“Take a seat, detective.” Chief Bang motions to the other empty chair.

Hyunjin looks up at you, arms crossed over his chest. A smug smirk pulls on his lips as he takes in your disheveled appearance.

You tongue your cheek for a moment and flip your hair over your shoulder before sitting down. Your fingers iron out deep wrinkles in your pencil skirt.

You try to maintain some level of pride. It’s comical, really.

“Now, I’ll cut right to the chase here, Y/N, it’s not that I don’t trust your abilities as a detective, I do.”

You deflate.

“But this case is becoming too much for one person.”

Your jaw clenches.

So badly you want to refute that claim, to tell Chief Bang that you have it handled, it’s no big deal. But that’s a lie and you both know it.

And the smug asshole next to you definitely knows it.

“Detective Hwang has kindly offered his assistance on the case, so I’m assigning him as your partner on this.”

You think for a moment. “Can I get a different partner? I think Detective Kim just closed his last case, meaning he’s available to help.”

“Detective Kim started a new case this morning.”

“Detective Lee?”

“Busy.”

“Officer Yang?”

“He’s not even a detective.”

“What about Detective Seo?”

Chief Bang stays silent, deadpan eyes watch you. He cocks his head to the side.

You sink back in the chair.

“I specialize in homicide cases, L/N.” Hyunjin pipes up from next to you. “I’m the best one for the case and you know it.”

“Zip it, Hwang.”

Hyunjin scoffs.

Chief Bang rolls his eyes, his patience obviously wearing thin. “Y/N, I’m going to need you to swallow your pride for the sake of the city. There’s a murderer on the loose, remember? You’re my top detectives, it would be stupid not to partner you together.”

You can’t meet his eyes, you look off to the side, crossing your arms over your chest. Anxiously, your leg begins to bounce.

“Put your personal feelings aside, Y/N.”

Silence falls over the room. Both of the men wait for you.

It really doesn’t feel like you have a choice, here. Obviously, you don’t.

“Fine.”

“Great!” Hyunjin taps his hands on the arms of the chair and then pops up. “I’m going to need access to all the files you’ve been looking at these past two months as well as the extra key to the conference room.”

He grabs his trench coat off the back of the chair.

“I’ll also need you to catch me up to speed on the latest tips from civilians; you did have time to read those last night, right? Additionally, I think we should rearrange our hours so that we’re on duty together until this is solved.”

He makes his way towards the door.

“Come on, L/N! We’ll discuss over coffee.”

You stare at Chief Bang. He offers you a slightly amused, slightly sympathetic smile.

“Best of luck, detectives.”

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The hot mug rests between both of your shaky hands. Hyunjin sat across from you in a large diner booth.

Files littered the entirety of the top of the table. It’s all things you’ve seen before and practically have memorized by now.

You explained everything you knew to him from the beginning, sparing no detail.

College girls were all found murdered in their dorms. No security footage of anyone going in or out of the building that doesn’t belong there.

Each victim is about two weeks apart.

A half eaten fruit cup sits next to your coffee. ‘Fruit cup’ is a loose term since more than half of it was honeydew melon.

Why can’t they just throw a few strawberries in there? Slice up a banana or toss a few blueberries in? They already have the fruit in the back for the pancakes, it would be so easy to—

“I don’t think this victim is from the same killer.”

Your head snaps up and you glare at Hyunjin. “Who?”

He slides the file across the table to you. “Andrea Bowman. She doesn’t fit the same profile as the other victims. All the others were blonde, Andrea has brown hair.”

You sip at your coffee, glazed eyes scanning the file. You’re simply too tired to keep up the anger.

“I had thought the same thing at first. But according to the coroner, her time of death would put her as the first victim of the killer, first victims of serial killers tend to not fit the profile of the rest since it’s the first taste.”

Her autopsy stares up at you.

“Plus, everything else is consistent with the rest, bruised wrists and ankles and a slit throat. They’re all college aged girls who went to the local community college.”

You slide the crime scene photos around, taking in all the details.

“Maybe she wasn’t his victim.” One of her school photos peeks out from the bottom of the stack, you pick it up and look at it solemnly. “But something tells me she was his first.”

Hyunjin watches you closely, any rebuttal he had died on the tip of his tongue.

Plates clatter in the kitchen.

Your nose scrunches and you pack away Andrea’s file.

“You said they all go to the same school?”

“Yeah, the community college.”

“Did they all study the same thing?”

You shake your head, taking another sip of coffee. “Nope, all different fields of study, all different extracurriculars. They didn’t even live in the same dorm building.”

Hyunjin leans back against the booth and picks up his iced coffee, taking a long sip while staring out the window.

Your fingers run through your hair. “I requested their transcripts and class schedules from every year but I’m waiting on all those requests to process. With how slow the registrar’s office is taking you would swear they didn’t want this case solved.”

“Red tape always gets in the way.” Hyunjin reaches down in his pocket and takes his phone out, tapping a few buttons and then holding it up to his ear.

You cock an eyebrow at him, he only holds up a finger at you. You scoff.

“Dianne? Hi, it’s Hyunjin!… I’m doing so well, and you? … That’s great to hear! … Yes, yes those homemade cookies were to die for.”

Your mouth falls open a bit. Who in the hell was he talking to? Homemade cookies?

Throwing your hands up in front of your face, you give him a flabbergasted look.

He narrows his eyes at you and gives you a look that says ‘be quiet’.

“Listen, I was actually calling to cash in a favor, I have a list of students I need transcripts and schedules of for a case. … I can email it over to you, it’s for the— … yes, yes that one.”

You slow blink at him. Does he have a contact at the registrar’s office? Of course he does, why wouldn’t he have one?

The golden child strikes again.

“You’re a darling, Dianne, thank you. I’ll send it to you asap. … of course, say hello to Rob for me. Bye!”

He hangs up and puts his phone back on the table.

Hyunjin takes one look at your face and shrugs. “What? I helped her with a personal matter when I was a P.I.”

If you roll your eyes anymore, they’ll go into the back of your head.

“So do you have a list—“

You interrupt him. “Yeah.”

“Can you—“

“Mhmm.”

You finish your coffee and reach into your purse, digging out a ten dollar bill and tossing it onto the table.

“Where are you going?” He asks you.

“Home,” you respond simply while shuffling out of the booth. “I haven’t slept since Monday.”

Hyunjin looks down at the various files on the table. “What about the list?”

You move the files around and pull out one of the papers and place it in front of him.

“It’s right here. I’ll see you tomorrow, Hwang.”

“Tomorrow? But what about—“

“If Dianne gets the list back to you, just forward it to me. I’ll look at it when I wake up.” Your voice is full of venom.

“I really think we should look at it together.” His eyes narrow. “We’re partners on this, remember?”

“As if you would even need my help,” you spit out. “By the time I come in tomorrow, you’ll probably have the entire case solved, the perp arrested, and all the paperwork done before I even pour my coffee.”

The more you talk, the more your anger levels rise. You lean over him in the booth, one of your hands on the back of the seat to keep you balanced.

Hyunjin’s eyes widen and he leans back as you go forward.

“The golden boy will strike again, solving a case that I’ve been working on for months and getting all the credit. Because that’s just how good you are. Mr. Perfect. Everything about you is just amazing.”

He gulps and shifts around. A red tint creeps up on his face.

And for the first time since you met him, Hwang Hyunjin is speechless. His mouth opens to say something several times but no sound comes out.

“Now. If you’ll excuse me.” You stand back up and turn on a heel, leaving the diner and a very flustered detective behind.

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Knock after knock after knock after knock bangs on your apartment door.

You’re not sure of how long whoever’s been knocking has been at it, but it takes you a solid thirty seconds to wake up fully. You had peacefully drifted into a very deep sleep the moment your head hit the pillow.

The entire bedroom is pitch black, the sun no longer in the sky. The clock on your nightstand displays that it’s around 1 AM.

“What the fuck?” You slur out. It’s so hard to open your eyes right now.

The knocking persists.

With all the grace of a drunken newborn deer, you slither out of bed and make your way to your front door.

You flip on a light on your way there.

Staring through the peephole, a frown pulls at your face as soon as you see who’s banging on your door at this ungodly hour.

You rip the door open, startling Hyunjin. His hand still hangs in the air when you open it.

“Finally!” He shoves past you and into your apartment.

“No, please, come on in.” You growl and shut the door, securing all the locks in place again.

Behind you, you hear him slam a stack of papers onto your kitchen island.

“I forwarded you the transcripts hours ago but you didn’t answer.”

“I told you I would look at them when I woke up.”

He takes in your disheveled appearance with judging eyes. Your hair was all frizzy and out of place, a loose t-shirt hung off one shoulder and was so big you couldn’t see the shorts underneath.

His Adam’s Apple bobs with a swallow.

It was obvious he wasn’t used to seeing you in such a relaxed state. He was still wearing his dress pants from earlier, but he only had a dress shirt on with his trench coat over the top.

“You’re awake now, aren’t you?” He looks back down at the stack of files and opens them up, spreading papers everywhere.

You come up to the table and look down at everything.

Semesters of different class schedules stare back at you. Some have highlighted portions, others are still blank. He seems to have given up in the middle of doing it himself, opting to bring it here.

You tongue your cheek, looking over what you can see so far.

It’s going to be a long night.

“I’ll make coffee.”

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Hours have passed, the sleepiness and weariness of being woken up has been replaced by the delightful thrum of caffeine in your veins.

After about a half an hour of going through the transcripts, you quietly asked Hyunjin if he was alright with you playing music softly.

He stared at you with wide eyes, “Ah, yeah, of course, that’s fine.”

You cocked an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m just… not used to you asking for permission before doing something.”

Grumbling, you rolled your eyes and picked your phone up to scroll through playlists. You settled on a calmer one full of music from artists like Lord Huron and Tom Rosenthal.

Since then the two of you have been silently going through each schedule.

Biting the end of the highlighter absentmindedly, you study the class schedule.

“I’m only seeing one similarity.” You say out loud. Hyunjin looks up. “This one class, it’s a gen ed Physics class. But each of these girls took it, all at different times though.”

“Which class?”

“PHYS 100. Same Professor– Dr. Furon.”

“Do you think we should bring the professor in for questioning?” he asks.

“Couldn’t hurt. Right now he’s the only common denominator. Is it anywhere on your transcript?”

Hyunjin flips through the pages. “Yep, right here, her freshman spring semester back in 2020.”

You pull out a sticky note and write down that info.

“Can you go through each one and tell me when they took the course?”

Hyunjin gathers all the stapled packets of papers up. “Yeah.”

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You and Hyunjin stood shoulder to shoulder looking through the one way glass.

A near ninety year old man sat on the other side.

“So,” Hyunjin says to break the silence.

“So.”

“It can’t be him.”

“Obviously.”

Another long moment of silence.

He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Do you want to question him or should I?”

You sigh, watching as the professor fidgets with a loose string on his sweater sleeve. The officers had completely forgone the handcuffs, allowing him to sit at the table freely.

They also rolled in a comfier chair and gave him a cup of coffee.

“My case. I’ll do it.”

“ Our case.”

“Shut it, Hwang.”

You make your way into the interrogation room with a notepad tucked under your arm.

The professor looks up as soon as you open the door. He shakily stands up from his seat with proper manners.

You smile gently. “Dr. Furon, thank you so much for taking the time to come down.”

Both of you shake hands before sitting down. His grip is not firm whatsoever.

Arthritis.

“Oh, it’s no matter. Happy to be of help.”

You place the notepad down and scoot your chair in. “I’ll get right to it since I can see you’ll be our best help here. When analyzing the list of victims, we saw that each of them had taken your class before. It’s a small lead, I know, but it’s too much to sweep under the rug.”

He nods, listening carefully. He blanches and leans back. “I didn’t realize I had each of them. There are so many students in each section, there’s not enough time to learn names.”

He shakes his head.

“I had recognized a few in the paper, but I try not to do too much digging, it hurts too much to look into. I don’t know how you detectives do it.”

You reach across the table and grab his hands warmly. “I feel the same way about physics, I don’t know how you do it. All those equations.”

Dr. Furon cracks a smile. “Someone has to. But I do have help with all my courses. Each student has a specific discussion section once a week with a smaller class size, but they’re all taught by graduate students.”

You jot that down on your notebook and lean your chair back. You knock once on the window.

“On it.” Hyunjin’s muffled voice comes through the glass.

“Just one more question, Dr. Furon, I won’t take up any more of your time, this has been very valuable. Are there any students or people that you come in contact with that maybe trigger some alarm bells or a gut instinct?”

He shifts around, he really thinks about it.

“I really can’t think of anything, detective, I’m sorry. The girls’ names that I recognize were normal students too, granted they weren’t the best, but I do know they were doing their very best. Breaks my heart.”

You scribble that down and stand up.

“Thank you very much for your time, Dr. Furon. We greatly appreciate your help.”

He nods and stands up as well. “Of course, if I can do anything else, please give me a call.”

“If you think of anything else, here’s my card.” You reach across the table and hand him a small business card.

You showed the professor out of the room, asking if he needed anything. He patted your arm sweetly before leaving.

When you turn around, Hyunjin is standing there, waving a file around.

You roll your eyes. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

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Your apartment has become the unofficial meeting place for both you and Hyunjin once your shifts are over. The department wasn’t great for concentration.

They say not to take work home with you, but your home is so much cozier.

It’s only about 8 PM. Takeout containers take up a small portion of the kitchen island.

Another pot of coffee is brewing.

“So, between the victims, there are five different graduate students that taught their discussion sections. And one of them graduated last year.” Hyunjin flips through his notes.

You run your hands through your hair.

“So, four graduate students.”

“Yep.” He pops the ‘p’.

“Do we have any information on the four students?”

“No, but we have enough cause to bring them down to the station for questioning.”

You sigh and pick up your phone. “Let’s do that, then.”

A message is sent off to Chief Bang, he replies immediately saying he’ll contact them immediately and have them brought in and that he’ll call you when you can come in.

“I just don’t think it was any of the graduate students.” Hyunjin adds, sliding papers around to grab a victim’s file.

“I agree.”

He doesn’t seem to hear you. “Two of the graduate students are women— women don’t commit murders like this, the other two are masters in their field with promising careers.”

“I know, I agree with you, Hwang.”

“And I just don’t think that— wait, you agree?”

You stare at him with a blank expression. “Yes, I agree with you.”

He shifts around on the seat. His mouth opens and closes a few times before actually speaking. “You agree?”

Rolling your eyes, you place the papers down on the table. “Hwang, you know I would rather die than agree with you, but in this case, yes, I agree, I think you’re right.”

“Oh.”

Looking back down at the papers, you absentmindedly read a sentence in one of the witness statements. “I know you get the job done, I’m not going to put personal feelings before a case.”

Hyunjin fidgets more. “So, you think I’m a good detective?”

Is he serious?

You roll your eyes, still not looking up. “Yes, Hwang. Chief Bang has proclaimed you as one of the greatest detectives— everyone at the station knows that.”

“I just didn’t think you thought that way.”

“I’m not here to stroke your ego, Hwang.”

He clears his throat and shifts forward on his chair. “But do you , Y/L L/N, think I’m a good detective?”

Putting the paper down on the counter, you look up at him with a cocked eyebrow and a frown. “Really? Do your work.”

“Not until you say it.” He smirks and crosses his arms over his chest.

Rolling your eyes, you look down once more. What was on this page again?

“Choke.”

Hyunjin takes a breath to say something, but your phone lights up with a call at the same time. Expecting it to be Chief Bang, you answer quickly.

“Detective L/N.”

“Detective!” An old voice comes from the other line. You pull your phone back to look at the unknown number and then bring it back to your ear.

Hyunjin’s attention peaks at your confusion.

“It’s Dr. Furon, I apologize for calling so suddenly.”

“Oh, hi Doctor, it’s no trouble at all.” You look around for your notepad.

“Put it on speaker,” Hyunjin hisses while leaning forward. You shoo him off. He reaches forward to grab the phone from you, you smack his hand.

“I remembered something I didn’t get a chance to say earlier, I’m so sorry I didn’t think of it,” Dr. Furon continues.

“That’s quite alright, it’s the reason I gave you my number. Now, what is it?” You grab a pen and a random piece of paper.

Hyunjin reaches again, you smack his hand once more. “Speaker!” He grumbles again.

Dr. Furon talks, unaware of the petty brawl happening on the other line. “All of the students that are struggling in my class, I point them to the tutoring center in the library. As far as I remember, the names that were in the paper, the ones I recognize at least, they were going to the tutoring center.”

Your eyes widen and you write it down quickly.

Hyunjin’s patience wears out, he stands up from the counter and comes around to your side, his face dipping down to press his ear to the other side of the phone.

“Is there only one tutor available for your class?” you ask, jotting down notes.

“I’m not sure, I’m sorry. You know, now that I think of it, on their final exams, I give extra credit if they write down that they went to tutoring and name their tutor.”

“Do you have those exams?” Hyunjin asks into the phone. You reach over and flick his forehead. He swats your hand away.

“Oh, Detective Hwang, how are you?” Dr. Furon says politely.

“I’m doing very well, thank you.”

You go to smack him again, he once more swats your hand away.

The professor comes back to the conversation. “I have them but they’re in my office. Would you two mind coming to campus to get them tomorrow?”

“Of course,” both you and Hyunjin say at the same time.

You sneer and push his face away.

“Great!” Dr. Furon gives you all the details for tomorrow and the two of you hang up.

Placing your phone on the counter, you stand up to get away from Hyunjin.

“You could've put it on speaker.”

“You could’ve been patient!” Grabbing the nearest object— a tissue box— you hurl it at him.

Hyunjin only laughs and catches it.

“Putting more coffee on?”

“Obviously.”

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“It’s the same one,” you say incredulously, flipping through the exams that Dr. Furon had given the two of you.

While you got the papers from the professor’s office, Hyunjin had gone to the tutoring center for a list of tutors. Apparently he had a connection there as well.

The two of you now sat in the conference room with your original cork board to the side. New leads and pictures right smack in the middle.

You had spent the day questioning the graduate students, but as you suspected, it was a dead end. No one knew anything.

The exams spread over the table were the best lead.

“It is,” he mutters in agreement and disbelief.

“Eric Rowan.”

“Do you think…?” Hyunjin trails off.

“I do,” you state clearly. “I really do.”

Shaking your head, you flip through the exams over and over to make sure you’re right, to make sure you’re not looking past something.

You’re not jumping to conclusions, are you?

Hyunjin suddenly stands up from the table and makes his way to the door. “I’ll have the chief get someone to bring him down to the station.”

He didn’t even give a second thought to your decision.

The door clicks after him. The silence inside the room is deafening.

It would be perfect if you could play music like you do at home.

“Eric Rowan,” you whisper solemnly.

One tutor from the library at the university.

It would make sense.

Hyunjin had managed to get Eric’s entire tutoring log, every student he’s ever tutored had been included.

You were able to highlight each and every one of the girls’ names that were victims of these heinous crimes. There were about two weeks of time between their last tutoring session and when they were found dead.

One name stuck out, one name brought you an endless sigh of relief: Andrea Bowman.

It made your skin crawl, but you instantly noticed she was the first female he tutored during his time.

Slowly, the pieces started clicking. Your throat got a bit tight, it was difficult to swallow the emotions.

You look around and grab her file underneath a huge stack. Her school picture is the top photo paper clipped on the inside.

Andrea’s smiling face will haunt you for a long time.

Hyunjin came back into the room, you didn’t look up.

“Chief just sent someone out to get him, we’re getting interrogation room two ready for him, I think that— L/N?”

Your head snaps up and you sniffle.

“Sorry,” your voice is hoarse.

He shifts his weight in the doorway. “Everything finally hitting?”

You bite your lip and look back at Andrea’s picture. “Yeah.”

Standing up from the table, you close the file and tuck it underneath a few more.

“The guy hasn’t even confessed yet, I’m getting ahead of myself here. It just makes too much sense. These girls stopped going to see him two weeks before he killed— supposedly killed them.

“It just reads so clearly. He probably made a move, they felt uncomfortable so they stopped seeing him for tutoring, he couldn’t face rejection, so he killed them. It’s fucking sick.”

You roll your shoulders and look up at the ceiling. “Am I being too hasty? It just feels right, like … like these girls are cheering for me and telling me I’m right.”

The door shuts behind Hyunjin. He weighs his words carefully and walks up to his jacket, grabbing it off the back of the chair he sat in before.

Those perfectly polished dress shoes click on the floor. It echoes off of each wall.

“There’s one thing I’ve always lacked as a detective.” He folds the trench coat over his arm and walks up to you. “It makes me so mad that I don’t have this, it would help with so many of my cases.”

You watch him warily. There’s a sad smile on his face as he takes in your frazzled mood.

You’ve never worn your heart this freely on your sleeve before.

With a sigh, he reaches up and taps on your forehead. “Women’s intuition.”

For the first time, you have no response for him.

As far as Hwang Hyunjin goes, this is the closest you’ve ever gotten to a compliment from him, or even an acknowledgment of your skill.

Your lips stay sealed.

“I’ve never not trusted your judgment. Ever. If your gut is saying this is the guy, then this is him. When have you ever been wrong?”

Your mind is reeling.

Did he just compliment you again?

Heat rises to your cheeks. Your stomach flips.

“I’ve always been so jealous of that. You just… know.” He shrugs and looks around, a small tinge of pink on his cheeks. “When the pieces finally fit into place you’re fucking brilliant at solving everything so fast. What’s that about?”

A sad laugh tumbles from his lips.

“This case would’ve taken any other team months to solve, but you and I did it in two weeks. Maybe we should work together more often, Y/N.”

There’s no way he said that.

He’s jealous of you?

And did he just call you by your first name?

He stares down at you for a couple of seconds. Maybe you were imagining it, but you could swear that his eyes flickered to your lips more than once.

“Come on then, we have an interrogation to do.”

Hyunjin turns on a heel and makes his way to the door.

“Thank you,” you call after him. Hyunjin’s hand pauses on the door handle. “Thank you, Hyunjin.”

He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t acknowledge what you did— the favor you just returned.

He doesn’t speak on the new level that your relationship just crossed nor the mutual respect that you two just shared.

Nothing.

You don’t even get to see his face when you call him by his name for the first time.

But, by the way his shoulders square and his head twitches, you know it affected him.

Wordlessly, he nods and opens the door, leaving it open for you as he walks into the hallway and towards the interrogation rooms.

Hwang Hyunjin, the golden child of the police department, considers you to be on the same level as him. Who would’ve thought?

Maybe he’s right, maybe you should work together more often.

---------------------------------------

Hours and hours and hours have gone by.

Hyunjin as well as other officers have been grilling Eric for what seems like days. But it’s only been about 18 hours.

The bags under your eyes feel like bruises.

Three empty coffee cups and one full one sit next to you as you stare through the one way glass.

Hyunjin’s pacing around the room with his hands in his pockets.

His tie is loose around his neck, the sleeves of his button up are rolled up, his hair is tied up out of his eyes.

He’s been trying to go the good cop route for the last 3 hours. Slowly, that act has been dropping; Eric is getting on his last nerve.

You both let Eric sit in the interrogation room by himself for 4 hours leading up to this to get to his head. It didn’t seem to work. You can only legally keep him here for forty-eight hours.

If anything, he’s only gotten more agitated.

Hyunjin walks up behind Eric, he reaches one arm down to the table.

“You’ve never seen any of these girls before?” Hyunjin slides a few photos towards them on the table.

“No.” Eric answers quickly. “I’ve already told you that.”

“I just think it’s interesting you’ve never seen any of them, Mr. Rowan. You tutored them. All of them.”

“Do you realize how many students I tutor on a daily basis?”

Hyunjin barks a laugh. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn't realize you were that popular.” He comes around the table and opens a file.

Hyunjin pulls out one specific page, and reads off the top. “Actually, here we go, I know exactly how many students you tutor. Let’s see here: ‘Eric Rowan works two days a week in the tutoring center, Tuesdays and Thursdays.’ Last week you tutored 3 students total, and they were all returning students— how interesting!”

He slams the paper down onto the metal table. Eric jumps.

“Only three returning faces to your tutoring session, Mr. Popular. And here’s the funniest thing; I’ve noticed that there’s no women on this list. Weird.”

Eric’s eye twitches.

Hyunjin takes a seat across the table, folding his hands on top of a notebook.

“Have you ever had a girlfriend before, Mr. Rowan?”

Eric scoffs and shifts around in his seat.

Your interest is piqued, you sit up straight in your chair and lean forward.

Why did he get so nervous all of a sudden?

Eric picks up the cup of water that he requested and takes a long sip from it. Hyunjin waits patiently.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant to anything, Detective.”

Hyunjin laughs and opens the file. “See, I thought you would say that. My chief also asked the same question.”

Said Chief, who has been standing behind you for the better part of 5 hours, most certainly did not ask that. Chief Bang snorts quietly at the lie.

“But you know what, we detectives have to do our due diligence.” Hyunjin opens a file and slides a large printed photo out across the table. “Recognize her?”

So many different emotions fly across Eric’s face: anger, loss, betrayal, depression, rage, hurt. The muscles in his face dance as they try to settle on an expression.

“No,” he grits out.

An obvious lie.

“Interesting.” Hyunjin pulls out another photo and slides it across. “Because just by taking a quick look at your social media profile, I can see how this girl was your girlfriend . Look, here you are together! Leah Miller. Pretty girl.”

Eric says nothing. He can’t look away from the picture.

“Most interesting part I noticed was that you haven’t posted anything with her in about a year. What happened? Breakup? They suck, hm? Sorry, should I have said ‘ex-girlfriend’ before? My bad.”

You can’t help but smile. Hyunjin’s always been brilliant in interrogations, you can’t deny that. You’ve only ever heard rumors about how he is on the other side of the one-way mirror.

Sneaking a peek at the picture of Leah Miller, your eyes widen. She fit the profile: long, blonde hair and sweet, light eyes.

More pieces fall into place.

“It’s none of your business,” Eric grits out between clenched teeth.

Chief Bang shifts behind you and grabs the back of your chair. Obviously he senses it too, a confession, a slip up, anything. It’s showing its head.

“What? What are you saying?” Hyunjin laughs. “It’s exactly my business. That’s quite literally what my job is, you know, to know your business. It’s the same reason I know that you asked out Andrea Bowman during one of your tutoring sessions and she rejected you.”

“That’s not—“

“Oh, sorry, is that not how it happened? Did you maybe try and make a move on her and she rejected you that way? Maybe you put an arm around the back of her chair? Classic.”

“I-I didn’t—“

“Not that one? Understood.” Hyunjin nods and flips through the pictures on the table. “Oh, did you use the old ‘give me your number just in case you need more help’ trick? Used that on a girl in college, myself. Of course, it worked for me.” He winks at Eric.

Eric is fuming, his face is turning redder and redder, the vein in his forehead is popping.

“Here we go,” Chief Bang whispers under his breath.

Your mouth is agape, you’ve heard about Hyunjin in interrogation rooms before but you’ve never actually seen it.

It’s like he’s dancing with fire so beautifully. He’s twirling a flaming sword with a silver tongue.

“I think Andrea rejected you and then when she never came back for more tutoring, you lost it. You looked up her campus address in the internal systems, because guess what, you have access to that as a tutor, and you went to her dorm room, and you killed her.”

“Wh-What? You’re way off base here, Detective.” Eric stutters, his eye twitches again, his leg starts bouncing under the table.

He pulls on the cuffs keeping him to the table.

Hyunjin you’re so close, come on, come on.

“Funny!” Hyunjin exclaims and slides another piece of paper across the table. “Here’s the search history in the library computer with your login credentials!”

Eric gapes, his mouth opens and closes several times.

“You know what, maybe you didn’t go to Andrea’s dorm with the idea of killing her. Maybe it was a grand romantic gesture, yeah, that seems more like it— flowers and everything.” He slams another picture on the table.

A bouquet of flowers was found at Andrea’s crime scene.

“You presented her with the flowers. And she rejected you. Again. ” Hyunjin’s voice is getting louder and louder, crescendoing with Eric’s anger and heart rate.

Your breathing picks up. Both you and Chief Bang stop moving.

“Stop,” Eric suddenly pleads. His hands shoot up to cover his ears but they’re stopped by the cuffs.

The metal clinks and pulls, they dig into his wrists.

