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forlix · 1 month

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𝐚𝐜𝐞・h.h.

— volleyball superstar and your personal hell hwang hyunjin proposes a trade-off you can't refuse: his matchmaking services for a passing anthropology grade. the plan is foolproof in theory; in practice, it is something else entirely.

words・15.2k

pairing・volleyball player!hyunjin x tutor!reader (gn)

genres・college!au, sports!au, fake enemies to friends to lovers, fluff, humor, hurt/comfort, slice of life, mutual pining, slow burn. two polar opposites sharing one soul. a seungjin fic if u squint. loosely inspired by the manga/anime haikyuu!!

warnings・mentions of anxiety, fear of failure, heartbreak, loneliness, and self-image. course language and callous banter (as always) ft. suggestive flirting and one kms joke. some of the referenced players and coaches are real; this fic is not.

playlist・collision by stray kids・value by ado・waiting for us by stray kids・eternity by bang chan・dreaming by smallpools・fly high!! by burnout syndromes

a/n・writing this felt like returning to my roots tbh. i love volleyball and i love sports aus and i love, love hwang hyunjin. thank u to my sahar for bringing this fic to life with me, as always; i can no longer write for him without also writing for you. i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i adored writing it. happy late birthday, our jinnie, our hyunjin, our forever ace; you are so unbelievably loved ♡

“Not a word out of you,” you say, tossing your backpack onto the floor of the lecture hall with a heavy-handed flick. “I’m serious.”

Hyunjin glances up at you with a frown. “When did people stop saying good morning?”

Your lack of an immediate comeback tells him the situation is dire. He observes you for a moment, his mouth falling open, hanging still, then curving into a slow, serpentine smile.

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Please, angel.”

“No! Leave me alone.”

Hyunjin slumps back into his seat, thinking hard. The solution occurs to him with a poke of his tongue into his cheek. “Coffee on me for a week.”

At this, your hands stop rummaging in your bag. You cock your head, your interest piqued. Got you.

When you finally humor him and turn around, you’re flinching like you’re in pain, eyes closed and breath held and all. He giggles and leans in for a closer look. Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes if he wasn’t so flummoxed by the state of your forehead.

“What the hell did you do?”

“Tried to cut my own bangs,” you sigh. “It didn’t go very well and now I look like Rock Lee.”

Hyunjin lets out a forceful laugh. “You’ve seen Naruto?”

You open your eyes. Only then does Hyunjin remember how little distance he left between your faces, when he’s staring straight into them and all the strange, starry speckles they hold.

The air between you curdles like sour milk.

Things are awkward between you often, he’s realized recently. What’s more, he didn’t think he was capable of being awkward with anyone anymore until he met you. It was your ill-fated seat that he chose to sit next to on the first day of ANTH 111, your ill-fated lap onto which he chose to spill his Americano, and the rest was history (or, in this case, anthropology). His tongue ends up in sailor’s knots with every smart-aleck comment and pitiful laugh you’ve given him since. Maybe there’s more to it, maybe there isn’t—Hyunjin doesn’t think about it much. He doesn’t like thinking in general.

You pull away from each other in unison. You clear your throat, glancing elsewhere.

“Of course I’ve seen Naruto,” you quip, and everything is normal again. “Why do you seem surprised?”

“Because you’re so scholarly.”

“I am not scholarly.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You go to a park to play chess with old people on weekends.”

“I need to get my steps in somehow.”

“You didn’t know what Urban Dictionary was until I told you to look up—”

“God, I learned so much about you that day."

“Your favorite social media platform is Quizlet,” he bursts, exasperated. “Quizlet.”

“It is not.” An introspective pause. “Or is it?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Hyunjin throws his feet up on the chair below him, jabs in your direction with a bandaged finger. “There is no way you enjoy watching 2D men beat each other up in your free time. I don’t buy it.”

“Honestly, I thought you’d have more to say about my current appearance than my hobbies.”

He does, though. Matter of fact, he’s been curating a list since this conversation started: Vector from Despicable Me, Dora the Explorer’s hot older sibling, Spock. You face-planted into a lawnmower. You mistook a paper shredder for a hat. It goes on.

But then his head turns. Your eyes meet again. He’s reminded that it’s hard to sustain an inner monologue and look at you at the same time, Vector resemblance and all.

He reaches up, nudges a lock of your hair over a centimeter or so, and gives the patch of forehead a gentle flick.

“Watermelon,” he mumbles with a sickening smile.

You divert your attention to your lecture notes with a disappointed click of your tongue. “You’re getting soft.”

He spends the entire lecture daydreaming about tropical coastlines.

“I only get coffee from that one place on the east side of campus, by the way,” you say as you’re strolling out the building together, “and I get it a very specific way. Can you handle it?”

“Your faith gets me out of bed in the morning,” Hyunjin deadpans. “I’ll handle it, love. Text me your order.”

All of a sudden, you position your hands close to your stomach, the lapels of your jacket casting them in shadow. Your fingers begin to move in a sequence that he’d recognize anywhere.

“Body flicker jutsu,” you whisper, and then you’re scurrying off without another word—but you do glance back at him to gauge his response. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the main quad’s busy thrum.

Hyunjin gapes at your retreating figure for so long that phosphenes start prancing around his field of view. Then he heads to the gym. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Hyunjin stops lacing up his shoes to see Coach Bang standing on the court’s sideline with a grim air about him. He glances at his captain, confused.

