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zeroeightzeroone · 23 days

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homesick - han jisung

love collection

genre: comfort, angst? soft

pairings: fem!reader (infp) x idol!han jisung (istp)

warnings: none?

wc ~3.7k | moodboard

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ｡｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:

you miss your boyfriend–you miss him a lot.

how could you not?

all you have wanted to do for the past couple of weeks is throw your arms around jisung and hold him close. you want to keep your boyfriend so tightly against your chest that you're encapsulated by the warmth radiating off his body, the warmth that never fails to comfort you, resting your head against his chest to listen to how his heart beats in tandem with your own. you miss the physical closeness with jisung.

stray kids has been on tour since late april this year, and the last leg of the tour is expected to end early april next year. while that's quite a long time for the boys to be away, they'd be back in asia in late july and on a break until the tour kicks back up in early september. it's currently the beginning of july.

thankfully, you weren't taking any summer courses. through the grace of whatever higher power there is up there, you managed to convince your boss to let you work remotely so you could join jisung and the boys for two weeks during the japanese leg of their tour back at the beginning of june.

you loved watching jisung perform. seeing him firsthand from the crowd, in his element when he's on stage, performing his art and perfecting his craft, makes your heart lurch; you fall for the man all over again, watching him up there. seeing it firsthand is completely different from watching videos of him–you can feel the energy radiating off him when he's up there.

at the end of those two weeks, you and the boys ended up in the same place: the airport. you were boarding a plane back to seoul, and they were boarding a plane to their first tour stop in america. due to the influx of reporters and fans waiting at narita international airport, your goodbyes to the boys and their staff had to be in the hotel, inside your rooms, hours before checkout time.

knock, knock, knock.

"come in!" you call whoever is on the other side of the door; if it's any of the boys, then they will be accompanied by jisung, who has the extra room key for your room.

you grunt in a squatting position as you move your luggage from laying on the ground, on its back, to standing upright on its wheels. you hear the keycard machine beep from the other side of the door in confirmation as you're hunched over, wheeling your luggage up against the wall before standing up straight and rubbing your palms against your jeans. you watch as the front door opens to reveal the eight boys, jisung in front, holding the keycard to your hotel room. behind them, the managers and some guards come into the room with them, but the bodyguards stay outside.

"y/n!" felix whines with a pout as he pushes forward, running to you and enveloping you in his arms, "fly safe, okay?"

you pat the freckled boy's back appreciatively as you nod.

"make sure you text ji when you land, okay?"

"i will, but you guys will still be in the air when he gets that message."

felix pulls away, his hands on your shoulders as he looks at you, "still, it's the thought that counts." you smile and giggle at felix, who moves aside for the next couple of members to say their goodbyes to you.

your exchanges with jeongin, minho and changbin are on the shorter side; brief hugs with jeongin and changbin, who thank you for coming to support them in concert, meanwhile minho gives you a half hug and pats your head as he bids you farewell, thanking you for taking two weeks out of the many months jisung will spend talking about how much he'll miss you.

meanwhile, hyunjin, chan and seungmin's hugs last a little longer when you're swayed around a little bit and told to be safe, get a lot of rest on the plane and not miss them too much. chan lets you know that if there is any other time you're going to be free when they're on tour, let them know, and they'll arrange everything for you–from the plane tickets to where you're staying–anything at all.

seungmin, the member you're closest to after your boyfriend, whispers in your ear quietly to ensure it's kept between the two of you: "i know you're going to ask me to take care of jisung for you, so don't worry about that. don't worry about hannie; we all got him."

the reassurance brings a smile to your face, and your grip on seungmin gets tighter in appreciation. the boy sways your bodies back and forth, patting your back when you separate. when he pulls away, he steps aside to reveal your boyfriend standing there with a pout, his big, brown eyes glossy as tears build up at his waterline. you have to bite your lip to keep from sobbing.

you were already feeling on the verge of tears when felix came rushing in and pulled you into a hug. chan's words about arranging anything and everything if you're free, then seungmin assuring you that they'll look out for your boyfriend while on tour and now, here's your boyfriend, your hannie, your jisung, looking at you with teary eyes.

you open your arms and jisung runs into them, prompting you to take a step back at the sudden impact, but jisung's tight grip around your waist protects you from any chance of falling backward. jisung buries his face in the crook of your neck while your arms are wrapped around his neck, your chin resting on his shoulder as your eyes are squeezed shut. your grip on each other is tight, knowing that once either of you lets go, the next time you'll be in each other's arms is in two months.

jisung lets a choked whimper slip out that he tries to hide with a cough. you smack his back gently, "ya!"

you clear your throat, trying your best to stay composed and stern as you utter the next words.

"if you cry, i'm going to cry too!" your voice cracks and trembles as you speak.

"i'm not crying," he denies. though his voice is muffled from his head buried in the crook of your neck, you can clearly hear that it's softer than usual, shaky, and uneasy.

you let out a pained laugh, "liar." the tears flow down your cheeks as you hold him even tighter.

"i'm not lying!" jisung continues to deny. he lifts his head up from your neck, and you stand there, still in each other's arms, looking at each other, "see."

what you see is how jisung's cheeks are flushed, wet with tears that probably fell and landed on the fabric of the hoodie you're wearing, his lashes clumped together with tears as he tries to keep his lips pursed together when they're trembling and threatening to go back to that pout. on the other hand, your tears are freely falling as you stare up at your boyfriend through your fluttering lids, mouth opening and closing as you breathe heavily through your pouted lips, cheeks also flushed and damp. you smack his chest.

