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lockefanfic · 12 days ago

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Translate - Part 2

Part Two of Three. Part One. 12k words.

---

You steal glances at her from across the venue.

Sometimes a passing waiter or attendee blocks your line of sight; sometimes another copied-and-pasted investor steps in between you, hand extended, wishing to introduce him or herself; sometimes the woman next to you steals your attention, usually with a laugh that sounds like music in the cool Seoul evening.

The woman next to you is Taeyeon Kim - Vice President, Strategy, 2024-present and also ex-girlfriend, 2018-2021 - but tonight she’s a celebrity, investors and staff members and junior analysts alike all clambering over themselves for a moment of her time, for the opportunity to introduce themselves to the brightest star in the industry. She looks like one too, in her smoky eyeshadow and little black dress with its daringly low cut and short hem, wrapped almost too tightly around a slim body that is thirty-six but looks a decade younger.

Taeyeon laughs, smiles, and places her hand affectionately on the shoulders and forearms of colleague and investor and intern alike when they make a joke or interesting anecdote. She’s magnetic, almost, the way she draws the entire gala to her. She knows how to play a crowd, and is all smiles, a definite contrast from the cold, calculating businesswoman she was during the day. She knows what mask to wear and when - experience hard won by long years in the corporate world.

But on this night, her charms are only half-effective on you. You stand next to her and laugh and smile along with the crowd but most of your attention, when it is freed from nosy colleagues and investors, is focused not on the charming Vice President but on the lonely Marketing Lead across the venue.

Ryujin Shin takes short sips from one of the two champagne flutes present on her stand-up table. She talks softly to Yuna, who is standing next to her. There is a blank expression on her face, unreadable. Every now and then she forces a smile. Yuna reaches out and squeezes her wrist, as though to comfort her. Not once does Ryujin lift her eyes to even glance in your direction.

She is not more than a hundred metres away but she may as well have been on the other side of the city. With Korean being amongst the half-dozen languages Taeyeon was fluent in, there was no need for a translator as she holds court with the Korean and international investors surrounding her.

“...rumor has it that she runs a small sushi joint in Vancouver, and just had a kid. She had him and her father at gunpoint, and the Senior VP convinced the cops to let her go! Crazy story, isn’t it?”

A hand, hers, grasps your arm. You turn to find Taeyeon looking at you, eyes expectant.

“Crazy,” you stammer, catching on quickly. “I still don’t believe any of it actually happened.”

Taeyeon smiles a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, which are still locked on yours. “Anyway,” she continues, turning to the crowd gathered around your table listening intently to her every word. “He’s married to another Senior Vice President now - his former colleague. And she’s pregnant. Not sure what he’s up to. Maybe he’s off on some new daring corporate adventure involving car chases and the Tokyo PD?”

The crowd oohs and aahs at Taeyeon’s story - some with a slight delay as the Vice President translates it into flawless Korean, the foreign language giving her voice a pleasant, melodic tone. She continues to work the crowd. For a moment you listen, and for a moment you see why they were so enraptured by her. For a moment you remember why you-

-your phone vibrates. You reach into your pocket to retrieve it, finding a message from Ryujin. She tells you that she’s going to call it a night and head back to the hotel first. She reminds you of your early flight to Tokyo the next morning.

She says she’ll meet you in the lobby of the hotel at 7am.

You turn your gaze to her table to find her, but she’s gone. Her empty champagne flute sits on the table next to the one she never got the chance to give you.

---

Taeyeon made for an exercise in material contrasts - her tight, tiny black Prada dress beneath the cheap suit jacket you’d draped across her shoulders to ward against an evening chill you weren’t sure was actually there; the glint of the Cartier watch on her wrist as she poured cheap, convenience store soju into two paper cups; the 1,000 won lighter she held in her thin, slim fingers to light the artisanal cigarette she plucked from a slim titanium case in her purse.

She takes a long drag. When the smoke leaves her nose it almost clings to her. She wears it as much as she wears her dress, or the suit jacket of yours she was currently swimming in. Like the smoke she’s ephemeral, ethereal, beautiful - but her presence stung when you breathed her in.

You’d left Vancouver on good terms with her - warm, friendly, joking - but something about her surprise appearance tonight, and what it might have meant, rubbed you the wrong way.

“You two together now?” she asks, voice flat and direct, now that the melodic charm of the social gathering was no longer needed in her words.

On the bench next to her, you look away with a scoff. You knew who she was referring to, even if she never said her name. You bend forward, elbows on your knees, hands clasped together. You play with your thumbs and rub your nails, as though you could wring an answer from between your fingers.

“What’s her name again? Soojin? Yujin?” she continues.

You shake your head. A smile with no warmth in it bends the corners of your lips. The gall of this woman.

“Ryujin,” you state, firmly.

“Hmm,” she murmurs, giving Ryujin’s name as much attention as the ash she flicks off the end of her cigarette, as though it were beneath her somehow. She takes another drag, leaves another layer of smoke floating between you filled with all the words you’ve never said to each other. “Are you two… real?”

You don’t look up at her. The faux-smile leaves your lips.

“I’m not sure,” you answer, slowly. “But I want to find out,” you add, hoping that it would send her a message.

A few moments of silence. Taeyeon takes one of the paper cups and downs her shot. You do the same, before re-filling both of them. Neither of you look at each other. The alcohol does nothing to ease the tension between you.

“You’re never sure about anything,” Taeyeon says, softly.

Her words trigger you - more than she did when she showed up unannounced at the event, more than when she forgot Ryujin’s name, more than she did when she slid her hand into yours as you both left the event in full view of your colleagues.

You stand up, suddenly angry, suddenly upset. The words rush to your mouth and leave your lips before you even know you’re saying them. “I was sure about you.”

---

Friday, May 14th, 2021. 8:19pm.

She’s twenty-six again. Still beautiful - but in a bright, fresh-faced way. The kind of beauty that is found only in youth, in the features of a young woman yet to be truly hardened by the realities of life.

An image of her flashes on the screen of your phone as it lies on the table. She’s wearing a cheap Uniqlo sundress and the oversized circular eyeglasses she needed because she was blind as a bat before the Lasik surgery she’d get years later after a promotion. A cheap silver ring you’d bought her hours before from an artisanal market - a pre-engagement ring, she’d called it - glimmers on her left ring finger as she waves awkwardly at you, the photographer.

She’s in London, in front of Big Ben, where you’d both been sent on your first overseas business trip together. She wasn’t ready for the picture and has an odd, crooked smile on her face. You remembered her protests when you set it as her contact picture, insisting you replace it with a better one, perhaps one of the two of you together - but you kept it nonetheless, partially because you wanted to tease her about it, and partially because the picture reminded you of your first few weeks together.

You were in love with her - there was no mistaking it. It was there in the way your heart leapt when she walked in the door of your apartment, there in the way you brushed hair from her face as she snored fitfully next to you, there in the way you made her coffee as she rushed out the door in the morning and a quick dinner when she got home late at night.

It’s still there now, as you pick up the phone and raise it to your ear.

“Hello?” you answer.

“Baby,” she says, stress already apparent in the way she said it. “Another long night for me today. I’m so sorry.”

You sigh, a sharp exhalation from your nose. You feel a sharp pain in your chest - not physical, no, another kind of pain, the kind that leaves you feeling empty.

“When will you-”

“I don’t know,” she answers, before you can even finish. In the background of the call, members of her team mumble. Someone is clacking away entirely too loudly at a keyboard. A voice is speaking sternly in Japanese. “I’ll get home as soon as I can,” she continues amidst the din of the busy office behind her, “but… you shouldn’t wait up.”

Your eyes drift closed. The pang of pain in your chest was becoming all too familiar. It started with her taking phone calls and drafting emails during meals, before escalating to missing dinners and forgetting important dates. Work had always been important to Taeyeon, but these days it had consumed her - and your relationship. Nights like these were becoming common.

You loved her, still loved her, even when those lonely nights became lonely months. Your head tilts back. A headache begins to form in the front of your skull, and love could only dull so much of it.

She must’ve heard the sigh that leaves your lips.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “So, so sorry. But Hirai’s on my ass and you know how she is if I don’t meet these deadlines. If I want to make director I need to-”

“I know, Taeyeon,” you say, the words leaving your lips in another sigh. “I know.”

A few moments of silence pass. The background murmur continues on her side of the call, filling the line with ambient noise, but the silence between you is deafening.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, but the sound of paper shuffling and a keyboard being typed upon tells you her apology is half-hearted. A warm rush of anger pulses in your chest.

“So am I.”

You hang up. You stand and leave your table, apologizing to the waitress as you leave and making up some excuse about how your date had become ill and couldn’t make it.

Taeyeon finally arrives at your apartment at 2:21am. When you both wake the next day an argument begins. When she storms out of your apartment at 1:15pm, she leaves her ring behind on the kitchen counter.

---

In the present, your words create the slightest quiver in Taeyeon’s lip, but she hides it by bringing her cigarette, by now almost a stub, to her mouth. She takes a last drag before crushing it beneath a Prada heel.

“Send her ahead,” she begins, reaching for the paper cup of soju and cradling it with both hands as though it were something precious and not cheap convenience store liquor. “Send her ahead to Tokyo and tell her you’ll follow her later in the week. I’m here for three days. You can stay with me.”

You laugh, but there’s no humor in it. The sheer audacity was hilarious, in a way.

“Why, Taeyeon?” you snap, finally looking at her for the first time, “so you and I can spend a couple of days drinking and fucking in your suite?”

Her eyes meet yours for the first time, and there is ice in them.

“Is that so different from what you’ve been doing with your translator?”

Your hands ball into fists. You want to snap, shout and yell at her.

“Her name is Ryujin,” you snarl.

“I wasn’t sure then,” she replies, not sparing Ryujin’s name even a scrap of her attention as she returns her attention to the soju in her cup. She smoothly downs the shot, before pouring herself another, ice in her veins. “But I’m sure now.”

“About what?”

“About us.”

The anger pulsing through your chest explodes into something dark, something ugly.

“No,” you spit, taking a step toward her. “Fucking no, Taeyeon. You’re fucking hilarious, you know that? You walked out on us. You ended us, and managed to sucker me into staying friends. I leave Vancouver making jokes like we’re two best buds, then you show up out of the blue wanting to get back together after seeing me with another girl? Please, Taeyeon.”

Taeyeon’s lips purse into a grim line. She looks away. Her silence spurs you, gives you license to vent your anger.

“You don’t get to just have me again now that you’re done climbing the corporate ladder and can spare some free time in your Outlook calendar for a boyfriend,” you state, words leaving your mouth with the intention of hurting. “And you sure as hell don’t get to have me again just because you’re fucking jealous.”