“Don’t look at me,” Minho says mid-stretch. “Godspeed.”

“Thanks, cap.” Useless.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. It’s all fluorescent lights and spotless white walls, the only decorative fixture a picture of his siblings, parents, and dog in front of the Sydney Opera House, framed and facing him atop his desk. Hyunjin once snuck the thing into the bathroom, an innocent plot to satiate his curiosity, and promptly discovered the man’s propensity for violence. He’s packing beneath those dry-cleaned polos, by the way.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “You can read, right?”

“Yes, coach,” he sighs. Everyone’s expectations for him are subterranean.

From: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Not good See email from Hwang’s antopology professor below . He submitted the complete script of the Trolls movie instead of his mid term paper and now he’s failing the class . Not good . Sort out ASAP JP Sent from my iPad

Bang snatches up his mouse and scrolls, his ears turning scarlet. “Wrong email.”

“Yep.”

From: Kim Kyeyoung «[email protected]» To: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» Subject: Regarding Hwang Hyunjin To Director of Athletics Park, I am writing to inform you that, as of yesterday, Mr. Hwang Hyunjin has a D- (64.9%) in ANTH 111: Cultural Anthropology, due to his submission of the complete script of a kids’ movie instead of his midterm paper. It is disappointing to see Mr. Hwang trivialize and ridicule my class to such a degree. Please see to it that he reorganizes his priorities lest his Student-Athlete Participation Agreement do so for him. Regards, Kim Kyeyoung Professor of Anthropology

“That’s bullshit!”

“We’re in agreement there.” Bang folds his arms over his chest, throws his foot over his knee. “Do you know what your Student-Athlete Participation Agreement says?”

“Does anyone?” Hyunjin scoffs. Bang whips out a form and brings it to eye level, the thing covered from top to bottom in microscopic Times New Roman. “No way you just had that.”

“I had it delivered ten minutes ago,” Bang confesses, then clears his throat and begins to recite. “All student-athletes must complete the academic term with a C or higher in all courses, should they wish to continue their participation in athletics thereafter.”

Hyunjin stiffens. “What the fuck? I’ve never heard—”

“If any Department of Athletics personnel,” Bang continues, raising his voice, “have reason to believe that a student-athlete will not be able to satisfy this requirement, they are encouraged to utilize resources such as academic advising or peer tutoring in guiding said student-athlete back onto the correct path.”

He shoves the piece of paper across his desk. “Read that name aloud for me.”

Hyunjin stares at the signature at the bottom of the page, scrawled so carelessly that most of it deviates away from its designated line. There is a rare hollowness in his chest that he recognizes as anxiety. With it comes a glimpse of a life without volleyball, the question of what little of him would remain.

“Hwang Hyunjin,” he says under his breath.

The office goes silent. Bang tucks the form back into his drawer. It closes with a gentle click.

Then comes the yelling.

“The Trolls movie? Trolls?! Are you fucking with me, Hwang?”

“It was a cultural reset! The pinnacle of modern media! How’s that for anthropology?”

“BAD!” Bang explodes, gesturing to the email emphatically. “VERY, VERY BAD!”

Hyunjin slumps over, dejected.

“You’ve never had trouble with school before.” He leans over his desk imposingly. “What the hell happened this semester? What changed?”

Nothing is the first answer that comes to mind, but Hyunjin’s pulse spikes like a lie detector. Upon the inside of his eyes replays a scene of a certain someone with watermelon bangs doing teleportation jutsu at him from a few yards away, wearing a smile made of some kind of space dust that astronomists haven’t discovered yet.

He grits his teeth, annoyed. This is what happens when he thinks.

“Beats me,” he fibs. “Typical junior year stress, maybe.”

“Does any of it have to do with Piazza?”

Hyunjin shudders.

It just might, actually.

Modesty has no place in the career he’s had: high school national champion turned ace hitter in both the South Korean U21 roster and regular rotation for Seoul National University, the best collegiate volleyball team in the country. His name has lived at the top of ranking lists and the center of gold medals since he turned old enough to qualify for them; the press believes him the instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution. It’s a mouthful, he knows.

It was never a question that he would go professional; the question was who he should talk to and where he would go.

At the start of the school year, Bang, acting in place of the agent he was advised to find and never bothered to, gave him a list of people to reach out to. On the very top was none other than Roberto Piazza, the chairman and head coach of Allianz Milano, one of the most eminent club teams in the world—and current home to Hyunjin’s personal idol, outside hitter Ishikawa Yuki.

Hyunjin thought his poor coach had finally succumbed to his old age. The thought of stepping onto the same court as Ishikawa felt sacrilegious, let alone donning the red, white, and navy blue of Allianz Milano with him. But Bang slapped him on the back of the neck and reminded him that going professional was equal parts preparation and opportunity; he was never going to know the answers to questions he didn’t ask. Hyunjin was coerced to fire off an introductory email despite his reservations.

Piazza replied within the week.

For the last five months, Hyunjin has been fighting with tooth and nail to manage his expectations. He scrolls past the team’s social media posts like they burn his eyes. He replies to Piazza’s emails right before working out with Changbin under the assumption that whatever the shredded libero does to him will eviscerate his brain. If his world is made of dreams, this is the one at its very core, imbued with destructive potential the second it became attainable.