"what?" he whines.

you open your mouth to laugh at him, but instead, a sob comes out. you fall back into his arms and bury your face into his chest as you cry.

"look who's crying now," jisung retorts as his arms move around your body again, holding you close. one hand rests on the small of your back while the other caresses your hair.

"yeah, the both of you," minho teases and jisung glares at the boy, but the older one just smiles back.

the rest of the boys watch the exchange between you and jisung with a slight ache in their chests as they remember how hard it was to say goodbye to their friends and family before leaving. chan looks around and he gathers everyone to leave, wanting to give you and jisung a minute alone to say your goodbyes before the driver takes you to the airport.

pulling away, jisung moves his hands to your face and brushes your hair back, some strands sticking to your skin because of tears as you hiccup. even when your hair is out of your face, he continues to stroke your hair back while the other hand is on your cheek, gently caressing the skin with the pad of his thumb. the two of you stare up at each other, sniffling.

"i love you," jisung whispers, his voice hoarse from crying.

you nod, sniffling and hiccuping in return, "i love you too."

jisung smiles down at you, "hey, i'll be back before you know it."

your eyelids flutter as you blink quickly, and your hands play with the back of the sweatshirt jisung is wearing.

"i'll text you everyday," he reminds, "i'll call you as much as i can, and as much our schedules and the time zones allow for."

you sigh shakily, "i'm gonna miss you so much."

"i'm going to miss you so much too, my love," jisung brushes your hair back again, "god, i wish i could just take you with me. two months away from you? that's too long."

you snicker, nodding in agreement, "i do too. but hey, i'll get to see so many videos of you taken by stay, doing your thing on stage."

your boyfriend smiles, gazing down at you lovingly.

"i'm so proud of you. look at you," you sigh, lips curled up in a smile, "my boyfriend is going on a world tour."

"do you know what that means?" you tilt your head in confusion, "souvenirs from every stop that remind me of you!"

since he left, both of you have been sending texts daily and video calls whenever your schedules permit it and when the time zones line up enough so it isn't too early or too late for either of you.

sometimes your calls only prompt you to miss jisung even more, wishing he was next to you and that his voice wasn't just coming through a device while he's on the other side of the world, but the distance also means you continue to long for the day jisung comes home. you know his parents long for that day as well, his mother sending you texts every couple of days asking when you're free so you can go out together. as jisung likes to put it–spending time with her future daughter-in-law.

however, as the number of days away from jisung increases, the number of days before jisung returns also decreases. with that in mind, you try to stay positive and look forward to the day he comes home.

now that the boys are in america, they've been quite busy rehearsing, checking and then rechecking their formations and any technical details that could go wrong during the concerts, the process repeating at each venue as they sync up their equipment with the new venues. their team organizing and making sure everything is okay with the venue and other organizers. as a result, jisung has been too busy to call late at night as he passes out the moment he's in his hotel room from the venue, then waking up a couple hours later to hop on a flight to the next destination.

he sends you texts here and there throughout his day, sending random photos of himself and the members during rehearsals or before and after the show. on jisung's end, he sent a text over when he landed early in the morning, saying he could probably hop on a call quickly when he gets to the hotel, seeing as they're going to be in inglewood for a little over a week for two shows instead of one. you were about to leave work when the message came through. going home for the evening when the message reminded you of your phone call with jisung's mother.

"hello, eomeonim (mother-in-law)," you greet when the line connects.

"y/n, myeoneuri (daughter-in-law)," she speaks into the phone, her tone sweet as usual. she doesn't say anything for a moment before speaking, "is this a bad time? you don't sound like you're at home?"

"ah, sorry eomeonim," you apologize, "i just got off the bus, but i'm on the way home now. but don't worry, i can talk if you need me."

"ah okay, i won't keep you too long then, myeoneuri," she assures before continuing, "have you spoken to jisung on the phone recently?"

you hum as you think, "I think it's been a couple of days since our last phone call; why? is he okay?"

you hear jisung's mother sigh on the other end of the line, "i'm a little worried, if i'm honest," you hum in acknowledgment and she continues, "he sounded quite down on our phone call yesterday and the day before. he told me not to worry when i asked… i know this might be a lot, but would you mind talking to him? if it's you, he'll open up more–at least, he'll have talked about what's on his mind."

"yeah, yeah, of course," you agree, "i'll see if we can call tonight, and i'll check up on him, see how he's doing, eomeonim. don't worry too much, i'm sure ji is okay!"

she chuckles on the other end, "ah, you sound just like him, y/n. don't tell him i sent you!"

you laugh in response to her rushed addition at the end of her statement: "i won't say anything," she sighs in relief, "was there anything else you were curious about?"

she hums, "nothing else, thank you so much, myeoneuri. i'll see you on the weekend, okay? come over whenever you want! the door is always open for you!"

your cheeks flush in embarrassment as you smile, "thank you, i'll see you in a couple of days. bye eomeonim!"