You don’t take any pleasure in the way her eyes close, the way she flinches and turns her head as though you’d slapped her across the cheek.

“You’re right,” she admits, softly, the tiniest hint of a tremble in her voice. Her head is lowered, as though she were speaking to the concrete beneath her thousand dollar heels. “You’re right. I fucked things up when we were together. We broke up because of me.”

She takes her last shot of soju before standing, crumpling her cup in her hand and dropping it next to the full shot you never took. She slips your suit jacket from her shoulders, carefully folding it lengthwise. In the chilly Seoul evening, clothed with little more than a scrap of silk and wisps of smoke, she suddenly looks very small.

The look on her face as she steps close to you is carved from ice - but her eyes glisten, and her lip trembles.

“But maybe,” she begins, “-maybe it took me seeing you with her before I realized how badly I fucked up by letting you go. Maybe I needed to see it to make me realize how badly I need you. How badly I’ve always needed you.”

Words fail you, and you can do nothing but accept your suit jacket. Anger, pain, some small lingering remnant of your feelings for her - it all warred within you, and none of them dominated long enough to manifest into words.

She presses your suit jacket against your chest, and for a moment she’s the twenty-six year old version of her again, standing in front of Big Ben with her phone in your hand, asking you to take a photo of her.

“Go to her,” she continues. Her eyes bore into yours, searching, even if you could tell that there were tears behind them being held there by the force of her will. “Fuck her. Love her, if you do. But if… when she fucks up-”

“Taeyeon,” you say, resistant but helpless.

“-I’m here,” she finishes.

You watch, helplessly, as she turns and begins to walk to the curb, where the sleek black sedan that picked you both up from the event has been waiting the entire time. Its driver notices her approaching and exits the car to open the back door for her. She steps inside without looking back.

The car pulls away from the curb, leaving you alone.

---

Ryujin is in the hotel lobby when you see her next, leaning on the extended handle of her luggage with one hand and scrolling her phone with the other. She is dressed casually, in a sleeveless white button-up that hugs her slim figure and rimless, oversized glasses.

“Ryujin,” you say, approaching her, cautiously. You’d thought of texting or calling her last night when you got back to the hotel, but by then it was in the early hours of the morning and you didn’t want to disturb her. You’d spent the next few hours tossing and turning, processing what had happened between you and Taeyeon and doing what you could to prepare yourself for this moment.

Would she be upset? Would she be furious at you for having ditched her for your boss, who just happened to be your ex-girlfriend? Would she not care at all? Would she-

“Did you fuck her?” she asks, not bothering to look up from her phone.

Her question catches you off guard. You hadn’t expected her to be so straightforward, although in retrospect she was nothing if not that.

“No,” you reply. Ryujin locks her phone and tosses it into her pocket.

“She still loves you,” she says. She turns to look up at you for the first time and while she clearly tried her best to hide it with makeup and glasses you’d never seen her wear before, the dark rings beneath her eyes betray the similarly sleepless night she’d had.

There is an awkward pause that stretches out for far longer than either of you were comfortable with. But you weren’t sure how to answer. You knew that Taeyeon still loved you - she’d more or less confessed as much last night - but what were you supposed to say?

“The way she looks at you…” Ryujin continues, her eyes straying to the handle of her luggage as she fidgets with the button that retracts the handle. “Do you still have feelings for her?”

The answer comes quickly. Quicker, you realize, that you thought it would.

“No.”

There is a short pause. Ryujin’s eyes find yours again. Her look disarms you. You can feel her look past your own eyes and into your soul.

“Do you still want to be with me?” she asks, firmly.

“Yes, Ryujin,” you answer. The words came quickly, but you meant them - and last night with Taeyeon convinced you of it. “More than ever.”

Another few moments pass. Behind her glasses Ryujin’s eyes search yours for any hint of deceit. There is the slightest quiver in her lip, as though she wants to say more.

In the end, she gives you a small nod. She considers the feelings and thoughts running through her head - suspicion, confrontation, anger - but chooses none. She chooses to trust.

“Okay,” she says, finally, before taking your hand in hers and heading to the airport.

---

“Do I… taste like her?”

She squirms and writhes under you. You hold her down with a palm on her core. You feel the toned muscles beneath your hand flex and tense as she struggles atop the bed.

“Better,” you hiss into her inner thigh. She’s slick and wet on your tongue, lips, and chin. You close your lips around her clit again. Inside her, your fingers arc upward, and her back arches off the bed as if to mirror your movements.

“Fuck, Daddy-”

“Mmmmph,” you mumble against her clit. The vibrations send another pulse of pleasure up her spine. She’s right there, right on the verge, right on the edge.

Only five minutes have passed since you both entered your Tokyo hotel suite. She wouldn’t make it past minute seven before her first orgasm.

She goes almost rigid on the bed, back arched in such a way that causes her small, round breasts to jut forward and out. One of her hands claws at the sheets and the other digs sharp furrows into your scalp, but you keep going - mercilessly - and soon she’s cumming on your tongue.

Her voice cuts out mid-moan. Her nails are spikes digging painfully into your skull. Her cunt spasms around your fingers. She drenches your tongue, mouth, and chin in her juices.

Eventually her back lowers tenderly back onto the mattress, and her nails retreat from the painful, reddened scratches they leave on your scalp. You give her trembling clit a few more tender licks, before pressing your lips against it in a soft kiss. Your fingers slide out of her cunt, saturated and glistening with her.

You raise your face from between her legs and find her watching you, cheeks flushed, hair messy around her face. She trembles and quivers, as though her orgasm had taken everything solid out of her and turned her into jelly. She reaches down with both hands on either side of your face and you rise from between her legs. She pulls you to her face.

You kiss - her tongue quickly slipping between your wet, slick lips and chin to taste herself on you. Her lips leave yours and you feel her lick her own juices off your face.

“Come fuck me, then,” she hisses, eyes boring into yours - needy, vulnerable, raw. “Forget her.”

Without breaking eye contact you reach down with one hand to pull your pants the rest of the way down your hips - she hadn’t gotten far in undressing you before you’d pushed her onto the bed and started devouring her. Your cock springs free, hard and hungry.

You slide inside her in one swift thrust that punches the air from both of your lungs.

You’d fucked her dozens of times by now in the two weeks you’d been together. But this one felt different, meant more. The other times had been about claiming and ownership - this one was about affirmation.

She is slick and wet and tight. Her legs wrap themselves around your hips, heels - with her socks still on - digging into your lower back.

Without knowing it you’d closed your eyes, the feeling of sinking into her tight little cunt shutting them involuntarily - but her hand on your cheek causes you to open them.

Her eyes are wide, flushed with pleasure but glassy with emotion. They stare up at you and there is nothing there but naked need - no games, no hidden meanings. She needs you, both for pleasure, lust, and validation.

“Look at me,” she begins, although you already were. Perhaps she wanted you to see more than what your eyes were showing you.

“Ryujin…”

“I… I-” she continues, voice a light hiss. Her cunt pulsates around you as she squeezes you tight. “Me. All of me. This pussy. This is what you want.”

You slide out of her half way, before her heels on your lower back pull you back inside her. You both let a gasp escape your lips before you slide back out and soon you’re fucking her slowly, the both of you feeling and savoring every entry and exit.

Ryujin grasps your right wrist, pulls it down between your bodies. She places your palm flat against her lower stomach, right above the neatly trimmed patch of hair above her cunt.

“See how I… See how I take you? How I need you?”

You gasp. She holds your gaze throughout it all, through every sigh and moan and gasp, even as the pleasure overtaking her brain causes her eyelids to quiver but never truly shut.

“Feel how tight I am for you,” she continues as the pleasure builds. Her brow furrows, as though she is worried about something. Her eyes are needy now, wanton, as your cock continues to drill in and out of her.

“So fucking tight, Ryujin,” you say through gritted teeth. “Always so fucking tight for me.”

For the first time her eyes shut as her neck arches, casting her head back for a moment, mouth open in a silent moan, as a particularly deep thrust steals the sound from her lips. Her back arches off the sweat-soaked mattress. Her hips move against yours, meeting your every movement. Her body does everything it can to increase the warm, hot pleasure building between you.

Her eyes find yours again.

“Feel how wet I am, Daddy?” she continues, the words leaving her lips half-moan. “So wet around your cock. You’re stretching me out. I’m your good little girl, your good little fucktoy. So wet, wetter than-”

“Ryujin-”

“Just fuck me, Daddy,” she spits, interrupting. Her eyes open fully, staring, re-energized by lust and an emotion that was closer to jealousy and anger than she’d ever admit. “Just fuck me. You’re my Daddy, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Ryujin. Fuck, you feel so good-”

“Mine,” she hisses. “Mine, only mine.”

Her eyes are too much to take. It was all too much - her body, her cunt, the words leaving her mouth - all too much. You break eye contact, eyes shutting out of some involuntary defensive response. You bring your head next to hers and hiss in to her ear-

“I’m yours, Ryujin. Only yours.”

“I’m yours too,” she repeats, and she says your name - no title, no pet name, your first name - and it leaves her lips in a soft, wistful moan, directly into your ear. You think, for a moment, that she’s crying.

You sigh into her neck. She is close again, and so are you. Her cunt tightens. Your cock stiffens even further, and you feel that telltale tingle at the base of your shaft that tells you this beautiful, terrifyingly intimate moment is nearing its end. Too quickly. Too soon. You want it to last-

“Deeper, Daddy, please,” she sighs. “You’re mine, right? Cum inside me, breed me, make me yours-”

You tear your face from her neck, propping yourself up on your knees for a moment. She whimpers at the loss of your closeness, but only until you hook your forearms beneath her knees and lean forward planting your hands flat on either side of her head. Her knees brush against her breasts. You fold her in half.

You fuck her deep, as deep as you can.

There are no words now, because you’d both already spoken them, and because the pleasure nearing its boiling point within both of your bodies has robbed you both of the mental capacity needed to form them. You fuck Ryujin Shin deep and hard because she is the only thing that exists, the only thing that matters.

She is yours. You are hers.

Every thrust brings you closer and closer to that edge, the same one you want to reach but don’t really because it would mean the end and suddenly you tumbling, falling uncontrollably over it and the fall from that edge is all, everything.

You bury yourself as deep as you can inside her and fill her cunt with long, thick streams of warm semen. The feel of your cum pooling inside her triggers her own orgasm, and you become two moaning, sighing bodies, bound and glued together by the wet slickness between you.