But that’s the last five months. The last five weeks have been you kicking him in the shin because he’s laughing (or trying to make you laugh) and the professor is staring; you listening to him rant and rave about volleyball when he knows you couldn’t care less about the sport; you relaying the contents of your class readings like hot gossip, your eyes wild and hands flying around because you can’t contain your excitement. You, you, you.

He cards a hand through his air, regaining focus. “You know how I feel about Piazza.”

“Expect the worst, hope for the best.” Bang’s chair skids backwards as he stands up. “I think it’s a good approach.”

Suddenly, he is directly in front of Hyunjin, low enough to meet his eyes. His hands rest upon his shoulders firmly.

“But hope is hungry, and it will consume you if you let it,” he says. “Do not let it, Hyunjin. I’m not asking.”

Even while being squeezed to a pulp and regarded with the cold intensity of a statue, Hyunjin can’t help but feel anchored, somehow, to the floor of this miserable office. Protected.

Bang lets go of him. “I’m not asking you to find a tutor by the end of the week, either.”

Hyunjin groans. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”

A set of bandaged fingers appear in your periphery to place a paper cup onto your laptop. Accompanying the smell of fresh coffee is that of smoky rose, as decidedly douchey as ever.

“I thought you said your order was complicated.”

You look up from your phone to see Hyunjin plop into the adjacent seat. His long, caramel-colored hair is damp and unstyled in the aftermath of a morning shower, droplets of water pearling on the lapels of a navy blue windbreaker, layered over a white long sleeve. You recognize the outfit by now as game gear.

“Was it not?” You ask.

“It was an Americano, love. I walked up to the cashier and placed an order for an Americano.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if you could handle that much.” He flips you off as you squint at the cup. “Someone wrote their number on the lid, by the way.”

“What? Really?”

“No.”

He shoves you hard enough for your upper body to drape over the opposite armrest; you’re still cackling by the time you’ve straightened up again.

“Why did you get this, anyway?” Hyunjin grumbles. “I thought you had a sweet tooth.”

“I do, but you don’t.”

Only then does the fool understand that you had no intention of charging him in coffee just for a haircut reveal. He takes back the coffee hesitantly.

“Thanks,” he says at last. “Nice of you.”

“I know, right? Hated it,” you respond, and he almost chokes on his first sip.

You almost choke on nothing when Kim Seungmin materializes in the aisle adjacent. He holds out a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “Yo.”

Hyunjin dabs it up mid-sip. “I fully forgot you were in this class.”

“Well, I’m due for my weekly appearance.” Seungmin slips into the seat directly below you, glancing at you over his shoulder. “Hey, Y/N.”

“Hi,” you say, somehow managing to stumble over the single syllable the word has. You thank your lucky stars that you fixed your hair yesterday.

You like Kim Seungmin. Not just in the cutesy, crushy way, but in the “I would relinquish all of my rights for you” way where you spend every waking moment cursing out whatever stroke of misfortune placed Hyunjin in the seat next to you instead of him. He’s funny, gorgeous, and talented—a vocal performance major with a student-athlete contract—and you think your infatuation is more than justified. Hyunjin thinks it’s hilarious.

You side-eye your blonde adversary, prepared to see one of three things: a suppressed laugh, a dramatic eye-roll, or a mature kissy face that usually results in the first option. You’re met with something far more worrisome.

He’s thinking.

That can’t be good.

Suddenly, his phone screen lights up with a text that temporarily wipes the conspiratorial gleam from his eye. Hyunjin scans it over and groans. “Can this guy do his fucking job?”

“He wouldn’t have to if you didn’t quit,” Seungmin answers. “I’ll never forget you, Manager Hwang.”

“Shut up.” You peer at Hyunjin, silently requesting an explanation. “Our captain is forcing us to help him look for a new team manager. We need one for playoffs because of some stupid U-League rule—Seung, why do you look morose?”

“I’m mourning.” Seungmin does look morose indeed. “Hyunjin committed larceny last year and our coach punished him by making him our team manager for the rest of the season. It was so funny.”

Hyunjin slides down his seat. “It was the worst experience of my life.”

Neither man seems inclined to elaborate on the mention of larceny. You choose to digress. “Can I ask why?”

“He had to be responsible,” Seungmin whispers. “For other people.”

The top of Hyunjin’s head stops right next to your armrest. You reach over and pat his hair in faux sympathy. “Poor thing.”

“Hardass refused to do it again this year, so now we’re recruiting.” Seungmin props an elbow upon the back of his chair, looks at you contemplatively. “I don’t suppose you have four hours to spare every day.”

Hyunjin scoffs from below you. Loudly. “This one? Team manager?”

“I can see it.”

“I can see killing myself, maybe.”

The next time you reach for him is to smack his forehead. A crisp smack resounds around the barren lecture hall, and Hyunjin cusses into his seat cushion.

“Seems like a great candidate to me,” Seungmin muses, and the warm smile he gives you mirrors onto your face before you can think better of it. God, it’s pretty. You wonder how it would feel pressed against your own.

Hyunjin is now completely out of sight and halfway onto the floor. “I miss when you didn’t come to class, Seungmin.”

Eighty minutes later, you’ve just emerged from the classroom when Seungmin calls out to you. You come to such a sudden halt that Hyunjin almost trips over you, but you barely notice him stumble, utterly enraptured by the hand Seungmin brings to the strands of hair by your ear, the fingers that dust your cheek as they pluck a small piece of lint from out of the tresses.