"goodbye, myeoneuri! get home safely. i love you," she bids her farewells, which you exchange right back with her before she hangs up the call.

thinking back to that conversation, you wonder what worried jisung's mother about him; was it how he spoke? his tone? the words he used? was he quite active in the conversation, or did he seem more passive? you wonder what exactly she meant by jisung sounding quite down, but you guess you'll figure it out when he calls you in the morning.

it's around eight in the morning when your phone rings from the bedside table. yunjin should already be awake and ready for work, so the ringer volume doesn't wake anyone up except you. you roll around, feeling around the bedside table for the device. you accept his call quickly and place the phone to your ear.

a deep yawn leaves your lips before you say, "ji baby?"

you hear him hum in acknowledgment on the other end before he replies, "yeah, baby, it's me." a sleepy smile forms on your lips at the sound of his voice. " did I wake you?"

you groan softly as you flick the lamp on, the sudden brightness causing you to squint, "yes but i don't mind. i just wanna hear your voice. are you back at the hotel now?"

"yeah, we got back a while ago. i just wanted to be ready for bed before calling; this way i can fall asleep while you're on the line," jisung explains, and you feel your cheeks heat up at his sentiments.

he continues to talk about what they did today. you're gradually more awake and more attentive as the minutes pass, so eventually, you realize what jisung's mother was referring to when it sounded like he's been down. jisung is speaking monotone, his voice softer, and when he speaks, it sounds like his mind is elsewhere.

when he's finished, you decide to segway into that conversation, "how are you feeling?"

he pauses for a moment, taken aback before he shrugs, "i'm tired, it's been a long day of rehearsal. what about you? how are you feeling?"

"i'm doing good, i'm hearing your voice, so i'm doing great," you answer quickly before he tries to shift the conversation to you, "are you physically tired or?"

jisung is lying in bed as he speaks to you, looking up at the ceiling and thinking of his replies, "yeah. dancing and all."

"emotionally?"

"emotionally?" he repeats to which you confirm, "i mean… i'm okay–better now since i'm hearing your voice after a couple of days… it's been a busy last couple of days."

you nod, running a hand through your tangled hair as you listen to jisung on the other end. his tone is still distracted as his words graze over how he's feeling, avoiding delving deeper into it. realizing that maybe he isn't ready to delve deeper into his emotions, you allow him to shift the conversation to your life and what you've been up to while he's been on tour–asking you how work has been and if anything new has occurred. you answer jisung honestly; there is nothing new at work as it's the same job you've had since getting into university; the only new events would be the lunch you have on the weekend with jisung's mother, aunt and grandmother.

the latter part of your updates brings a smile to jisung's lips, his heart warming at the thought of the most important women in his life spending quality time together. but at the same time, hearing your updates about your life back at home, no matter how small you think they are or if they're the same things that always happen, has jisung's chest aching in a completely different way.

"ji?" you call, not hearing anything coming from his end, "did you fall asleep?" you pause to listen, to survey whether or not you hear soft snores or heavy breathing that indicate that he is indeed asleep.

instead, jisung responds after a couple of moments, "i'm still here. i'm awake."

"are you okay?" you wonder, "if you're tired then i can go–"

"no, don't go," he quickly interrupts, "sorry."

"don't apologize, i just wanna make sure you're okay," you reassure, and you hear him hum in acknowledgment.

"i miss you," he declares softly, his voice solemn as he speaks.

"i miss you too, ji," you sigh, instinctively clutching the pillow closer to your chest.

the boy on the other end ponders for a moment before continuing, "i miss you a lot. i don't really know how to explain it," jisung blinks up at the ceiling, "i miss you all the time, but when we get back to the hotel or when i'm not performing, i miss you even more."

jisung's eyebrows knit in frustration as he continues to explain himself.

"i love being on stage, i love performing," he states, "i can't explain how i feel when i'm performing either, but… there's a feeling of contentment or fullness? i don't know… i just know i love to be up there. but…"

"but?" you encourage him to continue as his words trail off.

"but when i get back to the hotel, or when it's all over, i feel tired: the adrenaline doesn't last as long as it usually does. but even though i'm tired, it's hard to fall asleep."

you aren't sure where to place jisung's words, unsure if you've ever felt the way he's been feeling lately, uncertain if you can relate, but at the least, you want to understand and reassure him that you're there.

"there's a feeling of emptiness that kinda just sits there when i'm not on stage," his voice is softer when he says the word 'emptiness' like it's a fragile word, one he's unsure of, "i wasn't sure what it was before but listening to you talk started to help me realize what caused the emptiness."

"something i said helped you realize?" you repeat for clarification.

"yeah, listening to you talk about home, work, the local cafes, the conversations you have with my mom–just everything about your life at home," jisung lists, "i'm feeling homesick."

your lips part in awe when the last word leaves his mouth, the singular word allowing you to reconceptualize what he said previously and gain a greater understanding.

"i tried my best to distract myself and rehearse more to combat those feelings of emptiness but nothing seemed to work; it just stuck there. listening to you helped combat some of my homesickness but…"

"but it's still there," you finish his sentence, and he agrees with a sigh.

"i love being onstage, i feel so alive when i'm up there," now, when jisung speaks, his tone is clearer, and his thoughts are clearer, the way he's speaking signalling that instead of being lost in his own thoughts he's got both feet on the ground and he's working through them, "but i miss home so much. god… i miss you so damn much."

you smile sadly when you hear him sniffle.

"i miss my bed at the dorms, the air fryer at the dorms that we don't even use. i miss the smell of your laundry detergent and shampoo, i miss being in your arms, and you playing with my hair. i miss being at home."

jisung cries softly as he speaks, sniffling and continuing to list off the things that he misses at home. it brings tears to your eyes; using your comforter to dab the tears off your face.

"hey…" you call into the phone, "would it help if i sent little voice messages throughout the day so you could hear my voice? i can send pictures of things you love here too? just a couple more weeks, and you'll be here, and i'll hold you so tightly you get sick of me."