When your eyes open some time later your forehead is pressed to hers. Her eyes flutter open. There is a vulnerability there that you hadn’t ever seen in them before. Her hand finds your cheek, holds you close, as though afraid you would leave.

Her lips tremble, but eventually turns into a soft, warm smile.

“I’m yours. And you’re mine,” she says, claiming, as though she’d pulled the sentiment directly from your heart and turned it into words.

---

“...Honda Hitomi, Marketing Lead. Yabuki Nako, Legal Counsel. And Uchinaga Aeri, HR Lead. They’re all looking forward to working with you.” Each of the Tokyo office’s leads turn sharply in your direction as their name is called, offering you a polite bow and what you assume to be a basic corporate-approved greeting. A slim smile perks up the corner of your lips as you realize Ryujin didn’t bother to translate the greetings until the very last one.

There is an awkward pause as all eyes turn to the two empty seats at the head of the table. Several of the Tokyo team members fidget awkwardly.

Just when you are about to ask Ryujin to inquire as to where the two missing members are, the large double doors behind you burst open.

Framed by the stark light of the hallway are two figures - one a tall, slim woman with straight hair, a perfectly tailored pantsuit, and ramrod-straight posture. The other, judging by her unkempt neon pink hair and ill-fitting blazer and pencil skirt, had just rolled out of bed.

The tall woman bows sharply, her waist bending easily at an exact ninety degrees. The pink-haired girl, seeing her colleague bowing, lets out a scoff out of her nose before also offering a bow that was neither as deep nor as precise. The loses her balance for a moment as she bows a little too deeply and has to right herself.

Head still bowed, the taller woman speaks quickly and sternly in Japanese. Ryujin, translating at your shoulder, explains that the pink-haired woman had slept in and had to be dragged out of bed. She offers her sincere apologies on behalf of herself and her colleague.

Without further word, the two women make their way to the two empty seats. The tall woman moves with the poise of a ballerina and the precision of a soldier, clutching her tablet like her issued rifle; the shorter, pink-haired woman moves with the sluggishness of a newly-turned zombie. Like the rest of the Tokyo team before them, they introduce themselves.

“She’s Nakamura Kazuha, Associate Director and Operations Lead,” Ryujin says softly at your shoulder. “The pink-haired one is Miyawaki Sakura, Director of the Tokyo office.”

Sakura’s name rings a bell - one you’d heard from the stories. You turn to Ryujin. “Is she-?”

“Yeah. It’s her. She was former Tokyo PD, If you can believe it. One of the SVPs brought her into the company two years ago.”

Kazuha offers the same corporate greeting as the others, delivered with another crisp bow; Sakura gives you a wink and shoots you a finger gun before quite literally falling into her leather chair. You watch as she reaches into her blazer’s chest pocket to retrieve what was clearly and obviously a Nintendo Switch, which she places none-too-discreetly beneath the folder of briefing papers on the conference table.

Kazuha marches, swiftly and precisely, to the podium at the front of the room. The light in the conference room dims as the projector throws the title slide of her presentation against the wall.

Out of the corner of your eyes, you watch as Sakura stands her briefing folder up in front of her like a makeshift wall. You could’ve sworn you hear a certain handheld console’s startup chime not soon after.

On the screen, a different chime heralds Taeyeon’s arrival into the meeting. From her hotel room in Seoul, she waves a good morning greeting to everyone in Tokyo. The smile on her lips is proper, precise, and calculated.

Taeyeon is wearing the oversized circular glasses she wore a decade ago - a message sent only to you.

---

The meeting is mostly introductory, surface-level fluff on the Tokyo office’s last financial year. Kazuha leads most of it from her podium at the front of the room, every gesture and sentence measured and precise. Her tone is matter-of-fact, without any attention spared to personal anecdotes or jokes to shake things up or lighten the mood. Even without Ryujin’s whispered translations in your ear, you could tell that the young woman was all business, all the time, and essentially ran the entire Tokyo office on her own, despite technically being one spot from the top in the office hierarchy.

She made for a stark contrast to the actual Director of the Tokyo office, who spent almost the entire meeting engrossed in whatever game she was playing on her Switch.

Kazuha pays her boss’ disinterest in statistics no heed as she continues her presentation. Taeyeon, from a thousand kilometers away, interrupts her with a question in perfect Japanese. Kazuha is shaken for only a moment before informing Taeyeon that yes, the Q4 results did in fact take into account the company’s recent supply chain changes in Seoul.

Taeyeon listens intently to the younger woman’s answer, a measured look on her face - a predator sizing up prey. The Vice President asks a series of pressing questions, and for the first time the young Associate Director appears frazzled, shuffling her papers at the podium awkwardly as she frantically searches for answers amidst them.

“A 13.4% dip in profit from the Tokyo office is a disappointing result,” Taeyeon continues, arms crossing in the way it did when she smelled blood in the water. “One that may call into question the competency of your office’s logistics and leadership team.”

Ryujin translates the interrogation from Japanese into English with an even, calm tone - but out of the corner of your eye, you watch as her grip tightens around her pen.

Kazuha scrambles for a response. You glare up at Taeyeon’s image in the corner of the projection - some mixture of disappointment and anger flaring up in your chest.

This was unnecessary. You saw why Taeyeon was pressing her - the Vice President of Strategy doing things a Vice President of Strategy should do - but this was neither the time nor the place; there was no need to put the younger woman on the spot and embarrass her in front of her subordinates and colleagues the way she was doing.

A part of you wonders if she was doing it because she knew you and Ryujin were in the room. You are moments from turning to Ryujin and having her translate an interjection when-

“Recent tax-related developments in international trade have introduced some unforeseen obstacles to meeting our Q4 goals,” comes a clear voice, suddenly, in perfect English - Sakura’s. “In addition, we’ve experienced considerable difficulties in our transportation chain between Osaka and Tokyo, which have resulted in lesser than expected stock levels and a corresponding dip in revenue.”

On the Tokyo Director’s face is a look of intensity you hadn’t seen before, one that you had no idea she was even capable of. She makes a show of pausing her game before continuing, as if having to actually participate in the meeting was somehow offensive to her. Neither her hands nor her eyes leave the poorly-hidden handheld.

“The goals set for this financial year by your Strategy department were exceedingly optimistic, Miss Vice President,” Sakura continues, tone carrying a slight edge beneath the thin veil of corporate jargon. “-And my team did our best to meet them, but fell just short due to forces beyond our control. We have several initiatives in our pipeline which we feel will deliver improved results as we move into the next financial year. I’m sure these results will match and exceed your high standards, Vice President Kim.”

Sakura spares a moment of attention from her Switch to glare up at the screen, and Taeyeon’s box in the corner of it. Taeyeon was older and may have been a rising star amongst the company’s leadership, but Sakura’s exploits a few years ago in Tokyo and Seoul were legendary, and had earned her a near-mythical status amongst its employees.

Despite being a thousand miles apart, the two women have a short, tense standoff - neither blinking, neither backing down.

After a heavy moment of silence that felt much longer than it actually was, Taeyeon offers a token acceptance of Sakura’s explanation in terse Japanese before reluctantly returning her attention to the slides on her laptop screen, teeth clearly gritted behind her perfectly applied lipstick. Kazuha awkwardly and hesitantly continues with her presentation, confidence visibly shaken.

Sakura returns to her game, all trace of seriousness fleeing from her face as quickly as Mario was no doubt fleeing from the goombas chasing him on her Switch.

When the meeting eventually concludes, Taeyeon signs off with a stern, unimpressed look on her face, staring directly at her camera as though she were passing judgement on everyone in the room. You don’t miss the plain look of disdain Ryujin gives the Vice President’s projection before her image disappears.

The afternoon passes relatively uneventfully, with presentations from the other Tokyo Department Leads that must have been beneath Taeyeon’s interest, if her absence was anything to go by. The spat between her and Sakura had cast a pall over the rest of the afternoon, an elephant in the room that the Marketing and HR Leads’ presentations on Gen Z marketing trends and Japan’s shift in workforce demographics did little to dispel.

At least Sakura was making decent progress in collecting the six Royal Seeds needed to reach the evil Bowser and free the Flower Kingdom, if her poorly-hidden fist pumps and smirks of triumph were anything to go by.

---

She made for quite the sight. She made it hard to concentrate.

Ryujin crosses her legs every few minutes as she lounges on a chair by the floor-to-ceiling window reading a book, feet drawn up on a footstool, those long, bare legs and full thighs on full display. After your room service dinner she’d made a show of choosing the same button-up shirt you’d worn to work that day as her sleepwear for that night, draping it around her naked body and doing up a single button before plopping down on the chair and putting her feet up.

You try to turn your attention to your laptop and the document open on it, but try as you might, the half-naked woman by the window was proving too much of a distraction.

“Are you reading, or putting on a show?” you ask, wryly.

She lets a huff leave her lips, and a small smile perks at the corner of her mouth as she turns her attention from the pages in her hand to look at you. The gold of Tokyo’s sunset paints half her face in warm yellow and orange.

“Maybe a little bit of both,” she answers with a wink, before returning her attention to her book.

Minutes pass. You get through precisely one slide of the two dozen that made up the presentation you were giving tomorrow. You’re tired and drained, and you feel it in your shoulders. It had been a surprisingly long, difficult first day at the Tokyo office, made even harder by the drain of constant travel.

The little spat between Taeyeon and Sakura would no doubt echo throughout the two weeks you were going to spend here. You sit back on your chair and sigh, the presentation slides suddenly becoming a Herculean task that you had neither the energy nor the willpower to overcome.

Ryujin stands abruptly from her chair by the window, dropping her book on the footstool and staring out at Tokyo’s skyline for a moment before turning to you.

“Bored,” she says, before beginning to walk toward you. “Entertain me, boyfriend.”

The title stirs you, and the fact that she says it while wearing your shirt and nothing else ignites a warm feeling in your chest that bends the corners of your lips up into a smile.

Ryujin steps between you and the laptop and straddles you on your chair. Her stolen shirt parts as her legs spread, revealing the well-kept patch of hair between her legs and the inviting flesh beneath; but she makes no effort to cover herself. Ryujin Shin was nothing if not confident with her body.

She gives you a soft kiss, hands cradling your cheeks before sliding down to softly massage the tense muscles at your neck. Your hands caress her full, round thighs as they bracket your waist. The warmth of her next to you was already doing much to ease the exhaustion of the day.

“You look like a mess. What are you working on that’s made you so tense, anyway?” she asks, turning to glance at the laptop on the table behind her.