“She rejected you twice! To your face! But you couldn’t take that for an answer. God, why did she do that? Why did she turn you down when you were just trying to be nice? ”

Hyunjin stands up slowly from the table, towering over Eric.

“She was just like her, she was just like that bitch that broke up with you? She tore your heart out and spit on it! She was no better than Leah! So, you knocked her out and you tied her down to her own fucking bed in hopes that she would just hear you out!”

“Stop, stop!”

“Because maybe if she just listened she would understand that you’re just a genuine guy trying to be a good boyfriend to someone! You’re so nice, you’re such a good guy, no one likes good guys anymore, huh? And, of course Leah didn’t see that either!”

“ Stop! ”

“She tried to scream for help, so you killed her. You slit her throat without a second fucking thought for anything! And it felt so fucking good, didnt it? It felt so good to finally take power back from her? So, you didn’t stop.”

Tears spring from Eric’s eyes as he squints them shut, his body physically curling in on itself. He writhes around, unable to get far because of the handcuffs.

“So you kept going, and you went after women who looked just like Leah. And it felt amazing because every single time you could picture her face as you slit their throats. Each and every one of them babbling for mercy, crying out for their mothers, to only choke on their own blood—“

“ FINE! ” Eric screams, slamming his fists on the table. “I killed them. I killed each and every one of the fucking bitches. And I fucking wish I could have killed her too!”

The sudden seemingly endless torrent of sentences comes to a screaming halt.

Hyunjin sits down on his chair once more with a huff.

And just like you did yesterday, he leans back on his chair and knocks once on the window.

It takes you a second to find your voice after witnessing the most amazing, jaw dropping interrogation you’ve ever seen.

“G-Got it!” You say loudly through the glass. “We got it. Oh my god!” You stand up quickly from the chair and turn around to Chief Bang, who has an equally surprised expression. “We got it! ”

He stutters for a moment and shakes his head to clear his mind before speed walking out of the side room to get officers to arrest Eric.

Eric Rowan, who is now pathetically sobbing in his chair.

Eric Rowan who signed his confession with the opposite hand that he’d been using to drink his water.

Eric Rowan who is ambidextrous.

---------------------------------------

It’s so weird to see your kitchen island devoid of files and endless stacks of papers after the last few weeks.

Eric was taken in for booking. Your job was over.

Well, it was over for now. Chief Bang gave you and Hyunjin a week off and then you’re due back in the office for the next case.

Plus, you’ll have to be at Eric Rowan’s trial since you were the lead detective on the case.

So maybe ‘over’ isn’t the best way to describe it.

More soft music plays from your speaker as you clean up the rest of the files. A large t-shirt draped over your body, it practically covers the shorts you have underneath.

There’s a couple knocks on your door. His knocks are so distinct. You’ve gotten so used to them over the past two weeks.

“Come in, Hwang!” you call out.

The door opens and shuts.

“I think I left a few things here,” he says kicking his shoes off in your entryway.

You hum in response, gathering up files to stack them neatly.

His soft footsteps pad up behind you.

“I don’t think I ever saw your countertop, is this granite?” he teases over your shoulder.

You snort a laugh. “Yeah, it is. Came with the place, so don’t ask any more questions.”

Putting the stack down, you turn around and come nose to nose with Hyunjin. He is so much closer than you thought he was.

You jump slightly and back up a bit, your hips hitting the countertop.

Hyunjin doesn’t move.

“I didn’t get to see you after the interrogation,” he says with a quieter voice.

Not able to hold his searing gaze, you look off to the side and cross your arms over your chest.

“Yeah, well, you know how the hustle and bustle can wrap someone up after a case closes. Next thing I knew, Bang was sending me home.”

Hyunjin takes a half step closer to you. “What did you think?”

“Hm?”

“What did you think of the interrogation?”

So many sarcastic, sharp retorts die on your tongue when you remember the conversation that the two of you had earlier.

But still, complimenting him was about as easy as petting a cactus.

“I told you I’m not going to stroke your ego, Hwang.”

He takes another step towards you, both of his arms come up to cage you to the counter.

Heat rises on your cheeks more and more with each passing second. You refuse to meet his eyeline.

“Humor me, L/N. How was my performance today?”

Tonguing your cheek, you roll your eyes. Your heart rate picks up at his proximity. Why does he smell so good?

The last time the both of you had an opportunity to shower was two days ago.

He still smells like aftershave and expensive cologne.

“It was good, okay? You got the guy.”

“ We got the guy, L/N.”

“Yeah, yeah, golden boy, we got him.”

He knows your sarcasm is empty. Just by looking at your flushed face he can tell you don’t mean it.

“Come on now, L/N.” Long, lithe fingers grip your chin and turn your head towards him. “You can do better than that.”

Your jaw clenches. Arousal shoots down your spine like an electric shock.

Fuck.

Closer and closer his alarmingly handsome face inches closer to yours. The beauty mark under his eye seems more prominent than ever.

His mind is one of a brilliant detective, but god, that face. He should’ve been a model.

You bite the inside of your cheek and when you try to look away from his deep eyes, the grin on your jaw tightens.

“Come on, L/N.” He smirks. “Tell me how good I did today. Say it.”

The brat inside you decides to surface. So, he wants to go this route, hm? “Why do you need me to say it so badly, Hwang? Everyone else in the department is so far up your ass, they can wear you like a hat.”

He rolls his eyes, his body pressing against you entirely. Your arms uncross and you reach back to grip the countertop next to his hands.

It shouldn’t feel as good as it does. You should be shoving him away, slapping him across the face, spitting on his shoes. But instead you relish in the feeling.

“Yes. But they’re not you. ”

Your eyes widen and the corner of his mouth twitches. He knows he has you in the palm of his hand. He just needs to break you more.

But does he really?

Finally, he brings his lips closer and closer to yours. He pauses right before he makes contact, giving you a chance to say no.

Nothing of the sort tumbles out.

The first kiss he presses to your lips is nothing short of devouring.

His soft, plush lips consume yours like he’s a starving man at a feast. You meet his enthusiasm with fervor.

Hyunjin’s head tilts to get better access to your mouth. His eyebrows pull together in concentration, he almost looks like he’s in pain.

The fingers on your chin move down to your neck, he wraps his hand around it, thumbs on top of your pulse point, but he doesn’t squeeze.

Your hands tentatively reach for him, grabbing at his dress shirt and tie, pulling him even closer to you.

A small moan comes from the base of his throat and through his nose. Hyunjin’s other hand grabs your hip possessively.

“Say it, L/N,” he hushes between kisses, completely out of breath. “Tell me how good I am.”

How is it that he has this sort of possessive grip on you and yet he’s putting the ball in your court?

A small boost of confidence courses through your veins.

“Can’t you just admit it already?” he adds.

Smirking, you say nothing. One of your hands threads into his long hair and yanks his face back to yours for another bruising kiss.

He huffs through his nose once more, but kisses you nonetheless.

Twirl after twirl of his tie around your hand tightens your grip. With the last tug, Hyunjin moans once more into your mouth. The hand on your throat squeezes a bit.

“L/N,” he pleads again against your lips.

You tug hard on his tie. Hyunjin loses his balance slightly, his knuckles turning white from grabbing your countertop so tight.

Bringing your lips to his ear, you blow hot air on the sensitive skin first. He shivers against your hot body.

At the same time, your bare foot travels up the back of his clothed calf, your thigh brushing against his hip.

“If you want my approval that badly, you’re going to have to earn it.”

Hyunjin makes a choked moan, “Fuck,” he whispers under his breath. The hand on your hip tightens. The fingers wrapped around your throat twitch.

“How does that sound, Hwang? You be good to me and I’ll let you know how well you’re doing.” You roll your hips against his.

Your words have an obvious effect on him, the hardness that presses to your leg says it all.

Hyunjins lips drop down to your neck, he bites the soft skin where it meets your shoulder. “Fucking hell, L/N, don’t play hard to get.”

Humming, you roll your head back, enjoying the sensation of his mouth on your skin. “I’m not playing anything, I already told you how to get what you want.”

Licking and sucking his way down your neck, his teeth nip at your exposed collarbone. The hand on your throat slides backwards and into the hair on the back of your head.

Your bottom lip pulls between your teeth to stop a moan from leaking out. You pull Hyunjin’s tie to keep his face there.

“Just like that, golden boy, your mouth feels so good.”

His hips involuntarily buck into yours at the praise, he whimpers against your skin. “ Shit, ” he curses into your neck with a hot exhale.

You wrap your entire leg around his waist and roll against him more. His mouth stutters, but afterwards he sucks hard . A bright purple hickey already surfaces when he detaches.

“L/N,” he murmurs into your neck. You hum in response. “Can I take this off?” He tugs at your shirt.

You smirk. “You can.”

When your hand unwinds from his tie, Hyunjin backs off of you. His face is already so fucked out; eyes are half-lidded and hazy, his lips are so puffy and swollen, spit glistening off them in the soft kitchen light.

From all your pulling, Hyunjin’s hair is all askew and coming out of its usual ponytail.

He wastes no time, grabbing the hem of your t-shirt and yanking it over your head, he throws it behind him carelessly. His eyes light up at the sight of your bare chest, tongue poking out to lick his already slick lips.

You chuckle.

“You gunna touch me or what?” you tease. “Or maybe you don’t want it that badly.”

Hyunjin’s jaw clenches and he meets your eyes. The look he’s giving you is dangerous.

He huffs once and grabs your waist tightly, lifting you up off the ground and sitting you on the cold granite. The sharp temperature change against your flushed skin makes you shiver.

Hyunjin parts your legs and stands between your thighs, his head dips down and envelopes one nipple in his mouth.

“Fuck!” you cry out, grabbing a fist full of his hair.

One of Hyunjin’s hands trails up your leg to grab at your exposed thigh while the other comes up to play with your other perky bud.

His eyes shut in his own pleasure. That tongue is absolutely relentless, licking circles around your nipple to flick over it a few times and then sucking.

Your toes are already curling, legs wrapping around his waist to get him closer to you.

“How about now, L/N?” his hoarse voice whines against your spit covered chest. “Is this good for you? Does it feel good?”

The more he talks, the more you can’t tell if he’s teasing you or genuinely asking for his own sanity.

“It feels fucking amazing, Hwang, keep– shit – keep going.”

Hyunjin takes in a shaky breath and switches sides, your fingers yank on his hair and he whines again around your nipple.

You let him continue for a while, relishing in the feeling of his spit dripping down your chest and onto your navel. The wet licks and sucks bouncing off the walls combined with his own small whines and your loud moans.

Roll after roll of your hips grinds against his hard tent in his dress pants. After a few minutes, your hips seem to have a mind of their own, your soaking wet cunt seeking friction against anything to satiate the need for contact.

The more he licks at your chest, the more Hwang Hyunjin continues to drive you insane.

“H-Hwang,” you pull his attention. His eyebrows furrow as you yank him away from your purple marked chest.

When he finally detaches, he looks up at you, panting.

“Touch me, touch me, please . I can’t fucking take it.”

His shoulders curl forward like you knocked the air out of him.

With more strength than you thought he had, he scoops you up and wraps your legs around his waist while smashing your lips together again.

You cling onto him for dear life while letting your tongues slide over one another.

“Hah,” you pant out in between kisses. “You’re doing so fucking well.”

He whines.

“Could’ve made me cum with just that tongue on my tits. Such a shame.”

Hyunjin drops your body onto the couch without a warning. You squeal and bounce on the soft cushions.

“Hwang–” your voice dies in your throat when you catch the sight of him standing on the other side of the sofa arm.

The change in his demeanor gives you whiplash.

His eyes are dark, almost black. His chest is heaving with heavy pants. Those long fingers are tugging at his tie, until it's loose enough for him to rip off his neck.

Your knees tuck up a bit towards your chest as you watch him with wide eyes like prey.

Hyunjin reaches down and snatches your ankle, he tugs on it harshly. You yelp as you’re dragged forward into a lying position.

Coming around the sofa, he swings one knee over you to straddle your hips. One by one he begins to unbutton his dress shirt, never once breaking eye contact.

Each sliver of skin that is revealed is devoured by your eyes greedily. Never once has he so much as undone the top button on his collar at work.

Shamelessly, you rake in his athletic build.

“You want to cum with just my tongue? Okay, L/N, I can do that.”

Your heart thuds in your chest.

He shrugs his shirt off and drops it to the floor. Hands grab at the waistband of your shorts and yank them off with your panties in one swoop. Another article of clothing to hit the floor.

The cold air against your soaking wet folds makes you hiss slightly.

Hyunjin stares down at your arousal, biting his bottom lip. Lower and lower he descends until you can feel his heavy exhales against your cunt.

He pushes your thighs apart, putting one over his shoulder, your heel settles into the dip of his spine. He’s smirking the entire time.

Finally, he tears his eyes away from your folds to look you right in the eye.

Your jaw clenches and you watch as he licks all the way from your entrance, up to your clit, circles around it to go back down to your entrance again.

An immediate shockwave of pleasure shoots through your body down to your toes. You toss your head back with your mouth agape, a silent scream stretching your lips.

Hyunjin keens at your reaction, doing the same maneuver again before focusing his attention on creating the most sinful figure eights with his tongue.

Your hand flies down to grab at his hair, shoulders arching off the couch. “Shit, shit, H-Hwang, feels so– hah – s-so good.”

He moans into you, the vibrations go right through you.

With your heel on his back, you can feel how his back curves as his hips rut into the couch underneath him to relieve some pressure off his aching cock.

Praises fall from your lips like water falling over rock. Each one makes Hyunjin whine and kick it up a notch.

“That fu- uh -cking silver tongue, holy shit .”

Hyunjin moans loudly, he grabs both of your hips, nails digging into your skin with deep scratches. It only makes you cry out louder, pulling on his hair even harder.

The tie in his hair comes out completely. You toss it away from you and gather up his hair in between your fingers to keep it out of his eyes. It feels like silk.

A coil within you begins winding tighter and tighter. The more he licks and sucks, the higher your cries get and the tighter your abdomen feels.

“Feels so good, it feels fucking amazing ! S-So close! Shit, please make me cum, please, shit!”

Each word makes Hyunjin sutter and moan into your folds, his eyebrows pulled like he’s in pain. Harder and harder he ruts into your sofa, his nails digging into you so much you think he might draw blood.

It’s taking every ounce of his will not to spill out in his pants at your praise. At your begging .

One of his hands comes up and kneads at your chest. His thumb rubs over your nipple a few times and that’s all it takes for the band within you to finally snap.

Your orgasm washes over you so hard it’s like being hit by a bus.

With a silent cry, your entire body tenses up. Hyunjin’s movements slow down, but he still coaxes you through your climax with that skilled tongue of his.

He hums into your folds, licking up every last drop of your juices.

You come down from your high slowly, chest heaving up and down, every exhale is paired with a moan. Shockwaves still ripple through your thighs.

Hyunjin’s eyes open and he stares at you, his mouth going over to bite your inner thigh. You squeal and squirm.

Slowly, like a lion, he gets up and crawls over your form, keeping eye contact. Once he’s close enough, he captures your lips greedily. Your arousal is still all over his tongue. It’s swapped between the two of you with your spit.

Your hands reach down and fumble with his belt buckle. Hyunjin makes no move to stop you, instead, he pushes you further.

“Look at that,” he pants, looking down at your fumbling hands. “So desperate for my cock, huh, L/N?”

Your eyebrow twitches. You undo the buckle and reach down to grab his rock hard erection through his pants.

Hyunjin’s elbows buckle at your touch and he grunts, squinting his eyes shut.

“All talk, aren’t you? Once I touch you, you crumble .”

“Shit!” His eyes snap open and he bucks into your hand. “Because– ugh –, like I said, it’s you . Fuck ,” he moans when you squeeze him again over his pants.

“Keep going,” you tease. “Keep going and I’ll keep stroking this fucking monster cock you keep tucked in these pressed dress pants of yours.”

He exhales shakily while you unbutton his trousers.

“When were you ever going to fucking– agh – realize that you drive me fucking insane, L/N?” His eyes start to unfocus when you push down the waistband of his pants and boxers down his thighs.

Fucking hell . Has he always been packing this?

“God damn, Hwang.” Your hand runs up his length. Hyunjin shudders and closes his eyes. Your touch is so featherlight he thinks he’s going insane.

His eyebrows twitch and hips buck forward to try and reach your touch.

“I’m not hearing a lot of talking.” You lean up and attach your lips to his neck, continuing to only trail the gentlest of touches up and down his throbbing cock.

The head is red and angry and weeping precum.

His body trembles. “ Shit – I wanted you for so long, L/N. You drive me– fuck – insane. Every single fucking day I did whatever it fucking took to get your attention.”

Finally, your hand wraps around his length tightly and you start pumping very slowly. The long, pathetic moan that tumbles from Hyunjin’s lips is something of sin.

He sounds so relieved yet even more aroused at the same time.

You continue to suck your own marks onto his perfect skin. Sweat drips down the side of his face and down his now slick back.

“ Ughhh – L-L/N…” He buries his face in the crook of your neck.

Your hand stops moving when he stops talking.

He cries out into your neck, hips frantically bucking into your touch to chase it. You only chuckle in response.

“ Please! ” He whimpers.

“Keep going then, golden boy.” You suck a sensitive spot underneath his ear.

Another stutter of his hips.

“I begged the chief to put me on your case!”

Your pumping picks up speed again, his entire body rolls into yours. You grip him tighter and jerk him faster.

“I said– ah – I would do whatever case he wanted next if he– ffuuck – let me work with you on this one– oh my god! And I still would, I would do whatever– mmmph – case I need to to fucking work with you every day. Agh! ”

Despite your outwards nonchalant expression, on the inside, his words are fucking killing you. The throb in your cunt that was satiated moments ago comes back with a vengeance.

To hear Hwang Hyunjin at your mercy is going straight to your core. Each noise he makes goes straight to your pussy.

“God, fuck , L/N, I-I’m close. Please, god , shit.”

After a few more pumps, you stop, taking your hand away completely. Hyunjin cries into the crook of your neck again, his body rolling and rutting the air at the loss of contact.

“Please, why, fucking hell , I was so close!”

You grab the hair on the back of his head and yank his head up to look down at you. His eyes are cloudy, ears and cheeks bright red. Sweat drips down the side of his face and over his sharp cheekbones and jawline.

“Wouldn’t you rather fuck me?”

His face twists up with another moan.

Hyunjin dives down and captures your lips in the sloppiest kiss of the night. He’s messy and desperate the longer he kisses you.

While trying to stay attached to your lips, Hyunjin fumbles around to kick off his pants and boxers.

Both of you finally naked together, he grabs his cock in his fist.

“I-I’m not going to last–”

You cut him off with a sharp tug to his hair. “Fuck me, golden boy, don’t you think you deserve it after today?”

His eyes practically roll back in his head.

As soon as he’s lined up with your entrance, Hyunjin slides into you slowly. Inch by inch you’re stretched open,

He might not be thick but god, he is long .

With his mouth on yours, he swallows each moan and cry of pleasure. Without wasting any amount of time, he pulls out to slam back into you.

Both of you moan out together.

Your arm wraps around his neck. He rests his weight on one elbow and the other wraps around your shoulders to hug you close to him. His hand splays out between your shoulder blades to keep you anchored against his sweat slicked chest.

The skin to skin contact sends both of you wild.

Over and over again his hips undulate to thrust into you in the most delicious way. The angle of his hips brushes his pelvic bone against your clit with each slam against you.

“You feel so fucking good,” you whine into his ear.

Hyunjin’s next thrust hits a bit harder. If praise makes him fuck you harder, then so be it.

“God, your cock is amazing.” Harder. “Hitting me just right.” Harder. “Never knew you would feel this fucking good.”

With his mouth on your neck, he leaves sloppy hickeys wherever he can reach. His pants fill the room and mix with your whines.

His head suddenly dips down to take your nipple into his mouth once more. You keen and toss your head back, hips canting up. The new angle has his cock slam right into your g-spot.

A loud scream tears from your lips. Hyunjin immediately picks up on this and picks up the pace, making sure he hits that spot every time.

If you thought your first orgasm had a sudden build up, it’s nothing compared to this one. There’s a sudden pressure increasing in your lower stomach.

“Fuck!” Thrust . “So good!” Thrust. “Oh my god!”

Praises and noises fall from you, you don’t even realize what you’re saying anymore. The pleasure has your mind in the clouds.

“Y/N,” the sudden use of your name grabs your attention. Hyunjin comes up over your face with a pleasure twisted face.

“Say it, please, please , I’m fucking begging you , please, say it.”

Your eyebrows pull together, mouth still hanging open. What does he want you to say that you haven’t said already?

“ My name. Say it, please, please, please, please–”

Oh, fuck.

You smirk and watch as the desperation drives him wild. Even in the deepest throes of pleasure, you string him along for a few more seconds as you approach the edge.

Closer and closer you come to the edge.

He whines, begging louder and louder as his own climax creeps up on him, the muscles in his body tightening more and more.

He needs it so bad.

“Y/N! Please! ”

Just as you’re about to tumble over, your mouth stretches open.

“Fuck, Hyunjin! ”

The loudest moan you’ve ever heard from a man comes falling out of his mouth as he buries his face into your neck. Hot, sticky warmth shoots within you in long, drawn out spurts that match with Hyunjin’s whines and groans.

His hips stutter for another twenty seconds before his moans finally calm down.

Both of you hold onto each other tightly, heaving heavy inhales and exhales to catch your breath.

Absent-mindedly, your hand begins to rub up and down Hyunjin’s clammy back, drawing small circles and lines onto his skin.

He hums into your neck and holds you closer for a moment before collapsing onto the couch on top of you.

Surprisingly, his weight on top of you doesn’t seem to phase you; instead it brings the same comfort as a weighted blanket.

After a few more minutes of you silently rubbing his back, Hyunjin begins to lazily press kisses onto your bruise covered chest, paying extra attention to your collarbones.

The kisses are soft and sweet, nothing like the lust coated ones from before.

“Did you mean it?” you ask him quietly.

He pauses his kisses only to answer you. “Mean what?” He starts kissing you more.

“That you asked Bang to work on the case.”

He chuckles against your neck, his hair tickling your skin. “Oh, yeah. It took entirely too much convincing.”

You laugh with him and keep him close to your body.

In the back of your mind, you know you should get up, that he should pull out and the two of you should shower and drink water, but you can’t seem to distance yourself from him.

There’s no harm in sitting there for a while anyway.

Hyunjin hums into your neck again, “Thank god we have the week off.”

You couldn’t agree more.

#oooooh Lordy lord #I work in law enforcement so ofc I had to check this out and gah damn I wasn’t disappointed #detective hyunjin is actually SUCH a sexy concept and I need to see more of it this instant #wow #recommend fic #hyunjin smut #hyunjin fanfic #🥟

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hyuniebunnies · 6 months ago

Text

When is it my turn 🥹

This is so so pretty and so so him.

☆°. — aphrodite ; hhj

genre: smut, fluff

pairing: hyunjin x afab!reader

wc: 4.4k

warnings/ content: established relationship, hyunjin is very needy and obsessive, body worship (feet stuff..... hear me out y'all), oral (f receiving), SLIGHT foot job HEAR ME OUT Y'ALL, also not edited because i'm lazy

author's note: okay. you all need to hear me out because i didn't know this fic woul dabble into unknown territory but trust me it's NOT a feet kink kinda fic it's a body worship fic!!!! don't let the mention of feet stop you from this fic pls i swear it makes sense with hyunjin ( @astraystayyh can confirm i converted her). also this fic is inspired by so many different things i can't name them all, but one of them is this song.

Your body registered the deep grunt before your brain properly did; you tensed, the hairs on your skin standing straight, your core tingling with delight. You gave the man in your bed a curious look, one eyebrow raised; and you almost sighed out in response. Hyunjin was in nothing but boxers, your blanket – long smelling of him, or a mixture of you and him, or sex and him – lazily draped over his lean body, not necessarily to cover him but just because it was there. And it was barely covering him, in the first place; revealing his entire upper body and one leg which he couldn’t hold still, digging it into your mattress, or stretching. His shaved head was buried in your pillows – also holding his scent, reminding you of the times you pulled it close to your body and breathed it in whenever he couldn’t stay overnight – and he looked tortured, somehow. Laying on his side but writhing, half of his face hidden in the pillowcase before he sighed out hopelessly, and threw himself on his back. His body tensed with the movement, abdomen clenching and revealing muscle, shoulders protruding, the skin there stretching thinly, and it gave you the godliest sight. And then he looked at you. Finally. Deep eyes locking with yours, reading you, pleading you, begging you for something yet unspoken. But you could tell he was; his telltale puppy eyes, his blown out pupils, his quivering lip. His scrunched, full brows. Not only could you look at him forever, you also knew he wanted something. Something from you.

You cocked your head, stopped in your work – assignments you needed to complete, deadlines you had to meet, and Hyunjin had complained about it plenty when you had left the bed to sit at your desk. His hand had not let go of you until the very last moment, tracing your curves while you had stood up and put on a shirt of his, having been thrown to the floor mindlessly last night, or earlier that day, you weren’t quite sure. Time was hardly ever separable with him, minutes becoming hours becoming days, and nights, and you never knew when one ended and the other began. Hyunjin’s fingers had caressed your body up until the very point you’d been unreachable to him, and you had felt his touch linger on your skin, hot and scorching, when you sat before your laptop. You had also heard his moans and grunts of protest, but you had done your best to tease at him; despite everything in your body screaming to just slide back into his arms, warm and long and inviting, steady.

And your body was screaming now, too. He looked so adoring, so comfortable. He looked so desperate looking at you, chest heaving with his breathing, as if to tempt you on purpose, as if to navigate your attention towards it. To the smooth skin of his body, his prominent collarbones scattered with love bites, his hardened nipples. It wasn’t cold in the room.

You caught his face again. If he’d noticed you staring he didn’t let you know, and you broke under his gaze, eventually.

“What’s up babe.” The tone of you voice didn’t ask a question, and you chuckled when he groaned again and let his hand drag over his face. Utterly tortured. So dramatic. You rolled your eyes with a smile even though he couldn’t see, too busy being tragic. He huffed out, looked at you again.

Suddenly shy; you thought you caught him blush.

“This song makes me so horny.”, he muffled into the pillow, turning in your bed again, stomach now hidden, exposing his back instead. He had barely spoken the words when you started laughing, brightly. You registered the song playing on your speakers, one on your joined playlist, the deep bass and sensual melody filling the room, the echoes and lazy voices setting a nice mood if combined with the vanilla scented candles you had lit, the dim lights you had turned on. The sunset you had opened the blinds for. You laughed because it was absurd. Because Hyunjin looking so pained, so desperate and tense because of a song was amusing; but it made sense.

Of course he would get horny over a song. Of course he would remember how you had stood between his legs just hours prior while he sat on the closed toilet seat, only a towel wrapped around his waist while this very song was playing from your phone. Of course he would remember how you had dried your hair right in front of him, chest inches away from his face, how he had tried to continue the oh so innocent conversation you had started, adamant to look into your eyes, to look up, to not let himself get distracted, how he had grown weak and started kissing your breasts, instead, eventually. As if he’d been bound to. With the song setting the mood hours prior too, how he had started letting his fingers dance upon your outer thighs before finding your core, asking for permission with big, dark eyes. It made sense that he would remember how you had sighed his name when the tongue of his had found your nipple, when his free hand started softly caressing your sides, your waist, your hips, cupping your chest, licking you, kissing you, fingering you so softly only minutes after you’d had made love in the shower. And in bed before that. And on the couch in your living room before that.

Of course Hyunjin would remember how the song had played every time your lips clashed together, when his hands found your mounds, intertwined with your fingers, when your scent, your taste met his mouth; he was your hopeless romantic, after all, always caught on the mundane, fixated on the very nihil and it always meant the world to him. A song. Of course a song would mean the world to him; if only it reminded him of you.

But still you laughed. Teased him. Because sometimes you liked to, and sometimes you just couldn’t let him distract you, as much as you would want him to. You watched his writhing figure, but couldn’t for too long; the muscles in his back spasmed with every bass in the song, and his arms tensed when he let them disappear beneath the pillow, hugging it. Something about it was sinful, suggestive. You imagined your own body there, between his arms, in place of the pillow, how his face would lay on your stomach, how his hot breath would fan over your skin, how good he would make you-

“Don’t laugh at me.”, he whined. He hadn’t seen you stare. Thankfully. He would have been the one teasing long already, and you converted your eyes back to your laptop. Deep breaths. Taking deep. Deep. Breaths.