"i'll never be sick of being in your arms," he remarks, "and if it isn't too much, i would love that, all of it." jisung smiles at your suggestions, appreciative of you and your ideas to help him combat his homesickness until he's back in seoul.

"i'll try my best."

"baby?" he coos, prompting a soft response from you, "do you think we can video call? i wanna see your face before i sleep. can you stay until i fall asleep?"

your cheeks heat up from your boyfriend's suggestion, and your heart feels giddy at seeing his face for a couple of minutes before he falls asleep. " of course, baby."

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embossross · 7 months

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From His Mind to Hers

chapter 13 >> Chapter 14>> masterlist

✣ Pairing: Hanma x AFAB fem!Reader

✣ Warning: 18+, minors DNI; unhealthy relationships & dark content

✣ Chapter CW: Processing trauma from abuse and sexual violence (rape aftermath), unhealthy coping mechanisms, revenge porn, slut shaming/misogyny, suicidal ideation (sort of – threats)

✣ Story CWs: patient/doctor relationships; smut (oral, ptv, pta, etc.), degradation, stalking, torture (not of y/n), murder, dubcon & abuse in c13, discussions of trauma and abuse, drug use, and more

✣ Synopsis: Forced into therapy, Hanma expects to waste his time and yours, but you’re not about to let the chance of a high-profile and higher paying patient slip through your grasp. The fact that you’re both attracted to each other doesn’t hurt either.

✣ Word Count: 5.5k+

The janitor deserves a raise.

The floors gleam, pearlescent and buffed to a shine that threatens to serve your reflection back to you. Where you sit, elbows to knees, staring at the floor, you notice every shoe scuff and dropped luggage tag. Fleeting messes that the janitor is quick to erase from existence. A few sweeps of the mop and everything returns to its former state, beautiful and shining.

“Flight NH451 to Okinawa is now boarding,” a crystalline voice announces first in Japanese, then English, then Mandarin.

No one else has time to study the floors. Compared to the bustle of Tokyo-Narita, Haneda Airport is calmer, but all airports in your experience share an atmosphere of restrained anxiety. For many people, it’s the one time they must completely surrender any pretenses of control over their lives and accept that they are subject to the whims of weather, technical failure, fate.

You know a thing or two about that.

Fussy babies burp and cry while their older siblings fare little better. The line for the Hong Kong Express baggage check stretches around the corner, creeping forward at a pace that promises a missed flight for whichever fool arrives with only two hours to make it to their terminal. A group of college-aged girls kneel on the floor, bags spread out as they shuffle the contents around, trying to find the magic formula that will sneak them below the weight limit. Hunched like they’re already exhausted from standing for so long, an elderly couple waits in mute silence, in a place beyond words. Nearly everyone else stares at their phones, willing the minutes to pass. It’s a fair difference from the energy you’d find over in arrivals, where half the passengers are haggard from a long day of international travel and the other half sprint, energized, into the arms of waiting loved ones. It churns your stomach to think about all those people, crying through tears of joy.

It may appear like the line isn’t moving, but it’s like the Argonaut. From where you’ve sat to the side watching for the last four hours, you know an assemblage of new faces will gradually replace these, the line somehow never shorter but its components entirely new.

In all this time, not one person has taken note of the woman rooted to one spot, the perpetual observer of the thousands of people who all have better places to be.

The promise of invisibility is what drew you to the airport this morning. Amid the minutiae and petty concerns of the mob, you may as well be furniture. Surrendering to that invisibility evokes a blissful relief.

It is your natural habitat.

As a child, you mastered the art of being there and not there at the same time. You remember miserable days spent locked in your room whenever you caught so much as a sniffle. Your mother would banish you to the narrow three tatami mat room, terrified that your germs might spread and infect her.

At first, every minute would tick by with the weight of eternity. Staring at the ceiling, phlegm draining back through your sinuses and stomach in a pounding knot, you would count each tile one by one. The trick was to stretch the count as long as possible, to sit and savor each number in your mind’s eye, because you knew when you finished it would be back to one again. No windows opened to the views outside, no toys to distract you. The most the little room offered was its thin walls through which you could hear your mother move about the house, her loud laugh down the receiver of the phone, the hum of the TV. All while you shook from fever, unattended.

Time would pass so slowly in that room. Gradually, impossibly, it would slow even further as your stomach grumbled, your throat spasmed from thirst. Your mother never thought to leave you any food or water to survive those long days in that room.

The thirstier you grew, the less you could ward off the realities of the body, thoughts fixating on each ache and pain, until finally, you learned to stop your thoughts altogether. To be there and not there at once.

Then, time would resume in a sprint, a long blink and night would fall. Once the sounds of your mother’s untroubled life ceased, you would make your move. On sock-covered feet, you would slip from your prison and edge your way to the kitchen, praying for invisibility, for no one to spot your midnight heist. You never dared fetch a glass, mimicking a thief’s caution as you leaned into the sink, mouth closing around the tap, where you would turn it onto a trickle and let the life-giving water permeate your cracked lips. In those moments, you would be there, brilliantly, blindingly there in spirit, but your body remained locked away in that room.

The tricks you learned in those days in that house have served you well over the years. Invisibility sometimes feels like a curse, resigning you forever to the periphery of life, but it also greets you like an old friend when you are most in need of protection.

How traumatizing then to search for it last night and find that old friend missing. When you needed it most, the old detachment abandoned you.