On it are your presentation - and the comments Taeyeon had left on them. Front and center: “Don’t forget to make sure you’re consistent with your use of the Oxford comma, dummy! Either use it for all of your sentences, or don’t! Wouldn’t be the first time your grammar’s fucked up a presentation (see 2018 Taiwan acquisition notes) --<3 ;)”

You see the near-instant effect it has on Ryujin - the way her shoulders slouch slightly, the way her lips curl into a barely-perceptible frown.

“I sent her the presentation I’m giving tomorrow,” you say, eager to address the worry that was no doubt already worming its way into her head. “She wanted to see it first.”

Ryujin turns back to you. The frown remains.

“She’s still my boss, Ryujin,” you add.

Taeyeon was a thousand miles away, and yet she was still somehow still in the room, lingering, ever-present. The ghost of her seemed to haunt every facet of your lives since her appearance in Seoul; one neither of you knew how to dispel.

Ryujin’s eyes find yours, searching, the way she did at the airport the day before. You wonder what she sees in your eyes. You wonder what she feels, what thoughts are running through her head.

“I’m yours,” you say, because you knew it was what she need to hear. “And you’re mine.”

Her lip quivers for a moment, before she nods to herself.

“I believe you,” she says, seemingly satisfied, at least for now. She plays with your t-shirt, fingers searching for her next words in the cotton strands. The silver chain on her wrist that you never saw her without catches the light of Tokyo’s dusk, turning it into gold.

Her eyes are still on yours, but they lack the playfulness that was present in them just a few moments before. In its place is uncertainty, and she struggles to turn that feeling into words. “But I… but she-”

“She’s a million miles away, Ryujin.”

“Is she?”

Silence for a moment. A long moment, the latest in a long line of them.

“Tell me why you’re not with her,” she says, eventually. Her voice is small, the way she suddenly is. Your button-up begins to drown her in white linen as she slouches further and she sinks even further into it. “You have so much history together. She knows everything about you. She’s successful. Smart. Charismatic. Almost forty and gorgeous. She’s a fucking vampire in Prada.”

A moment passes. You breathe in, knowing what you are going to say, but steeling yourself enough to say them.

“She chose a promotion over me,” you answer, the words coming quickly, because they were true, and because it was a truth that had spent the last few years looming over you. “She chose a title over love, and it broke me.”

The word hangs heavy in the air. Ryujin’s entire body tenses.

“Did you… love her?”

Another long moment. Another long silence.

“Yes,” you admit. “I did.”

Ryujin’s lips curl against each other as she sucks her lips into her mouth. She nods to herself again, processing your words and the sharp pain they suddenly create in her chest. She’s suddenly unable to hold your gaze and lets it drop to your shirt, where her fingers have stopped the path they were tracing. The chain on her wrist loses its golden lustre as she moves her wrist away from the sunlight, returning to plain silver as though mirroring the emotional state of its owner.

The look on her face breaks your heart. You want to say something.

“Past tense,” you manage, offering her a small smile she doesn’t see. Ryujin smiles softly, but her eyes don’t lift. You bring a hand from her hip to her cheek, raising her head. When her eyes find yours again they are glassy with tears she refuses to shed. You suddenly feel an overwhelming need to comfort her, reassure her, make sure she knows she’s yours and you’re hers-

“You’re my present, Ryujin.”

A smile appears on her lips - warm and raw and real. A moment passes. Her lip quivers again. Emotion dances behind her teary eyes. Eventually, she lets a scoff escape her nose.

“That was corny as shit, old man,” she says, wiping at her eyes quickly with the sleeve of your stolen shirt. Her eyes find yours again. The tears are gone, absorbed by your stolen shirt before they had the chance to be shed. The smile stays.

Your hand is warm on her cheek. She turns her cheek and nuzzles softly into your palm, places a soft kiss on the underside of your thumb.

“Tell me why you’re with me, then,” she says, almost a whisper.

Her skin is warm against your palm. Your thumb caresses the soft, flushed skin of her cheek.

“You slipped a power bank into my bag because I keep forgetting to charge my phone,” you begin, wrestling a small, reluctant chuckle from the young woman on your lap. “You order real soju and not that shitty sugar water they sell back home, but take your fucking venti iced caramel macchiato with extra whipped cream and extra caramel drizzle like a psychopath. I watched you give that kid his rubber ball back after it bounced in front of us at the mall and the smile on your face broke me. I like the way you brush your hair behind your ear when it comes loose. I like the way you haggled with this ajummas in the market last week to save a couple thousand won like you were a local. You think the Canucks should have won the Cup in ‘11 if Hamhuis was healthy and Rome didn’t get suspended. You always ask me if I want the last french fry, even though you love them and know I’ll let you have it anyway. I like the way your pinky hooks into mine when we walk down the street. You hate olives. You chose Verso’s ending in Clair Obscur. You don’t care that don’t fold my clothes before I toss them in my luggage-”

“-they get so wrinkly, though! Look at this!” she interjects, slapping your chest playfully and pulling the wrinkled sleeve of your shirt in front of your face, “and you almost burned this fucking hotel down when you tried to iron it this morning. And you only ironed the collar and the front of it! I didn’t even know fabric could get this wrinkly.”

“No one sees the sleeves under my jacket, as long as I keep it on. Good thing the Tokyo office has great AC.”

She chuckles again, but does her best to suppress it. She lets out a little unintentional snort as she does so, and you both laugh at it. You think it’s the most beautiful thing she’d ever done.

Your free hand reaches for her other cheek, until you are cradling her face in your hands.

“You’re my present, Ryujin. And my future, if you’ll have me.”

A long moment passes, but unlike the others, the silence is not unwelcome. Ryujin smiles again, raw and real and true, and so you do too.

“That was the cheesiest shit ever, ohmygodstop--” she sighs, rolling her eyes and making an exaggerated show of peeling your hands off her cheeks in disgust - even as her smile pulls at her full, flushed cheeks.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” you admit, playing along. “Ugh, I fucking knew I should’ve stayed with the whole ‘you’re my present’ thing, but I fucking had to push my luck with the ‘...and my future,’ fuck, what was I thinking, so cringe-”

Ryujin laughs, unguarded and real, until suddenly she’s kissing you. Soft, passionate. Intimate in a way that the words just shared between you were.

“You didn’t say anything about how great the fucking is,” she says, teasingly, between kisses.

“Yeah, no, it’s pretty great,” you manage. Your hand finds the single button keeping her shirt closed, and undoes it. Your hands slide under the shirt and around her sides. She’s warm and soft beneath your palms. Her naked hips pull closer to yours, the heat between her thighs sliding over the stiffness quickly appearing beneath your pajamas.

Ryujin breaks the kiss but maintains eye contact as her hands slide between your bodies and into your sweatpants. Your eyes shut as her fingers wrap around your length. She drinks in the sight of you, sees what she’s doing to you, and it sends a little thrill up her spine.

“Your future’s looking real good right now, huh?” she asks, the sweet smile on her lips turning wicked. In response, you reach up and pull the halves of her shirt apart and over her shoulders. The shirt falls around her elbows, draping her in the gold of Tokyo dusk. Your right hand drifts to her breast, giving it a firm squeeze and feeling her nipple stiffen under your palm - her turn for her eyes to shut, your turn to drink in the sight of her.

You open your eyes and look at her - all of her.

“Future’s bright,” you answer.

---

The meeting stops for a moment when Hirai Momo joins it.

“Sorry I’m late,” she says as she waddles into the meeting room in downtown Vancouver, patting her round tummy. “Little one’s being a bit of an asshole. Gets it from his dad, I think.”

From an ocean away in Tokyo, you watch as Taeyeon half-rises from her chair to help Momo, only to be waved off. Momo plops into the chair opposite Taeyeon.

“You look like you’re about ready to pop,” says Sakura, sparing a glance from her Switch to shoot Momo’s image on the screen a smile. That fact that she was able to speak so casually to one of the most senior people in the company spoke volumes as to the relationship and history that existed between them.

“Almost,” Momo agrees with a sigh. The Senior Vice President of the company probably should have been getting ready for her clearly imminent delivery, but considering her reputation as a workaholic it probably shouldn’t have surprised you that she was working up until the day she was due. After she has settled into her seat with a huff, she looks up at the camera and offers an awkward but warm smile to the other participants in Tokyo.

“Please, continue, Director,” she says, motioning for you to proceed.

“Thank you,” you reply, before continuing. “As I was saying, the Otensoto deal and the merger with Anon-JY Corp. have alleviated some of the concerns regarding the last financial year, which is a credit to the Tokyo team’s efforts. While there is some room for improvement, the numbers are, on the whole, acceptable and within the lower parameters of our projections.”

Across the conference room table, Kazuha listens to a mumbled English-to-Japanese translation out of the corner of Sakura’s mouth - who was at the moment more engrossed in the plight of a certain Italian plumber rather than that of her office. Kazuha straightens and offers a response in Japanese.

“She admits that there have been significant challenges with regards to moving goods from the port of Osaka to Tokyo, where they make their way to North America,” Ryujin translates at your shoulder, “Trucks are breaking down, gas is expensive, and traffic’s a bitch between Osaka and Tokyo. And that all costs money. Moving shit’s getting expensive.”

You finish your part of the presentation with a recap of your review on the Tokyo office - while income didn’t quite meet Taeyeon’s lofty expectations, the underlying business was still doing well despite external, uncontrollable factors.

“Thank you, Director,” Momo states with a smile, “and thank you for your work reviewing the Tokyo and Seoul offices. I trust you’re finding time to enjoy the sights in between your meetings and site inspections. You deserve it after the deal we worked on last year.” You find yourself smiling softly in reply, and out of the corner of your eye you watch Ryujin do the same - the Senior Vice President’s pregnancy had given her a glow that only amplified her already considerable charms.

“The Strategy team has several initiatives that will address the Tokyo office’s numbers moving forward,” Taeyeon pipes up. “The Tokyo office’s leadership has assured me that they have several internal initiatives in their pipeline that should assist us in meeting the goals we’ve set for the next quarter. Tokyo’s Operations Lead will provide an overview of those initiatives now.”

At her cue, Kazuha shares her laptop screen, where she’s prepared a meticulous, thorough presentation of the various initiatives she no doubt prepared herself. She begins with outlining the challenges - increased costs of fuel, labor, and maintenance associated with trucking - and moves on to the initiatives she hopes will address them.

Throughout it all Taeyeon needles the young Associate Director with question after question. Kazuha does her best to answer them, and even Sakura is forced to actually pause Mario’s journey at several points to interject a defensive comment or snarky retort. It begins with insinuations and implications, and slowly escalates into thinly-veiled accusations of incompetence and negligence.

The bright glow surrounding Momo seems to have dimmed somewhat as she watches her underlings squabble, but she watches and listens intently nonetheless, as though measuring each participant in the meeting and noting how they were reacting to the ongoing debate.