“It is kinda funny, you have to admit.”, you breathed, huffing amusement past your nose. If you weren’t looking at him, teasing was far easier. And then he groaned again, deep, a little raspy, and it reminded you that, no, it was never easier with him. Your ears were as much slave to his eros as your eyes were, his voice as tantalising as his body was. He tsked, and you heard him ruffle again. “It’s not… fuck…”, he sighed, and a magnet pulled your eyes towards him. His own ones were buried in his elbow, as though hiding his face from you would make him less embarrassed, or less horny, or gave you less a reason to laugh at him. His brows scrunched, and he hummed before his body moved. Before his hips rolled a little into the mattress, into your mattress; at least that’s what you think they were doing. You couldn’t tell for sure under the thick blanket, but you knew him enough to guess. You knew the patterns of his muscles enough to recognize it, and you almost copied him, almost rubbed yourself against nothing, onto thin air. Another hum, and he moved to turn around again.

“I’m so hard.” This time he said it with a self-deprecating laugh himself, hiding his face in his hand, and you wanted to lick it, each of his fingers, reminded of how he had pushed two of them past your lips under the shower. How he had looked at you while doing so. How he had fucked your mouth with them, slowly, making you gag on digits so long with eyes so hooded and dark that you had come moments later. You were sure the chair beneath you was wet now. Your panties sure as hell were.

He looked up at you from beneath his lashes. Fuck. Hyunjin turned to his side, to face you, to be closer to you; his face contorted in pain or pleasure then, you couldn’t decipher, but it had the same effect on you anyways. One arm of his reached out, falling over the edge of the mattress. Calling you silently. Tempting you.

“Please, babe. Come back to bed.”

You considered it. Your work wasn’t even half-way done and it was calling you, your laptop screaming your name loudly, but Hyunjin was screaming it louder. With his eyes, with his body. With his fingers that reached you, fanning over your shivering leg. Lulling you, intoxicating you.

You considered it, but you only smiled at your lover. “I have to finish this, love.” You weren’t lying. But you wanted him at the very edge. Not normally the one to behave the way you did this moment, but you enjoyed it. You enjoyed the whine which tore through Hyunjin’s throat, frustrated and dissatisfied. As if you were all the salvation in the world. As if you were the only one capable of releasing him from the depths of hell.

“Please. It hurts.”

His words were but a whisper, pout written over his features, lips so plump and pink and you thought you heard him downright pant. Maybe he was at the very edge already, had been for longer you initially believed.

You chuckled, feigning coyness, pretended to understand whatever the hell you had written on your Word Document when you looked at it again. The words were a blur, the meaning more so; you only felt Hyunjin’s fingers on your leg, pleading.

“I have to finish this, babe. You can… relieve yourself. Can’t you?” Giving him a bashful look over the shoulder, and it was Hyunjin’s turn to laugh now. A deep laugh, not so much amused as surprised. He turned to lay on his back again; when you glinted over at his body, you believed to see the faint outline of his erection when the blanket betrayed him. He let his palm smooth over his body, over his stomach down to his abdomen, looking sultry while doing so, his body tensing due to his very own ministrations. He knew you were looking at him; and you really, really shouldn’t have. Because there was no way you would finish your work now.

“Oh yeah? You would like that, wouldn’t you? If I touched myself?”

As if to emphasize his words he let his hand wander further down, palming himself over his boxers. You could only half see, the blanket covering him mostly, but you saw enough. You saw his veiny hands on his sex, alluring, calling you when he gave himself a squeeze which tickled a moan out of him. You hummed in response; neither affirmative nor negative, and you heard Hyunjin turn around in your sheets again when you discarded your eyes from him completely. Felt his fingers on your calf again. Felt his hand – warm, slightly sweaty, trembling – close around your ankle then, suddenly, catching you off guard. He turned you around in your working chair and pulled you closer by your leg, and you giggled when you faced him, his face by your feet you rested on the edge of the bed, hand still enclosing your ankle.

Something deep, something in the pit of your stomach fluttered when you watched Hyunjin look up at you. When you noticed how his touch felt on your skin. How it ignited you. How it weakened you. A gasp turned to a breathless chuckle when Hyunjin’s lips connected to the foot he yet held in his palm. One kiss atop it and his hand slid slightly upwards, up your calf, up where he knew you were sensitive. Always along the inner side, with fingers delicate, with touches featherlight because he knew you liked the way it tickled. He caressed your foot with his lips, giving it wet kisses. Along every inch and he loved the way you tensed beneath his touch. He loved to watch your brows furrow when he gave your toe a kitten lick before kissing it, lavishing, bathing in the feeling of you. In the intimacy you provided. In the fact that you allowed him to love you like this, so openly, so desperately.

So obsessively. Hyunjin would say that a lot; that he was obsessed with you. Obsessed with everything about you. In between kisses he would whisper it into your ear, or mumble it into your neck before biting down at the skin there, or sighing it into your pussy when he couldn’t seem to disconnect from it for hours. You would hear it so often, and yet you never grew used to it. Initially, you failed to understand just how obsessed your lover was with you; because the first time he had kissed your foot – his hard erection had been deep inside you and one leg of yours had lay atop his shoulder so he could reach even deeper, and he had pecked it, mindlessly, as though a bodily instinct, a biological reaction – you had flinched, drew back your leg in surprise. He had apologized, you had reassured him. Had confronted him later, though; because you had been perplexed.

“No.”, he had said, “it’s not a… fetish. I just love you. I don’t know.”, upon your question why he hadn’t told you sooner if this was something he liked.

“I like that, though.”, he had breathed when you had looked embarrassed, that part of your surprise had been the sheer fact that you hadn’t prepared for it. That your feet had been calloused, wearing long weeks of work. Your nails had been cut carelessly, they hadn’t been painted. “I would have, like, gotten a pedicure, if you told me you were into that.” Hyunjin had shook his head, almost frantically. “I love the way they are right now. They’re… natural. They show how hard you work. That you, like… walk on this earth. I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

Not a fetish, you had realized then; adoration. He carried a deep adoration for your body. For every part of it. And ever since then you had understood his obsession a little better.

So you let him kiss your feet now. Because he did so eagerly. Humming against your skin, lost in you as if kissing you, tickling you, licking and lapping you up was bringing him pleasure beyond human comprehension. And you could only watch, mesmerized. Baffled. That a man so beautiful loved you. That a man so perfect obsessed over you. That he now looked up at you, deer eyes beneath deep lashes, and he was breathless, panting.

“Let me taste your pussy, please.”

You hissed at his voice, at his hot breath against your ankle, at his brows which formed a line from how much he was frowning in frustration. You hissed from the implication of his words; no, not the implication. He wasn’t implying anything; he was downright begging. Shamelessly. Openly. For something so vulnerable, something which was so intimately, so carnally a part of you. He was begging for the most carnal part, and he was doing it so helplessly. So prettily. You thought he had never looked more beautiful than this. Than when he was loving you.

You nodded with heaving chest, spread your legs on the chair, shuffled forward a little; Hyunjin didn’t even bother with your underwear. He pulled your panties to the side, quickly, as though you were granting him a wish he would have never expected to come true, jaw hanging slack with anticipation, eyes blown out a deep black. He lapped you up. He didn’t wait for another word, didn’t waste another second. You gasped when you felt his mouth on your soaked warmth, now even warmer, now that he was breathing against you. Breathing deeply, breathing hotly. Whispering a low, throaty “Fuuck.” right into your pussy which muffled most of his noises, which absorbed all of them and made it her own. Which fluttered when he licked at your clit, mouth open so widely as though he couldn’t get enough of you. As though he would never taste you enough, never stuff himself enough with you, never be close enough to you. Mouth open so widely as though he wanted to inhale you whole, not only your sex, your clit, your wetness. You. To make you part of him, to make you connected to him through some sort of outer force.

It was when he kissed up and down your lips that you lost your heart a little. It was then when you noticed he was lost in his own pleasure. That he was kissing you because he wanted to kiss you. Not because he knew you liked it. Not solely. That he was making out with your pussy, mouth latching onto your labia, wandering up to the hood over your clit and down the puffy skin again to kiss near your slit because he was losing himself in you. Because he wasn’t even looking at you. Hyunjin’s eyes were closed, shut so tight the skin between his brows was wrinkled, his jaw trembling. His breath shaking against you. His deep grunts resonating somewhere deep inside your core. Depths only he ever reached. Only he was capable to.

When you moaned his name, called it out desperately and let it materialize in the room, letting it take space in the relative silence, he finally looked at you. Finally granted you his entire attention. Finally blessed you with the sight of him; eyes bloodshot, hooded, almost sleepy. Almost as if he had awoken from a trance. Hyunjin hummed in response, knowingly. Breathed you in deeper, licked a heavy stripe from your slit up. That was for you now. Now he was pushing your buttons, pushing them so knowingly, so aware it made you dizzy. He knew you, he chased your high with you.

His hand – big, warm, steady – pushed against your inner thigh, gently but you complied. You spread your legs further, granted Hyunjin more space. More space to make you feel good, more space to show love. He sucked at your clit, watching as you threw your head back. Smiling to no one but himself because he had expected it. Your legs twitched, your muscles spasming against your will, but you let them. Your right leg resting on the mattress lazily and Hyunjin played with it. Letting his fingers slide up and down your calf, always on the inner side, until he tickled at the underside of your knee, until you whined out and he knew to wander down with his fingers again. He caressed your ankle then. Scratching your skin with his nails, a little, slightly. Not enough to hurt, only to elicit wanted reaction; a hiss, a breath caught in your throat.

You hadn’t paid attention, so you didn’t know when exactly your foot touched Hyunjin’s erection, accidentally. You must have spread your legs just a little further – it was never enough, the pleasure he granted you intoxicating and you chased it with every nerve in your body, with everything you had in you – and you had only heard the heart-ripping moan from the man. So loud it scared you at first, before you understood, before you looked down at him, at his erection, at him again. Down his body, down his toned chest and tensed abdomen and at his erection again; you were able to see the wet patch on his boxers. The desperation in his eyes when you locked them again. He had put his own pleasure to the side for your own; and if he hadn’t lied to you about the pain, then he had been hurting for quite a while. Looking at you to just ease him off the pain. Any way you wanted to, any way possible, he didn’t care. As long as you eased him off it, as long as you freed him from the torment.

It was awkward, but you tried to get past his waistband with your toe. It must have tickled more than it did anything else because you caught Hyunjin’s skin shiver, the toned lines on his stomach protruding suddenly as the muscles there tightened. But he understood. Without breaking his lips off you, without even looking away from you – hungry eyes still following your every move, every expression in your face – he freed himself quickly with one hand, and your mouth filled with water you could barely keep behind your lips. You moaned out, too; simply at the sight of him, because he had shoved away his boxers so carelessly, because he was showing himself to you so readily, for you to take him with all you had. Even if it was pathetic. Even if he seemed desperate. Even if his precum was dripping down in thick beads onto your mattress, looking like a pearl necklace was adorning him. Hyunjin rolled his hips into nothing, searching for your touch when he saw the look in your eyes. The hunger there. When he saw how you bit your lip, how you cursed out.

“You’re not hard babe; you’re basically cumming.”

And Hyunjin hummed into your pussy, eyes closing, making him see stars, more even when you touched him. Delicate foot on his tip, and you didn’t even need to move; the man started chasing his high momentarily. He was so eager, grinding against the little contact of skin you granted him, but it was enough. And you knew he wouldn’t last long. His fingers dug into your thigh, his other feeling you up, feeling you everywhere, reaching to cup your breast above your shirt, higher up then when the lack of your skin disturbed him, when he found home on your neck, closed his palm around it softly.

You let your hand slide across his short hair, nails on his scalp at his touches. There wasn’t much to pull on anymore; Hyunjin had admitted that he missed the feeling, that the only downside to his new hairstyle was the fact you couldn’t tug at it anymore. He had admitted that he missed the pressure, the sting of pain. He had mumbled it into your neck while he’d been deep inside you, the very first day after he’d shaved it, after you’d confessed how good he looked. You had pulled him closer back then, had arched your back to connect your chest with his; Hyunjin had whined when your nails had dug into the sensitive skin of his scalp, and had kissed you feverishly after.

And he was now whining without control, too. Whining at the sting of pain, whining because he was so, so close, rolling and rolling himself against you, quick and quicker and with a body so tense, so shivering, so trembling. He was whining because he couldn’t get enough of your taste, of your scent, because as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t keep his eyes open. Because he felt so, so good. But he wanted to watch you. He wanted to see your mouth while it breathed his name, while it fell slack before a scream ripped through it. Wanted to see how you threw your head back, how your body convulsed against him, back arching, thighs closing, your free hand finding the one he had on your throat. Because you needed something to hold on to. Because he knew you were so, so close. He felt you shake, your legs quiver, he heard his name out of your mouth a couple notes higher, a little breathier, a little more carnal. He loved it when you said his name like that. He loved how it sounded in your mouth, sensual, pleading. Sweet.

And he came. Without much warning, but with spasms, because he just couldn’t take it anymore. Not with how mindlessly your foot lay on his now softening cock, with how hard you were groping at him; not just his head, everywhere. How much closer you seemed to need him. He couldn’t help it with how you smelled, sweeter now that you were close and wetter, oh so wet, drowning his chin in your essence, and he didn’t bother to clean himself up. He let himself be wet; let his own release stick to his abdomen, let it trickle down to his hips, let his chin be wet with you, wettened it even more by pushing himself deeper into you, nose wet too now, lips long soaked, mouth so full of you he grunted deeply, lapped you up, sucked your clit; and he felt you cumming, too.

And he finally looked up at you, needed to see you. And the sight was heavenly, wishing he could look at you forever. When you were like this. When you moved like this. When you felt this good; felt this good because of him. Because of his mouth which drank you up, cleaned you, inhaled you. Your eyes in the back of your head, your face contracting, your jaw tightening so hard that it shivered, that your lips quivered with it. You were flush, your hair all over you; knowing you, Hyunjin was sure you wouldn’t like the sight of yourself, wouldn’t understand why he grew hard again simply watching you. Why his breath caught in his throat when you looked at him, lashes damp, lip spit-laced, and whispering your name because it was “Too much.”. Just because Hyunjin could never stop when he started. Because he never got enough of your taste, long after you finished. Because he always drove you over the edge a second, a third time, only until his jaw pained him, when his lips went numb. When his heart filled with you so much he swore he couldn’t take it; and yet swore greedily, swore selfishly, that it would never be enough.

@es-kay-zee @jeyelleohe @angelwonie @ppiri-bahng @cherrrywon @svintsandghosts @llunapastell @sensitiveandhungry @junebug032 @noellllslut @unexceptional-h @like-a-diamondinthesky @katsukis1wife

#wow #recommend fic #hyunjin smut #hyunjin fan fic #🥟

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hyuniebunnies · 6 months ago

Text

happy ending, new beginning | hhj (m)

summary: when your friend gifts you an appointment for a massage, he fails to mention one critical detail. luckily, it turns out to be a pleasant surprise with a very happy ending.

pairing: hyunjin x fem reader

genre: smut

word count: 8.3k

rating: mature (18+)

warnings & features: profanity; mentions of the reader having a menstrual cycle; graphic sexual content; the “massage with a happy ending” trope; fingering; risky workplace sex; dirty talk; unprotected sex; pullout method

author’s note: i really cannot believe this is as many words as it is because there is seriously no plot here. i hope you enjoy!

{ click here if you prefer to read on AO3 }

---

The cozy parlor smells nice, like powder and fresh linens.

The receptionist at the counter smiles. “Hello, good morning. Checking in?”

You smile back and approach them. “Hi, yes. I’m supposed to have an appointment at ten o’clock?”

You give them your name. They tap a few things on their screen and nod.

“All right, you are all checked in. If you want to have a seat, Hyunjin will be with you shortly.”

No sooner have you taken a seat and crossed your legs than the glass door behind the receptionist’s counter opens. Out steps a tall, thin man dressed head to toe in white. Thin, white short-sleeved shirt, loose-fitting white cotton pants, shiny white designer shoes. His blond hair is buzzed short. His ears are decorated with multiple golden piercings. His eyes are a deep brown, and there is a distinctly feline quality to his gaze.

He’s beautiful.

Of course Minho booked you a massage with the most beautiful masseur ever.

The man smiles brightly and says your name as a question. His voice is soft and rather pleasant. A lovely voice to match a handsome face. Of course.

You stand and manage to smile back. “That’s me. Hi.”

He extends his hand and you shake it. His skin is warm. Soft, too.

“Hi, I’m Hyunjin, nice to meet you. Please, come on back.”

He holds the door open and ushers you ahead of him. His hand grazes the center of your back, and your heart flutters for some reason.

“We’ll be in the last room on the right,” he says.

You walk down the short hallway and turn through the last door on the right with Hyunjin right behind you.

In your mind, you pictured a sterile white room. Instead, the walls are painted a beautiful shade of green with paintings of flowers and landscapes displayed upon them. There is a long counter along one wall with a round porcelain sink in the middle. Near the sink are a multitude of candles and small bottles and vials. Rolled towels are stuffed in the shelves beneath the counter. In the center of the room is the massage table, longer than it is wide. A white sheet is fitted on top of it. The smell of powder and fresh linen is stronger back here.

Hyunjin steps around you, and you catch the scent of him when the air moves. He smells of something rich and slightly sweet, like dark chocolate. He pulls a fluffy white towel out from under the counter and sets it on the edge of the massage table. Then he looks to you and smiles again. The groove of a dimple appears in his cheek.

“I’m going to step out for a few minutes,” he says. “I want you to undress entirely, please. Bra, underwear, everything. We don’t want to stain any of your clothing with the oils. Then I want you to lie face down on the table with the towel over you like it’s a blanket, please.”

You nod along to his instructions. When he is finished, you say, “Okay. Thank you.”

“Of course. I’ll be right back.”

He leaves and gently shuts the door behind him.

You undress and pile your clothing on a nearby chair, sliding your shoes underneath it. Then you pick up the towel and shake it open before climbing onto the padded massage table and lying face down under your makeshift blanket.

It takes several minutes, but eventually there is a knock on the door. Hyunjin calls your name and asks, “Are you decent?”

“Yes. Come in,” you say, turning your head to see him enter.

He steps inside and closes the door again. You lock eyes for a second, then he moves to the counter. Music begins playing. A slow, relaxing piano melody. You hadn’t even noticed the speaker there. He also lifts one of the candles, but before he lights it, he turns back to you and asks, “Is it all right if I dim the overhead lights and light a few of the candles? They’re not scented.”

“Oh,” you say. “Uh, sure.”

He gives you a crooked grin. He really is incredibly beautiful. “It’s all right to say no,” he says.

“No, no. That sounds fine. Just seems kind of… I don’t know. Intimate, I guess. I wasn’t expecting that.”

Hyunjin’s face changes. His grin falls and his eyebrows dip in what appears to be confusion. “Is that not what you requested? When you made the appointment, I mean?” he asks.

You fidget with the sheet, plucking at an imaginary loose thread. “I didn’t set it up myself, actually,” you explain. “My friend did. As a gift.”

Hyunjin’s shoulders drop. It seems like realization is hitting him.

“Ah,” he says, turning all the way from the counter to face you fully. “I’m sorry, this is my fault. I should have confirmed everything with you before I left the room.”

He steps over to a screen the size of an iPad mounted face-high on the wall by the door. He pulls something up on it and nods to himself. Then he looks back to you and explains, “Your friend booked you with me for the full deluxe package. That’s a two hour session which includes establishing relaxing ambiance—the candles, lighting, music, et cetera—the massage of course, use of any and as many essential oils as you wish, and a… a happy ending, if you’re familiar with the term.”

You nearly choke on the spit in your mouth. “O-Oh! Oh my god,” you stammer. “You mean…?”

“An orgasm, yes,” Hyunjin says. “To be clear. Which I should be and should have been from the start.”

Oh, you are going to fucking kill Minho when you see him. No wonder he had been so excited to give you this gift. He does like giving you things you would never buy for yourself, and this definitely fits into that category. Plus, the main reason he did this for you in the first place is because of the recent breakup you’ve gone through. ‘It’ll take your mind off it for a while.’ ‘You deserve to treat yourself.’

Full deluxe package, huh. That twisted fuck.

“No, you’re fine,” you tell Hyunjin, “it’s my friend who should have been clear from the start. Fucking prick.”

Hyunjin chuckles a little. “If you want to cancel, I totally understand. I’ll refund your friend.”

You chew on your lip in thought for a moment then ask, “You really offer that here?”

“Refunds?”

You laugh, loudly and genuinely. “No. You know what I mean.”

Hyunjin laughs too. “Yes, I get paid to massage people then make them come. Though not as many people book for that as you might think. You’d think they’d at least be curious, but I think they assume it’s a terrible joke. Anyway, I know this was a lot to spring on you. It’s all right to change your mind and decline. That goes for anything that happens in here this morning.”

You think for another moment. Another question comes to mind. “What if I had a partner?” you ask. “You wouldn’t offer this in that case, would you?”

Hyunjin consults the screen on the wall again, scrolling with the tip of his finger. He points to something and replies, “Your appointment form says you’re single, unless your friend lied about that.”

“No,” you say, shaking your head. “No, that’s correct. I was just curious.”

“Everything that happens here is private and confidential,” Hyunjin says, sort of dodging your original question at first, but then he adds, “but no. I wouldn’t offer this service to people in relationships. Unless they’ve lied on their appointment form, of course.”

“Huh. Well I guess that’s on them and not you then.”

Hyunjin gives a tight smile. “What other questions or concerns do you have?” he asks. He sounds patient and genuinely curious. You get the impression he is good at this. At his job.

“What if I was on my period?” you ask.

“We have tampons. Or if you wanted to put your underwear back on and wear a pad, we’d have to get you cleaned of all the oil first. I would also lay an extra towel beneath you.”

“So… you’d still do it?”

Hyunjin flashes an easier smile. “I would use gloves for sanitary purposes, but yes, I would. Are you on your period? Do I need to step out again or get you anything? Or would you prefer to reschedule?”

“No, no. I’m not. Just curious again.”

“These are good questions.” Again, he sounds genuine and kind.

Are you really willing to let this beautiful stranger give you an orgasm though? It wouldn’t be the first time, but this isn’t exactly a dating app hookup or picking someone up at the bar.

Still, if this is what his job entails and it is a totally normal occurrence for him, why not go along with it? What would it hurt?

You shake your head again. “I can’t think of anything else,” you say slowly. “And I… I’ll go with everything that was booked.”

“You sure? No hard feelings if you want to omit some things or reschedule or completely cancel. I promise.”

You swallow and nod. “I’m sure.”

Hyunjin flashes a brighter smile, bringing back the dimple in his cheek. You entertain the idea that he might actually be relieved by your answer, but surely that is not the case. This is work to him, and this is still a customer service type of job.

“All right. So, would you like me to dim the lights and light some candles?” he asks, easily picking up right where he left off.

“Sure. That would be nice.”

He does so quickly, lighting and placing the candles in various places around the room before dimming the overhead lights. You can still see him well enough to watch him move back to the counter and wash his hands at the sink. The faint light catches on the jewelry in his ears. After he dries his hands, he starts examining the bottles. He does not look at you when he speaks again.

“So, you’re booked for a full body massage. No pun intended,” he says, making you laugh. “But are there any specific areas you want me to focus on? And yes, you’re allowed to say something like your breasts or your glutes or your pelvis.”

Heat rises in your face. “No. Nowhere in particular,” you answer.

Hyunjin nods to himself and lifts a couple bottles. “Your form said no known allergies to any oils or lotions or skincare products in general. Is that correct?”

You sigh. “Yeah, that’s correct. Minho might be a prick but he knows me well.”

Hyunjin laughs again. You like that sound.

“All right, what about scent preferences? Dislikes?”

“Uh… what do you recommend? What’s your favorite?”

He looks at you. “Oh. Well, I like green tea and eucalyptus the most. Lavender is nice too, if you want to relax to the point of falling asleep, which a lot of people do. We also have rose oil, coconut, ginger, frankincense…”

“The green tea one sounds nice,” you decide.

“Good choice.”

Hyunjin sets both the bottles in his hands down and lifts another. He opens it and pours a healthy amount into his palm.

“These are all safe for even the most intimate areas,” he says, rubbing his hands together to warm and spread the oil, “but let me know if you feel any burning or unpleasantness at any time, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

He touches your arm that is closest to him. You automatically lift it because you think that will make his work easier, but he gently pushes it back down and says, “Just relax, please. No need to lift a finger. I’ll do all the work.”

Something in the way he says that has heat rushing south between your legs. How are you supposed to relax when you know what is waiting for you at the end? Maybe it would help if you didn’t stare at the handsome man touching your body the entire time, so you turn your face to fit it into the cutout in the table and mumble an apology to the floor.

“Don’t be sorry,” Hyunjin says, gliding a firm hand up your arm, coating it in the fragrant, pleasantly tingly oil. He starts making conversation by asking, “So what made your friend book this appointment for you? Work stress? Just for fun?”

It would be easy to answer with one of those choices, but he has been so kind, so you feel compelled to tell him the truth.

“I went through a… sort of a nasty breakup a few months ago. I’m getting over it, but I was pretty down about it for a while.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. And I’m sorry to bring it up.”

Hyunjin kneads downward from your bicep to your wrist, then slots his fingers between yours to hold your hand and roll your wrist in a gentle circle. Somehow, that gesture feels every bit as intimate as if he was already touching between your legs.

“You’re fine,” you say.

He lets go of your hand and goes back to your bicep, repeating his earlier motions until he reaches your hand again. He rubs at your fingers, either intentionally or unintentionally popping a few of your knuckles in the process.

“We don’t have to talk at all, by the way,” Hyunjin says. “You can tell me to be quiet.”

You smile at the floor. “No, I… I like conversation. Better than sitting here in silence, I think.”

“Well, your emotional and mental comfort are as important to me as your physical comfort,” he says. His hand moves to your upper back between your shoulders, skirting along the edge of the towel. “Is it all right if I pull the towel down a bit? Just to the middle of your back for now.”

“Yeah, of course. Whatever you need.”

He folds the towel back just as he said. The air is a little cool on your bare skin, but his warm hands are there to soothe that problem in no time. The oil feels pleasant as he smears it along your skin. The scent of green tea envelopes but does not overwhelm you. The song changes in the background to a different piano melody.

Hyunjin hums in thought as he prods your shoulders with his fingertips. “You have quite a bit of tension up here,” he says. “Do you sit at a desk all day for work?”

You nod against the table. “Yeah, actually. And I’ve been told my posture isn’t great.”

He chuckles. “I wasn’t going to lecture you or anything, I swear. I was just curious myself.”

A couple quiet minutes go by as he works the knots in your shoulders. You’re the one to speak up and carry on the conversation this time.

“So how did you get into this job?”

“Oh, a friend of a friend thought I’d be good at it. It sounded fun. I thought it would just be a temporary thing but then I was actually going to school for it, and then I was doing hundreds of hours of training and getting my whole license, so I guess this is my career now. I like it though. It’s interesting, you know. Unconventional. Can’t imagine doing something like sitting at a desk all day.”

You both laugh again. You did not realize your legs were tense, but you feel them relax as you sink just a little deeper into the cushioned table.

“I feel like it could make relationships awkward though,” you say, then immediately wish you hadn’t. That was probably too personal.

Hyunjin hums but does not pause his work for a second. He pushes his thumbs up and down along the upper part of your spine and says, “I went through a rough breakup a while ago myself because of my career. I told her it was just work and there are other jobs out there that involve touching people’s genitals, but that was a mistake. I mean, I know it’s not the same. There’s definitely a difference between what I do and what a cerologist does. I get that.”

“A cerologist?”

“Sorry. A wax specialist.”

“Ah. Right.”

He sighs heavily. “Anyway, I’ve been hesitant to get seriously involved with anyone since then.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” you say, shifting your weight a little. “It is just a job though.”

“Easy for someone who’s not my girlfriend to say,” Hyunjin jokes. The laughter in the room is more awkward this time. “Sorry,” he says after. “That was weird. I’m sorry.”