Hyper-present, you suffered every moment of Hanma’s pain and perversion. Countless times, you reached for your invisibility, hoping to slip out of yourself like a specter and leave your body to Hanma’s cruel hands, but you were only left twice as terrified to find yourself trapped inside yourself. Your mind, body, and soul were devastatingly one as you experienced the certainty that Hanma would shoot you dead as he brutalized you, as he held you with the gentleness of a lover, as he…

Your phone vibrates in your pocket. You know it’s him. It must be. His smell still lingers on the fine hairs of your nostrils, singeing them with the stench of bourbon that bled from his pores. In the blue-black dark, you could barely make out his features as he threatened you – a masked intruder hovering above you – but fuck if you couldn’t smell him, stinking up your once safe, sterilized bedroom.

Just thinking about it makes you want to…

With trembling fingers, you hunt through your purse until you find a wad of tissues to wipe the sweat that beads across your brow. It is swelteringly hot in Departures, a mix of the unseasonably warm weather and the heat of hundreds of bodies thronging together, their every exhale warming the room.

Searching through the mass of bodies, you find the janitor still at work, fix on the friendly lines of his face. He gives no indication that he notices the heat, the throngs of people, or anything else but his work. The janitor mops the floors, contented. Like you, he has no designs to go anywhere else.

The line moves several meters forward while you watch the janitor. Eventually, he lifts his head and notices you for the first time. The muscles in your face ache as you summon a smile. The result must be obscene or hostile because he hurriedly returns to mopping, a few half-hearted brushes just for show before he scurries away entirely.

Now, you are alone again.

You put your head between your legs and try to breathe like they suggest people having panic attacks do in the movies. The position does help chase back your rising gorge and settles your rolling stomach. It does nothing for your thoughts.

You remember when Hanma’s long fingers found your clit, how he exploited his knowledge of your body to rub you to a forced little orgasm, like he wouldn’t be content until you were made an active participant in your indignity, his forever accomplice, the Stavrogin to his Fedka.

A thundering accompanies a plane taking off from the tarmac, loud enough to chase away the memories. You watch the massive passenger plane soar north until it becomes a speck on the horizon. It will never cease to amaze you how for the hundreds of people aboard that plane, each knows exactly where they are going and why. Their destination is well and truly decided. Too late to change their minds or second-guess.

Whenever you try to think of where you will go next – because surely you can’t live in the airport departures lounge, surely someone, anyone, will eventually realize the ghost of a woman has made a home there, will recognize that you’ve overstayed your welcome, will chase you out, right? – your brain throws up nothing but roadblocks. You imagine returning to your cold, hostile apartment, and the contents of your stomach dance in protest. Your apartment is no longer a safe space.

Your phone vibrates again, and this time, you don’t have the strength to ignore it. Fished from your pocket, you stare at the characters in Shuji’s name, tracing them one by one. Your finger hovers over the button to answer.

What he did last night – did to you – is unforgivable. You may not know what happened to Haitani, but it doesn’t matter. You did not deserve that.

And that should be that. A definitive break with Hanma is the only logical next step. Everything you built together is decimated, just so much sawdust stamped beneath his paranoid feet.

But where does that leave you? You know there will be no returning to your old life? The apartment will never be safe again now that Hanma’s been inside, not since you invited him inside. It will never be clean after what happened.

And maybe you won’t be either. Something inside you is fundamentally changed. Because even now, some part of you wants to go to him. Perhaps want is the wrong word. Without the old survival tools that carried you through the years, you feel cast adrift, weaker than when Hanma found you.

Eventually, Hanma will escalate from ignored phone calls and, vulnerable as you are, will you be able to say no to his face? Worse, will you lean into him, longing for his protection from the demons he himself unleashed on your life?

You don’t take his call, but you don’t leave the airport either. Nothing can change so long as you stay here, but then again, nothing can hurt you either.

Stuck, your return to staring at the floors.

You choose to take the elevator up to your apartment, spending the better part of the ride convincing yourself that no demons will await you, so all five senses revolt when you find the hallway outside your door laden with cardboard boxes. They’re not taped up like a delivery would be, and besides, you pick your mail up from the mailroom downstairs. Peeking into one box, you see it’s filled with your old textbooks from university, the ones that should be neatly shelved and collecting dust in your bedroom.

Inside, pornographic moaning greets you. Stopped in your tracks, you almost miss the changes: the photographs in the entry hall have been removed, your shoes are missing from the alcove. There is no mess, just gaps where your life should be.

While taking an itemized inventory of what’s missing appeals to you, the lewd sounds coming from the living room force you forward. On the TV, a naked woman rides a man. She carries on like it’s the best damn dick of her life, touching her own body like something sacred as she cries out.

The woman is you, of course you can see that much, but your brain struggles to play catch up and process this baffling, foreign view of yourself. It’s almost harder to comprehend how wanton you appear in the video rather than that such a video exists in the first place.

“I think we can agree there’s no need for a scene.”

Emerging from the bedroom, Takashi’s doesn’t spare the screen a second glance. It would only take one to confirm that the woman in the video is you, and that the man is decidedly not him.

Between self-indulgent rounds of sex with Hanma, you often wondered how you would feel if Takashi discovered your affair. Secretly, you longed for guilt. A great tsunami of devotion to Takashi and the concept of monogamy would rise within you, the tears would fall, and seconds later, apologies would follow. You hoped for a scene out of the soap operas, something normal.