Fifteen minutes pass, and then half an hour. Taeyeon, Kazuha, and Sakura go back and forth, the logistics of moving goods between Osaka and Tokyo their chosen battleground. As an outside observer your duty was done and it was up to your colleagues to choose how to move forward, but even you thought that the meeting had moved past discussion and into petty squabble. An interjection forms one your lips-

“Trucks to trains.”

All eyes turn to the speaker - Ryujin. An odd, awkward silence falls over the meeting. “Trucks to trains,” Ryujin repeats, a little louder this time. She looks, for a moment, like a tourist speaking a foreign language that no one around her understood.

You watch as she gives her head a small shake, as if to center herself. Her brow furrows. She takes a glance at Sakura and Kazuha on the opposite side of the table, and then up at the projector, where Taeyeon and Momo watch virtually from across the ocean, puzzled. Finally, she glances at you. You offer her a reassuring smile.

She sees her moment, and she takes it.

“Our Seoul office recently made the transition from light and heavy trucks to light rail in order to move goods from the port of Busan up to our Seoul office before distribution to the rest of Asia,” she states, her voice gradually increasing in volume and confidence as she continues. “They experienced a notable savings in shipping costs thanks to the switch, amongst other benefits.”

Ryujin’s fingers fly on the keyboard of her laptop. She shares her screen with the meeting and on it are the charts and graphs from the Seoul office. When she speaks again, her voice is firm, self-assured.

“Seoul experienced an eighteen point nine five percent increase in shipping savings thanks to this transition. Not only did they save costs - they also experienced a higher on-time delivery rate and shorter expected delivery time overall thanks to the generally higher reliability and speed of rail as opposed to trucks. This resulted in a cascading series of benefits - our distribution staff in Seoul received more goods faster and more reliably, meaning they could distribute them throughout Asia faster, which meant our distributors throughout Asia were receiving more reliable supply, etcetera. A transition to rail would come with several upfront costs, meaning it would take several quarters for the savings to take effect, but…”

The room falls silent for another moment, before Sakura leaps into action. You’d heard the stories, and saw glimpses of it in her verbal duels with Taeyeon, but until that moment you didn’t fully believe in them.

Sakura moves like a woman possessed. Her fingers are a blur on her laptop’s keyboard - which, to that point, had really only been used as a makeshift screen to poorly hide her Switch. She gestures sharply to Kazuha at several points, barking orders in sharp, terse Japanese which her younger subordinate scrambles to follow. She scribbles wildly on a nearby legal pad, although whether they were words or numbers or something only she could understand, no one else in the room seemed to know.

On the screen, you watch as Taeyeon is taken aback by Sakura’s transformation, shocked into silence. Momo leans back in her chair, fingers interlaced crossed over the fullness of her tummy. She’d seen this before, and knew what was about to happen.

A minute or two passes. Eventually Sakura raises her head from her laptop, a fiery intensity in her eyes that is almost frightening.

“A transition from trucking to rail in order to bring goods from Osaka to Tokyo would result in a twenty two point six percent improvement by the end of the financial year,” she states, slamming her pen down atop the legal pad for emphasis.

Taeyeon is the first to object, as you’d assumed she would. “We can’t just jump into such a drastic change so quickly without the necessary due diligence,” she states, hurriedly. “We’ll need to upstaff and delegate a project manager. We’ll need to do a feasibility study and ROI report on the whole idea, not to mention putting together a business case for Board approval and then eventually RFPs and a competition for any possible rail providers-”

Momo stops her with a raised hand. When she speaks, it is firm and decisive.

“Make it happen, Sakura,” she says to the camera, before turning to Ryujin. “Excellent idea… Miss-?”

Ryujin clears her throat. There is a new confidence in her features that wasn’t there minutes ago.

“Shin. Ryujin Shin,” she states, straightening her posture and giving Momo a confident smile. “From the Vancouver office’s Marketing department.”

“Ryujin Shin,” Momo repeats, an approving look on her face. “I’ll remember that name. And you’re in Marketing, huh? With ideas like that, I think there’s a place for you in Strategy. Well done.”

You don’t miss the loaded look she gives Taeyeon before she continues.

“Sakura, I trust you’ll keep me updated on the transition. Good meeting, everyone.”

If Sakura heard Momo sign off, she made no indication of it. She and Kazuha are suddenly a flurry of activity and hissed Japanese, the former already setting into motion a series of plans with an almost frightening intensity that the latter struggles to keep up with. Across the ocean, Momo does her best to get up from her chair and hurry to her next meeting.

Taeyeon seethes, and Ryujin glows.

It doesn’t take her long. Ryujin slips into the spare executive office the two of you have been using for the duration of your visit to the Tokyo office, and the sly smile on her lips and mischievous look in her eye tell you exactly what she’s intending.

The smile that finds itself on your lips mirrors hers.

“This is a place of work, Ryujin Shin. One that we shouldn’t defile with your-”

“Office is almost empty,” she says, voice low and conspiratorial. She closes the door behind her with a click, eyes still locked on yours. “I just saw the HR team duck into a meeting room and the tablet on the door says it’s an hour-long videoconference with Vancouver. Plenty of time.”

“Miss Shin,” you begin with a smile, returning your gaze to your laptop even as the click-clack of her heels signalled her approach, “this office isn’t for lewd, profane acts like the ones that are no doubt running through your head. And to think you’d want to engage in such acts with our colleagues in Human Resources a mere few rooms away? Unthinkable!”

She spins your chair around to face her, placing her hands on the back of your wrists, pinning them to the armrests. The smile on her lips is wicked - in a way you’d never seen before.

She bends to kiss you and it’s almost violent the way your lips and teeth clash. Your lips grind against her teeth at one point and you’re pretty sure she’s literally cut you open with a kiss - or maybe it was a bite - either way, the slight metallic tang on your tongue was most definitely blood.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never fantasized about me riding you on that couch,” she says, pointing with her gaze toward the two leather couches that sat opposite each other in the rather lavishly furnished office, “or maybe you’d prefer bending me over it?”

“Miss Shin,” you say, mockingly. “Those couches are for important client meetings-”

Another kiss. She drags her tongue over your cut lip, then pulls away. Her tongue slides over her cherry-glossed lips, as though she is savoring the taste of your blood on her palette.

“Come on,” she says, suddenly pouting. “Don’t you think I deserve a reward for how well I did in that meeting today, Daddy?”

You smirk, despite yourself. Ryujin’s idea to convert the company’s transportation from trucking to trains on the Osaka to Tokyo route was just what the Tokyo office needed to meet Taeyeon’s lofty expectations - to say nothing of the personal satisfaction she gained from Momo’s dismissal of Taeyeon’s objections and subsequent compliments. Maybe it was one of those things, or some combination of them - either way, the events of the afternoon’s meeting had clearly awakened something in her - a side of her you hadn’t seen before.

“You did well today, baby girl,” you say, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “A reward is definitely deserved.”

You knew how the next few minutes would turn out. For all her self-confidence outside of it Ryujin was relatively submissive in the bedroom.

But today she flips the script on its head. She flashes you a sinful smile before she pulls you to your feet by your tie. She drags you in front of one of the couches and pushes you onto it with more roughness and strength than you were expecting, or even knew she was capable of.

Before you know it she is straddling you. Her lips find yours and the kiss is as violent and needy as the ones previous - a clash of lips and teeth and tongue that was more a single-sided display of dominance than a mutual display of affection.

Your hands find their way to that tiny torso of hers and the waistline of her grey pencil skirt - only for her to grasp them both by your wrists and pin them to the seat of the couch.

“No touching this time,” she hisses into your ear. “No doing anything unless I let you. This time, you’re mine, Daddy.”

“Fuck, Ryujin-”

She silences you with a kiss again, this one only slightly less aggressive. You feel her lips smiling even as she continues it, and even as her hands reach between you to quickly get your belt and pants undone.

You let a sharp breath leave your lungs as she slides her hand under your boxers and finds your mostly-stiffened cock. Her hands wrap around your length, teasing it to full hardness. She takes her time, her fingers moving at a glacial pace, fingers sliding up and down your shaft and making your eyes shut involuntarily as the first few spikes of pleasure work their way up your spine. She stops for a moment with her fingers tight around the upper half of your shaft, her thumb catching and spreading the bead of pre-cum she finds leaking from you, smearing it over your tip.

“Did you like it, Daddy? Did you like how I did?”

“Fuck yes, Ryujin,” you hiss, even as she begins to pump her hand up and down your length, the added lubrication of your pre-cum making her every movement that much more pleasurable. “You did so well, baby girl. You made Daddy so proud.”

Your praise ignites something in Ryujin, and for a moment there is a flush of warmth on her cheeks. “Thank you, Daddy,” she says, softly. With her free hand, she is undoing the buttons on the tight white blouse she is wearing, until it is undone to her waist. She untucks it, pulling it free from the waistline of her skirt.

Her fingers play with the halves of her blouse, pulling them apart, revealing the simple white lace bra she is wearing beneath it.

Her fingers grasp the left cup of her bra, before pulling it down slowly. Her small, round breast pops free with a small, teasing bounce, nipple already tight and stiff with need. She does the same to the other cup, relishing the sight of you following her fingers and taking in the sight of her bared chest.

“Do you like them, Daddy?” she asks, voice low and needy. “Do you want to touch them? Or wrap your lips on them and suck? You know how wet I get when you suck on my tits-”

She is interrupted for a moment when your hands leave the couch to fondle her - only for her to catch them by your wrists and pin them against the seat once more.

“Uh uh,” she teases, smile sinful. “This is my reward, remember Daddy?”

“Fucking hell, Ryujin.”

Satisfied that you weren’t going to resist, Ryujin’s hands leave your wrists. She raises her hips slightly, until her cunt is hovering less than an inch from your aching tip. With one hand she pulls the hem of her skirt up, revealing her drenched panties - with the other, she pulls them aside. She is glistening and drenched and you can almost feel the heat and wetness of her on the tip of your cock. It twitches with need.

Your eyes find hers and you have never seen such a wicked, devilish look on her features.

The hand at her skirt leaves it, and reaches down for your cock, aiming it at her cunt. She slides down your length. You both sigh, the breath leaving your lungs in a sharp exhalation of sharp, pure pleasure.

“Fuck, Daddy,” she hisses into your ear as her arms wrap themselves around your shoulders and neck. You bottom out inside her, and for a moment she sits fully impaled on your cock. “Fuck, always so big inside me, stretching me out. Making me take you.”