“Sorry.” He flicks it away with a sheepish smile. “I couldn’t unsee it.”

You manage to thank him just before your whole body ceases to function. Hyunjin sidesteps the two of you, yawning.

Seungmin excuses himself not too long after you reach the main quad. You also turn to leave, sparing Hyunjin a curt farewell in the process. He hooks his pointer finger around the handle at the top of your backpack and lugs you backwards with infuriating ease.

“I didn’t like that at all,” you say.

“I don’t care. I have something to tell you.”

“You have a kid, don’t you?”

“Wha—huh? Who do you think I am?”

“The one-night-stand’s poster child. The champion of the contraception industry.”

“Yeah, contraception industry. It’s right there in the name.”

You can’t argue with that. “What do you have to tell me?”

A shadow of hesitation flits across Hyunjin’s face. Your smile falters. Is it possible that you’re about to have a serious conversation with him for the first time? Maybe you should’ve saved the secret son bit for another time.

“I’m failing anthro.”

So much for a serious conversation.

“Come again?”

He repeats the mystifying statement.

“You’re joking.” The look on his face says otherwise, though, and your eyebrows disappear into your hair. “You’re failing anthro?”

“I just said that, yes.”

“You’re failing anthropology?”

“Mhm.”

“Just so we’re clear—you’re failing Introduction to Cultural Anthropology?”

“Yes. I’m glad you’re having fun.”

This is the best day of your life. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Yeah, well, our professor has no media literacy,” he mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Hyunjin clears his throat. “Anyways, I was thinking—”

“Wow! Congratulations. That’s a big—oomf—”

Hyunjin puts his entire hand over your face. Your mangled noises of protest go unacknowledged.

“I was thinking,” he continues, pushing your head around like a stick shift, “you and I can work out some kind of deal.”

You shove his wrist off you with a revolted groan. “I think I just ate some athletic tape.”

“Happens. You wanna hear the deal or not?”

“Does it involve ingesting more sports equipment?”

“Do you want it to?”

“Just tell me the deal, boy.”

“Alright.” He takes a deep breath. “If you help me pass this class, I’ll set you up with Seungmin.”

Your head performs a triple-axel on your neck. You are unable to respond for what feels like multiple hours. Finally: “I’m gonna need you to elaborate.”

“On which part?”

“All of them. Everything.”

Hyunjin sighs, then scans the courtyard. His gaze settles on the student union a little ways off. “Are you hungry?”

You pick up a sandwich and a smoothie in a state of nervous stupor. One would think it’s the prime minister you’re about to have lunch with and not an imbecilic left-side hitter eating from three different entrees at the same time.

He’s chosen a table a few yards away from a planter of flowering cherry blossom trees. You feel jealous eyes on the side of your face as you take a seat across from Hyunjin, but they don’t know that his telephone pole legs still bump against yours even with them drawn as close to your body as anatomically possible. Or that he’s drawing up a literal Ponzi scheme on your sandwich wrapper. You wager you’ve had better company.

“You like anthropology. I like listening to you talk about anthropology.” He traces over the wrapper’s left corner. “And I kinda want you to boss me around. That weird?”

“Yes, definitely,” you mumble around a mouthful of bread. “Go on.”

“Conclusion one: you should be my tutor.” He taps in place as if applying a finishing touch, then swaps to the opposite side. “You also like my teammate, but he’s neck-deep in volleyball and music this semester, which makes him hard to get a hold of—for most people.”

“Let me guess. Not for you.”

“Ten points to Ravenclaw.” His British accent is nightmarish. “Seung and I live in the same building. We get dinner when we go back from practice together. Conclusion two: you should come with us.”

“To dinner or to practice?”

“To both. Which brings us to my third and final conclusion—”

He slams a fist onto the center of the wrapper.

“—you should manage our team.”

“I knew it!” You slam the table as well, your smoothie wobbling upon impact. “You’re trying to swindle me! You can’t pay for my labor with more labor. What do you take me for?”

“It’s not labor, dumbass! Ask our last manager! He didn’t do shit!”

“Yeah? Who was your last manager?”

“Me!”

Oh, right. “But you hated it!”

“I hate everything that isn’t playing volleyball. Try again.”

You fold your arms over your chest. “You said you’d kill yourself if I managed you.”

Hyunjin starts balling up your sandwich wrapper. “It’s true. I thought about you and my coach getting along and promptly got a rash. But it makes so much sense: you do whatever you want during practice, tutor me afterwards, and then you and Seung can eyefuck over ramen or something. My coach hops off my dick, you hop on Seung’s—”

“STOP!” A girl drops her receipt not too far away, startled by your outburst. “Stop right there. I get it. Stop.”

“It’s a good plan.” He slings the paper ball towards the nearest trash can. It drops into the hole without so much as a brush against the rim. “You know it is.”

You’re loath to admit that you do. “When did you even come up with all this?”

He flicks a thumb in the direction of your anthropology class. No fucking wonder he’s failing.

“What is this, mock trial?”

The owner of this voice is the third man you’ve seen today donning that navy windbreaker, white long-sleeve combo. He has a face that reminds you of your neighbor’s cat from back home, sleek and sharp and only slightly sinister. There’s a dash of humor in his expression as he approaches your table like he’s enjoying the company of a court jester.

“Slamming tables like fuckin’ tariff lawyers,” the cat-man hums, lifting a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “I could see it from all the way inside.”