It takes more strength than it should, but you turn your face to look at him. He meets your eyes. The candlelight behind him gives his form a glowing outline. Coupled with his white clothing and golden hair, he looks positively radiant.

“It’s all right,” you say. “For whatever it’s worth, I think you’re really good at your job, Hyunjin.”

There are dimples in both his cheeks when he smiles this time. “Thank you. That’s kind of you.”

You shrug. “It’s true.”

He holds eye contact with you for a few seconds longer before looking away. He inhales deeply and clears his throat. “Is it all right if I lower the towel again? Down to your lower back this time?”

“Trying to see my tattoo?” you tease.

He lets out that warm laugh. “If you have a tattoo anywhere on your body, I’ll probably see it, don’t worry. May I, though?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

He folds the towel further and sees nothing but naked skin. He laughs under his breath and turns back to the counter to pour more oil into his hands. It squelches when he rubs his hands together.

You wonder how much time has gone by already. He still has your lower back, your legs, then your entire front to do, you assume. And that’s before you even get to the grand finale.

When his hands smooth their way across the small of your back, your thoughts dissipate. Your breathing slows after a while, until a particularly good press of his fingers on your lower spine elicits a moan from you.

“Sorry, I—” you start, then promptly shut your mouth. You should not have acknowledged the sound at all. That made it a hundred times weirder.

“No, don’t be sorry,” Hyunjin says again. “That’s a good thing. It lets me know it feels good, which is important, obviously. And the walls are soundproof, so don’t worry about that.”

You let out a tiny breath of laughter. “It feels really good,” you say honestly.

“The pressure is okay then?”

“You could go a little, uh, harder, actually.”

“No problem.”

He starts using the heels of his palms to rub outward from your spine to your sides, all the way from your lower back up to your shoulder blades. The oil is very slick, but his hands never slip or fumble in their movements. He does this over and over, moving up and down from the center outward. Another quiet moan comes straight from your throat.

“That’s it,” Hyunjin whispers. His voice is so soft you’re not even sure if he meant for you to hear that or not. A crazy part of you wonders if he ever gets hard during these sessions, but you’re definitely not saying that out loud.

After a while of Hyunjin maintaining a steady rhythm, you start to feel boneless, especially when he steps around the table to give your other side the same attention. He is probably running on auto-pilot mode by now, but your heart skips a few beats when he does the same hand-holding move on your other hand. If he notices the change in your breathing, he does not comment on it.

Eventually, Hyunjin says, “I’m going to move on to your legs now, if that’s all right.”

You hum in understanding. Your throat feels a little dry. Hyunjin carefully peels the towel off your legs and folds it upward. Only your butt remains covered at this point.

His touch feels softer when he lays his hands on the back of the thigh closest to him. For a second, it feels like his thumbs swipe back and forth with no real intention behind the movement, but then his hands glide all the way down to your ankles with the same pressure he was using on your back.

“Is the pressure still okay?” he asks.

“Y-Yeah.” You swallow through the scratchiness in your throat. “Yeah, it’s good.”

“Good.”

He squeezes down your leg repeatedly, as if he is trying to push all the tension downward and out through your foot. He keeps you in that boneless state, expertly working your muscles. After a while, you stop feeling embarrassed about your soft moans.

“Are your feet ticklish, or may I move on to those?” he asks. It feels like you have been floating, so it takes you a moment to register his words.

“I mean, they’ve never been especially ticklish?” you say. “Have at it.”

Hyunjin tickles his fingertips against the sole of your foot and laughs with you when you jerk it away. You turn your head to look at him. There is a mischievous glint in his eyes. Or maybe it’s the candlelight.

“Sorry. Couldn’t help myself,” he says. Could he possibly be flirting with you?

You swallow again and say, “You better watch it, mister.”

His eyes glimmer when he nods. “I’ll behave, I promise. Permission to continue the professional way?”

“Granted,” you say, giving him a smile before turning your face back into the cutout.

He takes your foot in a firmer touch so as not to tickle you again, even accidentally. For some reason, this part of the massage feels the best yet. His fingers really know the exact ways to release the tension in your body. You knew he was good at his job.

He steps around the table again and switches to your other leg and foot. It seems like he is focusing longer on your inner thigh this time around. Your toes curl at the thought of his fingers moving just a little higher. Of course he notices.

“I know,” he says quietly. “Relax.”

Hyunjin’s touch lingers on your skin after he finishes with your other foot.

“Would you like me to do your glutes before we move on to your front?” he asks. His voice is not only low but also deeper now.

“Sure,” you say, your voice hardly more than a breath.

It takes a second before the towel lifts from your butt. Hyunjin sets it down on the back of your calves, out of his way. It takes another second before you feel his touch. He starts with your hips rather than going straight for your butt cheeks. He kneads them gently. It takes all your willpower to stay relaxed.

His thumbs eventually inch their way onto your butt while the rest of his fingers remain splayed over your hips. He presses his thumbs firmly up and outward over your cheeks. Soon he goes from using only his thumbs to using his entire hands. He easily draws more moans from you this way.

What you don’t expect to do is curse under your breath. A tiny but still audible: “Fuck.”

Hyunjin exhales hard. On one upward stroke, you could swear he gropes your flesh more than presses it, and you find you don’t mind that at all. You were wrong — this part feels the best so far.

You would have been more than happy for him to continue this part for hours, but you are reminded of the limited timeframe when he stops his movements.

He lifts the towel off your legs, but one of his hands is still resting on the small of your back when he asks, “Ready to flip over for me?”

As if you aren’t putty in his hands to mold as he pleases.

You start to turn over but you are still floating and boneless and your arms give out. Luckily your fall is all of an inch and does not hurt at all, but you are embarrassed by the fumble nonetheless.

Hyunjin curls an arm behind your back and says, “Here, lean against me. I’ll turn you over.”

“Sorry,” you say as you do as he asks. He is stronger than you expected him to be. He eases your body back into the center of the table like it’s nothing. The towel settles over you again from your collarbone to your toes. You pull your arms out from under it.

Hyunjin keeps his eyes on yours when you settle on your back. “Don’t be,” he says once again. He smiles that beautiful, dimpled smile. His fingers trail down your arm. “Still feeling good?” he asks.

You nod silently.

“Good. May I massage your chest?”

Only when he asks do you become aware of your hard nipples standing against the soft towel.

“Yes,” you say.

His eyes drop to your covered breasts. He peels the towel down, folding it down to your belly button. Then he turns to grab the bottle of oil again. He only adds a little more this time. He purses his lips as he reaches for your chest.

He starts just below your breasts and moves upward, cupping them gently—briefly—before pushing up further. The tips of his thumbs barely graze your nipples, but it’s enough to send a pulse of desire between your legs.

You hiss and bite your lip. You might have gotten comfortable with your moans, but now he can see your every facial expression, so it feels embarrassing again.

His hands lift away from your body and his eyes flick to your face in concern. “Did that hurt?” he asks.

“No, uh. The opposite actually.”

“Oh. Phew.” His face relaxes. “Do tell me if it does hurt though. I know this area can be very… tender.”

You nod and take a deep breath, exhaling it slowly.

“That’s it,” Hyunjin says gently. “Breathe. Relax. Enjoy my touch.”

You close your eyes. You don’t think you want to risk eye contact with him while he is doing this.

His hands return to your chest. He gently pushes your breasts up, then smooths over your collarbone, again and again. This part feels the most like fondling so far, but as he said, this can be a tender area, so he can’t exactly be as firm as with your back or your legs.

You sigh when his fingers ghost across your nipples again, lips parting ever so slightly. Hyunjin makes a soft noise as well. You crack an eyelid to look at him. He is focused on your chest with his eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed again in concentration. He looks so handsome you can’t help but blink your eyes open the rest of the way.

He smooths his face over and smiles when he notices you watching him.

“How am I doing?” he asks. “Still feeling good?”

“You’re really good at this,” you say. You sound somewhat breathless, which surprises you because you haven’t even done anything to get that way.

“Thank you. May I move the towel down a bit?”

“Sure.”

He tugs it down below your belly button, still leaving your legs and crotch covered.

“Is your stomach ticklish at all?” he asks.

“No, not really.”

He does not pull the same flirty stunt with your stomach as he did with your feet. He simply goes straight back to work, running his hands gently down your sides and across your stomach. It feels more like rubbing than pushing or pressing, probably because of all your organs just below.

His fingers frequently brush the edge of the towel when they move downward. Sometimes they dip right below the towel and skim just above your pelvis, briefly at first, then lingering for longer and longer.

Your heart kicks up when you realize what is next. Is it that time already?

Hyunjin notices the change in your breathing. You lock eyes with him again.

“We don’t have to,” he says quietly. His lips hardly move. His eyes are molten chocolate.

He stops dipping his fingertips beneath the towel. It surprises you how much you wish he would continue. You think you’ll go crazy if he doesn’t continue. You have to be honest with him.

“I want to,” you say.

You expect him to move the towel away—or ask to move it away, as he’s been doing—but he merely pushes beneath it again, this time with his whole hand. The hand not beneath the towel curls gently around your shoulder at first, then behind your neck, as if he needs to hold you steady.

“Is this all right?” Hyunjin asks. He has not broken eye contact with you.

You are not sure if he is asking about the hand holding your neck or the one teasing along your inner thigh, but you are enjoying both of them, so you nod and say, “Yes.”

“It will never be too late to change your mind and tell me to stop, okay?” he says. His hand rubs against the crease where your crotch meets your leg. He holds you there too.

You nod again, not trusting yourself to speak clearly with words instead of moans.

“Try to relax,” he says. “Don’t undo all my hard work now.”

You giggle at his joke. He smiles down at you. His eyes still have not left yours.

“And tell me if the oil irritates you at all,” he reminds you.

With that, he cups your pussy whole. You both make a noise at the sensation. You can tell you were wet, even before the oil. He must feel it too, along with the heat of you radiating into his palm. You think you hear him swear under his breath, but he clears his throat immediately after and finally looks away from your face.

Hyunjin separates his fingers and drags them down each side of your slit, avoiding your clit and your hole. Your eyelashes flutter closed. Your legs twitch and one of your hands briefly balls into a fist on the table before you relax it again. You take a deep breath and exhale slowly through your mouth. Hyunjin lightly squeezes your neck.

“Very good,” he murmurs. His fingers slowly drag up the edges of your pussy, back down again. “Breathe. Relax. Let me do all the work.”

You lick your lips and keep your eyes closed, enjoying the steady rhythm he builds of gently rubbing you up and down, spreading the oil—and surely your own wetness—over your sensitive skin.

You nearly manage to relax again when the tip of his middle finger brushes the hood of your clit. Electricity forks throughout your entire body. Your eyelids scrunch tighter and your hips twitch against the table. Hyunjin does not say anything; he simply strums that fingertip over your clit every time his hand passes back and forth. His hand continues sweeping up and down a few more times before he rests it in place and uses that wicked fingertip to draw circles into your hardened clit.

“How’s the pressure?” he asks. His voice is low and deep again.

You let out a whimper before you can speak. “Good. S-So good, ah—”

“Should I go faster? Slower?”

“F-Faster, please.”

He does so immediately. Your hips buck an inch off the table at the rush of pleasure from the change of pace. Hyunjin chuckles under his breath, but again, he does not comment on your obvious lack of relaxation.

He does say your name, however, in that low, deep voice. “I want to make you feel so good,” he says.

You’re not sure if he says those words in that tone to all his clients, but you can’t follow that train of thought right now. A fresh wave of arousal takes you, shuddering through all the muscles he just massaged. The area beneath your backside feels wetter than before with the combination of oil and arousal beginning to pool there.

“Hyunjin,” you moan before you can stop yourself.

His breath catches in his throat. You look at him again and see his eyelids are heavy over his deep brown eyes. That glowing halo of candlelight is surrounding him again.

“Fuck,” he says, not loudly, but clearly this time. He bites his lip and skims his gaze down the length of your body before meeting your eyes again. “I swear I never say this to clients, but you are so fucking beautiful.”

You whimper again when his fingertip edges beneath the hood of your clit. When he shifts his weight, you notice the considerable tent in the front of his thin pants. You moan just from the sight of it. He notices that you have noticed his problem, but he does not remove either of his hands from your body to deal with it. Again, you wonder if this always happens, even if he does not call every client beautiful.

“Can I take the towel off you? Please?” he asks in a pleading tone.

You pull it off yourself and let it drop to the floor. Hyunjin immediately looks between your legs at your naked pussy in his hand and lets out a groan from so deep in his throat that you swear you have a tiny orgasm with the next flick of his finger.

He looks back to your face. His sharp cheeks are noticeably flushed. His sharp jawline flexes beneath his flawless skin.

“Tell me if I’m out of line,” he whispers.

You bend your knees and spread them apart, a clear invitation for him to keep going. He gets the message.

“Fuck, I’m going to make you come so hard,” he says. He adds his ring finger to the circles he is drawing on your sticky clit. It feels incredible, but you still feel horribly empty inside.

“Want your fingers in me, please,” you boldly murmur.

“Yeah? You want them inside you, beautiful?”

“Well, not just your fingers.”

You meant to keep that to yourself—you really did—but you must have said it out loud because Hyunjin sucks a breath through his teeth and stops drawing those maddening circles. His cock visibly bounces in his pants. You look up at his face. An almost pained expression crosses his sculpted features.

“I… can’t, I… I never…”

“Sorry,” you say, mortified, “forget I said that. I’m so sorry.”

“I want to,” Hyunjin says, quickly and earnestly. “Trust me, I really fucking want to. I just—my license… I can’t…”

You nod over and over. “I totally get it, I’m sorry. Please ignore me.”

The pained expression does not leave Hyunjin’s face. He bites his plump bottom lip again. His eyes drop in a straight line from your eyes to your mouth to your chest to your pussy and back up again. He dips his middle finger into your pussy, only up to his first knuckle. You automatically clench around it, trying to pull it deeper. It works. He slides his finger the rest of the way inside and curls it, drawing another moan from you. He adds his index finger and curls them both, then scissors them like he wants to work you open.

He breathes hard. He gives the back of your neck another tender squeeze then mutters, “Fuck it,” and moves that hand to the strings on the front of his pants to untie them.

Your heart races. You gasp when he pulls his dick out in front of you. The tip is rosy and thick. The wetness gathered at the slit looks delicious; your immediate thought is how badly you want to lick it up.

“This has to stay between us,” Hyunjin whispers, frantically tugging his pants down to his knees with one hand. His erection stands stiff in the open air.

“I know,” you say, propping yourself up on your elbows. “I swear.”

“Come here. Please…”

Hyunjin takes your hands and helps you scoot to the edge of the table in front of him. He stands between your legs and takes the back of your neck again, forehead propped against yours. You breathe hard and stare into his eyes until you notice movement below. You watch him take his cock in hand and guide the head right to your pussy. When he pushes inside, you both gasp over the tight, wet, smooth entry. He shoves his hips forward, easily bottoming out in one stroke.

You wrap your arms around his shoulders. Hyunjin stares at your face and tries to breathe calmly through his nose, but you are not making it easy for him with the way your warm pussy is repeatedly clenching around his throbbing dick.

“Tell me when I can—”

“Please.”

He starts rolling his hips into you. Gently at first, then with more desperation. Your head rocks back and you moan toward the ceiling at the rise of pleasure. He keeps his grip behind your neck, not letting you fall backward. His other hand has a firm hold of your ass cheek, keeping you steady against his frantic thrusts. His dick rubs against almost every sensitive part of you. You shift your hips a little; it’s enough to angle his tip into that perfect spot.

“Oh fuck, right there, right there,” you pant, bringing your head around to press it back to his forehead and look into his eyes again.

Hyunjin moans and holds you tighter, pounding that spot again and again and again.

You notice him staring at your lips, so you tilt your face and lean in. He meets you in a kiss far more gentle than expected for the way the table is creaking beneath you. He ends it too quickly for your liking, studies your face for a second, then he kisses you again, much deeper this time. As soon as you feel his tongue prod against your lips, you part them and let it swarm into your mouth. His tongue tastes of mint and sugar and he moans so prettily into your mouth. He’s perfect.

You voice your pleasure into the tender kisses. “Yes, yes, fuck, Hyunjin, yes—”

Hyunjin pulls away from the kisses with a low groan. He nearly pulls out of your pussy too, to your great dismay. His hips come to a shaky stop with just the tip of his cock left inside you.

“Sorry, I just need a minute,” he says, breathless and smiling sheepishly. “You’re so tight and you sound so hot and it’s… it’s been a while for me.”

“Take your time,” you say. You’re not sure how much time is left in your session, but you won’t complain if he wants to prolong something he shouldn’t be doing in the first place, and you certainly don’t mind being told how tight and hot you are.

Hyunjin’s fingers massage the back of your neck. He pulls you into another tender kiss. You clutch his shoulders, nails digging into his smooth skin, and feel his cockhead twitch inside you. He begins moving his hips again, but he only fucks you with his fat tip now. You whine and whimper because it isn’t enough.

“What about my ‘happy ending’?” you tease, pouting against his lips.

Hyunjin laughs and kisses you again, tongue briefly curling against yours, before answering, “I know, don’t worry. I’m still going to make you come so hard, especially now that it’ll be on my dick.”

He says that but he has the audacity to pull all the way out of you. Before you can protest, he takes your hands again.

“Here,” he says, tugging your hands. “Let’s turn you around.”

You slide off the table. He holds your waist in a strong arm to keep your oily feet from slipping on the floor.

Hyunjin turns you around and bends you over the massage table. He whips off his shirt and follows you, draping his warm body over yours. His wet cock throbs against your ass cheek.

“Is this all right?”

“It’s good, Hyunjin, please…”

He takes your hip in one hand and puts himself back inside you with the other. You moan at the stretch, the friction, the raw pleasure.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. Once he is secure enough inside you, he lets go of himself and runs that hand up the length of your spine. “I want to hear all your moans, pretty girl. Let me know how good it feels.”

When he bottoms out this time, he does not give you a moment to adjust; he builds up a relentless pace right away. It takes him a second to find the right angle in this position, but he eventually hits that spot inside you again that has you seeing stars. He hits it over and over, keeping you right there on the end of his pounding cock.

“Fuck—yes—Hyunjin, yes!”

“That’s it, baby, fuck, just like that. You’re so fucking hot, oh my god.”

The hand that is not holding you steady at the hip is making its way all over your body, the body he has had his hands on all morning. He holds the back of your neck again for a while, holding you down to take everything he gives you. He wraps it around your front, pawing back and forth between your heaving breasts, giving each of your nipples a few good pinches. He trails it down your stomach to stuff it between your legs where he finds your clit again. He pinches it the way he pinched your nipples, just to hear you squeal. Then he resumes drawing the circles that started this all.

Hyunjin gets you to come in only a few minutes with his talented fingers. He is like a man possessed, a man with something to prove with how quickly he unravels you.

“Hyunjin, fuck, I’m coming, I’m—” you gasp, though he surely feels it for himself.

He groans and folds himself over you, face pressed to your back, writhing and bucking with you through your orgasm. His hips do not stop bouncing against your backside. He keeps grinding his cock deep inside you, slamming his heavy balls against you. His fingers do not stop playing with your sensitive clit.

He eases the pressure of those fingers once the force of your orgasm wanes, but he never stops completely. His cock throbs hard between your silky, sensitive walls, but he manages to withhold his own orgasm.

“There we go—mmm, fuck—yeah, that’s it,” he says, his breath coming out in warm puffs against your slick, sweaty skin. “So fucking good. That’s just the first one, baby.”

You push yourself up onto your palms against the table, elbows wobbling just like your knees in the aftershocks of your intense climax. Hyunjin moves with you, leaning back to stand straight. He moves a hand against your collarbone to pull you into his chest. You turn your head. He is already there, ready to meet you in a kiss that leaves you even dizzier.

He already alluded to more, but now he asks, “Can you do another one for me, or are you satisfied?”

“You didn’t come yet, did you?” you ask in return.

He exhales a breath of laughter. “No. If you come again, I will. I won’t be able to hold out twice. But that’s not what I asked, pretty girl.”

“Then I’m not satisfied yet,” you say, grinning and kissing his smooth, pink cheek.

Hyunjin chuckles. “All right. Let me turn you back around then. I want to see your face when you come around me this time.”

He has to pull out again to sit you back on the table, which is tragic, but the sight of his veiny cock glistening in a layer of your juices is worth it. You reach for it, letting the weight of it simply rest in your palm for a second before taking proper hold of it in a loose fist. Hyunjin groans and wraps his hand around yours, guiding it up and down his length. The skin is smooth and velvety soft but stretched tight over his solid length and girth.

You only give him half a dozen guided strokes before he pries your hand away.

“I bet you’re pretty good with your hands too, huh baby,” he says, caging you in his arms by planting his hands beside you on the table. “I wish we had more time for you to demonstrate.”

You nearly forgot about the time constraint. You nod and spread your legs. Hyunjin grabs you under one of your knees to help hold you open and also tug you closer to him. He takes his cock and smacks the tip against your clit a few times, still taking the time to rile you up just a little more before sinking back inside you.

“God, this pussy,” he grunts. The grip he has under your knee tightens. His other hand returns to your ass, practically yanking you the rest of the way onto his cock. “It wraps around me perfectly.”

He fucks you again, deep and hard. The table starts creaking again. You hold each other close as he works you both to your highs. He has his face in your neck, kissing and licking and nibbling at your skin. You try to do the same, but all his neck receives in return is a babble of breathless nonsense drawn from your lips with every firm thrust.

His fingers slip their way between your legs again, feeling where his cock is moving in and out of your pussy. His thumb presses against your swollen clit and you lose a bit of your mind. He pulls his face out of your neck to look at you again.

“You first, baby, fuck,” Hyunjin pants. His sweet breath tickles your face. “Please come for me again. Let me feel it again. Let me see it this time, hm? Let me hear how good it feels to come all—over—my fucking—dick.”

“Oh fuck, Hyunjin, don’t stop, don’t stop, please,” you say, moaning it over and over again until your orgasm takes you. You go rigid and then boneless in a different way, trembling through the waves of your second climax.

Hyunjin groans triumphantly and watches it all. “That’s it, that’s it. Fuck yes, that’s so good, baby, oh, yes—”

He fucks you through your orgasm as long as he can but his own quickly catches up to him. He pulls out at the last second and frantically jerks his cock. His cum shoots out in long streaks, landing all over the place — your stomach, your thighs, the table, the floor. Part of your lust-addled brain hoped he would lose himself completely and come inside you, but the sensible part of you is relieved he didn’t.

He squeezes the last few drops out of his tip and lets go of his cock. It hangs heavy between his legs, flushed and spent. Your pussy is in a similar state; aching in the best way, swollen and throbbing after a thorough fucking. You think you can feel your heartbeat in it.

Hyunjin is as out of breath as you are but he reaches for you and claims your lips in another kiss. When he pulls away, you become aware of just how oily and sticky and sweaty you both are.

“Holy fuck,” you giggle, making him giggle too.

“Yeah. ‘Holy fuck’ is right.”

He clears the rasp in his throat but does not say anything else for a little while. He rests his forehead against yours while you both float back down to earth, waiting for your breathing to settle and your heartbeats to calm. One of his thumbs traces mindless circles into your hip. You absently massage the prickly hairs at the nape of his neck.

Finally, Hyunjin takes a deep breath and straightens. He fixes his pants and pulls his shirt back on. You watch him walk to the other side of the table and pick the towel off the floor. He helps get you cleaned up as best he can. You know you will still walk out of here smelling like green tea and sweat and maybe even his cum, which you help wipe off the floor. He tells you not to fuss over the cum stain on the sheet since he will have to strip it and sanitize the table anyway.

The feeling of his skin on yours lingers even after you have both been wiped and patted and dried off. Hyunjin gently takes your hands and meets your eyes again.

“I hope I—um—” he starts, then swallows and tries again. “I swear I don’t do that with clients. Ever.”

“I believe you,” you say. “I won’t say anything. I promise.”

“I hope I didn’t mess anything up,” he goes on, “because it kind of felt like there was something between us, even before the sex. Unless I’m mistaken?”

Your heart flutters. “No, I… I agree,” you say, the hint of a smile tugging your lips. “Maybe I’ll make an appointment myself next time.”

Hyunjin laughs. “Well I was hoping I could give you my personal number. Maybe take you out on a date sometime. Then you’d never have to make an appointment again.”

“Oh! Y-Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

“You’ll have to thank your friend for me for booking you this appointment though,” he jokes.

You burst out laughing because you forgot Minho is the reason you are here in the first place.

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to thank him earlier,” you say, making Hyunjin laugh again, “but yeah, I guess I will now.”

You smile at him. Hyunjin cups your face in his hands for another kiss before he lets you get dressed, puts his number in your phone, then walks you back to the waiting room. He bids you goodbye with a gleam in his eye that makes your heart flutter once again.

You hope this is the start of something happy and new.

---

#oh this is so pretty #the flow is incredible #hyunjin is so soft #wow #hyunjin smut #recommend fic #🥟

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hyuniebunnies · 6 months ago

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Mari you did it again 😭 I read the first part AGES ago so I re-read it last night to catch up on these two parts and it might have taken me over 7 hours to read everything but I don’t regret a single thing.

You always make your stories feel so real, they’re very realistic. I’m not bashing any other story of the sort because I love them all, but sometimes the angst doesn’t feel right and they forgive each other way too quickly. But this? It’s perfect. The awkwardness, the anger, the oh so slow build up before the two of them feel even close to being comfortable around each other again. It’s so easy to put yourself in this story because it’s just that good and well written.

Hmu when you publish an actual book because I can and WILL be buying them all. You’re way too good at this to be doing it for free.

I absolutely adore you Mari, thank you for gifting us all with your beautiful writings.

december sunsets | i only see you part two.

pairing: hyunjin x f!reader | word count: 25.7k | genre: romance, exes to lovers, smut | warnings: angst ; themes of breakup/heartbreak ; regret and guilt ; forced proximity ; mutual pining ; hurt/comfort ; fluff ; reunions ; confessions ; drinking and games | this chapter contains explicit sexual content and adult themes as well as strong language. find nsfw warnings here. i only see you is a direct sequel to the one-shot just stay with me that i released two years ago.

After all, if it was over—if he did not love you and maybe had never really wanted to be with you, there was no risk of him reentering your life whatsoever. Meaning that there was no risk of getting your heart shattered by him another time, something that you would certainly not survive.

It was the beeping of appliances that woke you up the next morning when the power came back.

What time is it? was your first thought but it was quickly erased, replaced by something far more urgent.

You were warm yet you no longer heard the cracking of logs in the fireplace, suggesting they had turned to embers overnight. White light was filtering from behind the curtains—it seemed like it was sunny and bright outside. You couldn’t move to go look.

You couldn’t move because you were wrapped in Hyunjin’s arms—his chest was flush with your back and his face was buried somewhere in the crook of your neck. His breath caressed your skin there, steady and slow.

You let out a faint gasp, your eyes widening, your entire body swallowed by flames. Your first reflex was to see whether the others had seen you and it was with relief that you realized they all seemed asleep, except maybe for Seungmin who rolled over, his slumber lightly disturbed by the beeps that rang. Jisung was sleeping on his side, his back facing you.

Hyunjin hummed in his sleep and pulled you even closer until he was embracing you completely with both of his arms, one leg over yours.

You froze, completely stunned as your heart raced in your chest. Oh god, you thought as your fight-or-flight response raised about two hundred alarms, blaring directly into your ears. DANGER DANGER DANGER!!! HYUNJIN IS DANGEROUS!!! HEARTBREAK! DESOLATION! YOU HAVE NOT BEEN OKAY NOT EVEN ONE DAY SINCE HE LEFT YOU! HE BROKE UP WITH YOU! HE BROKE UP WITH YOU ON VALENTINE’S DAY. GET AWAY! DANGER DANGER DANGER!

But there was something else, something that was not yelling. Something that just tasted sweet. Something that made you want to never leave this very place again. This bed. His arms. He smelled so good. He was holding you so close, like he was holding on for his life. He held you just like he used to when things were still good.

And there was one other thing.

A rush of heat coursed through your body, flowing to your core like lightning cracking in a stormy sky—your breath halted when Hyunjin moved again, nuzzling into your neck, pressing you into him. You felt it on your lower back—the warmth, the stiffness of it, too. Hyunjin was hard. He was fully hard, his concealed erection squeezed between your bodies.