A breathless “Mmmm” is all you can manage. She begins to move, and for a few moments neither of you are able to do much more than simply process the pleasure that begins to course through your bodies.

In, out, up, down, nothing else mattered aside from the feel of your cock and the way it felt in Ryujin’s tight, wet little cunt. Not the fact that you were fucking at the office and literally anyone could walk through the door; not the fact that this relationship would probably end up ruining one or both of your careers; not the fact that you were entering the final week of your trip and you’d found yourself wishing more than once that it would never end.

No, none of that mattered. All that exists are her sharp gasps of pleasure in your ear, the slick, wet sounds her cunt makes as it takes your cock in and out between her drenched lips, and her warm, hot breath against your cheek.

The minutes pass, but time soon becomes an abstract, foreign concept. It’s a lot. It’s overwhelming.

Your hands, unable to remain motionless, move to her thighs. Ryujin grasps them again and pins them to the backrest of the couch - forcefully.

“Mine,” she growls. “You’re mine, Daddy.”

It had been a recurring theme during sex, and in your relationship as a whole - ownership. Often it was used in passionate context; sometimes it was softer, more intimate. But it was different today. Darker. More intense. More real, more aggressive in a way it hadn’t been up to this point.

You watch as she rides you, hands pinning your wrists to the couch, hips and thighs and core moving to throw herself against your cock over and over again with increasing speed and tempo. You could’ve easily overpowered her, ripped your hands from the couch and done what you willed with her - but the sight of her pinning you down, the feel of her taking what she wanted from you, heedless of your own wants and needs - it was a new kind of pleasure, a new kind of power over you that she hadn’t shown before.

Her gasps raise in volume until she realizes, for a moment, where she is - at work, in an office, just a few empty rooms apart from a room full of colleagues - and the bite she gives her own lip in an attempt to stifle her moans drives you crazy.

Her small breasts bounce with each movement of her body, peaked nipples begging. She sees it, sees the need in your eyes. Mercifully, she bends forward - just far enough for you to capture one of them between your lips.

She slows her pace slightly, grinding against you now rather than bouncing atop you, squeezing her cunt in a well-practiced rhythm with each entry and exit of your cock. You feel her juices drip down your shaft and onto your balls. She’s so wet, so very wet, and she’s making a mess of the couch that you’d have to clean up afterward.

But she doesn’t care. Her hands tighten around your wrists as she tries to ground herself against the pleasure coursing from her pussy and the suckling of your mouth on her breasts.

“Fuck, Daddy-” she hisses, breathless, onto the top of your head. “Soon, gonna, oh god-.”

You’re surprised by how quickly she’s approaching her first orgasm. But the danger, the aggression, the powerlessness - you would’ve been lying if you’d said you weren’t almost as close as she was. It was intoxicating. Overwhelming.

“Ryujin, fuck, me too. Let me cum in you, baby girl-”

“Do it, Daddy, please-” she hisses, voice rising in pitch as if to mirror the level of pleasure coursing through her veins. “Make me drip you, Daddy. I’m gonna cum too. Are you… are you going to breed me today? Are you going to breed me, here in this office? Put a baby in my belly? Look at me, please, look at me, just me, look at only me--��

She pulls your mouth from the sore, reddened peaks of her nipples. Her eyes find yours and they’re just as lost in pleasure. Her lips part-

“Fill your girl.”

Her cunt tightens and pulses rhythmically as she cums on you. You are unable to fight the pleasure any more than she is, and you let yourself go, burying yourself as deeply as you are able inside her before you follow her into bliss. Your eyes, by some miracle, remain locked on each other the whole time as you watch each other cum.

Your cock pulses as it fills her, paints her cunt white. She trembles and quivers with each spurt as though she felt each one hit the most vulnerable part of her. Her eyes twitch with each rope. They quiver and tremble but she manages to keep them open, locked on yours.

You both sit there for a while, breathing heavily, two sacks of boneless, powerless flesh. Eventually she breaks your gaze to drop her forehead to yours. It was a quickie in almost every sense and you both probably spent more time recovering than you did actually having sex - not that it mattered. Not when the high was so high.

Some amount of time later her head lifts. Her eyes find yours again. You both want to say something - perhaps repeat the pledging of yourselves to each other the way you had so many times before in a post-sex haze - but this time neither of you felt the need.

Perhaps somewhere along the way you’d both realized that this was more than just a business trip fling, more than just two lonely souls seeking companionship while away from home. Perhaps it was because you both knew it by now, and it didn’t need repeating, because the truth of it was already right there, plain to see, in each others’ eyes and in the language spoken with soft lips and gentle touches.

She smiles, she kisses you, and nothing else matters.

---

You’re wandering the streets of Shimokitazawa on a day off in Tokyo when the email arrives.

The day is warm, but thankfully the wonderful sugar and salt water concoction of Pocari Sweat did well to keep you hydrated and cool in the mid-summer Tokyo heat. The small bench opposite the vintage store Ryujin had hopped into provided a suitable place for you to take a well-deserved break from all the shopping and sightseeing. Transportation and logistics be damned; touristing was the hardest work.

You’re scrolling your phone for a suitable dinner location, debating between the tonkotsu ramen place in Ginza that had been recommended to you by your assistant and yet another visit to the local branch of CoCo Curry.

The email banner notification steals your attention. The email itself isn’t even addressed to you - you’re just a copy on it. An afterthought. An FYI. The email itself is simple, business like:

---

To: Shin, Ryujin

From: Bae, SuzyCC: Hirai, Momo; Kim, Taeyeon; Miyawaki, Sakura; Nakamura, Kazuha

Subject: Employee Transfer/Relocation Approved - Shin, Ryujin, EE# 2113 - Vancouver -> Tokyo

Hello Ryujin,

Please find attached a completed and approved Employee Transfer/Relocation Form detailing your transfer and relocation from the Vancouver Head Office to the Tokyo Regional Office, effective immediately.

As a part of this transfer you have been seconded from the Marketing department to the Strategy department for the duration of your project in Tokyo, which is expected to last 24-36 months. For the duration of your project you will report to Sakura Miyawaki, Director, Tokyo office.

In recognition of your efforts and to ensure a smooth transition into the Tokyo office’s reporting structure, you have been promoted from Marketing Lead to Senior Operations Lead.

Please also find attached resources and guides that will assist in your relocation to the Tokyo office, including visa, accommodation, and other related relocation forms and documents. One of our Relocation Specialists will be in touch shortly to assist you further with this process.

Reach out if you have any questions or concerns. Congratulations on your promotion, and best of luck in Tokyo!

Sincerely,

Suzy Bae

Director, Human Resources

JYP Inc.

---

It takes you several reads before you can even begin to process it. Surprise, pain, rage - it all battles inside you, all at once.

Ryujin emerges from the store, a new shopping bag in hand. Her smile is bright, unaware of the heartache that awaits her the next time she looks at her phone.

She's wearing your shirt again, that white button-up - one that probably needed a wash, but she'd picked it out of the pile of clothing you'd draped over a chair in your hotel suite and worn it because it smelled like you.

She reaches for you, pulls you up off the bench, and threads her fingers in yours. You stare down at your intertwined hands. The silver chain on her wrist catches the Tokyo afternoon sun, turning it gold again.

Still in shock, you let her lead you down the street to your next destination, unable to say or do anything more.

Oblivious, she turns to you and smiles.

---

Author’s Note: Tomorrow comes.

#itzy #itzy ryujin #ryujin #kpop smut

818 notes · View notes

magic-shop-stories · 4 months ago

Note

Can I request a Yoongi x Reader where they're exes who had a really messy breakup, but now they have to co-parent their stubborn, genius teenage daughter? Maybe she gets into trouble at school, and they have to put their differences aside to deal with it?

💌 Reply:

Ahh, thank you for your Request it was so cool and I hope the story is what you wanted. I feel like the Reader is coming a bit short but I guess it's gonna be fine...?! At least I hope so.

Have fun reading and feel free to reach out if there's something else I can do for you. 💜💜

PS.: I get the feeling this blog has turned into a Yoongi-as-a-Father Sanctuary but no complains, I kinda like it.

I was thinking- why not make parent headcanons for all BTS members?

REQUEST NAME:

FAME ≠ LOVE

↳ Yoongi x ExReader | Family | Angst, Drama, (Slow Burn)

Rating: G

Word Count: ~ 4k

Genre: Drama, BTS AU, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Slow-Burn Family Reconciliation, Slice of Life

Warnings: Heavy themes of parental neglect, emotional estrangement, and unresolved trauma, Strong language (profanity), Mentions of emotional distress (implied anxiety, abandonment issues), Mentions of media intrusion & exploitation, Family conflict and arguments, Mild violence (Yoongi shoving a reporter), Discussions of corporate politics & fame pressures, Slow burn co-parenting reconciliation (not romance-focused)

Pairing: Min Yoongi x Ex-Wife!Reader

Featuring: Min Jihyun (OC, daughter of Yoongi & Reader), Min Yoongi (Suga) as a flawed but fiercely protective father. Reader as a high-ranking HYBE executive struggling to balance career and motherhood. Themes of healing, forgiveness, and the messy reality of co-parenting. HYBE Staff, Media, various reporters, and minor original characters,

“Fire doesn’t care who it burns, the hand that strikes the match, or the ones who built the kindling. But ash is where new things grow.”

Your Phone, 10:03 AM:

Unknown Number: “Ms.Y L/N, this is Principal Kwon. Your daughter has vandalized school property. We need you here immediately.”

Your Response: “I’ll be there in twenty.”

Next Call:

Yoongi. Three rings. Voice clipped. “What?”

“Jihyun’s in trouble. Meet me at Seoul Arts Academy.”

“I’m in the studio...”

“Be a parent for once.” Click.

The fluorescent lights of the principal’s office hummed like a trapped wasp. You sat ramrod straight, Yoongi slouched beside you, his black mask pulled low. Jihyun, your daughter, leaned against the wall, arms crossed, her hoodie sleeves streaked with neon spray paint. The air reeked of disinfectant and regret.

Principal Kwon slid a tablet across the desk. Onscreen, the school’s gym wall blazed with Jihyun’s mural; HYBE’s logo melting into a skeletal hand clutching won bills, tagged with “FAME ≠ LOVE” in jagged cursive.

“Care to explain?” the principal asked.

Jihyun smirked. “They said my midterm essay on capitalist exploitation in K-pop was ‘inflammatory.’ So I gave them something to really cry about.”

Yoongi’s boot tapped faster. “How much?”

“Fourteen million won,” Principal Kwon said.

“Done,” Yoongi said, reaching for his phone.

You slammed your palm on the invoice. “She doesn’t get to buy her way out.”