The reality is less fraught as you are too stunned to summon up any response at all. If only Takashi would turn the video off. Then, maybe your brain would work again. There is no room for coherent thought around the wet, slapping sounds intermixed with moans coming from the TV.

“I knew you were sleeping with patients for months now. It never bothered me too much. So, when I saw the videos, I didn’t understand at first why I was so repulsed by it. But then, I put it together. I had figured some fat, rich fuck at work offered you enough money, and I could hardly blame you for that. If a client offered me money to fuck, I’d do it, too. But watching the videos, I realized, you weren’t just fucking this yakuza creep for money, were you? You liked it.”

There is a forcefield around Takashi that repels your gaze. You can test its parameters by starting at the juts of his knees and slowly climbing upward. It’s around his neck, the first bit of exposed skin, that the forcefield kicks into effect, and you find you cannot bring your gaze higher than the hollow of his throat, and even that takes a supreme effort. You turn back to the video playing out on screen.

“So you’re leaving me, then?” you say because it must be said if things are to continue from here.

“Things are busy at work. I don’t see why my life should be disrupted when I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m sure you’ll take responsibility as the offending party and move out without a fuss.”

“That would be sensible,” you agree.

Heady with the realization that this is actually happening – you are truly breaking up with your boyfriend – you force yourself to look at him, one last look to imprint forever in your mind. Immediately, you wish you hadn’t.

Takashi looks past you to the video on screen, where the you of only a few weeks back is loudly and visibly announcing how much she likes every stroke of dick before erupting into a shaking orgasm. Lips curled as if tasting something foul, Takashi regards the woman in the video like something subhuman. You try to watch the video through his eyes, but you can’t break free from the chains of your own perspective, a fuzzy migraine cresting in your temples at the sight of Hanma’s body, memories of this pleasurable tryst weeks ago mixing with last night’s events until you feel like the edges of your brain are collapsing inward.

There is no point to torturing yourself with the video or further conversation. Ignoring the shame in your gut, you follow numbly a step behind Takashi as he finishes packing your things. Most of your meager belongings are already stacked in the hall, but still, there is something stunning about how quickly your life is packed up out of sight. After living together for eight years, you would have left such an indelible mark that only industrial strength tools could strip your essence from the walls of this place. There are a couple overlooked items: the vase of artificial flowers Shuji gifted you, a box of tissues if you care to be petty, the spoons with scalloped edges, but, functionally, your life is stripped, relegated to boxes, and pushed aside within a measly half hour.

All the while, the video plays on. When it finishes, autoplay kicks in and offers up a second to continue your humiliation. The second is slightly preferrable as you make less of a spectacle of your delirious pleasure in it, yet worse because it shows Shuji more clearly, the dragon tattoo on his back flexing as he pounds into your prone body, face crinkling in animal pleasure. You can’t stand to look at him.

These videos…the only explanation for their existence is Shuji. They’re an abomination, something that shouldn’t exist and can’t be allowed to continue to exist. The gall of their existence builds in you until you discover enough anger to break the silence that’s drawn tight between you and Takashi.

“Takashi, if I go quietly, will you please delete these videos?”

“Sure,” he agrees simply, but at their mention, Takashi then looks back to the sex tape on screen, and that same revulsion morphs the contours of his face into something unfamiliar. “I suspected it for months, and then after reading your diary, I knew it for certain, and still…seeing it? When I watched the first one, I debated if it was even real. It had to be some kind of tasteless hoax. Because that’s not you in these. You’re like a stranger. I mean, look at it,” he says, gesturing to the screen. “That’s not you. And that guy…How does touching that criminal freak not disgust you? It’s like watching a pig take a mud bath. Disgusting.”

The shelf where you once stored your medical magazines is barren. Naked. There isn’t much dust though. You had spent a few hours cleaning last Sunday. That’s good, you think, one good thing. Everything Takashi says about you is true. Your lack of fear or righteous hatred of Hanma signals a great moral failing on your part. You are a failure, Monstrous.

Spinning out in self-loathing, you stand mutely for a solid minute before your brain hooks onto a single detail and everything clicks firmly into place.

“Wait, you read my therapy diary?”

“Don’t go crying about privacy now. I could tell you were running around on me and wanted to know,” Takashi snaps.

The finer details of what you recorded in that diary escape you, but you know you frequently wrote about your conversations, encoding but not entirely skipping over references to his business. It was stupid, of course, but the diary was intended for your eyes only, an exercise in self-reflection. The same Takashi who told you he was coming into an unexpected windfall of money at work. The same Takashi who had ripped your bedroom apart, supposedly looking for signs of your infidelity. The same Takashi who had demanded details about your patients. If that same Takashi had read your diary months ago he would have known about the HKJ deal, about Haitani soliciting you, about far too much.

“You weren’t reading my diary because you were jealous. You were paid to spy on me, weren’t you?”

And you know just who paid him as well. Based of your three interactions, you should have predicted that Haitani is not a man who accepts defeat easily. He is like a river. When he can’t force his way through an obstacle, he finds a way around.

“I did what you should have done in the first place,” Takashi sneers.

It is not defensiveness, at least not as far as you can tell, that spurs Takashi to confess. In his mind, you’ve already been reduced to something subhuman, a creature undeserving of consideration let alone sympathy, someone he could justify the worst abuses against, so convinced of his own righteousness. But whatever grievance Takashi may imagine against you, nothing can compare to what Takashi cost you. If he hadn’t betrayed you to Ran, then last night…Hanma…

You think you could gouge Takashi’s eyes out and he still wouldn’t understand the hurt he caused you. Minutes prior, you felt completely extinguished, like your flames had been put out forever, but now a pilot light flickers and it’s enough to bring forth an inferno, a heat you didn’t dare hope you would ever feel again.