“Captain!” Hyunjin crows, dabbing him up without missing a beat. They really do that like breathing. “Just the man I was hoping to see.”

“Really? I thought you’d be avoiding me like the rest of our homunculus team.”

“I would never.”

“You did. Yesterday. When you saw me and started running in the opposite direction.” He pauses for emphasis. “As fast as possible.”

“Well, that was yesterday. Today is a new day.” Hyunjin tosses you a proud glance. “And today, I bring you a new team manager.”

You stiffen. “I haven’t—”

“Is that so!” When the stranger smiles at you, you feel the same satisfaction you did every time the cat let you scratch her on the chin. “Music to my ears. What’s your name, cutie?”

You catch Hyunjin’s eye across the table; he nods enthusiastically as if saying go on, then. You briefly picture yourself strangling him with his own athletic tape. You then picture yourself hopping on Seungmin’s—

Rigidly, you throw a hand out to the cat-man, your face aflame.

“Y/N,” you grumble. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

He shakes on it heartily. “Likewise. I’m Minho. Welcome to the team.”

“Yes, welcome to the team,” Hyunjin parrots, looking positively jolly. You gnash your teeth together so hard your jaw throbs.

He’s lucky that his proposal holds so much water. He’s lucky that you don’t plan to strangle him until after you try that eyefucking thing.

You do kick him under the table, though.

The team has five weeks to prepare for the Korean University League, the biggest college-level volleyball tournament in the country. You have five days to learn how the hell athletic tape works. You can’t tell which is the bigger endeavor.

“I’m going to cause him irreversible skeletal damage,” you tell Changbin.

The team’s libero is twice as kind as he is talented, a full-time sweetheart working part-time at the university’s sports medicine clinic. Only your first week on the job and you’ve already decided he’s the only person on Earth you would permit to usher you through the gym at 6:45 A.M., a roll of athletic tape pressed to your back like a pistol.

“You will not,” Changbin answers. “One, because this won’t involve his skeleton, and two, because I wouldn’t ask you to help if it did.”

“You’ve misunderstood me,” you return as the two of you stop in front of an examination room. “I want to cause him irreversible skeletal damage.”

“Oh.” He opens the door with a frown. “Oh dear.”

Inside, Hyunjin is sitting cross-legged on top of a taping table, fitted in a loose gray tee and athletic shorts. He watches in pessimistic silence as you enter the room and beeline straight towards the shelf on the right. You slip a thick binder into your hands and bury your nose inside it without so much as a greeting.

“I am going to get maimed,” Hyunjin tells Changbin.

“Have some faith, both of you,” Changbin replies sternly. You find the pages you’re looking for and begin poring over them like you’re cramming for an exam. “You’ll be fine, Jinnie. Y/N studied.”

“Studied?” He repeats. “For this?”

“I’m pretty sure Quizlets were made.”

“Three, to be exact," you interject, sticking out your hand. “Now tape me.”

Hyunjin mouths the words tape me in baffled silence. The latter obliges your request with a smile. “See? What could go wrong?”

The answer to that, actually, is a lot. Especially after Changbin gets called away to help stretch out a teammate named Felix who allegedly “sprained his ass,” leaving Hyunjin to you and your binder.

You detect no smoky rose in the air around him today, just the subtle smells of cedar and cypress—laundry detergent or shampoo, maybe. Figures he doesn’t wear that insufferable cologne to practice.

“Go easy on me, yeah?”

While Hyunjin’s tone is teasing, yours is downright somber.

“I can’t promise anything.”

With that, you turn your palms face-up in a silent request for his hand.

A few strands of hair fall into your face as you lean in for a better look. It’s the first time you’ve seen his fingers untaped; they’re pretty, long and slender and surprisingly manicured, but also battered in their delicacy, the veins running over the back of his hand and forearm prominent, his bottom knuckles discolored from the healing bruises they bear. His hard work is palpable upon the smooth skin as evidently as if tattooed.

Hyunjin says your name in close proximity. You respond with an absent hum.

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

“No. Maybe a little.” You let his hand fall free and go to rummage for supplies. “Fine, yes. Very.”

“But you made Quizlets. You’re prepared for anything.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” You realize only after spotting the gentle smile on his face that he’s making fun of you. “I hate you.”

“Actually,” he hums, “I think you care about me, love. That’s why you’re nervous.”

“Nonsense—I care about disappointing Changbin. That’s it.”

“And me. And hopping on Seungmin’s dick. All these things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

You try to tackle him. Hyunjin catches your hands a few inches away from his face, fingers closing around your wrists with obnoxious agility.

“Have you lost your mind?” You whisper-shout, your face on fire. “Don’t bring that up here. I’ll maim you for real.”

The laugh that explodes out of him throws his entire body backwards, turns his eyes to crescent moons and his mouth into a little rectangle. You hate that you don’t hate when that happens.

“My bad, my bad. It slipped out. I won’t—”

One incremental shift of Hyunjin’s body later, you find that you’re precariously, alarmingly close to one another.

So much so that you notice the mole beneath his left eye for the first time, that you're nearly cross-eyed looking at it. That the tip of your nose actually brushes against his before you pull away with a quiet intake of breath.

Things are awkward between you often, you’ve realized recently. You’re both professional yappers, always quick to digress, quick to find a new topic to bicker about before the awkwardness marinates. But hours later you’ll look back on the interaction and still remember how the air shifted: like a layer of dust had been blown away and something untouched and unknown was discovered just underneath.