It felt as though you were skydiving—you must have jolted because Hyunjin shifted in his sleep and one of his hands fell over your chest, his fingers dangling over one of your breasts, sometimes caressing your hardened nipple. You clenched around nothing as your heart pounded in your chest hard enough that you were certain it might just wake him up.

This means nothing, you told yourself. Maybe he got cold during the night and his body naturally sought warmth by being closer to you. This was just morning wood, a natural bodily response. This was nothing. It was getting you wet but that also meant nothing—you were touch starved, nothing else. And if Hyunjin hadn’t lied to you last night, if he had indeed remained celibate all this time, it was the same for him.

“GOOD MORNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

You’d swear everyone jumped two feet in the air—Minho appeared atop the staircase, arms wide open, still in his night clothes but much more awake than you were. “THE DAY OF FESTIVITIES BEGINS!” he went on, descending the stairs like he was god himself visiting the mortal plane, slapping the walls and stomping, making sure to be as loud as he possibly could.

It was instantaneous—Hyunjin pulled away from you like you two were magnets whose poles repelled one another. It felt cold then without him around you but you did not have the courage to look behind you yet and see the expression on his face. While your body was cool, your face was quite the opposite—warmth emanated from it and you were certain your cheeks were flushed.

“Did you singles sleep well? All alone? Totally not with someone else in your bed?” Minho asked with a mischievous smile on his face—he wasn’t looking at you but you knew him well enough to be fully aware he was teasing you. He must have seen Hyunjin and you before waking you up and it made you want to disappear. “You’re off cooking duty today,” he added, turning to you this time and you could barely see him because you were hiding behind your covers. “Chan will help me, you have to rest your foot.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” you retorted as Jisung, Felix, and Seungmin were sitting up, rubbing their eyes and yawning. It wasn’t exactly true—of course, your ankle felt sore and it hurt when you moved it, but you could not fathom sitting on your ass all day with nothing to do other than remember how it felt to wake up with Hyunjin’s hard-on pressed against your ass. “We said Chan would have the entire weekend away from a kitchen,” you reminded him. After all, as the head chef at the restaurant, he was inside one all year and deserved some time off.

“We can help too,” Jisung offered as he pushed himself up.

“Let’s go make coffee,” Seungmin added, following Jisung into the kitchen.

Felix got up as well and began putting his pillows and covers in a pile on the couch. Minho helped him—clearly, they intended on clearing the living room and removing the mattresses, meaning you had to get your ass up. You took a deep breath and dared a glance behind you only to see Hyunjin sitting with his knees up, arms around them, staring with dead eyes at the window right in front of him. Jisung had just pulled the curtain open, showing a stunning day with a bright blue sky.

More people were joining the main living area, sleepy yet joyful.

“So what’s the plan then?” Minho asked and it took you a few seconds to realize he was speaking to you directly.

You blinked, turning to him—he was offering you a hand to help you up, which you accepted. The whole ordeal of standing hurt your ankle but was not as bad as you imagined it would be. “Do we need a plan?” you retorted while regaining your balance.

It seemed to you like the plan had been laid out a while ago when Minho asked you if you could be in charge of the desserts for the Christmas dinner this weekend and you offered to help him with the meal in its entirety, finding it kind of him to want Chan to be completely off cooking duties. He’d had a big year with a brand new menu at the restaurant and he deserved it, after all.

“Turkey, japchae, dumpling soup with bone broth,” you went on, enunciating everything you could remember from that one phone call with Minho. Focusing on food helped clear the noise in your mind and all the voices whispering or screaming things at you. “Cucumber salad, fish cakes, roasted sage potatoes, roasted brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce, Christmas cookies, and cheesecake. There’s your plan. Let’s get to work.” A lot of the preparation had been done already—you had brought your stuff in a cooler yesterday—but there was still a lot to do.

Minho raised an eyebrow, chuckling. “Alright then.” He looked behind you. “I’m sure Hwang will offer his help considering your injury.”

“I’m al—”

“Sure I’ll help,” Hyunjin cut you off, causing you to turn around. He was up too, standing next to his mattress and holding his huge pile of blankets over a strategic spot, hiding him from his lower stomach to above his knees. You averted your eyes, blushing again.“I’ll just get some of the stuff upstairs and be right back.”

“The games will start in half an hour,” Minho warned the entire room. “Each hour, someone will get their Secret Santa gift, so we’ll decide whether we pick people randomly or follow an order.”

One thing that you had always admired about Minho was his sense of organization. It also drove you insane, but it was remarkable. You always imagined him with an actual, tangible daily planner in his brain.

You chose to follow Minho into the kitchen—it sounded like the best option for you right now if you wanted to put some order into your thoughts. You sat down on a stool by the counter while Minho was quickly chopping off some fruit with cheese, saying you both needed to eat before cooking all day.

You dared a glance over your shoulder, not minding the conversations around you, just staring as Hyunjin hurried upstairs. You wanted to follow him and ask him if he had done it on purpose. Holding you. Breathing into your neck. Igniting the fire within you again.

You wanted to follow him and ask him if he had liked it. Waking up like that, just the way you used to.

But then he would see. Then he would know. The things you craved secretly. He would see your longing. And it had become such a significant part of you that you reckoned there wasn’t much else to see, and he would not like that. It would not make him fall in love with you again. It would not erase the past year. It would just be humiliating.

Instead you remained in the kitchen, eating the snack Minho had prepared and drinking coffee. All this time you had dedicated about 75% of your energy to keeping certain memories at bay, the ones that would make you suffer the most should they ever resurface. Such a thing could be difficult to do in the beginning but after a while it became background noise—it still drained you but at least it was happening automatically and you no longer had to actively work on it.

Like the night of Hyunjin’s birthday. His mouth still tasted like the cake you had made for him with a hint of the amaretto he drank with it. He kissed you the whole time he was making love to you except for a few seconds here and there where he was whispering beautiful and, in hindsight, tragic things. Telling you you were the love of his life. His soulmate. Telling you that nothing had ever felt as good as that, as you, right now, your mouth, your pussy, you. That you were the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. That you were the best thing that had ever happened to him, and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you.

That one day, he would marry you if you let him.

Maybe it wasn’t about his morning wood or impromptu cuddling that you wanted to question Hyunjin, after all. Maybe you just wanted to ask him if he had meant all those things when he said them, or if he was just amaretto or pussy drunk. Maybe you just wanted to know if it had been more wishful thinking than a promise.

But you did not. Because neither response would bring you peace, and it wouldn’t make a difference anyway.

It took Hyunjin a long while to calm down. He tried sitting down and meditating but when that didn’t do anything, he opened the door leading to the balcony by his room and let the cold winter air hit him fully but that still did not work.

Maybe he should just take a cold shower and stand in there until his fucking dick chilled or whatever.

Of course, what he wanted to do was to bury his hand into his pants and touch himself, squeeze himself, relieve that pressure in his balls, the tugging in his lower stomach. This morning was barely any different than other mornings when he woke up in his own bed. Not necessarily when he was the most depressed, but after he took medication for a while and his mind cleared a little, his sex drive slowly came back. You weren’t anywhere near him but that did not stop him from waking up rock hard and wishing you were there, that you were in his arms.

It wasn’t exactly a conversation he’d ever had with other guys but he wondered if they remained still so attracted to their ex after the breakup. If they still jerked off to the thought of her. And if so, what kind of thoughts?

He did not want to do that this morning—it felt wrong, somehow. Perhaps because at some point between the moment he fell asleep and when he woke up, he had wound up on your mattress, completely intertwined with you. That had felt everything but wrong. He would kill to experience those few seconds of bliss again, when he was still half-asleep and didn’t quite remember that you two had broken up. Just a few seconds.

Hyunjin had chosen to chastise himself. And the truth was that it would be too weird if he jerked one off and went back downstairs—he would not be able to look you in the eyes. Yet his self-control was being tested because each and every one of his movements made the fabric of his pants brush on his sensitive cock and tempted him.

It did happen more frequently than he’d want to admit. It seemed more common in the morning or at night, perhaps because he was in his bed then and remembering all the time he spent there with you. And this was what he wondered the most. If others did touch themselves to the memory of their ex—was it rethinking about the sex they had? Or fantasies they shared?

Because what made Hyunjin so hard it felt sore was just the intimacy there used to be between the two of you. And being in his bed reminded him of that. At one point, his therapist even suggested Hyunjin buy a new bed with a new mattress and everything but he had not been able to get rid of this one. The one where he made love to you.

He used to lay in bed with you for hours, back when either of you still had the time to do that. The Let’s go to bed early tonight was always just an excuse to exist together, to share the same intimate space. You two would have a conversation to decide what to watch, and sometimes a little snack was involved, but not always. It soon became a habit not to watch TV shows or movies you were actively following because it soon became obvious that there was very little watching taking place.

So you’d put on a documentary or something and miss most of it because you were making out or fucking or sleeping. Sometimes you two would be talking way past midnight. About anything. About nothing. About everything. Nothing else existed. That was what being with you was like. The rest of the world mattered so little—there was only you.

It might have been a mistake to let you become his world. In theory, Hyunjin agreed that nobody should ever do such a thing. It was too risky and it was not logical. Only it had happened before he could even realize it had and there had been no turning back from it.

It made everything worse. Because he had been the one to set fire to his own world. He had been the one watching it turn to embers, completely ineffective at stopping the blaze.

And now what did he have? He had a bar for which he felt very little but resentment because he blamed it for what had happened. He had friends but Hyunjin was barely able to be human around them. He had his apartment but everything inside of him reminded him of you. The dining table neither of you used, preferring to watch TV as you ate. The kitchen where you’d bake sometimes and he would do his best to cook meals for you. The shower where he sometimes lathered your hair and your body under the hot water.

The bedroom where he made love to you.

Hyunjin had come to realize something, and it wasn’t a pretty thing. It was rather ruthless—not the kind of thought just about anybody can admit to themselves, let alone live with.

Everything in life had a weight to it. Everything. Pursuing a dream, buying a loaf of fresh bread, listening to your favorite song. Watching a sunset. Losing your favorite t-shirt. Unloading the dishwasher. Making a new friend. It all had a weight to it, and a person was much like an antique scale, the kind that required weights to use, in the middle of it all.

Life was about what one had vs. what they did not have. So, on one side of the scale was what Hyunjin had and on the other side, on the other pan, was what he didn’t have.

The scale was not tipping in his favor. It was far from having reached an equilibrium. Not even Nightcap was heavier than the void you left behind, so he was stuck on that pan, dragged down by the weight of it, condemned to look at the other side of the scale, the one up high. He could not even see what was on it—he was too low to see it from this angle. He could only see the bottom of the pan that held all the things he had.

Because nothing compared to the love he had for you. To how much he missed you. Each molecule of his body was begging for relief because being too far away from you caused them harm.

Nothing was as heavy as that. As your absence. As the love he could not give you.

It took Hyunjin a cold shower to regain most of his senses. His mind was still in bed with you, holding you, playing with your hair. By the time he managed to get his dick to go down and to get dressed, half an hour had passed and Minho was talking about games downstairs. There would be a Phasmaphobia tournament hosted by Felix. He put it together at the last minute but Hyunjin was confident it would be a success, especially considering that the first prize was gift certificates for a fancy dining restaurant downtown.

Chan and Soren had prepared a trivia game centered on pop culture. They had hinted at it last night and Hyunjin had to admit it sounded fun—he might give it a try. Chan had said he would cook one meal personally for the winner, at home, and it included wine.

Changbin and Jisung had apparently scoured the internet to devise a drinking game. They had looked for dozens of questions with different levels of intensity—people would be asked questions and they could choose to answer it or take a shot. Answering truthfully would give points and while taking a shot did not, not drinking would cause people to lose points.

The plan was to decorate a little Christmas tree, play those games and prepare dinner all at once.

Hyunjin’s mattress was waiting for him by his door, left there by whoever had been kind enough to bring it back upstairs while he was… busy. He put it back in its place before making his way downstairs, forcing himself to take deep breaths. By the sound of it, the Phasmaphobia tournament had already begun—he could hear Jisung begging Ha-ri for help while others were laughing their ass off.

It got a chuckle out of him but Hyunjin did not linger by the table where the laptops had been laid out. He wanted coffee. Coffee was in the kitchen. And so were you. So maybe he just wanted to see you.

“Took your sweet time there,” Minho said playfully when Hyunjin approached. “How can you even stay that long under the water? Doesn’t it get boring? How long does it take to wash yourself?!”

Hyunjin gulped. He considered denying having been in the shower for the whole half-hour but realized that it would probably prompt Minho to question him further and he did not need that. Instead, he shrugged and sat on the stool that was nearest to the coffee machine. It just so happened that you were working very close to there, too.

You glanced at him briefly, keeping your head low as you were chopping some berries into small pieces. The blackberries were staining your fingertips and he could swear he knew exactly what it would taste like if he put your fingers into his mouth to lick them clean. After kissing and biting it quite often, he knew the taste of your skin by heart.

He cleared his throat, intently watching his coffee as it dripped from the machine. “So what are you making?” he asked you as nonchalantly as he could. He felt bad. He did not want to make you uncomfortable.

“Cheesecake,” you retorted. “With blackberry and raspberry purée.”

Something punched Hyunjin in the chest, forcing him to inhale and even spill a little coffee as he reached for his mug in the machine. Of course—cheesecake was one of your favorites and something that you executed well.

Years ago, you had made him one for his birthday. And he remembered that vividly because he had thought long and hard on what to wish for when he blew the candles. In the end, he had wished for you to make him the same cake for his next birthday, too.

And his wish had been granted. You were his girlfriend by then and you hid at the restaurant to bake him that very same matcha cheesecake to surprise him a whole year later. He would never forget the sound of all his friends singing Happy Birthday and the sight of the cake in front of him, the raspberry coulis reflecting the flames of the candles.

He had thought about his wish then, too. Maybe he had been cocky with it. Maybe he had been greedy. He had run out of luck—not only had his wish not been granted but the exact opposite had happened.

And then came his latest birthday. Just a few weeks after Valentine’s Day, so at his lowest, truly.

There had been no matcha cheesecake. No cake at all. There had been nothing, only a deep, dark wish to be erased from this Earth just so he would not have to live without you for too long.

“Are you okay?” You clicked your tongue, immediately dampening up a cloth to wash the hot coffee off his hand. He hadn’t even noticed the burning sensation before you touched him, before you made him burn from the inside.

“Sure, sure, it’s not that hot,” Hyunjin managed, taking the cloth you offered him and washing up the coffee that had spilled on the counter as well.

“No, I mean…” You paused, hesitating before you put the knife down and stared at him with your head tilted to the side. “Do you not like cheesecake anymore?”

“What?” The question surprised him. “Why would I not like cheesecake anymore?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know. You seemed disappointed just now when I told you.”

You had always told him that he was not good at hiding his emotions. He could not always express himself well but you had always been able to know he wasn’t feeling well just by looking at him.

“Oh, no no, it’s not that,” Hyunjin replied, taking a sip from his coffee after blowing on it to cool it off. “I mean, I just… I mean I like berries, but the other cheesecake you made was so good, I—”

He had no idea what the hell he was doing. Instead of digging his grave any deeper, Hyunjin drank more coffee, pulling his phone out to scroll mindlessly on social media feeds. Just to have something to look at. You were still in your sleeping clothes and you were still wearing his hoodie and it was making him feel things.

“The matcha cheesecake, you mean.” The wording of your sentence suggested a question, however, your intonation made it sound like a statement.

“Yeah, it was so good.” He drank more coffee, blaming it for his heart flutters. “Those were the two best birthdays I ever had,” he went on in a low voice, muttering to himself more than anything.

Minho shot him a knowing glance and Hyunjin straightened up in his chair. Had he gone too far?

You stared at him with an unreadable expression on your face. If he was bold, Hyunjin would say you were feeling relief. Not in a bad way, not really. More as in, relieved to find out that he was hurt, too—genuinely so. Relieved because maybe he missed you. And perhaps you missed him too.

That had not been his intention coming here. He wanted to see you again but it was to apologize for his shitty behavior, to make sure that you knew he had not cheated on you. Did he want to be with you once again? Yes, fucking Christ, yes. He desired it more than anything. But he did not deserve you, not after the way things had turned out.

“It’s just a cake,” you offered as a response but clearly, you weren’t sure it was the right thing to say.

“To you maybe,” Hyunjin replied honestly. “It means more to me than you seem to think.

You grabbed the knife again and got back at cutting the fruit, only Hyunjin kept a watchful eye on the blade. “So you know better than I do what I think?”

He frowned. “Of course not!” He defended himself. “I just mean—” He sighed, choosing to ignore Minho’s stupid omg tea face. “It’s the cake that you made for me twice. I still remember it and the wishes I made, too. I… That last birthday, without it and without… you…” He did not even say it—you—he only breathed it. “It was empty.”

You were still focused on your task and Hyunjin took those few seconds to relax. Instead, he looked behind him to watch everyone having fun in their own way. How badly he wanted to be like them. How badly he wanted to be whole again.

“What cake did you have on your birthday, then?” you asked, your voice a little higher-pitched than it had been earlier.

“None. I worked, but it was a Wednesday so we closed early and I just went home. I watched a documentary or something.”

It was your turn to frown. “You were alone on your birthday?”

The words came out before he could stop them. “With who was I supposed to be?”

“I don’t know, Felix, Changbin? Someone?”

“I didn’t feel like it. It was, arguably, the worst birthday of my entire life. I don’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to say the matcha cheesecake was good.”

Your motions came to a stop. You put the knife back on the cutting board, staring at the blackberries and at the stains they’d left on it and on your fingers. Hyunjin wanted to ask what you did on your birthday exactly but before he could, you left to grab a bowl from a cabinet, returning immediately to collect the blackberries and put them inside it.

“Min,” you started, “does your beloved wife still drink matcha?”

Minho, who was slicing cucumbers carefully, raised an eyebrow at you. “Yeah, she’s addicted to the stuff. Why?”

“I think it’s pretty obvious why,” you replied, rolling your eyes. You turned to Hyunjin as an uncertain but bright smile painted itself on your lips. “I’ll make the matcha cheesecake. You can consider it a thank-you-for-not-cheating-on-me cake.” You put the bowl of blackberries before him and walked away—your gait had a bit of a limp but it was much better than yesterday. “SI-YEON?” Minho’s wife was nowhere to be seen so you went towards the stairs. “CAN I USE YOUR MATCHA? SI-YEON?!”

Hyunjin’s heart filled with something as beautiful as it was dangerous—hope. He could almost taste it on his tongue. The creamy matcha filling, the crust, perfect every time, the sweet and tart flavor of the raspberry coulis. But it didn’t even matter. Or rather, it was the only thing that mattered.

Hyunjin always imagined it was that first time you made that cake for him—back when the two of you were barely anything more than coworkers—that he fell in love with you, really in love. He did not know you well yet but that gesture told him everything he needed to know about you. He just fell in love. Like that. And his love had only kept growing after. Every day he was a little more certain that you were the only person he had ever loved and that he would ever love, too. There would be nobody else. He would spend the rest of his life alone, remembering the sweet taste of the matcha cheesecake and the even sweeter taste of you, longing for it.

He wondered if he could make a wish even though it was not his birthday. He wondered if it would still count. Because he knew exactly what he wanted to ask for.

After all, weren’t you what he had wished for all this time? From the very day he met you up until now as you returned to the kitchen with Si-yeon, a large smile on your face while watching her get the matcha from her stuff.

What else could he wish for if not for your happiness? It was all that he wanted and truly, he would give his life if it meant you would live a peaceful existence until the rest of your days, unburdened, your heart warm and light forever.

Hyunjin was smiling, too. He took a piece of blackberry, holding it between his index and his thumb, letting it stain his skin before he popped it in his mouth. It was sweet with just a little bit of tartness.

For the first time in a long time, Hyunjin was feeling alright.

“OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS THE BEST GIFT! IS IT REAL? IT’S REAL RIGHT IT LOOKS SO REAL!! OH MY GOD!!!! WHO IS IT??? WHO?????”

Seungmin was not one for loud displays of his feelings so you could not help but feel excessively proud as his calm demeanor left his body when he unwrapped his Secret Santa gift. He looked alternatively at the signed shirt and at the rest of the room, trying to figure out who could have given him that. You did your best to conceal the grin that you wanted to sport, choosing to drink some coffee while he showed everyone his present. Half the fun was to guess who had given the gift though, so you kept your mouth shut.

Two people were unwrapping a gift each hour—it was late afternoon by then and you were returning to the kitchen after a break and also participating in the video game tournament. It had not gone well for you but you didn’t mind that at all since it was so much fun. You had also spent some time outside as Chan was roasting chestnuts in a fire he built. Hyunjin had made some hot cocoa for everybody, resulting in the entire group sitting either in the snow or on whatever surface they could find around the fire and just chatting.

Your hot cocoa came with whipped cream just like everybody else, but only you had a maraschino cherry on top. It warmed you up more than any fire could. Hyunjin was teased plenty about it, causing his cheeks to turn pink. In the end he sat next to you and told Changbin, “Well, it’s because cherries are good for ankle sprains and I don’t see anyone else with this injury here.” Si-yeon and Ha-ri hid behind their hands to laugh, and while Soren was smiling, she didn’t seem too sure if she should laugh or not.

So you spent the entire afternoon chatting with Hyunjin, eating freshly roasted chestnuts and drinking hot cocoa. Just catching up. And there was so much catching up to do. Apparently, Hyunjin’s dad had spent some time in the hospital, twice, for heart issues.

While he had recovered well and his condition had been stabilized with medication, it had frightened Hyunjin and his mother. Of course it had—Mr. Hwang was a good man, a kind man. “I wish I could have been there for you guys during this difficult time,” you found yourself admitting to Hyunjin. You were becoming more comfortable around him. It felt more… like before. Like you were friends and always had been, no matter the time spent apart.

Hyunjin chuckled at that but there was no joy on his face. “Mom wanted to beat my ass when she found out we weren’t together anymore. She came to my place to scold me.”

To your surprise, you let out a maniacal laughter. Your relationship with Hyunjin’s mother had always been good—she had always made it very clear that you were a good addition to the family, often siding with you against her own son for trivial little arguments. “Sorry—” But it was hard to stop laughing. “I just have the image in my mind…”

But Hyunjin laughed with you.

It was the best afternoon you had in a whole year.

And now you were back inside and Seungmin was still admiring his gift and Minho was with you in the kitchen. You were preparing gravy for the turkey which had been in the oven for a while, slow-roasting, filling the cabin with a delicious aroma.

You made your way to the fridge, wincing when your ankle felt like it was about to twist, causing you pain. You had removed the wrapping earlier to apply more ice and while the bruise made it look awful, the swelling wasn’t as bad as you’d expected.

“Careful there,” Minho warned. He was preparing side dishes. “Why don’t you sit down for a while?”

“I sat down most of the afternoon,” you reminded him, pulling open the fridge door. “And I still need to make the potatoes.”

There it was, cooling exactly where you had left it earlier. The matcha cheesecake. Hyunjin’s cake. You felt it carefully with your fingertips to make sure it was cooling well enough and when everything seemed alright, you grabbed the butter you needed and closed the door again without looking away from the damn cake. Hyunjin could not imagine what it meant to you. That he missed the cake.

That he missed you.

You had not mentioned his desire to sell the bar yet today and it was on purpose. Perhaps to let him ruminate over how bad of an idea it was. Or maybe because you still couldn’t process what he had told you yesterday—how this beautiful dream of his had lost its meaning after you left. You had never really thought about the space you occupied in his heart. Could it be that you were just as important to him as he was to you?

“I can do the potatoes!” Hyunjin had magically appeared in the kitchen and yet you could swear that one minute ago he was still playing video games with the others. “Come here, sit down.” He pulled a stool for you, motioning towards it. “Just send me your recipe.”

“You know I don’t cook with recipes,” you reminded him, rolling your eyes. “I’m fine anyway, I—”

In excellent comedic timing, your ankle had a moment of weakness again when you returned near the stove—you held onto the counter, biting your lip to fight through the pain. Maybe you had pushed yourself a little more than you should have. Maybe you should have taken more breaks, but there was no way you would have let Chan approach the kitchen.

Hyunjin walked around the counter and came to wrap his arm around yours. “Come sit down please. You’ll need ice. And you can talk me through the whole thing. I’m now responsible for the potatoes.”

You clicked your tongue, reluctant to admit defeat but amused nonetheless. “Alright, Mr. Potato. I’ll sit.”

And so you found yourself sitting on an armchair right by the kitchen, your legs stretched on a cushioned footstool, a bag of ice over your painful ankle. Not two minutes later, Hyunjin was delivering a glass of pomegranate and watermelon juice with, of course, a couple of cherries floating on top. You held your glass with both hands, drinking from the fancy straw, pretending to be disinterested when in fact you were watching Hyunjin intently.

“I’m going to assume I’ll wash the potatoes,” he told you, ripping the bag open without waiting for your instructions.

“Wow, you’re so smart,” you replied sarcastically. “Chef Hwang over there. Min, you might want to consider hiring him. I hear he’ll be looking for a job soon.”

Hyunjin’s smile disappeared but he turned away after throwing the baby tomatoes into a strainer to wash them in the sink.

Minho gave you an appraising look. “Ah, so he told you,” was all he said, clearly up to date with Hyunjin’s recent decisions. Hyunjin had straight up told you last night but you could not believe Lee Minho would let Hyunjin give up on his dream just like that.

“Wait, you knew? You really knew?” You sighed. “Tell me you told him he’s insane.”

Minho shrugged, still preparing the food. “I understand his reasoning,” he said.

“His reasoning? You understand his reasoning? You? Who worked so fucking hard on God’s Menu, who built this restaurant from nothing and made something impeccable out of it? No way in hell you’d ever fucking sell it.”

Minho took longer than he needed to verify that the dressing he was making tasted right. When he put his spoon down, he raised his eyes, observing you for a few seconds. “You’re right.” He put the spoon in the sink. “I persisted when I encountered issues. When I questioned myself—and there was a period where I was seriously questioning everything—I went all in on Menu. Looking back, it was the right thing to do. To keep going. And for us two to break up.”

Hyunjin dropped something in the sink—at the very same time, your heart dropped in your chest. A whirlwind of emotion took over you and it was so intense that you felt a strange trembling sensation coursing through your body.

“I don’t see how that is relevant in this conversation,” you retorted. It was a little bit of a lie. The truth was more that the implications of what Minho had said were almost too good to be true. As in—maybe it had not been the right thing to do for you and Hyunjin to go your separate ways. Maybe it was not what was meant to be.

Because that was exactly how you felt this whole time. Like it was wrong to be without him. Like something was missing.

“You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.” Minho turned to Hyunjin, looking at the potatoes in the strainer. “Dude, I think they’re plenty clean.”

“Oh, yeah—” Hyunjin stopped soaking and washing the potatoes, draining the water out before bringing them back to the corner of the counter that was closest to you. “What should I do next?”

You didn’t care about the potatoes. You wanted to ask Hyunjin, straight up, if he still felt anything for you. If the thought of going back with you had ever crossed his mind. It was insane. It would be completely insane. He may not have cheated on you, but he hurt you nonetheless.

“Cut them in halves,” you explained, your voice shaking a little. “After that, use paper towels to dry them as much as you can.” You paused, taking a sip of your sweet mocktail. “What would you even do if you sold Nightcap anyway?”

“I said he could come back to work for me,” Minho replied in Hyunjin’s place. He was washing his hands and proceeded to dry them. “Look, I know you think you’re helping him right now. I can see that. But the man needs you to respect this decision.”

“I’d respect it if it made sense.” But Minho wasn’t even listening to you anymore—he was making his way toward the living room where everyone’s names had been put in a bowl for the Secret Santa game.

“Alright, the next person to open their present will be…” Minho put his hand into the bowl, taking a small piece of paper from him. “Drumroll, please.” Changbin took care of the audio effects, making smiles appear all across the room except on this side. When he saw the name on it, he paused. “Well. I’ll let you guys guess, just for fun. The next person to get their gift is a little strange but has a good heart. A heart better than her ankles, if I may. She asks too many questions but we all like her anyway. So?”

You rolled your eyes, annoyed, while the small crowd chanted your name. Minho went into the pile of gifts, grabbing the one with your name on it before taking it back to you. He left it on the small table next to the armchair.