“Like you’ve got time to parent her through community service,” he scoffed. "Weren’t you in Berlin last week?”

“At least I’m not teaching her money solves everything!”

“And what are you teaching her? How to ghost her family for a merger?”

The principal cleared his throat. “There’s… also this.” He slid over Seoul Fame Daily, the headline screaming:

“SUGA & HYBE VP’S TEEN TERROR: Inside the Dysfunctional Family Behind the Fame”

“…Min Yoongi (33) and HYBE VP [Your Name] (34), long praised for shielding their daughter from the spotlight, now face scrutiny as 14-year-old Jihyun’s vandalism scandal goes viral. Insiders claim the girl’s ‘rebellion’ stems from years of neglect: ‘They’re never around. That kid’s been raising herself…’”

Yoongi stood, chair screeching. “We’re done.”

“Sit. Down,” you hissed. “This isn’t a studio session.”

“Funny,” he said, voice glacial. “You’re the one who walked out first.”

Flashback: Two Years Earlier

Your heels clicked furiously down the hallway of HYBE’s headquarters, Jihyun trailing behind, her small hand gripping her backpack straps. She’d begged you to attend her middle school art show, but a last-minute investor call had run late. Again.

“Mom, it’s starting in ten minutes...”

“I know, Jihyun. Just wait here.”

You disappeared into the boardroom. When you emerged an hour later, she was gone. Security found her in the lobby, sketching angrily on the walls with permanent marker. The caption: “BUSY PARENTS NEEDED. APPLY WITH TIME.”

Yoongi arrived hours later, smelling of airport and exhaustion. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Would you have answered?”

Yoongi’s eyes locked onto yours, the memory hanging between you. "You walked out,” he repeated, quieter now. “But I let you. Let her.”

Jihyun barked a laugh. “Wow. Teamwork.”

The principal’s intercom buzzed. “Sir, the press is here.”

Outside, cameras flashed like lightning through the blinds. Jihyun yanked her hoodie over her head. “Happy now? Now everyone’s watching it!"

“Chaos is just truth with the volume turned up. And right now, the world is screaming.”

The school’s front gates were a warzone.

Cameras flashed like strobe lights, reporters shouting over each other: “Suga-ssi! Is it true your daughter’s expelled?” ,“Ms. Y L/N! Will HYBE issue a statement?”

Jihyun hunched between you and Yoongi, her hoodie pulled taut over her face. You gripped her shoulder, but she shook you off. “Don’t.”

A reporter lunged, yanking her hood down. “Jihyun! Why’d you do it? Daddy issues?”

Yoongi moved faster than you’d ever seen. He shoved the man back, snarling, “Touch her again and I’ll sue you into oblivion.” His voice carried the same venom as his Daechwita verses, raw and unbridled.

Your Phone buzzed:

[HYBE Assistant]: The board is panicking. They want a statement by 5 PM. Draft attached.

You glanced at the draft: “HYBE regrets the incident and is committed to addressing systemic pressures on celebrity families...”

Bullshit.

Jihyun stumbled, and Yoongi caught her arm. “Car’s this way,” he muttered, steering her through the swarm. You followed, heels sinking into wet grass, your mind racing with damage control.

Flashback: Six Months Earlier

Jihyun’s art show, her first after you became HYBE’S new VP. You’d promised to attend, but a last-minute call from the HYBE board trapped you in the office until midnight. When you finally arrived, the gallery was dark, her painting of a lone astronaut tagged with a sticky note: “SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER.”

Yoongi found you in the parking lot, Jihyun’s tears smudging his shirt. “She left this for you,” he said, handing you a sketch: a family portrait, your faces scratched out with charcoal.

Yoongi shoved Jihyun into his black SUV, slamming the door. You moved to follow, but he blocked you. “You’re taking the company car.”

“She needs both of us...”

“She needs one parent who isn’t a PR robot right now.”

Jihyun rolled down the window. “Mom’s right. Let her in."

Yoongi’s jaw tightened, but he stepped aside.

The drive was silent except for the paparazzi bikes tailing you. Jihyun stared at her phone, scrolling through headlines:

[@ArtRiot]:“HYBE’s gym mural is the protest art we need. Free Jihyun!”

[@KpopTea]:“She’s just like her dad, iconically petty.HYBE’s gonna sue her into next year 💀”

She snorted. “Now you both have to pay attention. Congrats.”

Yoongi met your eyes in the rearview mirror. For a heartbeat, it was 10 years ago, exhausted new parents, arguing over who’d take the night shift with a colicky baby.

“We’ll fix this." he said, to both of you.

Jihyun laughed, brittle. “Can’t fix what you broke.”

“The truth doesn’t heal. It tears. But in the wreckage, we rebuild.”

The therapist’s office smelled like lavender and lies.

Jihyun sat between you and Yoongi, her combat boots propped on the coffee table, scribbling “FAME ≠ LOVE” in the margins of a parenting pamphlet. The court had mandated these sessions after the school pressed charges, and now you were trapped in a room with a woman named Dr. Lee, who smiled like she’d never met a problem she couldn’t yoga-breathe away.

“Let’s start with why we’re here,” Dr. Lee said.

“Bad press,” Yoongi muttered, slouching deeper into the couch.

“Expulsion," you corrected.

“You,” Jihyun said, glaring at both of you.

Dr. Lee’s pen hovered. “Jihyun, do you feel unseen?”

She snorted. “My mom would have rather missed my birth because of a board meeting. And Dad sent a plush toy from tour for my first birthday. So yeah, unseen works.”

Yoongi flinched. “That’s not...”

“True?” Jihyun pulled out her phone, scrolling to a photo of her nursery, empty except for a stuffed bear wearing a SUGA headset. “Here’s Exhibit A.”

Flashback: Fifteen Years Earlier

Your heels echoed through the hospital hallway, contractions ripping through you as your assistant rushed to keep up. “The merger documents, they need your signature by noon...”

“Not now..."

You collapsed against a wall, gasping. Yoongi’s voicemail played for the fifth time: “In the studio. Leave a message.”

When Jihyun was born, he was in Tokyo, filming a MV.

Dr. Lee turned to Yoongi. “Why do you think Jihyun acts out?”

He stared at his hands, knuckles white. “I didn’t know how to be a dad. Still don’t.”

“Bullshit,” Jihyun said. “You knew how to write lullabies for strangers. Just not me.”

You stiffened. “That’s not fair.”

“Fair?” She laughed. “Mom’s married to her job. You’re married to ARMY. Where does that leave me? The bastard genius?”

The word hung like a grenade.

“Don’t call yourself that,” Yoongi said, voice low.

“Why? It’s what they call me.” She tossed Seoul Fame Daily onto the table. The headline:

“HYBE HEIRESS OR HOT MESS? Inside the Lonely Life of Suga’s ‘Genius’ Daughter”

“…Jihyun’s IQ (a staggering 148) and her ‘delinquent’ behavior have become a national debate. ‘She’s a product of neglect,’ says child psychologist Dr. Park. ‘Celebrity kids often act out to fill the void…’”

You reached for her, but she jerked away. “Don’t. You don’t get to parent me now.”

Dr. Lee leaned forward. “Y/N why did you leave Yoongi?”

The air thinned. Yoongi’s knee brushed yours, a ghost of the past.

“I left because I couldn’t compete,” you whispered. “With ARMY. With his music. With the world that needed him more than we did.”

Yoongi’s jaw tightened. “You didn’t even try.”

“You didn’t fight!”

Jihyun stood, knocking over her chair. “You’re both pathetic. You’d rather fight each other than fight for me.”

She stormed out, slamming the door. The framed degrees on Dr. Lee’s wall rattled.

Yoongi stood to follow, but you grabbed his wrist. “Let her go. She needs space.”

“Like you did?” He yanked free. “I’m done giving space.”

Ten Minutes later you were back on your work phone:

[HYBE Assistant]: The board wants you to issue a formal apology. Drafting options.

[YOU]: Tell them to draft a resignation letter instead.

“Art is the echo of everything we’re too afraid to say. And some artists are screaming.”

Yoongi’s penthouse smelled of fresh paint and regret.

You stood in the doorway of Jihyun’s old room, now a makeshift studio. Canvases leaned against the walls, each one a riot of color and rage: HYBE’s logo skewered by swords, ARMY bombs morphing into grenades, a faceless family holding hands made of dollar bills.

Yoongi crouched beside her, scowling at the neon splatter on his hardwood floors. “You got talent, kid. But stop doing it inside the house.”

Jihyun didn’t look up from her spray can. “Your studio’s soundproof. Can’t hear me anyway.”

He snatched the can. “Try the balcony.”

“Control freak,” she muttered, but a ghost of a smile tugged her lips.

Your Phone buzzed:

[HYBE Assistant]: Need you to approve the Q3 budget. Urgent.

You swiped the notification away, eyes catching on a sketchbook peeking from Jihyun’s half-open backpack. The first page stopped your breath:

“FAME ≠ LOVE – MURAL DRAFT #12”

Skeletal hands cradling a child made of newspaper clippings. Headlines like “HYBE’s Heiress” and “Suga’s Shadow” papered her skin.

Beneath it, a URL: www.artivist_ji.com

Flashback: Five Years Earlier

HYBE’s annual Family Day. Jihyun, age 10, clutched her crayon drawing of the three of you as superheroes. “Look, Mom! I drew you as Wonder Woman!"

You knelt, phone buzzing with a CFO’s call. “It’s beautiful, baby. Show Dad, okay?”

Yoongi was across the room, surrounded by staff. Jihyun approached, but a publicist intercepted her. “Not now, sweetie. Appa’s busy.”

You found the drawing later in the trash, scribbled over with red pen: “NOT ENOUGH.”

You typed the URL with trembling hands.

@Artivist_Ji – 50.2K followers

Bio: “Art is my middle finger to the universe. #FameIsOverrated”

The posts gutted you:

- A time-lapse of her gym mural

- Sketches of Yoongi at the piano, his back turned

- A self-portrait titled “Invisible Girl”, her face erased, replaced by tabloid headlines

The latest post stopped your heart:

“FAME ≠ LOVE – FINAL SKETCH”

Comments:

“Queen of dragging HYBE 👑”

“Is that Suga’s kid?! OMG THE TALENT.”

You closed the tab, guilt sour on your tongue.

Yoongi’s Studio, Midnight

You found him hunched over Jihyun’s mural draft, red pen in hand.

“Don’t,” you said. “It’s hers.”

“I’m fixing the composition,” he muttered. “The perspective’s off here...”

“You’re critiquing it?”

“She’s better than both of us,” he said quietly. “But she’ll never admit it.”