Since you’ve met him, Hyunjin has spent more time on your nerves than on your mind. You’re not exactly losing sleep over such a circumstantial acquaintance; you know that his presence in your life will end the way it began, naturally and anticlimactically and inside the ANTH 111 lecture hall. Still, it doesn’t go unnoticed when your heart and stomach launch into an elaborate gymnastics routine in the wake of something he says or does, just as they’re doing now.

Hyunjin glances into your right eye a moment, then your left. The mole just below his left eye disappears when he smiles, the expression soft, saccharine, and sincere. How anyone casually looks the way he does is beyond your abilities of comprehension.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

Your face continues to burn, now perhaps for different reasons. “What for?”

He lets go of your wrist, sweeps the lock of hair that keeps getting in your eyes behind the cuff of your ear.

“Caring about me.”

Then he flicks your forehead. You recoil with a quiet ow.

“Now stop stalling and tape me, dumbass.”

“Okay,” you mutter, rubbing the injury tenderly. “No need to get violent.”

It turns out the arduous taping procedure described in the instruction manual is for serious hand injuries. Hyunjin splints his fingers together for support, not rehabilitation, so it takes all of five minutes for him to talk you through his process. You finish taping both of his hands with nineteen minutes to spare. So maybe the Quizlets were overkill.

As you’re walking him down to practice, you take his hand and lift it to eye level, scanning your craftsmanship dubiously. “It’s not too tight, is it?”

“It’s perfect.” He swivels the hand around and grabs onto your entire face, the sensation by now eerily familiar. “Want another taste?”

You shove him down the stairs that remain. Unfortunately, there are only two. “You are truly grotesque.”

The gym has come to life since you arrived earlier this morning, now illuminated by shining ceiling lights in addition to the sun spilling through high, narrow windows. Most of the team has yet to step onto the court, still stretching or jogging along the sidelines: Minho and Coach Bang are talking strategy on the bench, the coach taking notes on a handheld whiteboard every now and then; Changbin is leaning over a recumbent Felix below the scoreboard, presumably trying to fix his ass.

The only one already with a ball in hand is Seungmin, setting to himself by the net. Once, twice, thrice straight up in the air, and then he glances in your direction and sends the fourth towards the left side of the court in a buoyant arc.

You only glean bits and pieces of the next few seconds. Hyunjin is at your side one moment, making a break for the net the next. His arms draw backwards in perfect synchrony. Feet hit the floor with laserlike intent. His entire body unravels like a fraying chrysalis as he rises to meet the ball, pounds it over the net and into the ground at an angle so clean that the sound of its landing resounds within your ribcage. It rebounds over the railing of the second floor and barely misses the doorway of the examination room you just emerged from.

Hyunjin drops lightly back onto his feet, following the ball’s tumultuous trajectory with proud eyes. A leftover breeze tosses a strand of hair over the bridge of your nose, and time starts moving again.

“Oi, this isn’t your backyard! Go pick that up!” Their coach booms, though his words lack their usual bitterness after what he just witnessed his ace hitter do.

Hyunjin swivels towards Seungmin first. “Crazy bitch. What the fuck was that?”

“Lower and faster. Further from the net too,” Seungmin returns. “How’d it feel?”

The grin on Hyunjin’s face reminds you of a wildfire, untamed and all-consuming and frightening in its fervor. “Like we just won everything.”

He tousles your hair as he jogs past you and back up the stairs to fetch the volleyball. Seungmin waves at you with one hand and palms another ball into his other. His face is warm and bare, his slim build flattered by his volleyball gear. You’ve witnessed few people so nice to look at and even fewer things as elegant as his setting form. But you are still thinking about Hyunjin—and you can’t move.

It is debilitating, watching somebody do the very thing they were destined for.

A little less than a week later, Hyunjin is approaching hour three of spewing hot garbage into a Word document when he decides to give up and call you.

“Hello?” He immediately starts laughing. “Where the fuck are you?”

You poke the top of your head into the shot of your ceiling, gesturing to your headband. “My face is preoccupied at the moment.”

“Oh, you have to show me. Please.”

You flip your phone up for no more than half a second. A camera shutter goes off, followed by a shriek so loud that it peaks your mic.

“Motherfucker!”

He basically sprints to his camera roll. His prize: you with your face slathered in cleanser, hair pinned back by a Miffy headband, looking like the abominable snowman if he liked cute merchandise.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly. “I’ll treasure this forever.”

“You’ll be punished, Hwang.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

You brandish your middle finger at him in response. He props his phone up against his computer screen with a chuckle.

“Aaanyways, I have a thesis statement to run by you.”

The first thing you did as Hyunjin’s tutor was help draft an email to Professor Kim, begging her to let him resubmit the two essays he royally botched. She replied with a lengthy quotation from her syllabus, specifically the section that talked about (and prohibited) resubmissions, but ended up making an exception for Hyunjin on account of the “truly piteous timbre” of his email. You fell out of your chair laughing when he read you her response.

“You should’ve opened with that.”

“I tried, hello? Someone distracted me!”

“Read. It. Before I change my mind.”

You spend a few minutes at most on the thesis itself, advising him to avoid passive voice, answer the prompt, establish a refutable argument, the works. Then he asks you a question about the research topic itself, allusions to the afterlife in Ancient Egyptian artwork, and the tutoring session takes a turn into what feels like a podcast episode.