“I’ll open it after we’re done with the potatoes,” you told the rest of the room. “I’m not allowed to make them, so…” You tried to punch Minho in the arm while he was still close, but he evaded you easily to return behind the counter. “And who the hell are you to call me a little strange?”

Minho shrugged, choosing to focus on the video game that was restarting on the other side of the room.

You sighed. “Alright, Hyunjin, it looks like they’re dry enough. Now, grab the fresh sage in the fridge. It’s already been washed, but you have to chop it as finely as you can.”

He did everything you told him to. He melted the butter and added the garlic and sage, and a tablespoon and a half of dijon mustard. A tablespoon and a half exactly, no more, no less, since you insisted it made the whole difference. He squeezed a little bit of honey and added the rest of the seasoning before pouring it on the potatoes.

“You have to mix really well,” you explained. “Make sure each potato is coated.” You grabbed the gift bag that Minho had left near you—it was rather light, but the bag itself was very pretty. It had an elegant floral pattern on it and was held closed by a velvety dark blue ribbon. “Once that’s done, spread them on the cooking pan and make sure you turned on the convection setting of the oven before you put them in there.” The kitchen was impressive with two ovens, a large stove, and more storage space than what would ever be needed.

“Alright,” Hyunjin said. The more time passed, the fewer words he spoke. It made you regret doubling down on him about Nightcap, but what else were you supposed to do?

You carefully pulled on the ribbon adorning the gift to undo it. It was smooth to the touch so you set it aside to keep it, figuring it could be of use at some point. It would be too bad to waste it. The wrapping and tissue paper used in the bag impressed you just as much as the exterior—everything was of very high quality, a lot better than you would have expected for a Secret Santa gift. The simple little box in which you had put Seungmin’s gift now seemed terribly bland.

Some of your attention was still on Hyunjin as you unwrapped everything—the secret to perfectly crispy potatoes was to ensure they were laid out well on the cooking pan. Then your hand met something strange yet familiar so you took a look inside it.

Immediately, your eyes filled up with tears as you pulled the contents out of the bag, speechless.

When you were little, your father had to leave to work overseas. The contract would last one year and a half. You were five years old then, too young to understand why he couldn’t come back home for a while. He had tried to make arrangements to visit on Christmas but it had not been possible—it was a rather gloomy Christmas for you, a little girl who missed her dad.

Until your mom brought you a box. It was not wrapped in colorful paper—instead, it was wrapped in brown kraft paper, and it had your address on it like it had been sent in the mail. “It’s from dad,” your mom explained. “He can’t be here with us, but it was important for him that you had this.”

In the box was a plushie toy. A rabbit, by all means very normal looking. It was gray and had long ears, and its fur was the softest thing you had ever touched. It wore a little floral dress and even had a bow of the same fabric on one of its ears. The toy box—read by your mother—claimed that the rabbit’s name was Bonnie and that she was a bunny, and so it was how you named her. And you’d almost always say all of it. Bonnie The Bunny, not just Bonnie. In the box was a simple note from your father also, which said I miss you, see you soon x.

Bonnie The Bunny followed you for the entire time your father was away. You brought her with you to preschool. She sat on the counter of the bathroom while you bathed. She had a place at the dining table. She kept you company at night. Then your father returned and while you needed Bonnie The Bunny less, you still loved her dearly. But you were growing up, so she earned herself a space on a shelf in your bedroom. Then you grew up a bit more and you weren’t a child anymore so you just couldn’t have toys all over the place, so she went into your closet. By the time you were sixteen, she was in a plastic container with other belongings from you and your parents, stored somewhere in the spare room.

Your parents moved out just before you started college. To make the story short, Bonnie The Bunny was misplaced or lost in the process. Truth be told, you didn’t mind much at first. It was only several years later—and not so long ago—that you had wondered if they still made toys like that. Naturally, they did not, and it was impossible to find that specific model online either. Apparently it was some special edition or something, and you had no interest in the other versions because they weren’t yours. So you accepted the fact that you would never see Bonnie The Bunny again.

And yet today you were holding her.

She was still in her original box and while the box was not sealed, it looked brand new. Pristine. She had the same little dress and the same little bow and the same gentle eyes. Too stunned to speak, you set the box down on your knees to stare at it further. You could not believe it.

You felt the same warmth and comfort that she had brought you all those years ago. It invaded you, soothed pieces of you that you didn’t know needed soothing. It was only then that you realized she wasn’t exactly like the one you owned in your childhood. Or rather, it really was, but something had been added to her—she wore a necklace, a real necklace, around her neck. The necklace had a delicate silver chain with a colorful pendant that made it plainly obvious who the gift was from.

The pendant was cherry-shaped. A single cherry that looked like it had been coated in syrup.

You looked up—the entire room was staring at you but you paid them no mind. Instead you stared at Hyunjin who was staring back at you. Next to him, Minho had an impressed look on his face but you ignored him just as you did the others.

“Where did you find it?” were the first words that you managed to say. “How? I—It was discontinued so long ago, I—”

Hyunjin cleared his throat. He, on the other hand, seemed to mind the others very much. He made his way toward you so he could speak to you quietly. “Remember the night you told me that story?”

You did. It was rather early in your relationship, during a night out together for some drinks and then dinner. You told him about Bonnie The Bunny then, and how frustrating it had been to realize you’d never see the toy again.

You nodded.

“I started looking for it that very night. It took months. Literally.” He chuckled but more in a self-derogatory way, like he was recalling something funny but silly, too. “I called museums. I called toy collectors all over the world. Someone had one but it was not for sale. I asked where they’d gotten it and apparently his dad used to work for the toy company. So I called the toy company. Many times. At first, they told me there was nothing they could do for me. Then one day I spoke to the right person I guess and he directed me to a private collector who also used to work for them. This guy was willing to sell it to me. There was not a price too high for it. I wanted you to have Bonnie The Bunny again.”

You looked at him and then at the box and at Hyunjin again. A faint frown appeared on your brow as you were making calculations. “But… when did you…”

He bit his lip, leaning closer to you to talk near your ear. “I’ve had it at my place for a long time. Before that, I hid it at Felix’s. It was supposed to be part of your Valentine’s Day gift.”

A warm tear rolled down your cheek, quickly followed by another. Hyunjin gently wiped them for you while you opened the box to retrieve your old friend. It was even more moving to touch her—her fur felt exactly the same and it was bringing back so many memories. Some good, some bad, but all of them vivid, all of them a part of who you were now. You left the box on the ground, quickly hugging Bonnie The Bunny close to your heart, just the way you used to.

There were more tears but Hyunjin made them disappear instantly. There were only you two. The others were there but they weren’t. This moment was yours. And Hyunjin’s.

This moment meant everything.

You looked into his eyes then. To read them. As though Bonnie The Bunny was some sort of cipher that would allow you to decode Hyunjin finally. To understand him—and yourself, too. All this time you had told yourself that Hyunjin did not care. That it had been a good riddance for him to just dump you. That he didn’t love you. It made you feel better, perhaps, in some way. To diminish the love he’d had for you. It had made things feel finite, which was cruel but also gave you a false sense of safety. After all, if it was over—if he did not love you and maybe had never really wanted to be with you, there was no risk of him reentering your life whatsoever. Meaning that there was no risk of getting your heart shattered by him another time, something that you would certainly not survive.

But you saw it now. You understood. You understood him and the lies he told himself and you understood yourself and the lies you told yourself.

“Please don’t cry, I wanted to make you happy.” Hyunjin offered you a half-smile, still on his knees next to the armchair.

“I’m very happy.” You took a deep breath to calm down. “I don’t know what to say.”

His smile became full as his eyes disappeared, turning into shining crescents for an instant. “You don’t have to say anything. I think I’m as happy to give it to you as you are to receive it.”

Hesitating, he gave you a friendly pat on your arm before he walked away. You were still holding Bonnie The Bunny over your heart.

You closed your eyes for just a few seconds. There was something on your mind—something that you had not allowed yourself to think of. Ever. But that thought was breaking free, escaping the chains you made it a prisoner of.

You still loved him. Hyunjin. You had never stopped loving him. You would never not love him. In some ways it felt like everything you had ever done had happened so that you would one day love him and be loved by him. And you had been too afraid to hope that he felt the same. Hope was such a tricky thing. But it was resilient.

You still loved Hyunjin.

And now you were admitting it to yourself.

You stood up as carefully as you could, testing your ankle a little before deciding it could hold your weight. With Bonnie The Bunny still in hand, you followed Hyunjin who was returning to the kitchen.

“Wait—”

He stopped, pausing one second before he spun on his heels to face you. His beauty hit you like a December sunset, when the sun was very low on the horizon. Blinding but too beautiful to look away from. Illuminating a monochrome world, making it colorful again, coating it with warm light. Your gaze immediately fell onto his plush lips, but maybe it was to avoid his intense stare.

“Thank you,” you said in a low voice. “Thank you so much.”

“My pleasure.” Hyunjin had a flat smile, his eyes trailing all over you. “I should have given it to you earlier, even if we’re broken up. So you wouldn’t be alone.”

There were no words that could express how you felt and you had no desire to speak anyway, so you let your body decide for you. You wrapped your arms around Hyunjin’s neck, hugging him tightly, and while he seemed shocked by the gesture, his arms were quick to embrace you back, one hand pressing your head into the crook of his neck.

“This is the best gift I’ve ever had. And that I will ever have, too,” you whispered. “I owe you so much.”

“You don’t owe me anything at all.” He held you a bit tighter, resting his chin on the top of your head. “I just want you to be happy. I know I didn’t treat you right and that nothing will ever undo that.” He paused, then said it again. “I just want you to be happy.”

You had forgotten it. Happiness. You forgot how it felt. How it happened so suddenly in one’s life. Just like that, almost surreptitiously. As in you never really expect it, but one day it’s just there.

And sometimes it recedes like waves at low tide. And then you forget.

But this. Hyunjin, and his arms around you and his warmth permeating through his clothes and yours and his heartbeat, which you could hear. Just this.

Sometimes happiness visits you again. And then you remember.

“I think I’m capable of showering on my own,” you said with a sigh, rolling your eyes. “I do not believe that an ankle plays an integral role in the process of a shower. Besides, I’m not even alone. I’ve got Bonnie The Bunny with me.” To emphasize your point, you waved the plushie that you were holding.

“My point was just that if you slip and fall in the shower,” Jisung retorted in a sarcastic tone, “you could hit your head on the tub and get brain damage. And then you might even forget me. How could you live your life like this? Without the memories of your bestest friend?”

You pushed Jisung away—he stumbled enough to fall on his ass on the couch behind him, causing a few laughs around the room. The entire cabin smelled like the delicious food Minho, Hyunjin, and yourself had prepared and you were starving. Now that everything was ready and just needed to finish cooking, it was finally your turn to wash up before dinner and you could not wait for that shower.

“I actually thought you were serious, dumbass.” You clicked your tongue. “Like I thought you had genuine concern for my well-being.”

“But my worries are genuine,” he insisted, batting his eyelashes.

You ignored him, shaking your head playfully as you attempted to climb the stairs. It was the first time you tried to go up there since last night and you weren’t quite sure how it would go—naturally, it was awkward, but you held tight onto the railing.

Despite the banter and joking taking place in the living room, you heard footsteps behind you—both Hyunjin and Minho were following, also eager to shower the day away and get ready for the big Christmas dinner that you had made.

“I’ll supervise what I can,” Hyunjin told the group. “After all, it’s my fault she hurt herself.” He had made sure to remind everyone all throughout the day, keeping his promise to maintain your pride intact.

“Creep,” Seungmin commented from downstairs—you were about halfway up by now. “Literally stalks his ex and then makes her sprain her ankle so he’d have an excuse to kindly accompany her in the shower. Careful there,” he added for you, “for all we know, Hwang Pervy put a camera in that plushie toy to watch you.”

Even you could not resist—you almost collapsed as you burst into uncontrollable laughter. The awkwardness was long gone and not just between Hyunjin and you. The whole group seemed comfortable with having the both of you in the same room, having even reached the point where they made jokes. As the day progressed—and as people drank more and more—the self-censorship was evaporating.

Minho had to stop mid-way on the stairs, falling to his knees, holding his stomach from laughing too much. “HWANG PERVY!!!!!!!!!”

“I literally hate all of you,” Hyunjin said, trying very hard to suppress his smile. “Especially you, Kim. This isn’t over.”

“I know it’s not,” Seungmin replied with his usual savage tone. “Talk to you after your deviant activities up there.”

Minho was still joking with the others downstairs when you made it to the top step—you made your way to your bedroom which you hadn’t seen since yesterday. Hyunjin had left your bag on the table by the window but otherwise, everything was the same.

“Seriously though,” Hyunjin said, lingering near your door. “Are you sure you’ll be alright to keep your balance? The tubs in the bathrooms are kinda high…”

“They can’t be that high,” you replied, making your way inside to reach the adjacent bathroom.

Hyunjin quickly followed you but by the way he went to stand behind the door, it was quite obvious he was simply trying to evade Minho who was now coming up the stairs, still laughing. He even waited until he heard him close the door to his own bedroom before coming out of his hiding place.

All the while you were studying the bathroom layout—you hadn’t really noticed it yesterday. Or maybe it was just because the last time you saw this bathtub, your ankle did not threaten to betray you every two minutes. The showerheads seemed luxurious enough that you could not wait to stand underneath them and yet Hyunjin hadn’t even exaggerated because the tub reached a little over your knees.

“Told you,” he said simply with a shrug. “I’m not a pervert,” he added then, more seriously now. “I could go get someone else for you. I… I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. It’s just that today was so…” He sighed. “I think sometimes I forget we broke up.” He turned shy, his cheeks flushing a little.

“I think I see what you mean,” you admitted, leaning against the sink behind you. You thought about it for a few seconds. “Don’t tell him I said that, but I’m glad Minho invited you. He was right. We did need to talk.”

“Don’t worry, I have no wish to stroke this man’s ego.” Hyunjin smiled—he, too, leaned against the wall. “It’s been so great, I… I really do miss you. I’m sorry if I acted too… familiar with you. I didn’t want to make anything awkward for you. And I swear I wasn’t being a pervert.”

You giggled, moved and yet endeared by him. You looked over at the other room where Bonnie The Bunny rested on your bed. You truly understood what Hyunjin was saying because there were moments today when you forgot that he had ever broken your heart. One minute or two minutes and sometimes even up to three—for a while then your chest would feel empty but not like a void, more like a sun-filled room. So not really empty. Just not quite full like it used to be.

And you never imagined that. You never imagined living without this pain that you carried, not even for five seconds. But it was puzzling—the reason that you had this pain in the first place was also the reason you were healing from it. And you couldn’t quite figure out if it made sense or if it made no sense at all.

“It’s fine, Hwang Pervy,” you said, sticking your tongue out with a laugh. “It’s not like you’d be surprised. There’s absolutely nothing here,” you motioned at yourself to emphasize your point, “that you haven’t seen before.”

For just two seconds Hyunjin seemed a little uneasy but then a smile painted itself on his pretty lips. “God, we did spend so much time naked, didn’t we? Was that even normal?”

That might be one of the things you missed the most with Hyunjin—all the skin to skin contact you had. Both of you were addicted to it like a drug. Being naked wasn’t just about fucking. Well, there had been quite a lot of that too, but there was so much more to it. A shared shower in the evening and then staying naked in bed and existing together. It largely helped that Hyunjin had the body of a young god—you never got tired of looking at him or being embraced by him. Feeling him close to you.

He used to caress you. All the time. Somehow. Either he was playing with your hair or he was gently rubbing his thumb on your hand if he was holding it. Or he was just letting his fingers trail gently on your sides. It used to feel like he painted his love onto you. And now the color was all gone.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Hyunjin added immediately, straightening up. “Call me if you need though, I’ll keep my phone close.”

“Thanks, Hyunj—” But he was already gone. By the time you spoke his name, he had closed the bedroom door behind him, and you felt empty again.

The bathroom seemed colder—you shivered as you started peeling your clothes off, almost shy to do so in a room where Hyunjin had been just moments ago. You turned the water on in the shower to let it warm up and glanced at the adjacent room while you waited, your eyes always landing on Bonnie The Bunny. Crazy things were happening in your head, almost like people were yelling at you the most improbable, dangerous rumors.

Like that gift wasn’t just any gift. It was the gift he wanted to give you before he broke up. It was the plushie toy that represented your childhood and Hyunjin, all these months ago, had wanted you to have it again. And he still did. He wanted you to have it despite everything that had happened.

You did not want to allow the words to pierce the defenses of your mind—that precariously thin wall that separated your brain and your heart. The two entities depended on one another yet should never be allowed to feed each other information. It was treacherous. You had learned to compartmentalize. Perhaps because of the breakup or maybe because of the suffering that had led up to it.

But those words were just too powerful to resist the weak fortifications around your mind, and so your brain and your heart had a little conversation while you were testing out the water temperature.

What if he still loves me, too?

Of course not. Idiot.

But everything he said made it look like he did. He said he was selling the bar because it had lost its meaning after I left. He said that he missed me.

Of course he does. And of course a part of him still loves you. You two were good together, it was true love. It can’t ever be completely gone, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t dead. Love can be a dead body that you carry around.

BITCH! He literally spooned us! We slept in his arms! We woke up with his HARD dick on us!!!! HE GAVE US BONNIE THE BUNNY!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe he misses fucking. He said he hadn’t been with anybody, after all. He feels bad about what happened. He’s actually a good guy, even I can see it. Besides, dudes wake up with morning wood all the time. It means nothing.

…

See? I told you. You learned well—you used to be so hard to convince. Doesn’t what I say make perfect sense?

Yeah, it does. I just… Well I miss him, and I thought that maybe..

Maybe he would want to get back with you? Seriously? Look, let’s pretend for a minute—and it really is just a hypothetical situation—that he is ACTUALLY still in love with you and that he’d want you back for some reason. Are you really gonna do it? Be with him again? Are you any better than you were the last time? Would you be able to support him this time around, or would you just fail him again? What if he sells the bar anyway and resents you for it forever?

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about all the times he told you that he loved you, and how he wanted to spend his entire life with you. He meant it when he said those things, but it was before you let him down. Can’t you remember? He stopped saying these things after a while, when things weren’t so good anymore. And he did keep Haley around for weeks, months. What if he was thinking about her when he touched himself? She said he was checking her out. You can’t blame him. She had great tits. I bet he was imagining fucking her throat and then finishing on them.

No no no no no not this. Not again. Can we not? I can’t take it. Not tonight.

Then shut the fuck up. Just because he put a few maraschino cherries in your drinks doesn’t mean you’ll get your happy ever after. You had your chance and it didn’t work out. Now shower and let’s get tonight over with so that we can hopefully leave this place asap.

It was almost a daily occurrence. These thoughts—genuine exchanges between what you imagined must be the two hemispheres of your brain or something. You mentioned it to Eric who gently suggested that perhaps you should speak to a specialist. He seemed to believe none of this was normal. But you thought there was nothing weird about it.

It had broken you. This whole thing. Loving Hyunjin this hard and then losing him. How could it be expected of you to function normally?

Your first attempt at climbing into the shower almost resulted in a catastrophe so you quickly pulled back, eyeing your phone. Hyunjin did tell you to call if you needed help, and your heart wanted you to do it. Your heart was telling you that he would come here and help you and maybe catch sight of your collarbone or something and maybe he would kiss you passionately.

But your mind simply reminded you that you were a graveyard where this lifeless corpse of a love was buried and rotting.

So you sat on the edge of the bed to enter the tub safely and you showered. You showered for longer than you needed to, scrubbing your skin as though it would rid you of these feelings you had. You wanted to turn the water off and be a new woman, one without a heart.

Instead you turned the water off and you shivered from the cold and the same gouging hole was there in your chest.

But you dried yourself, toweled your hair and made your way back to your bedroom where your dress for the evening was waiting for you in its plastic cover, hung in the small closet. You bought this dress almost as soon as you accepted Minho’s invitation for the weekend. It was the first dress you bought since Hyunjin—the first nice piece of clothing you bought since your heart was shattered into a thousand pieces. Something other than an oversized tee or a pair of jeans. As though it meant nothing to dress up if Hyunjin wasn’t going to see you and spend all evening telling you that you were beautiful.

Now you had to deal with the fact that he would see you in the dress but that he would say nothing at all about it.

It was a cocktail dress, all velvet except for loose sleeves that reached your elbows, which were made of lace with a pretty floral pattern. The fabric was this rich, dark green color that you couldn’t resist when you saw it despite the ginormous price tag. Small quartz gems adorned the skirt, making it shimmer under the light like a starry sky.

Deciding to get ready first, you put on a t-shirt while you did so—you did the hair first, just doing your best to make it look nice so that the dress wouldn’t look too out of place on you. You even put on some mascara, something you had to stop doing when you became inclined to cry on a daily basis. You even bought lipstick for the occasion, one in a shade that was a lot bolder than anything you were used to.

Then you made your way to Bonnie The Bunny, holding her close to your chest again before putting her back to take the necklace around her neck, the one with the cherry pendant. You would wear it and it really was just because you had forgotten to bring your nice necklace. There was no other reason.

The dress came last—you could hear others coming to change in the rooms around you as you were getting ready but the second floor was quiet again as you slipped into the green velvety cocktail dress. You hadn’t seen yourself in it since trying it on at the store and it shocked you, like you couldn’t recognize the woman in the mirror.

Except you couldn’t zip it up. You managed to pull the zipper up halfway but going any further might have resulted in shoulder dislocation so you let it go. You returned to the hallway, looking around. “Si-yeon? Are you still up here? Soren?”

“What is it?” It wasn’t a feminine voice who responded—it was Hyunjin.

The door to his bedroom opened and he appeared in a simple outfit consisting of a white button-up and black trousers but it took your breath away nonetheless. The shirt hugged him at just the right places, emphasizing his toned body, same with the pants. You felt the cold from earlier leave your body instantly, replaced by flames from hell. Hyunjin looked beyond handsome tonight.

“Are you o—” he started but he stopped when he came face to face with you in the hallway, his lips remaining open as he gave you an appraising look. His eyes danced all over your body in a way that made your heart skip a few beats. Your mind and your heart were bickering again but it really fucking looked like he was checking you out.

“I—I—Wow—You—” Hyunjin stuttered, taking a step back, running his hand in his hair. He cleared his throat. “I—You look so…” He took some time to choose his words. “You’re beautiful.”

OH HELL NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He covered his mouth immediately, his cheeks darkening and you could imagine that you were looking flushed as well. Your skin burned from all the blood rushing to your head.

“I’m sorry,” Hyunjin added immediately. “It was inappropriate. I don’t want to be disrespectful.”

Maybe it was like muscle memory and the words just escaped him out of habit. Right?

“You look really classy yourself,” you heard yourself reply and a smile even painted itself on your red-painted lips. “I bet they’re going to call you Mister Hwang Pervy, now.”

He clicked his tongue and laughed with you—humor seemed to melt the tension that may or may have been there just a few seconds ago. “I even brought a tie but I couldn’t make it work, so it’ll have to do,” he said with a shrug.

“Goddammit Hyunjin, how many tutorials did we watch? Bring it here.”

He rolled his eyes but his smile did not leave him as he returned to his room to fetch the tie—soon enough he was handing it to you. A nice, black velvet tie. You put it around his neck and began tying it to the best of your very limited ability but your heart jumped every time your fingers brushed against him.

And your clit throbbed every time his warm breath caressed your hands.

What a wonderful idea it had been to bring that vibrator. It would be greatly needed later. Maybe you were just horny and there was no sexual tension between the two of you. None at all. You just needed to get off.

“I’ll need you too,” you said as you were finalizing the knot. “I can’t zip myself up.”

“Sure.” Hyunjin licked his lips. “The necklace. I like it a lot on you.” He was just looking at the necklace and not at your cleavage. Right?

You gulped. “Thanks. It’s very pretty.” You secured the knot once and for all, adjusting it so it looked smooth and nice. “There you go, fancy pants.”

“Your turn, now.” Hyunjin made his fingers spin, asking you to do the same.

You had to bite hard into your lips when you felt his hand carefully push your hair away from your neck and over your shoulders. Sometimes he would do it—exactly this way, unhurried, gentle—while he was fucking you from behind. He liked to see the back of your neck, either to leave kisses or love bites there.

The scent of his cologne made you dizzy already but you turned lightheaded when his hand found your zipper and began creeping up on your back, zipping you up slowly. He was taking his time so as not to break the zipper but he might as well have been edging you from how heat pooled between your legs. The scent of his body wash was just as hypnotizing.

“All good,” Hyunjin muttered when he was done. He put your hair back as slowly as he had touched it before and pulled away.

“Thanks,” you managed. “Let’s go then, they must be waiting.”

Hyunjin said nothing but he helped you down the stairs—it turned out that climbing them had been a lot easier than going down was, so it took a little longer than you wanted it to. It also meant the nice shoes you had brought couldn’t fit with your swollen ankle so you were just wearing thick, woolen socks.

When you reached the last step, Hyunjin went to let go of your arm, only he didn’t, not really. He let his hand trail down until it reached yours—he took it and squeezed it carefully, looking right into your eyes like he was trying to tell you something but couldn’t find the words.

You imagined a parallel universe in which the two of you were still together, and how you would walk hand in hand on your way to the table to share a delicious dinner with all of your friends.

Instead Hyunjin gulped, letting go of your hand, and while you walked together, there was a considerable distance between your bodies. You had never imagined that. You were aware of the void, the emptiness inside of you but you hadn’t realized there would be more of it on the outside too, in all of the places Hyunjin wasn’t touching you.

Dinner was delicious.

You and everyone else enjoyed every dish and the wine that was served with it. It was a long meal, spread out over several hours where people played Jisung and Changbin’s drinking game. They nicknamed it The Honesty Game because only half an hour in, several shocking revelations had been made. You now knew that Felix had slept with one of his college professors, that Chan was deeply afraid of the dark, and that Ha-ri once had sixteen orgasms in the span of twenty-four hours just for the fuck of it. “It was before Bin. I’m definitely not cumming sixteen times a day anymore,” she added for precision, causing so much laughter that several guests had to leave the table to breathe.

The savory dishes were emptied, enjoyed cheerfully by everyone. It was well past ten in the evening when you went to the kitchen to get the cake ready. Jisung was giving you a hand by placing on a tray the citrusy cookies you had baked before coming here.

“It’s your turn,” Changbin told you—he was now the one holding the jar in which all the questions could be found, just waiting to be picked. “Disappearing in the kitchen won’t work.”

Disappearing was one hell of a stretch considering it was an open-space room but you ignored that.

“Do let me know if you guys don’t want dessert and I’ll come right back,” you replied with a wink. You were pretty much done—the raspberry coulis was covering the cake in a smooth, dark red layer.

“You’re a capable woman, you can do two things at a time,” Changbin said before diving a hand into a jar to retrieve a piece of paper from which he read immediately, not waiting for another of your witty remarks.

There was a pause and then what might have sounded like the wail of an animal in pain—when you looked up, you saw Changbin’s face had turned red from how hard he was laughing. Chan, who was sitting beside him, was laughing just as much, punching the table. Your heart dropped in your chest, wondering what the fuck was so funny.

“Oh, oh this is going to be interesting,” Changbin started, wiping tears from the corner of his eyes. It took almost a minute before he could speak. “I’ll ask the question that applies to you,” he specified—some questions came in two versions, especially the overly dirty ones, to accommodate everyone’s preferences. It did not look good for you. “So, among the people you slept with, who has the biggest dick?”

Chaos took over the entire room—everyone was at different levels of drunk and just having a good time, feeling comfortable. Some laughed, and others—once again—collapsed from their chairs to lie down on the floor as though it would save them from the pain of laughing.

Almost at the same time, Minho spat the sip of beer he was drinking and Hyunjin choked on the red wine he was swallowing.

You felt a mix of playfulness and shame tickling your insides. “FUCK NO!” Your mouth had fallen open and your cheeks were hot to the touch.

“You don’t have to answer,” Jisung reminded you, but he was laughing just as much as the others. “Bin, how much is this question worth?”

“It’s a big 50 points,” Changbin replied, prompting you to look over at the whiteboard where Chan was keeping track of the points. 50 would make you jump from the sixth to the fourth position, giving you a chance to maybe reach the top three. “Not answering and not taking a shot would make you lose 10.”