“How dare you! You want to lecture me about getting into bed with the yakuza when you’re climbing into the bank with one! What if you had gotten someone hurt or killed? Did you even think about what would happen to me? You’re a slimy, despicable, cowardly –”

Shouting over you as you continue to levy every imaginable invective against him, Takashi spits, “Like you’re some paragon of virtue. Were you thinking about your patients when you started screwing them? Or did you not give a fuck who you hurt? Last time I checked, they don’t let yakuza whores keep their licenses. Speaking of which, you should know I’ve already sent these videos to the Japanese Psychological Association. You can look forward to a call from the ethics board.”

The bomb drop has the desired effect. It collapses the floor beneath your feet, gobbles up the words in your mouth, and implodes the tiny sliver of security that you still clung to. A life gone in a moment.

You are going to lose your license.

No job.

No home.

No friends.

No boyfriend.

No security.

Nothing.

The last box of your things and the vase of flowers are shoved into your hands. They feel weightless in your arms. On autopilot, you accept them and Takashi’s pushing hands on your back as he shepherds you towards the door.

This is the last time you will see this apartment that you called home for so long: the warped wood that’s risen under the heat of the window, the lightbulb in the kitchen that flicks if your run the dishwasher at the same time, the dent no bigger than a thumbprint, or more accurately, a door handle in the wall from where the front door slammed into it with too much force.

You want to press pause, to slow down the moment. You would take a final photo if you could, breathe in the smell of this place and bottle it for a future date. Anything to linger for one second longer before you are cast out into the unforgiving cold.

Takashi does not take mercy on you.

“You should be thankful you don’t have a family to shame,” he hisses.

And then the door slams shut. With you on one side and your life on the other.

Everything you once were is gone forever.

On second look, there are fewer than a dozen boxes stacked in the hall. Such a small life. You thoughtlessly heft a small, light-seeming box onto the bundle already in your arms. Dazedly, you stumble past the rest, leaving them behind with no plan for when or who will come to collect them, and even less of an idea of where you’ll send them.

There is no hurry. Nowhere to go. Yet, you too quickly find yourself pressing through the revolving doors that lead out onto the street and the blinding midday sun, which fittingly leeches the color from the world, so that everything’s cast in long shadows. On instinct, you raise a hand to shield your eyes, dropping the little you own to shatter on the sidewalk. A pitiful relief wells in you as you drop to your knees to retrieve your belongings; it is something to do.

Since Takashi cratered the foundations on which your entire existence rested, the normally persistent voice in your head – the one that would caution you against calling a taxi when a subway ticket cost less than 200 yen or would push you to stay that extra hour in university, the one that essentially kept you alive – has been traitorously silent, and so you know that you ought to figure out a place to stay for the night, to calculate how long your savings will last, and brainstorm a strategy to fight the ethics board, but you can’t keep any one thought in your head long enough to develop something concrete. Each stirring of a thought drips through the cracks between your fingers, like trying to collect water in the cup of your palm. You can’t make a plan. What you can do is kneel on the dirty sidewalk and clean up your mess.

First, you right the little box you scooped up from the hallway. Peeking inside, you see it’s mostly filled with socks and underwear. The second box that Takashi forced into your hands is less useful. Inside are shattered picture frames, the photos inside detailing the lives you shared or, at least, lived in parallel. You can’t tell if they cracked in the fall or if Takashi ritualistically broke each as a parting gift. Even less useful somehow is the vase of fake flowers Hanma gave you, now lying scattered, a collection of jagged ceramic shards.

You herd the broken pieces into a little pile, careful as you do to avoid slicing your fingertips against the sharp edges. As you delicately lift one piece, you feel out something small and round affixed to the inside. With an emotion milder than curiosity, you peel the coin-like anomaly off. Holding it to the light, you puzzle at what looks like a microchip.

And then, all you can do is laugh, as your memory offers up an old spy movie where you saw a device just like this, hidden in a flower vase. It’s a bug.

Of course, he bugged your apartment. Even a gesture as simple as gifting you flowers in apology is warped, twisted into something malicious with Hanma. He’s been laying the foundation for your downfall for months now. Just waiting to crumble you to dust in his hands.

A familiar car pulls up to the curb where you sit, laughing maniacally to yourself. You laugh harder when you spot it. Perfect fucking timing.

The window rolls down, and for one terrible second, you lock eyes with Shuji. Terrible, venomous eyes, the gaze of a viper, hidden away behind glass lenses as if without that layer of protection, he might penetrate you to your core. No, not a viper, a basilisk.

The way he’s dressed, hair perfectly coiffed and in the tailored suit that is his work uniform, offends your sensibilities. From his height advantage, he peers down at you like a scientist watching a bug through a microscope. You feel as small as a mite.

“You can spend the night at my place,” Hanma says, without so much as a greeting because he need not dignify you with niceties. A person needn’t spare a termite a hello before stepping on it.

A plane flies overhead, so low it tricks the eye for a moment, makes you think it’ll crash into the skyscrapers dotting the cityscape. You follow it with your eyes until it’s long out of sight, retracing the chemtrail it leaves in its wake. You almost forget Hanma is here, watching.