You talk about the God of Death, Anubis, and his connections to the underworld; the elaborate, lavish funerary rituals intended to ensure the souls of the dead traveled safely; the vibrant murals that flanked their final resting spots as pictorial requests for divine protection. And you talk about them all with such confidence, such eloquence, that it’s as if you’re leading him through a history museum rather than talking to your phone as you do your skincare. He could listen to you for hours. He does, actually.

Around 1 A.M., Hyunjin stops typing mid-sentence when you come into frame for the first time, collapsing into your bed with a sigh of relief. Your eyes are soft and sleepy as they blink at your screen, strands of damp hair clinging to your cheeks. He feels his heart physically shift inside his ribcage when your mouth stretches into a yawn. It is the same sensation as the time you shot him a smile over your shoulder and he couldn’t move for ten minutes.

With that, his attention span has run its course.

“Baby,” he interrupts gently. “Let’s stop here, okay? You seem tired.”

You open your mouth as if to protest, only to yawn again.

“I suppose I am. Will you keep working tonight?”

“I think so. I hit my stride.”

“Text me if you have questions, then. I’ll respond when I wake up.”

“Okay.”

Your lips curve into the smallest of smiles. It copies onto Hyunjin’s face incurably quickly.

“I had my doubts about this tutoring thing, you know.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, you told me this class was the closest thing to daily naptime you’d experienced since preschool.”

“It really is.”

“You also told me you would rather slam your tongue in a car door than read more than three sentences in one sitting.”

“I really would.”

“And you once referred to academia as ‘Virgin Village.’”

“Didn’t you come up with that?”

“No, hello? I live in that village.”

He grins. “I know. I just wanted to hear you admit it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, don’t threaten me with a good—”

“What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t think you would take this seriously, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.”

Hyunjin leans back. “Well, turns out I might give a fuck about anthropology after all.”

“Really?”

“No.”

You pretend to punch him through the screen. It’s so cute that he forgets to think before he opens his mouth next.

“But I do give a fuck about you.”

There’s nothing crazy about the statement. You’re friends, sort of. You manage his team. It would be strange if he didn’t. But the seconds that follow are terrible, a silent prophecy of something disastrous, like a cloud of rubble before an avalanche, the standstill during a star’s final breath. And Hyunjin’s heartbeat is hounding against his ears like a performance of traditional taiko.

He says good night in a haste. The call ends. He stares at the wall of his bedroom in a muddled haze for who knows how long.

Then he opens his texts.

Hyunjin: We have team bonding tomorrow btw Hyunjin: Don’t forget Y/N: i forgot. Y/N: pick me up at 6:45? Hyunjin: 🫡

He picks you up at 7:53.

You approach his car with your fists balled and your eyebrows knitted together like a mean old curmudgeon and he’s walking too close to your lawn.

“His fault,” Hyunjin says before you start yelling.

Minho simpers at you through his open window. “Hey, you! So glad you could join us!”

You fix the man with a judgmental glare as you slide into the backseat. “Aren’t you the captain? Why are you this late?”

“Whoa, okay. I would’ve scheduled this for earlier if I knew right now was honesty hour.”

“You did schedule it for earlier,” you say. “You scheduled it for way earlier.”

“Yeah, well, you’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me, Minho.”

“I can too. Tell ‘em, Hwang.”

“I want nothing to do with this.”

When you step through the doors of the arcade, you’re met with a surge of sensory input that you haven’t experienced in years. The air hangs thick with the smells of greasy concessions; everywhere you look are flashing screens and neon signs, stuffed animals and fading posters; clamoring against your ears are the sounds of games being won or lost, of balls being pocketed or launched, and of a horde of fully grown men spectating a match of Dance Dance Revolution so passionately (and loudly) that they’ve scared everyone away from that side of the room. You recognize the current competitors as Changbin and Jeongin.

“I’ll go pay,” Hyunjin says. “How much time do we want?”

“Infinity,” Minho answers. Hyunjin doesn’t move. “Two hours.”

He flashes him a thumbs-up. “And you?”

“I’m okay, I think.”

“No you’re not,” the two men answer in perfect unison.

You glance between them warily. “I don’t mind watching, seriously. I don’t even know how most of these games work—”

“There’s Tetris,” Hyunjin cuts in.

You purchase an hour.

One would imagine the point of the evening is to break the SNU men’s volleyball team, not to bond them. You’ve never seen so many strained blood vessels in your life. Nor have you heard of half the insults they spew at each other as the night goes on. Felix has to pay a fee for lodging an air hockey puck in the side of the MarioKart machine. Changbin loses at skee-ball and has to down an XL slushie like it’s a shot. It’s a scary amount of boyishness expressed in scary ways.

But they’re happy. You��ve picked up on it when they’re on the court, noticed the raw elation they emanate just from playing together. Yet, their closeness has never been more evident to you than tonight. The men are either laughing or making someone else laugh, arms draped over each other at all times, equally happy to celebrate victories as they’re eager to punish losses. It dawns on you at some point that you’re glad to be here with them, grateful to be a part of something so special—especially because there’s Tetris.

“Have you ever considered going pro?” Hyunjin asks over your shoulder.

You waited until most of the team was distracted to slink off to your beloved machine. Hyunjin tagged along, undoubtedly with the intention of making fun of you, only to be rendered speechless by your mastery. He’s been watching in a state of stupor, forearms propped against the back of your chair.