“And how much would dying give me…” You buried your face into your hands, welcoming the coolness of them after you held a cool bowl from the fridge for a while.

You must have been drunk because you didn’t even feel ashamed or anything—you were just shy and you felt a little bit bad. Because if you were to give an honest answer, one of the two guys currently in the room that you had sex with would be disappointed and possibly humiliated.

“Size doesn’t matter all that much,” you replied, fanning yourself with an empty plastic plate. “Right?”

“I don’t care what matters or not.” Changbin crossed his arms over his chest, a cocky smile on his face. “Tell us at least—is it one of these two dudes?”

If Hyunjin could disappear under the table, it looked like he would choose that option. Minho’s face was bright red and Si-yeon was telling him something comforting, but she was laughing as well.

“Yes.” The answer spilled from your mouth before you could stop it. You reached for your drink—cranberry juice, amaretto, and freshly squeezed clementine juice with maraschino cherries on top—and downed the rest of it.

“Is it him?” Changbin nudged Minho, pointing at him.

“I’m not saying! I can’t!” You grabbed one of the ice cubes from your glass to roll it over your cheeks. It was melting in record time.

“Is it him? Is it???” Changbin lifted his chin toward Hyunjin, sitting across from him at the table.

You couldn’t help it—your gaze lingered on Hyunjin a little longer than they should, remembering how… sizeable he was. You were too drunk for this because you were now picturing him with his pants off and…

“Look at her face, it’s obvious, oh my god,” Seungmin gasped, motioning toward you. “Damn you, Hwang Pervy!!!!”

“IT’S NOT—IT’S—I—” You fanned yourself harder. “IT’S NOT A COMPETITION!” After all, Minho had been good to you and had pleasured you a lot more than anyone… Well. Anyone except Hyunjin.

“50 points,” Chan called, erasing your score to write the new one. “I’m giving them to you despite the silent answer. Deserved.”

“You betrayed me,” Minho said, standing up. His face was still red but, surprisingly, he was smiling. “I invite you here, I pay for everything, and you dare spread slander on my name. I won’t have it.”

You shrugged, biting your lips. “I didn’t say a word, Min.” You winked at him but immediately, Jeongin attracted some unwanted attention when he stood from the floor where he had collapsed, howling in laughter, almost causing the entire Christmas tree to fall down on top of him.

You seized the opportunity to return to the dining table—not without splashing some cool water over your face—and bring the cake with you, setting it where there was enough space for it. You sat down on your chair again, on your own for a few instants before Hyunjin came back from the bathroom. He had taken the seat next to yours earlier but you suspected he, too, wanted to cool off his cheeks. His ears were still flushed.

“Sorry,” you mumbled. “They took me by surprise…”

“It’s fine. I mean…” He chuckled, his ears turning one shade darker. “I should be thanking you, I guess.” He was looking somewhere between his knees and the table but you could see his smirk.

“Don’t get cocky!” You elbowed him, clicking your tongue. “Besides, I insist, I didn’t say a word.”

Hyunjin gave you a non-committal shrug. As he went to turn to you, his eyes fell on the cake you had just brought. “Oh, wow.” His smirk disappeared. “It looks delicious. Thank you so much for making it.”

“Told you it’s your thank-you-for-not-cheating-on-me cake. You earned it, after all.” You pulled the cake closer to you, carefully carving a slice of it to transfer it onto a small dessert plate. You hadn’t made it in quite a while but you were satisfied with the results. “There you go,” you added, sliding the plate in front of Hyunjin.

He stared at it like he didn’t know what to do with it. You were staring at it too but for entirely different reasons. You were remembering what he said about his last birthday and how alone he was. Even you—despite the breakup, despite everything, you had spent your birthday with a few friends. And you didn’t want to. You didn’t want to celebrate anything but Jisung and Chan insisted, taking you out to see a movie and then at the arcade. You still cried yourself to sleep that night, and you had been lonely as hell. But you had not been alone.

Your eyes found one of the many mini candles on the table. It was almost running out of wax as it had been burning for a while with the others, providing intimate lighting and a cozy feel to the table.

“Hold on.” You grabbed the closest candle and carefully removed it from its small candle holder before putting it on Hyunjin’s cake slice. “Here. Make a wish, Hyunjin.”

He looked at you and then at the cake and back at you. “What?” A frown stitched itself on his brow.

“You said you didn’t celebrate your birthday. It isn’t fair.” You pushed the plate closer to him. “Quick, before it melts all over your cake. Make your wish.”

You did not expect this so it forced the air out of your lungs—Hyunjin’s eyes filled with tears and he quickly looked away, staring quietly at the small flame dancing before him. He stayed there for a few seconds, his chest rising and lowering to the rhythm of his steady breathing. Many of the other guests had returned around the table and were pretending they weren’t seeing you. Others were in the kitchen helping themselves to the spiked punch Hyunjin had made earlier.

“Alright, next question! Next question!” Felix called from the other side of the room where he was helping Jeongin apply a band-aid on the small cut he somehow got on his forehead.

The order of the game, since the beginning of dinner, had simply been to go clockwise around the table, which meant Hyunjin always answered his question after yours.

You saw him inhale deeply—then he blew the candle. His eyes were closed as though he had genuinely made a wish. He almost looked like he was praying. When he opened his eyes again, something had changed in him. He seemed more at peace, almost. He turned to you with a coy smile and hurriedly grabbed his fork to taste the cake.

Ecstasy wrote itself all over his face. “Holy sh—Fuck—” He sounded almost like he was fucking. And you would know what he sounded like when he fucked. He groaned, content, discarding the candle and eating more, properly stuffing himself. Hyunjin was not at all the kind of person to do that so it meant something. “Oh my god, fucking yes—”

You couldn’t help but smile. “So it’s not too bad?”

“Not too bad? Are you kidding?” He ate some more. “I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t had this cake or any of your baking in so long, but it’s even better than it was.”

You giggled, drinking from your glass of water to make the knot in your throat disappear. It was all the things you didn’t want to allow yourself to think. Like, for example, how you wished that Hyunjin’s wish had been to get back with you. Which was greedy and stupid.

“Hwang Pervy! You’re next!” Jisung grabbed the question jar and randomly picked a piece of paper from it.

When the actual question didn’t follow, you looked at the other side of the table where Jisung was sitting, one cookie in hand, the piece of paper in the other. He was staring at it, visibly uncomfortable. Without a word, he put it down and went to get another from the jar.

“No skipping questions dude, it isn’t fair! What the fuck!” Seungmin sighed, stretching his arm to grab the discarded question.

Felix, who was closer, was the one who caught it. He, too, read it for longer than he should have, concern—with a pinch of sadness—all over his face. He handed Jisung the question back, nodding as though to give him permission to grab a second question.

“Nuh-huh,” Hyunjin said from behind you, his mouth full of cake. It was not elegant but it was endearing. He swallowed it and chased it with the espresso martini he had been drinking. “Give me the first question. I’m not a pussy.”

Jisung sighed, shrugging. “Alright then.” He cleared his throat and read, “If the world was ending in one hour but you could choose to spend that hour with whoever you wanted, who would it be and what would you do?”

Silence fell over the table much like snowflakes floated in the sky on a winter night. The loud kind of quiet. Quiet but with a tangible aspect to it. You looked to your left where there was exactly one bite left of cake—Hyunjin must have been scraping it from the plate when Jisung spoke because he was frozen there.

Something shook within you, like an earthquake—you felt it as it arrived, as it traveled all the way through your body before it resonated in your chest, sending your heart off-track, making your breathing shallow and difficult.

It was very simple. The part of your brain that had seen many romantic movies wanted Hyunjin to say your name. It wanted him to admit he had never stopped loving you and that he would continue to love you until the world ended.

Or something like it.

“That one’s easy,” Changbin called from the other side of the table in a tone that strongly suggested he was only trying to diffuse the tension. “He would want to spend that hour with me at the gym.”

It made people laugh—Minho was quick to offer another round of wine to those who wanted it and Jisung said he was going out for a few minutes and that anybody who wanted to smoke some weed was welcome to follow.

A few came to help themselves to the cake, complimenting you on it or on the cookies, but soon enough, the dining room was mostly empty, save for Felix, Chan, and Soren who were having a conversation while eating dessert. Minho wasn’t far—he was in the kitchen with Si-yeon and Ha-ri, putting leftovers in plastic containers to store them in the fridge.

Hyunjin twisted his neck until he was looking at you but you could not read him. So you just observed him. His honey skin, his deep, brown eyes in which the flames of the candles reflected. His silky hair and the way it framed his perfectly sculpted face. His lips. Plush and inviting.

“I think I ate too quickly,” he muttered. “I’ll go… I’ll—” But he didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, Hyunjin pushed himself out of his chair and disappeared by the door Jisung had just walked out from.

You didn’t even move, stunned or sad or disappointed or all of those. You had a few minutes while he was out there to find something to say. Maybe you ought to have a very real conversation. Hell, you were there, drunk on a dangerous mix of different liquors, thinking that maybe you should just tell him that you still loved him. Maybe Hyunjin deserved to know that he was loved and that he had been loved all this time. He had made mistakes but those mistakes were bigger than him, and so he hadn’t been able to control them. It did not mean you felt any less for him.

It just seemed, in that instant, that you would implode if you kept it all to yourself. You wanted to tell him that if the world were to end, you would want to watch it burn with him. You wanted to tell Hyunjin you thought about him every day. That you had never loved anyone or anything as much as you loved him.

Minutes passed. Your hands began shaking in anticipation, resembling almost a panic attack. Your body had turned cold and you could barely breathe. You tried telling yourself that you were drunk and that if you were sober, you wouldn’t be planning a confession in the middle of a crowded dining room while Chan had to explain his wildest fantasies to the group or else he would need to take a shot.

Jisung, Jeongin and Hyunjin came back inside, bringing with them a gust of cold wind that went through you like lightning. You watched as Hyunjin crossed the room, coming to stand not too far from the table. He did not look at you.

“I think I had a few too many, I’m kinda dizzy,” he said. “Just wanted to say goodnight. And thank you for the great food.”

“Hey, come back when you feel better!” Felix urged. “Need help getting up there?”

“No, no it’s fine. Bye, guys.”

In theory, it sounded like such a good idea. To go to him. To tell Hyunjin how you felt. So why weren’t you doing it?

Maybe you were frightened. Or maybe it was the glance he had for you just before he disappeared upstairs—there was a darkness to it, something foreign and familiar at once. It reminded you of the way he was looking at you while he was breaking up with you.

You did not go after him.

The night was quiet but your mind was not.

Your phone told you it was 1:39 in the morning. You put it back on your stomach where it had been for the past hour or so as you lay on your back, staring at the ceiling of the bedroom, thinking this over.

The rest of the evening had gone quite smoothly—Felix asked you to make Hyunjin’s late-night mulled wine because ‘you know the recipe better than any of us’ and the others cleaned up the kitchen while you did so. You stood by the stove, stirring the wine distractedly, your mind at war with itself. Go upstairs. No, don’t go. Yes, go now and tell him everything. No. It’s stupid. So you sat with the others in the living room for a while, silent, drinking spiced wine and waiting until it was a reasonable moment for you to head upstairs and disappear.

You sighed, burying your head under your pillow as though it would quiet the thoughts. It did not. Not at all. You grabbed Bonnie The Bunny instead, holding her to your chest as you rolled over to your side to try and get some sleep.

Sleep did not come.

Maybe he hadn’t answered the end of the world question not because he wanted to say your name but because of the opposite. He said he missed you. He said all of those things. But it didn’t mean he hadn’t met someone new. He said he hadn’t been with anybody else since the breakup but it didn’t mean he didn’t want to. What if he had a crush on someone? The barista where he went to get his coffee? A regular at Nightcap? What if he wanted to sell the bar to put the bad memories behind him and start a fresh new life away from anything that reminded him of you?

It appeared to you then, almost dramatically.

Yes. Maybe it was the case. Maybe there was someone else. Maybe there was nobody else at all. It was fine—all of it. It was fine if his not-birthday wish had been to become a millionaire or to fuck or to marry a pretty girl he met last month.

It was fine. You just needed to know. It was stupid because he had already broken up with you but you needed him to tell you again or else you would never move on. And you would never fully move on anyway, but if you wanted to reach a semblance of peace, you needed to hear the words come out of his mouth.

You pushed yourself up and exited your room like you were escaping a fire. You wasted no time, crossing the hallway to make your way to Hyunjin’s room. You raised your fist to knock but it was at this moment you realized the door wasn’t fully closed. It had been left ajar so you had very little hesitation before you pushed it open, expecting to find Hyunjin sleeping in his bed.

The bed was empty—a small reading light dimly illuminated part of the room. With a frown, you invited yourself in, also checking the bathroom, but Hyunjin wasn’t there either. You waited for a few seconds, wondering if perhaps he was in someone else’s room. But as you gave up and made your way back to your room, you heard a noise coming from downstairs, and your instincts told you to go check it out.

So you went. One step down, two. God, going down the stairs was so much worse than going up. But you kept going, trying to make as little noise as possible, listening to what was going on downstairs—it seemed like whoever was there was helping themselves to stuff from the fridge.

“Fuck—” You inhaled through your teeth when your ankle threatened to give out as though it was unable to hold your weight. You came to a stop about halfway down the stairs and the noise stopped.

Then you heard the familiar sound of a plate being put down, followed by footsteps.

Hyunjin appeared down the stairs, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. “What are you doing?” he asked, visibly surprised.

The lighting was low—he had turned on only one light in the kitchen.

You stood there, stunned, in nothing but your oversized shirt and underwear, the question taking you by surprise. And yet you responded honestly. “I was looking for you. I went to your room but you weren’t there so…”

Hyunjin took a deep breath, licking his lips. Then he joined you, wrapping his arm around your waist. “You should have stayed upstairs,” he said. “It’s bad for your ankle.” Still, he helped you downstairs nonetheless, one step at a time, his hand warm, his touch comforting.

He didn’t let go of you, leading you to the kitchen and helping you sit on a stool by the counter where he was apparently enjoying a snack. In the form of an impressive slice of cheesecake.

He smiled when he followed your gaze, biting his lip. “Yeah, I—Well, I felt like I hadn’t had enough.” He offered you a shy smile. “Do you want anything?”

“I’m thirsty,” you replied, and Hyunjin got to work.

You watched as he made you a glass of lemonade from scratch, starting by squeezing one lemon and one lime. He sweetened it with honey and crushed a few fresh blackberries at the bottom of the glass before adding the ice cubes and diluting everything with spring water. With a smile, you stretched your arm to grab the glass but Hyunjin gently nudged your hand away.

“Are you insane? Come on. You know me better than that.” He was looking at you as though you had said something shocking. He tsked you, shaking his head, and went to get a familiar jar from the fridge.

Carefully, Hyunjin added three maraschino cherries to your lemonade before he handed it to you.

You tasted it—as usual, Hyunjin had managed to make something delicious effortlessly. You took some time to drink while he was putting all of his ingredients away in between bites of cheesecake.

“Thanks,” you said after a while, shaking your glass to make the ice cubes in it clink together. As though it would distract you from your rapid heartbeat. “It’s delicious. Does it have any special properties I don’t know about?”

Hyunjin took the last bite of his cake with a smile. He swallowed it, drinking some water. “Yeah. It makes you tell me why you were looking for me. And also why you came all the way down here with a sprained ankle instead of texting me.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and waved it at you with a smirk.

It did not seem appropriate to be outright honest with him at the moment. “I just wanted to talk.”

He stopped wiping the counter, his head tilting to the side. “Talk about what?”

You shrugged. “Just…” How were you even supposed to do this? This must be how it felt to skydive. Those few minutes on the plane before. Right? Your brain scrambled to find something believable to say. “You said that Bonnie The Bunny was part of my Valentine’s Day gift. Can I know what the other part was?”

Hyunjin let go of the cloth he was holding, throwing it in the sink. “No.” He rinsed out his plate and put it in the dishwasher.

For some reason his lack of hesitation surprised you. “W—What? Why not?”

“Because it would hurt you. And I think I did enough of that for ten lifetimes. So if it’s okay with you, I’d rather we didn’t talk about it.”

“I’ll tell you something in return. You can ask me any question and I promise I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Please?” The mystery was driving you nuts—that was not a lie.

This got Hyunjin’s attention. He leaned on the counter, visibly thinking deeply. It lasted long enough that you finished your lemonade by the time he stood up straight again. “No. Sorry. I can’t tell you.”

“Then why did you tell me it was only part of it in the first place?” Anger was rising in your chest and you did not like it. It was just wind, not the full storm, but it was there nonetheless. “It isn’t fair, Hyunjin.”

He sighed. “I know.” He lowered himself a little so as to look you in the eyes. “This was the best weekend I’ve had in months, thanks to you. I don’t want to ruin it. I owe you an answer—I know I do. Just not today. Please.”

You couldn’t deny that his logic made sense. You also could not deny the flutters in your heart. “Alright then. Am I allowed to ask something else?”

“Sure thing.” Hyunjin walked around the counter to join you, only he did not sit down immediately.

“The game earlier. The question you didn’t answer.” The cabin was quiet already but that silence turned heavy, thick enough that it was hindering your breathing.

Hyunjin’s face contorted in a strange, pained expression. Darkness appeared in his eyes and he tensed up.

“No,” he said again. “Now you’re not being fair.” He gulped. “I think it’s best if I just go back to bed.” He went to leave but stopped immediately. “Do you need help back upstairs?”

You stood, speechless for several seconds. “Are you kidding me?”

“I’m not? Why would you say that?” He looked upset.

“You say all these things—that you missed me, that you’re selling your whole ass bar because I’m not there anymore.” Oh no. Oh no no no no. History was repeating itself—it was exactly like Valentine’s Day. Hyunjin’s defensive attitude and that accumulation of all the things you hadn’t said suddenly spilling out of you. “But when I’m asking questions, then you close yourself. It’s just like before.”

You had slapped him on that awful night. Not something you were proud of, just a reaction your body had. You had never forgotten Hyunjin’s face and the way he looked at you after. Like he knew he deserved it but he had hoped you would use kindness instead of violence. The slap had not hurt him as much as the reason why, and the context around it occurring.

He was looking at you with the same eyes tonight. Disappointed in himself. Hurt by you. Hurt by himself for hurting you.

You covered your trembling lips. “I’m sorry—”

He gave you a stiff nod. “I’ll just go.”

Hyunjin walked away, leaving you in the kitchen with tears in your eyes and regret all over your heart. You didn’t really mean it. Only a little maybe. It was true—Hyunjin just closed himself instead of facing his feelings and reality. Hadn’t that been at the core of the very reason you two weren’t together anymore?

“Wait—” You went after him but he had already disappeared, his long legs giving him the advantage over your injured ankle. “Hyunjin, wait, please. I’m sorry. Please, can we ta—”

You did not finish your sentence—by the time you made it to the top of the stairs as fast as you could, you had put too much strain on your foot and you collapsed on your knees there, taken by surprise by your ankle’s sudden weakness.

Hyunjin was standing near the door to his bedroom. He closed it back and came to see you instead, hurrying. “Are you okay?” he whispered. His eyes were wet.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said,” you replied instead. “Hyunjin, I swear, I’m so sorry. I know… I know you keep your heart behind a wall. I knew it before too, I was just upset that I wasn’t the one you wanted to allow past your defenses.” You took a deep breath—it felt like some of the burden on your heart had evaporated. Finally.

“Come here, let’s get you up—” Hyunjin muttered, holding you to help you up, but you weren’t bothered one bit by this situation or by the fact that he was seemingly ignoring what you were saying.

“I was so… I was so angry that you wouldn’t let me in. Really in,” you went on as Hyunjin was guiding you toward your bedroom. You kept your voice low so as not to wake everybody. “I was so angry that you didn’t love me as much as I loved you that I just—”

Hyunjin came to an abrupt stop, pulling away from you to look at your face in confusion. “What? What are you even saying?” he interrupted you, raising an eyebrow, looking at you like you were in psychosis. “I’m sorry but that’s bullshit.”

“Bullshit?” You scoffed. “You’re the one who ended things, Hyunjin.”

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t love you. It doesn’t fucking mean I did not love you.” He didn’t get angry often, but he was now and it frightened you. Not because you feared for yourself, but because he was clearly upset and you hated seeing him like this. “I fucked up. I did. I’ve had to live with it since then. Isn’t it obvious? Why do you think I came here in the first place? Because I don’t love you? How would that even make sense? Every day since February 14th I’ve wanted, desperately, to go back in time and undo it. I wanted it to never have happened. I prayed, begging for time travel to finally become a thing so that I could erase that very night.”

You stood, not quite in your room, watching Hyunjin as he unleashed his indignation, trying to process the words he was saying. Wondering if anybody was waking up in the other bedrooms. Wondering why you were having this conversation with him. Why he had said love and not loved.

“I’ll tell you. You know what? I’ll just tell you,” Hyunjin added, visibly agitated. “Hold on. Don’t move.”

He disappeared in his room momentarily—you heard noises, zippers mostly, and then he was back.

“No, it’s not like last time. Because last time I was trying to save our relationship and even though I was failing at it, I was still trying. I was keeping you away because I thought it was the best thing I could do to protect you and I didn’t want to lose you. But now I have nothing left to lose, do I? So I’ll tell you, since you want to know so badly.”

He inhaled deeply, running his fingers through his hair to get it away from his eyes. His other hand was closed in a fist. The hallway was dark, and the moment felt like an out-of-body experience.

“You want to know who I’d want to spend my last hour on earth with?” he continued, his voice trembling yet assured. “You. It’s you. It’s always going to be you. And you know what? It was always you. Your Valentine’s gift? It was supposed to be a part of the game you came up with at the bar. I was gonna give you a Free Drink ticket but when you’d go to exchange it, they would have given you the box with Bonnie in it. But it wouldn’t have been the cherry on the necklace. It would have been this.”

With that, Hyunjin opened up his fist, laying his palm flat for you to see. Now, it was rather dark but you could see very well what he was holding.

You just couldn’t believe it.

A ring. It was a ring. A simple one, delicate and dainty, yet stunning.

“And before you ask: yes, I carry it with me everywhere I go, but not like a lucky charm. It’s a reminder of what I lost. Which is everything, by the way.”

A ring. A ring was just a ring. Right?

This didn’t look like just a ring, though.

He said, It’s always going to be you.

“So now you know,” Hyunjin breathed, his face contorted with sadness. “In a crowd of all these people I haven’t seen for months—or even back then, at Nightcap or at the restaurant before that. I only see you.”

Your back hit the wall behind you as you found yourself practically unable to stand. Your legs began trembling and your arms and hands followed. You covered the bottom half of your face in shock, your eyes fixated on the small piece of metal in Hyunjin’s hand. It felt neither like your heart was going too fast nor too slow—rather, you were just too aware of it. It was beating stronger than it had in months. In years maybe, you weren’t sure.

The thing with Hyunjin is that he had always been very good at reading you. For just an instant, you wondered whether he had known since he arrived here. No matter how hard you had tried to conceal it, to pretend like it wasn’t there. To pretend you weren’t hurting. To pretend you weren’t missing him in the way somebody who needs a heart transplant misses the organ they do not yet have.

He answered your question before you could even ask it.

“I’m not good enough for you. That’s why I wasn’t sure I should come here at first. I hurt you and I should pay the life sentence that I deserve for it. But I wanted you to know that yes, I still love you. I never stopped, not even for one second, to love y—”

He was not able to finish his sentence—you had wrapped your arms around his neck to pull him into a kiss. It was not a thought-out move, it was, rather, an automatic response. As though there were only two options before you: either you kissed him or you imploded right then and there.

So you kissed him.

And Hyunjin kissed you back.

His mouth took yours, warm, wet, eager. You tasted the raspberry coulis on his lips, pulling him even closer, your hands losing themselves in his silky hair, closing into fists to keep him there, only he wasn’t leaving. His arms came to embrace you, pressing you flush against him, molding you to him or him to you. Two bodies reunited.

He kissed you harder, moaning into your mouth, pushing you so hard against the wall behind that he might as well have been trying to break through it. His hands found your waist, holding you there.

“I miss you,” he kissed into your mouth.

Heat filled you entirely. Heat replaced your insides as you melted into nothing. Into everything. He was there. It was really him. Hyunjin. Your Hyunjin. He was kissing you and holding you and breathing into you. Chills cascaded from your neck all the way to your lower back, settling to your core, creating a distracting pressure there.

It was really him. Hyunjin.

And he still loved you, too.

You pulled him into your room and he took care of closing the door, only leaving your lips so he could descend onto your neck, leaving a trail of spit behind as he kissed every inch of your skin that he could. You kept backing into the room, vaguely guided by Hyunjin, and soon enough your ass met the desk in the corner. Hyunjin lifted you onto it, almost shattering the lamp on top of it to the ground.

You closed your knees around his waist, resting your head on the wall behind you.

Hyunjin stopped—he suddenly became still, his plush lips somewhere in the crook of your neck, suckling at your skin. You heard him gulp and he pulled away, but not too far. He came to press his forehead against yours while one of his hands pushed your hair behind your ear.

“I broke up with you because I wasn’t good enough for you,” he whispered. “I’m not any better than I was. We can’t do this. I don’t want to hurt you again.”

Little jolts of electricity danced all over your skin just from having him so close, from the ghost of his lips on yours. “You shouldn’t have made that decision for me, Hyunjin. I was more than able to decide for myself what’s good and what’s bad for me.”

“I was bad for you,” he insisted, closing his eyes.

“Then you don’t know how much I loved you. How much I still love you.” Your voice was strained—you realized that you were on the verge of tears. “If you think that being without you would hurt me less, then you have no idea. I failed you. I failed at making you feel loved.”

Hyunjin raised his head a little, looking into your eyes, his shoulders dropping. He stood there for a long time, his gaze dancing from yours, your lips, or your hardened nipples, which he often returned to despite the shirt covering them.

“No. No you did not fail me. I failed, on purpose, at letting you make me feel loved,” Hyunjin uttered, locking eyes again. “Because I felt like I didn’t deserve it. None of it is on you. Do you understand? None.”

You reached for his face, cupping his cheek, taking in the words he had spoken, watching tears dance in his eyes under the faint light emanating from your nightstand at the other side of the room.

Your other hand found his, the one that was still closed into a fist. You forced his fingers open, feeling the metal of the ring before holding it between your index and your thumb and raising it between the two of you.

“Was this just a ring? Or was this something more?”

He let out a weak exhale, his lip trembling. “It was something more. I planned so far in advance that I guess I was hoping I would somehow deserve you by the time I proposed. I did the exact opposite instead and I ruined my life.”

Carefully, you put the ring on a small shelf to your left, returning your attention to Hyunjin. “Ask me if I still love you.”

He gulped. You saw it in his eyes—that he tried to resist. That he wanted to punish himself, still. But something else won. “Do you still love me?”

“I never stopped.” A faint smile appeared on your lips as you pulled Hyunjin close once more. “Now, ask me how I feel about what you told me.”

He frowned. “How do you feel about what I told you?”

You held his face in both of your hands. “I feel like you had no right to decide for me whether I should or shouldn’t be with you.”

He averted his gaze. “You’re right.”

You pulled him higher until he was looking at you once more. “Now, ask me what I want.”

Hyunjin took your hands in his, inhaling them, kissing your fingers. “What do you want?”

“I want us to have another shot at it. I want us whole again. And don’t tell me that you’re not good enough for me,” you added when he went to speak. “Before was different. I want you to keep the bar. And I want us to try again. I want us to be happy. And someday, I want to wear that ring.” You motioned towards the shelf where it rested. “But it has to be for real. Hyunjin, you have to really want it too. I think that if I lose you again, I’ll die.”

“I want it. I want you.” Four seconds passed. “I love you,” Hyunjin breathed. “My angel, I love you.”

Your heart, this time, did jump out of your chest. Those words, the very words you were once used to hear every day. You watched as Hyunjin spoke them, you noticed the shape of his lips as he confessed, the way his love-coated breath caressed your skin. At that moment, his voice sounded like the first day of Spring, when the sun felt warm and heated up the air.

Hyunjin, carefully, pressed his feverish lips onto yours once more, taking them, savoring the kiss. He kissed you like you were the most delicate porcelain cup and he was drinking rare, expensive tea. Taking his time, exploring, tasting.