Pressed through a sigh, Hanma says your name. His voice, toneless and impossibly deep strikes you like a whip, a thousand times worse than seeing him. It is the charge you need to act.

Bursting to your feet, you leave all but your box of underwear and march determinedly in the other direction. Adrenaline courses through your veins, a jittery but appreciated focuser, and for the first time, you are able to think outside your fugue state. You will find a hotel for the night, something cheap that pays by the hour. If you walk for five minutes, you’re sure to find something.

Anything is better than Hanma’s offer.

“Get in the car.”

You ignore Hanma’s first call and his second, pretending his voice doesn’t make your hands shake so hard you fear you’ll drop the box. The Bentley keeps pace with you to the right. At the first intersection, a redlight stops the Bentley dead.

“For fuck’s sake!”

The curse is a warning before Hanma charges out of the car, arms extended as if to grab you and drag you into the cavern of his Bentley. The dark interior beckons ominously, hinting at a cacophony of horrors. To go into that car is to die.

His fingers don’t so much as graze yours before you start to scream.

Hoarse, guttural screams that turn the necks of every passerby in the area emerge from your bruised throat, a scream that must be tearing your throat apart, but you can’t feel the pain through the adrenaline rush. Heads pop out of nearby shops to see who is making such a ruckus and why. Amid the animal shrieks, the occasional curse takes place, a well-timed “motherfucker” or “waste of space.” To anyone watching, you appear unhinged. A lifetime of pain and rage unleash in one concentrated exhale of agony. If you could bottle the force behind your bellows, they would blow a hole through Hanma’s brain and vaporize what’s left. You scream in his face like you hope to erase him from existence like he did you.

Time holds no meaning now, and you think you might black out or suffer a psychotic break that blacks over just what you say or do in those precious moments of freedom. Whether Hanma is appalled by your behavior, if it makes him want to hurt, fuck, or kill you is irrelevant. Blissfully blank, you become the beast Takashi thinks you are and growl and rage and bare your teeth.

Stunned into stillness by the spectacle, Hanma’s gaze darts between you and the spectators who could intervene, but as no one steps forward to help the crazy woman having a breakdown, Hanma loses his patience.

He slaps a hand over your mouth, muffling your hysterical shrieking. His body is so much larger than yours, something you once craved, but now it crowds and bullies you toward the parked door, where the wide-open passenger door signals your doom. You go silent. You transfer every bit of energy from your throat to your body. Biting and bucking, you fight him with every ounce of strength you possess.

No amount of thrashing could overpower Hanma at full-strength, but he treats you gently with none of last night’s brutality. Kid gloves try to handle you with care as if he would never think to harm you, no not you, his precious, beloved pet. How could you even think such a thing? Unwilling to hurt you, Hanma grapples against your flailing arms for a full minute before backing off, hands tugging at his hair in frustration. He is panting though not half so hard as you are.

“Would you fucking stop!” Hanma snaps. “You should be grateful for what I did. You should –”

Whatever lovely suggestion would have topped off that sentence, you don’t wait to hear, lashing out with a closed fist before he can finish.

You aim for his cheek, but Hanma sees the blow coming, so your fist glances off his neck.

The next punch is somehow more pitiful. Powered by your righteous indignation, you throw your full-body weight behind it, but Hanma bats you aside, so that your shoulder collides into his chest and the punch dies out against the air. Hanma folds the leftover arm behind your body and pins you to his chest, so that all the bucking in the world won’t be enough to break free. He is a titanium wall of muscle and violence, and he has you in his grasp. You think you might vomit.

All the energy in your body evaporates, and you slump into his embrace.

“Finally,” Hanma mutters but without frustration. There is a hint of satisfaction there. A hint of humor at your suffering.

“Let me go,” you whisper.

“Will you behave like a good girl if I do?”

“Let me go.”

Hanma sighs, “Oh, Doc, come on. All this carrying on over limp-dick Takashi? He’s not worth it.”

“Didn’t you hear? While you were eavesdropping, didn’t you hear?” you chuckle a little, a sound strange enough that Hanma eases up on his grip, enough so that he can peer down at your face. You are both equally surprised to discover that you are crying, little matte tears slipping down your cheeks. “I didn’t just lose my boyfriend and my apartment. Oh no! I’m also going to lose my fucking license!”

“What? Why would you lose your license?” Hanma visibly startles, and on any other day, you might have enjoyed one-upping him, but not today. And never again.

“Is this what you wanted from the beginning? To lay me completely low? Did you think that when I was broke and starving, I’d have no choice but to rely on your limited generosity? To let you play with me until you get bored? Because I have nothing left to give, Hanma. I’m not even a human being anymore. I’m nothing.”

“Listen, Doc, relax. This is a panic attack. I’ll take care of Takashi and whatever he did. I’ll make it go away. You just come home with me, and I’ll take care of you and –”

“I may be nothing, but I’d rather be nothing than be with you,” you spit in his face.

His hands slacken for a moment, and you use that moment of weakness to break free.

Once more, Hanma’s hand reaches out as if to grab you, but you turn to him and with every bit of solemnity in your soul, so that the words read with all the gravity of a blood oath, you swear, “If you force me to go anywhere with you, I swear I will find a way to kill myself.”

The fingers on Hanma’s hand flex. The veins pop and strain like his body is rebelling against him, urging him to clutch, grab, cage. But then that hand falls to his side, stills.

This time, when you walk away, he doesn’t follow.

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