You picked up a sketch of yourself, sharp-suited, eyes glued to a phone, a speech bubble: “Legacy pending.”

“We failed her,” you whispered.

Yoongi’s pen stilled. “We still have time.

“When the world tries to define you, sometimes you have to redefine the world.”

The internet exploded at 9:17 PM.

Jihyun’s tweet went live with a single image: her mural, HYBE’s logo burning under the tagline “FAME ≠ LOVE.” The caption:

[@MinJihyun_Official]:

new bio: artist. anarchist. NOT your oppa’s kid.

Within minutes, the hashtag #FameIsOverrated trended worldwide.

[@SUGAstan95]:

“She’s just seeking attention. Suga would never raise a kid like this.”

[@ArtRiot]:

“This is the protest art we need. HYBE’s exploitation of artists is finally being called out. #FreeJihyun"

[@KPOP_NEWS_24]:

“Suga’s daughter goes rogue! HYBE stock drops another 3%. Full story ⬇️”

Your Phone buzzed:

[HYBE Assistant]: The board is demanding a press conference. They want you to disavow her actions.

You stared at the tweet, your thumb hovering over the like button.

Yoongi’s Studio, 10:03 PM

You found him scrolling through Jihyun’s replies, his face unreadable.

“You’re not going to say anything?” you asked.

“She doesn’t want me to,” he said, setting his phone down. “But I liked it.”

You blinked. “What?”

He showed you his Instagram, a single like on Jihyun’s post.

“Subtle,” you said dryly.

“She’ll see it," he said. “That’s enough.”

You opened your laptop, drafting a statement:

“HYBE supports artistic expression and acknowledges the systemic pressures faced by celebrity families. We are committed to fostering a healthier environment for all.”

Yoongi read over your shoulder. “Corporate bullshit.”

“It’s damage control.”

“She’s not a PR crisis,” he said, voice sharp. “She’s your daughter.”

You deleted the draft.

[YOU]: Jihyun, we need to talk.

[JIHYUN]: About what? Your next press release?

“Sometimes, the loudest cries for help are whispered under bridges, where no one thinks to look.”

The text came at 11:42 PM:

[HYBE Assistant]: The board released a statement without you. It’s… not great.

You opened the link, dread pooling in your stomach.

HYBE Official Statement:

“HYBE deeply regrets the actions of Min Jihyun and reaffirms its commitment to upholding the values of respect and responsibility. We are working closely with her family to address this matter."

The comments were brutal:

“HYBE throwing their own kid under the bus? Cold.”

“Suga’s daughter deserves better than this."

Your phone buzzed again:

[YOONGI]:She’s gone.

Han River, 12:15 AM

Yoongi found her under the Mapo Bridge, her hoodie pulled tight against the cold. The glow of her phone illuminated her face as she scrolled through the HYBE statement, her jaw clenched.

“You wanna be seen?” he said, crouching beside her. “Then stop hiding.”

She didn’t look up. “They don’t see me. They see you.”

“I see you,” he said, voice rough. “Always have.”

She scoffed, sketching furiously in her notebook. “Yeah? Then where were you when I needed you?"

Your Arrival, 12:30 AM

You stumbled down the embankment, heels sinking into the mud. “Jihyun..."

She turned, her eyes glinting with anger. “Here to give another statement?”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, tears spilling over. “I’m sorry I made you feel invisible.”

She stared at you, her defiance wavering. “You weren’t there. Either of you.”

Yoongi reached for her, but she flinched. “Don’t. You don’t get to fix this with a hug.”

You knelt beside her, the river’s reflection rippling like shattered glass. “We can’t change the past. But we can try to be better. For you.”

Her voice cracked. “I just wanted you."

Flashback: Eight Years Earlier

Jihyun’s first school play. You’d promised to attend, but a last-minute investor call kept you late. When you arrived, the auditorium was empty, her teacher holding a crumpled program: “She cried when you didn’t show.”

Yoongi pulled Jihyun into a hug, his voice muffled against her hair. “We’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

You joined them, the three of you tangled under the bridge’s shadow.

The HYBE press room was a battlefield.

Rows of reporters packed the hall, their bodies pressed together like a restless tide, cameras flashing like artillery fire in the relentless storm of media scrutiny. The air was thick with the hum of whispered speculation, punctuated by the sharp staccato of shouted questions. Heat from the overhead lights made the room stifling, the metallic scent of equipment mixing with the tension radiating from every person present.

You stood at the podium, heart pounding beneath your ribs, the weight of expectation pressing against your shoulders. Yoongi was beside you, his presence an anchor amidst the chaos, but you could see the tightness in his jaw, the way his fingers curled slightly against the podium's surface. He was furious, barely keeping himself in check.

In your hand, the CEO’s prepared statement felt like ice–cold, impersonal, a lifeless collection of words meant to protect the company, not your daughter.

“Ms. Y L/N! Will HYBE take legal action against your daughter?”

“Suga! Do you regret prioritizing your career over your family?”

The words came like daggers, cutting deep, aiming for the most vulnerable places. Your grip tightened. The flashes of cameras were blinding, turning the scene into a disorienting blur of faces and accusations. The words on the page blurred in your vision, meaningless against the anger simmering in your chest.

You exhaled, forcing steel into your spine. The paper crumpled in your fist.

“We’re here to address the recent incident involving Min Jihyun,” you began, voice steady despite the storm raging inside you. The noise in the room shifted, anticipation sharpening the air like a knife.

Flashback: Two Days Earlier

The CEO’s office was a cavern of glass and steel, the city sprawling beneath it like a world distant and indifferent to the turmoil inside. The air-conditioning hummed, a deceptive calm against the fire brewing in Yoongi’s stance.

The CEO’s voice was icy. “This is a PR disaster. Either you disavow her actions, or we’ll do it for you.”

Yoongi didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward, slow, deliberate, kinda lethal. His voice, when it came, was quiet, edged with the kind of fury that could bring entire empires crumbling.

“Touch her, and I’ll burn this company to the ground.”

A beat of silence. The tension stretched, thick and suffocating, before the CEO’s eyes flickered with something that almost resembled fear.

Yoongi never bluffed.

The statement slipped from your fingers, falling to the floor like dead weight. Gasps rippled through the press like an electric current.

“Our daughter is not a scandal,” you said, voice slicing clean through the cacophony. “She’s a person. A brilliant, passionate, hurting person. And if anyone here thinks they have the right to reduce her to a headline, you’re wrong.”

Silence. Heavy. Unyielding.

Yoongi stepped forward, gripping the mic, his presence commanding, unwavering. The spotlight glinted off his eyes, dark and unwavering as he surveyed the sea of reporters.

“Next reporter who calls her ‘bastard’ gets a lawsuit and a free album.”

A ripple of uneasy laughter broke through, but the weight of his words lingered, pressing down like an unspoken threat.

He scanned the room, his voice calm but carrying the unmistakable force of a man who would go to war for his child. “She’s my daughter. And if you come for her, you come for me.”

Backstage

Jihyun stood in the shadows, arms crossed, lips twitching as she watched the scene unfold. The fire in her eyes dimmed just a fraction, something soft slipping into the cracks of her armor.

Yoongi’s words echoed in her mind, wrapping around something fragile inside her.

She huffed out a quiet breath, barely above a whisper.

“They’re not so bad.”

Epilogue: The Gallery & New Beginnings

Under the soft glow of gallery lights in a renovated Seoul warehouse, Jihyun’s mural dominated the room, a sprawling, defiant canvas titled “How to Survive Famous Parents.” Bold strokes of rebellion and tenderness intertwined: shattered family portraits, corporate logos dismantled by furious color, and symbols of both pain and hope. The atmosphere was hushed yet electric, as art lovers and curious onlookers clustered around the piece, whispering in awe.

In one quiet corner, Yoongi stood, his gaze fixed on the mural as if deciphering every secret message it held. He pulled out his phone and, after a long, reflective pause, murmured to a friend nearby,

“It’s going in my studio. To remind me not to fuck up again.”

A ripple of understanding passed through the crowd. Later, his phone buzzed, a text message from you. The invitation was simple yet significant:

“Coffee tomorrow? I’ll bring cake.”

Across the room, you lingered by a stark white wall, watching the celebration of your daughter’s truth unfold. In the flickering light, you felt the weight of past mistakes lift ever so slightly. You’d spent years tethered to board meetings and corporate crises, but tonight the gallery was a testament that art; raw and unfiltered; could be a pathway to healing.

After the show had ended and the last of the guests trickled away, you found Yoongi waiting in a quiet alcove near the exit. The tension that had once divided you softened into something resembling understanding. There, under the muted glow of emergency exit signs and the fading echoes of applause, you both paused, no longer bound by old resentments.

“You know,” you began quietly, “we can’t change everything overnight. But maybe we can start small, like family breakfasts or dinners. A time for all of us to just… be together.”

Yoongi exhaled slowly, his eyes revealing both regret and resolve. “I’ve been a stubborn fool,” he admitted. “For too long, we let work and pride get in the way of what matters most.”

You offered a tentative smile. “I promise I’ll work less. I can’t keep missing the moments that count. Let’s set a weekly breakfast, just the three of us. No boardroom, no cameras, no headlines.”

He nodded, and in that moment, the unspoken promise between you was palpable. The scars of the past were still there, but there was a chance; small, fragile, and beautiful; to rebuild something real for Jihyun.

A week later, in the quiet hum of your HYBE office, you took a decisive step. With a deep breath, you submitted your vacation request. It wasn’t a resignation from duty, it was a commitment to reclaim a piece of your life long neglected. You knew that for the first time in over a decade, you, Yoongi, and Jihyun would embark on a family vacation together. Not as lovers rekindling a lost romance, but as co-parents determined to create a haven away from the relentless glare of fame and corporate demands.

That evening, over a simple dinner at a small, warmly lit bistro, you all sat together, awkward at first, but gradually the shared laughter and gentle conversation wove a new tapestry of togetherness. Jihyun teased, “Don’t think I’m going to let you two make it too easy. I expect full participation in family fun.” Yoongi chuckled, and you reached across the table, meeting his gaze with sincere understanding.

In that humble moment, as the clink of cutlery and soft music filled the background, the promise of a vacation shimmered like a distant sunrise, a first step toward healing. Though your paths had diverged in the past, you were learning that survival wasn’t about perfection. It was about trying again, together, even if the wounds ran deep.

And as the night drew to a close, the gallery lights and city buzz fading into memory, you all looked ahead. There was art still to be made, truths still to be spoken, and a fragile family ready to rebuild, one shared breakfast, one small vacation at a time.

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