Blood rushed to your lower stomach when, in one swift movement, Hyunjin spread your legs further to pull you as close as he could, your core pressed onto him, the fabric of your underwear brushing onto his sweatpants and his hardening cock.

Your body went limp—you buried your face into his neck, breaking the kiss, feeling yourself getting wet and soaking your underwear. You needed him. It had been so long, too long. You left little kisses on his jaw, inhaling his scent.

“I love you, too.” You kissed his chin. “I love you.” Another kiss on his lips, your hands sneaking under his shirt, feeling his toned abdomen and playing with the waistband of his pants.

Hyunjin lifted your head, his index finger underneath your chin. “Are you sure? That you want this? Because I don’t think I’ll be able to walk away if I kiss you even one more time.”

You stared into his inky eyes. They were dark and soft, a brown so beautiful you swore he came from another world. “I’m sure, Hyunjin.” And you kissed him, sealing your fate.

His hands moved slowly, languidly, caressing you through your loose shirt. Your waist, your thighs, your back. He cupped your breasts, groaning into your mouth when he felt how hard and sensitive your nipples were. He flicked them—so, so gently—with his thumbs as he kissed secrets into you.

“Baby…” Hyunjin moaned when you dug your fingernails into the skin of his back when he deepened the kiss. “We can wait, we don’t have to.”

Baby. Your clit throbbed upon hearing it. You were lightheaded and desperate and in love. You were so happy you weren’t even realizing that you were, as though you had forgotten how to process those things.

“Do you want to wait?” You would if he wanted to, but he grew harder against you with each second. “I don’t.”

“No.” He gulped, leaving your tits to push your hair out of your face. “So I have permission to fuck you?”

You gave him a nod, something tugging at your insides. “Please,” was all that you managed, but it was good enough for him. Time did not matter. You could have been away from him for ten, twenty years that it wouldn’t have made a difference. Your body knew his. His body knew yours. Because of the souls inhabiting them, and the bond between them.

Perhaps that had been the reason for the pain, and why you meant it when you said you wouldn’t survive should you lose Hyunjin another time. That bond was unbreakable. It was not something that time or distance could damage or even alter, it would always stay exactly the same. You would just have to be apart from him. To be without him. And it would be like living without a piece of your soul.

“You don’t even know…” Hyunjin muttered, positioning you to his liking. “How beautiful you are.”

Your cheeks flushed from how intensely Hyunjin was looking at you, at your body. He tugged at your shirt, looking at you with question marks in his eyes—you nodded, giving him your approval, your body trembling from anticipation.

Slowly, he pulled the shirt over your shoulders, ridding you of it, exposing you to him. The shirt was discarded, forgotten even before it touched the floor.

You felt vulnerable even in the relative darkness of the room. Vulnerable but not scared, not really. There was a distant part of your reason that was still trying to hold you back, trying to remind you of all the worst feelings that had ever inhabited your heart. But Hyunjin hadn’t been the only one to make mistakes. Both of you made the same one, which was to diminish the love the other one had for them. Unintentionally or not, the result was the same.

But you were breaking free of that, the chains tethering you shattering one by one. Each kiss, each word, each touch was not just restoring your freedom. You were discovering the true extent of it for the first time.

Hyunjin loved you. He loved you in the very beginning. He loved you every day after that. Those weren’t just words anymore, they were truths that were merging with your DNA so as to become an intrinsic part of you, changing you, altering the chemistry of your brain and the one of your heart.

And, here’s the thing—the lack of lighting in the room did not prevent you from seeing the same phenomenon happening to Hyunjin. The shift in his eyes, the way he held himself, the rhythm at which he breathed. That changed you again, all over, making you a new woman. There was an entire universe between now and the person you were just a few moments ago.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Hyunjin whispered, one hand trailing on your thigh until it stopped at your knee, nudging your legs open. “Look at that…”

His other hand found its way between your legs as he pressed two fingers flat on your slit, not minding the thin layer of soaked underwear between you and his skin. He felt you, applying just the right amount of pressure, sparking little fires inside you, your breath hitching as he caressed your most sensitive spots. Driving you crazy, dizzy. Making you roll your hips so you could rub yourself onto his hand. Desperate. Eager. Impatient.

You had been without him for months—you might as well have been starving, now looking at the most generous, delicious feast.

Hyunjin pushed your panties to the side, proceeding to lose his mind—he let out a raspy moan when he teased your entrance with his digits. The kiss that followed was especially wet, as though he was drooling—his lips devoured yours like there was no tomorrow while he probed at your cunt, rediscovering this place he had once made a home out of.

His head fell when you clenched, his forehead pressed hard on your shoulder, letting you be his anchor. You observed, studying him, lost in pleasure, as Hyunjin looked down, as he watched himself touching you, feeling your pussylips, your entrance. “I missed your body, baby. This. You.” He let his fingertips linger at your entrance and you clenched again, like a plea that didn’t need words.

Blood rushed between your legs when he pushed one, then a second finger into your hole. Almost timidly. Almost like he was asking for permission. You fucked yourself onto his fingers, your slick coating his hand and his wrist, your sweet scent permeating the small space between your two bodies.

“I want to do the thing that we liked so much,” Hyunjin whispered into your ear, grazing it with his teeth. “Can I?”

Memories of passionate nights resurfaced after you had spent months doing your best to bury them so as to spare you the pain of remembering. It never got old, not with Hyunjin. He liked to fuck you. He loved it. Sometimes he would ask you to pleasure yourself for him, and he would watch, not even touching his straining cock. Just looking at you. Other times he spent entire nights fucking you, eating your pussy between rounds. He fucked you hard. Or slow. He made love to you, every time.

You pressed your thighs together, overwhelmed by the memories but even more by the gentle massaging of your inner walls, locking Hyunjin’s hand there. But he didn’t seem to mind—he did not let it stop him from fingering you slowly, languidly, making sure that no corner of your intimacy was left untouched.

“Yes, god, yes—” Your voice was little more than strangled sobs, the ache between your thighs becoming fierce and profound.

Hyunjin gave you a kiss as a thank you for the permission you granted—not that it required a sacrifice on your part. He had quite a few tricks up his sleeves—after months spent together, enjoying each other, learning to know one another, there had been a few things that both of you liked to revisit.

One thing that you liked—that you really, really liked—was when Hyunjin stretched your hole. Really stretched it. And he liked it just as much.

He let go of your pussy for a moment so he could take his pants off, tossing them aside, freeing his cock. Finally. Finally. You could not look away, from how smooth it was, so hard. Straining. Leaking from its flushed tip. You could cum to the sight of it. God, it had been too long. You needed him. You needed him even if it caused your demise.

Your body’s response was instantaneous—one look at that cock and your legs spread wide open again, inviting him to ruin you.

“I really won’t last long,” Hyunjin warned you, kissing your nose, your lips, your earlobe as he got rid of your stained panties.

“Do it. Fuck me.” You took his lips, biting at them, kissing him deep, with tongue, moaning into his mouth.

You didn’t need to tell him twice yet Hyunjin still took some time, guiding himself between your legs, massaging your clit with the tip of his cock, sometimes teasing your hole with it. Your head filled with fog, but not in a rainy day kind of way. It was more that you couldn’t see where your body began and where his ended—the two of you had become one.

You reached between his legs to feel him, giving his balls a gentle squeeze—Hyunjin throbbed at that, his breath hitching. “They’re so full, aren’t they?” you smiled, biting your lip, squeezing him again. “Can I have it? Please?”

Hyunjin had always been one to enjoy dialogue during lovemaking so you always made a point of speaking to him. It seemed like his tastes hadn’t changed—he pressed his cock harder against you, using his thumb to guide himself at your entrance. You let go of his straining balls to hold onto him—it felt as though you were standing on the edge of a precipice.

He buried himself inside you unhurriedly, leisurely, giving you his cock, lighting you on fire as he went. He met resistance at every centimeter despite your slick leaking around his length but he filled you more and more. Stretching you. Stuffing your tight cunt with cock.

He whined when your walls fluttered around him. “Holy shit you’re tight.” His voice was trembling. “You gotta stop clenching, baby. I’m gonna cum.”

You couldn’t stop because you had no control over it. More of your sanity evaporated when Hyunjin held your waist, pulling you closer, pulling you onto his cock so that you would take all of him. He bottomed out, causing the sting of it and the pleasure caused by it to blend into something dangerous, a cherry red kind of feeling coursing through your veins.

Hyunjin gave one tentative thrust—it was evident that it was himself he was testing, perhaps fearing he would blow right then and there. And he almost did, pulling out to prevent it, your slick and his precum spilling all over the desk underneath. You vaguely felt regret and shame at the thought of making such a mess but it was quickly erased when Hyunjin pushed himself into your cunt a second time, pumping in and out of you in slow but calculated thrusts.

He stretched your hole as though he was claiming you again, making you his. And nothing felt as good as that. As knowing that you were loved. As being filled by the man you loved in return. As Hyunjin molding your pussy to accommodate his cock.

“Aah—” Your chest heaving as you adjusted to his size, you held onto him tighter. “You’re big…” You had sworn that you had never forgotten how it felt to be fucked by him but you were realizing that remembering him and being actively stuffed with cock were two entirely different experiences.

“Apparently so,” Hyunjin retorted with a smirk, remembering the scene from earlier. He emphasized his point with a few powerful thrusts and lewd, wet sounds filled the room as he fucked you.

Your body went limp as Hyunjin ravaged you in the most delightful way. He bottomed out again. And again. And again. He wasn’t lying when he said he wouldn’t last—you could tell he was close. You remembered him like one remembers their childhood home. Like time apart didn’t matter. You would never forget his body.

He grunted every time he drove his cock into your cunt, his eyes rolling at the back of his head. Your pleasure was a slave to his—it followed Hyunjin’s imminent orgasm, the knot inside your stomach expanding until you couldn’t even breathe.

But you resisted him. You fought it, focusing on the feeling of his thick cock massaging your hole.

“You’re sure I can, my angel?” Sweat was pearling at Hyunjin’s temples, his hair sticking to the skin there and on his neck.

“Yes.” You pulled him closer, or tried to, your knees resting on his waist. “Don’t—pull—out—” Talking was becoming near impossible as his fucking became erratic and relentless.

A glint appeared in Hyunjin’s eyes. He adjusted himself, fucking you deeper. “You really didn’t change, didn’t you?” He chuckled, watching as he sank within you, watching your slick coat his cock, watching your pussy hug his length. “You’re still my pretty, pretty cumslut.”

You throbbed at that, your mind going blank.

“It’s okay baby, I got you.” And Hyunjin slammed hard into you.

Once. Twice. He started cumming at the third time but fucked you through his entire orgasm, whimpering every time you met his motions with rolls of your hips, milking him. This was heaven, right? With each second that passed, the sounds his cock made as it fucked into you became wetter, louder just from how much cum he gave you, pulsing into you, making sure to spill himself as deep as he could.

This was just part one of this series of events that you liked—the anticipation of knowing what was to come was exhilarating.

Hyunjin kissed you deep, not pulling out but lifting you from the desk. “Hold on to me,” he managed, eyes glazed over from the hormones released by his orgasm. He simply lay you down on the bed just two or three feet away, climbing with you, staying right there.

Until he pulled out. Quickly, he lowered his head between your legs, observing for just a second. “There’s a lot,” he commented. “It’s so pretty, leaking out of you like that.” He nudged your knees to spread you open and wasted no time pressing his lips onto your hole.

His tongue swirled as you writhed in pleasure, pushing the oozing cum back into your throbbing cunt, saving as much as he could. He gave your pussy a few kitten lips, tasting himself on you, moaning at it. Bliss overcame you and you melted onto the bed, pressing a hand over your mouth to cover your uncontrollable cries.

Hyunjin pushed his hair behind before properly burying his face into your cunt, his wet tongue working miracles. He remembered you, flicking his tongue at your clit just the way you liked, suckling at it, too. Savoring you, commenting on your taste every ten seconds or so. It was delightfully dirty. His mouth was warm, wet, and skilled.

He made eye contact with you when he used one hand to part your pussylips open, ensuring that you watched as he fucked you with his tongue, kissing your pussy, speaking sins into you, tilting his head to reach deeper. The look on his face would have been enough to make you cum.

Hyunjin pulled away, his lips coated with your creamy slick and his own cum, gazing at the masterpiece he had made between your legs. He finally took his shirt off, allowing you to see his body as your eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness. His cock was not even soft despite his powerful orgasm—it was hardening again, bobbing heavily as he repositioned himself. You took in the sight of him. His chest, chiseled. His broad shoulders, his arms, strong and toned. You reached for him, feeling him, touching him, filling your head with him while Hyunjin was tickling your cunt with two fingers.

He buried them within you, meeting no resistance after he opened you up. “Don’t hold back,” he pleaded.

You shook your head. You didn’t even know what those words meant anymore. Your skin was quickly covered in chills when Hyunjin proceeded to finger you, knowing exactly where to go, curving his fingers up to massage your most sensitive spot immediately. You listened to the sound of it, noticing the feeling of your juices running down your thighs and your ass, letting it add to the pleasure overstimulating you.

It was becoming hard to think.

He fucked you with his fingers, always returning to that spot, worshipping the rest of your body too. Feeling your sensitive tits. Caressing your left side, your right, tickling your waist. Returning to your tits, teasing your neck, pressing fingers at your throat but barely.

You clenched around him. Hard. His face returned between your thighs, embracing your clit with his plush lips. He did not stop fucking you with his long fingers. And, god, they were so long.

The combination of the two tugged at the knot in your abdomen, the familiar pressure descending. You recognized it because it felt a little like you were going to pee and like a thousand angels were kissing you all over. It possessed your body, inside and out, dissolving you into nothing except ecstasy, the ache between your legs unbearable.

Hyunjin lapped at you sloppily, moaning as he savored you. “So wet,” he kept saying, the soundwaves of his voice on your sensitive clit sending you closer and closer to rapture. “So sweet…” You couldn’t move anymore.

You couldn’t even warn him, not that he needed a warning anyway. “That’s it baby,” he praised in between sessions of slurping you like a feral, starving animal devoured its prey. “Wish you could see your pussy right now.” He gave it a little kiss. “I put all my cum back inside you, but you keep pushing it out.” He giggled, returning to your clit, pressing his tongue flat on it, licking you relentlessly as his fingers massaged that one spot. “Make a mess for me, baby.”

It was just for formality purposes—Hyunjin didn’t need to tell you. He said it, perhaps, because he knew he was seconds away from making you squirt, visibly revelling in that knowledge.

For an instant—very briefly—you thought about how unprepared for it you were—no towel, nothing. But the thought escaped as quickly as it had appeared.

There was a tremor within you as that knot undid itself, then you just couldn’t take the pressure anymore. It was like looking at the sun with the naked eye.

Then everything was so wet. You surrendered—to Hyunjin, to his tongue, to his fingers, to his love. You surrendered and let yourself topple over to reach your orgasm, waves of pleasure invading you as you squirted all over Hyunjin’s skilled hand, spraying his pretty face too as he deliciously tortured your sensitive spot to ensure he would get as much from you as he could. You couldn’t contain your moans at the sight and at the freefall it all felt like.

When Hyunjin pulled away, he looked at his hand and how it was dripping—he licked his fingers clean and climbed up until he could kiss you. His hard cock rested somewhere onto your still fluttering pussy as he explored your mouth, sharing your combined tastes with you, rubbing himself onto your soaked, sensitive pussy. You felt it. How hungry he was for you.

“Don’t we taste good?” he smiled against your lips, guiding himself at your entrance once again. He kissed your jaw, your bare shoulder. “Can you go again, baby?”

Insatiable. You were insatiable. You would never have enough of him. “Fuck me hard, Hyunjin.”

He did. He fucked you hard.

Hyunjin buried his cock into your swollen pussy, his movements made easier by the inhuman amount of arousal dripping from you. His face in the crook of your neck, he slammed into you at a frenetic pace.

“Harder,” you begged.

“I know baby, I know.” Still, he listened to your plea and forced his hard cock deeper into you, holding you in place so he could easily pump in and out. “You take my cock so well.”

The praise only worsened your brain fog—your head was spinning, your body convulsing with each thrust.

Hyunjin was fucking you like a pornstar. Like a young god. Like he was desperate, and maybe he was. Your heart raced in your chest, tension coiling at your core.

“I’m not pulling out,” he warned you, slowing down, changing to a languid pace, allowing him to speak into your ear. His cock took up all of the space inside you. You were no longer empty. The void was being filled. “I’m stuffing you again.”

Blushing, you clenched around him and he throbbed in response as your nails sank into his strong back. He was losing himself in you and you in him.

“You love cum a little too much,” he went on, leaving kisses all over your tits. “I bet sometimes you secretly wish your birth control failed and I’d breed you.”

He was truly pulling out the big guns—Hyunjin was well aware that any mention of this secret breeding kink that you had developed would drive you crazy.

You almost came, your voice filling the room with pretty staccato moans, Hyunjin quick to kiss you, muffling the sound of it. But he was taking his sweet time fucking you.

And you did want his cum.

You nudged him—when Hyunjin didn’t get off you, you pushed him harder, the two of you rolling on the bed until you were straddling his thighs. His cock had slipped out in the process but it took you only one second before you wrapped your hand around his base, guiding Hyunjin where you wanted him most.

“Ahh—Ahh—Yes—” Hyunjin whimpered as you descended onto his shaft, taking all of him. He rested his hands on your waist, pushing you down, keeping you right there.

You rolled your hips, riding him, moving onto him, aware that this was perhaps not the best idea for you, not with that sprained ankle. But you ignored the pain and moved again, undulating to the rhythm set by your most primal desires, which meant that soon enough, you were bouncing on his cock.

Hyunjin writhed under you, fucking you from below, sometimes taking one of your nipples between his lips, other times caressing your clit. Sometimes he just stared at you and called you beautiful.

“Take what you want,” he begged. He was sensitive, too sensitive. His legs were shaking—you could feel them.

It was right there. Your orgasm. It hovered, threatening to strike at any moment. Hyunjin fondled your ass and you lowered yourself to kiss him. Because you wanted to cum while kissing him.

“Take it,” he repeated between kisses, panting. “I’m yours. Always—Always—Been—”

He was close. Then he was cumming, bliss taking his breath away, arching into you, hips stuttering as his pulsing cock flooded your cunt. You kept riding him, chasing your high, basking in Hyunjin’s—he looked desperate under you like this, emptying his balls, filling you. He looked beautiful. He looked like the love of your life.

You came too, with him, abandoning yourself, collapsing onto his chest, letting your body follow its instincts. Your orgasm carried you, splitting you open, the peak of it so intense you blacked out for a few seconds. There was nothing but you and the pleasure coursing through you. There was nothing but Hyunjin and you. He held you. He held you as you came, whispering into your ear, praising you.

When the last of your aftershocks receded, Hyunjin kept you right there, tucking your hair behind your ear so it wasn’t in the way. He pushed onto your chin and you looked up. It was with a smile that he kissed you, a simple kiss, a good kiss. It tasted like cock and pussy and love.

You lay your head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. You would never be whole without him. You knew that. It was a scary thought, and yet you welcomed it today. When his cock softened, it slipped out of your fucked out cunt and his cum dripped down all over you and him. And it was nasty. And you loved it, and he loved it just as much.

You were drifting to sleep, content and drained and yet so full of light. It felt like a dream—you did not want to fall asleep. You tried fighting it for as long as you could just in case you would wake up and none of it would be real. God, it would be so cruel.

But exhaustion got the best of you.

You woke up later in a sun-filled room, your pussy sore, your body sticky and sweaty. And your bed wasn’t empty. Hyunjin slept on the other side, his expression serene, his hand holding yours. Things were exactly the same as before, except they were not. Sometimes, one has to make mistakes so they can learn from them. And sometimes those mistakes hurt and leave scars, but what matters more is what they do about them.

Hyunjin shifted in his sleep, humming as he woke up. He didn’t open his eyes but he did pull you close, wrapping his arms around you, burying his face in your hair. “Good morning, angel.”

Your heart skipped a few beats. It didn’t even feel real—none of it did. You were still afraid that you would somehow wake up from that dream, lonely, alone. “Good morning, handsome.” You kissed his forehead, playing with his hair.

The two of you stayed peacefully like this, embracing, just living the moment. Perhaps he, too, needed time to process that it had happened at all. He only moved when he heard the text notification on his phone somewhere in the room—the device had stayed in the pocket of his sweatpants, still on the floor.

He quickly went to recover it and you were able to see him in all of his splendor. You studied each little area, every inch of skin. His thighs, his ass, his back. How elegant he was, graceful, and yet unexpected. His beauty was unique.

“Oh my god,” he mouthed from the other side of the room, a hand covering his lips as his cheeks turned several shades darker.

You sat up in the bed, frowning. He had the expression of somebody who left their stove on at home and just remembered about it. He found his way back, sitting on the mattress, but his eyes did not leave the screen of his phone for a few more seconds. He turned the device toward you, burying his face into his large hand.

There were four notifications, all texts.

Felix: dude, just a heads-up, y’all were NOT quiet last night and most heard a lot of it. except maybe those who slept in the basement.

Felix: that being said though. i’m happy for you man

Changbin: i actually bet hanji $50 that it would happen. he didn’t believe it would. thank you dude, i’m richer this morning

Minho: we collectively agreed to pretend like no one heard a thing to save ourselves from the embarrassment so you two can come downstairs for breakfast whenever. hey, DON’T fuck it up this time, hwang pervy

You, too, hid your face by burying it into the pillow nearest to you. “Oh my god kill me. Hyunjin just kill me now.”

Hyunjin joined you, lying down by your side, discarding his phone to hold you as close as he could. He giggled nervously but you were just trying to swallow the gigantic embarrassment stuck in your throat.

“It’s okay baby, it’s not like we’re the first ones it happens to,” Hyunjin reminded you. You remembered very well when Jisung brought his ex to the restaurant once, after closing time, and locked himself in his office with her. “Besides, they cannot expect you to be quiet when you’re being stuffed by my monstercock, can they? Now that they know—thanks to you—they will understand.”

This made you laugh, your shame evaporating almost entirely. You had forgotten what it was like to love someone enough that you let them comfort you.

Things were exactly the same as before, except they were not. Because both Hyunjin and you knew the pain of being without one another and neither of you ever wanted to live through that again. Because now, you knew that Hyunjin loved you. And you were pretty sure that he knew that you loved him too. That you really loved each other, with all of your souls—because, maybe, soulmates did exist.

“COME ON!!!!!!” Hyunjin honked at the car before his, sighing with despair.

“There’s traffic dude, chillax,” Jisung, sitting on the passenger seat, told him, lazily scrolling his phone.

“Chillax? Are you seriously telling me to chillax right now?!”

It had to be today, right? Today out of all days. His birthday.

His day started well because it started with you in his bed, which was now, again, your bed. After Christmas, the two of you had sat down for a very serious conversation, deciding that it was probably best to take things slow. Not that you could erase the past, but taking your time just sounded reasonable. So you kept your apartment and he kept his, and he took you on dates. All that stuff.

It lasted maybe a month. By the end of January, you had moved back in with him. Is it going too fast? You asked him one night. He understood what you meant, he felt the same. He was scared, too, but he couldn’t control the need he had to be with you. Maybe to make up for all that time lost.

It just didn’t feel right when you weren’t by his side. Nothing did.

But it felt very right this morning when you woke him up by squeezing his cock gently and whispering Happy Birthday, baby into his ear. It felt very right when he made love to you in the bed that he shared with you.

You had to work at the bakery and felt bad about not being with him for his birthday, but Hyunjin didn’t mind too much. The bar was closed today anyway and he had the entire day to himself to relax—well, until Han Jisung showed up at his doorstep and asked if he wanted to go check out that store they talked about the week before. It was in the next town over, but it was a store with bar-related and cocktail-making supplies.

And, of course, since you had convinced him to keep Nightcap on the long term, Hyunjin was more than interested in visiting the shop.

You truly were the best thing that ever happened to him—and he told you every day.

Everything was fine until sometime in the late afternoon. After visiting the store, Jisung invited Hyunjin out for lunch for his birthday and then they went to see a movie. Just as they exited the movie theater, Hyunjin got a notification on his phone from the bar’s security system, alerting him that part of the bar was without electricity due to a malfunction.

It happened. It was a rather old building and sometimes the wiring just needed a little love. Hyunjin had an excellent electrician and texted him immediately. I’ll meet you there, he wrote.

It took Hyunjin an eternity to get to Nightcap. He checked his phone after he parked his car in the empty parking lot behind, smiling when he saw that you had responded to his text.

You: don’t worry too much baby. I’ll go there right after i’m done here and then we can go to dinner together. i want to spoil you a little

His heart full, Hyunjin typed his brief but meaningful response. Love you, angel.

Jisung followed him toward the back door, lighting Hyunjin’s keyring so he could find the right one. His fingers were cold by the time he managed to unlock the door and enter.

There was power here and everything seemed normal—the bar, empty, was quiet and just as he left it the night before. Still, Hyunjin went to investigate the storage rooms with a frown on his brow, ready to text the electrician in case there had been a mistake with the alarm system.

“That’s weird,” Hyunjin commented, walking down the hallway, entering the kitchen. Here, too, everything was just fine.

Jisung gave him a non-committal hm hm, still following him as Hyunjin made his way toward the main room. He pushed on the door leading there…

… and arrived face to face with a room full of people.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Hyunjin’s heart stopped in his chest as he processed everything, or at least tried to. The room was brightly lit and decorated with balloons and streamers and garlands and banners. Everyone was here. All of his friends, his employees, the bakery’s employees too, with whom he had become acquainted. Even his parents were here, wearing stupid party hats like the rest of them.

He almost cried, too surprised, too happy.

All of the people he loved began singing him Happy Birthday—the cacophony was delightful and made the knot at his throat a little bigger. Sometimes, he’d hear a distant ‘Happy birthday Hwang Pervy’ instead of the real lyrics and knew that Kim Seungmin must be around, but his focus was on something else.

You appeared from somewhere in the crowd, holding a plate on which was your matcha cheesecake with several lit candles on it. Carefully, you made your way behind the bar to join him, leaving the cake on the counter.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAAYYY HYUUUNNNJIIINNN,” the others kept on chanting, Chan and Minho apparently trying to be opera singers. “HAAAPPPYYYY BIRTHDAAAYY TOOOOO YOOOOUUUUU!!!!”

He stared at all of them, an arm around your waist. He looked around him, at his bar that he had worked so hard for, at all those people he loved. He turned to you when you kissed his cheek. Your smile was brighter than the sun—you were his light in the dark in the sense that he couldn’t even see the shadows, not when he was with you.

“Happy birthday, baby.” Your smile grew wider. “You’ve got to make a wish now.”

A wish?

He only had one wish—it would remain with him until his last breath. There was only one thing he wanted, and he was standing right next to it.

Imagine holding the best, most beautiful gift life could ever give you. Imagine feeling its weight in the palm of your hand, the texture of it too, and its warmth. Imagine it scurrying along your arm to bury itself in your chest, making a home out of your heart. Imagine waking up every morning overly aware of the things you could lose because you are intimate with that feeling.

Imagine having this light in your heart and cherishing it, imagine being loved by it, imagine loving it back. Imagine the light growing stronger and brighter every day.

What you would see is the state of Hyunjin’s heart.

He had it all. He had it all because he had you.

He made his wish—it was the same that he made during that Christmas weekend at the cabin a few months ago. But when he looked at you again and at your eyes full of joy and at your heartfelt smile, Hyunjin knew that his wish had come true.

The End.

Note: Happy New Year everybody! I already wrote my wishes but I really want to thank every body for the love you have given me this past year. I also want to thank you for being interested in this story & for being so moved by it. I tried to write this ending as well as I could, and I hope it made you happy a little.

Thank you to those who take the time to interact meaningfully with the content that they like—it is beyond appreciated. I'm late at answering asks and will get to it tonight and tomorrow! I read all of you guys, don't worry. Life was just very busy and weird for me.

Lots of love! And be kind to yourselves in 2025.

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#wow #WOW WOW WOW WOW #Mari always makes the best characters #I’m just in love #how will I continue life now that I’ve finished this #hyunjin #Hyunjin fan fic #recommend fic #🥟