You don’t respond for a while, too focused on a precarious patch to even blink, let alone partake in conversation.

“I already did,” you finally answer.

“Sorry, what? You played professional Tetris?”

“In middle school. Then I got bored and switched to backgammon.” You pause. “Then I got bored again and switched to chess.”

“How do you look like this with these hobbies?”

Your run ends a few minutes later with a somber sound effect. You turn around in your seat with an anguished groan. “I think I’m washed.”

He looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. “You just set a new record by three hundred thousand points.”

“It’s a small pond,” you say, and an idea occurs to you. “Do you wanna try?”

“I get the feeling I don’t have a choice.”

“Then you’re smarter than you look.”

“Well, you look—”

His eyes move between your shoes and your face, and then his voice is an inaudible mutter as he sinks into your seat. You think you hear something along the lines of unfair.

“What was that?”

“Ugly. I said you look ugly.” He cracks his knuckles. “Now let’s break some fuckin' blocks.”

When Hyunjin learns that the pieces can be rotated (so six or seven attempts later), a man walks into the arcade.

He has hair the color of dark chocolate, the face of a fairy prince—and he’s with someone. The two of them appear arm in arm, laughing at something he said. He looks at this person the way astronomers do to the sky.

Something shatters inside you like old porcelain.

Your hands loosen around the back of Hyunjin’s chair. You can’t watch. You can’t think. You can only feel a void of disappointment rip open, stretch over you like an elongating shadow.

“Seung!” That’s Jisung, you think. “You made it!”

“Yo, sorry we’re late.” That’s Seungmin. That is undoubtedly Seungmin. “Dinner took longer than I thought.”

“Min, are you sure I’m allowed to be here?” You don’t know who this voice belongs to and you’re not sure you want to. “I feel like I’m intruding—”

“Hwang,” you say suddenly. “I have to go.”

He turns around, confused. An unattended block falls into a terrible spot on the screen behind him. ”Already?”

“I forgot I had an important call to make.” You turn away, training your eyes on the patterned carpet. “Sorry. I’ll see you around.”

You have touched Hyunjin’s hands many times. He’s asked you to tape his fingers every day since the first; he likes the way you cut off his circulation, says it helps him hit harder. But you never hold his hand so much as you examine it, the act stiff and unfeeling, cordoned within the professional pretense of athletic treatment.

Now, Hyunjin catches your hand like a gardener repotting their favorite flower: delicately, careful of leaving its roots intact and petals untouched, but firmly, securely, so the flower continues to stand tall even when it’s been extracted from the soil, not even a speck of dirt slipping through the cracks between their fingers. That is the image you conjure when he slips his between yours, his metal rings cold where his fingertips are warm.

He says your name. There is a pinch of pain in the word, and you know that he knows.

“Do you want to be alone?”

You have never been asked such a thing—you have never asked to be asked such a thing—but, for some reason, the question brings tears to your eyes.

“Yes, please,” you whisper, and you pull your hand away.

When you stalk past him, you hear Jisung notice you, call out to you, a note of worry in his question. You also count three pairs of eyes on your back: one concerned, the next confused, and the last you are wholly incapable of meeting.

Unknown to you is the fourth pair fixed upon the top of the Tetris machine, where you’ve left your phone.

You emerge into the parking lot. The frigid air stills your mind for a fraction of a second, the last moment of mental quietude you will allow yourself that night.

Hyunjin’s right; the team manager doesn’t have to do much.

Coach Bang allows you to come to whichever practices and games you feel like, during which you might at most lug around a ballbag or fill someone’s waterbottle before holing up somewhere to do your own thing. But you like the people you work for too much to do so little for them, so you attend everything your schedule allows.

Last week, you could be found helping Minho put up the volleyball nets before practice, your laughter echoing throughout the spacious gym as he complained to you about his biochemistry professor’s distinct “cabbage scent.” Or running to grab materials for Changbin as he treated his teammates’ injuries like you were assisting an orthodontist giving someone a root canal. The dinner invitations you extended to Seungmin were always turned down, but his teammates were more than happy to assist you and Hyunjin in your quest to establish the best kimbap joint in the area once and for all. You even had a heart-to-heart with Coach Bang during one of the team’s water breaks, in which you managed to get half a smile out of the guy; Hyunjin was convinced that was his way of asking you to elope. You spent more time in the gymnasium those ten days than you had your entire college career.

Then came the arcade.

Five days have come and gone. You haven’t attended practice since, but you still see Hyunjin every morning at anthropology. The two of you sit in uncharacteristic silence for most of the lectures. You’ve taken the best notes of your life. He doesn’t mention the previous weekend; he doesn’t mention much of anything.

In person, that is.

That Friday afternoon, you’re reading on the terrace of the library when you receive a text. It’s from Hyunjin, a two-minute voice note. You hesitate for a moment, stick a pencil into the gutter of your textbook to save your place, and slip your earbuds in. You listen to it.

Then you listen to it again.

And again as you wrap up your study session and go home. Again as you cook yourself dinner and load the dishwasher. Again as you shrug on a jacket and pocket your keys, setting off on the familiar trek to the gym.

As for what you plan to do there on a Friday night, long after the team has finished practice, you haven’t the slightest clue. You continue to move regardless, fueled by the feeling that there is where you need to be.

Coach Bang is leaving the building just as you’re approaching it. He halts in his footsteps and raises his eyebrows when he notices you. The man has always been difficult to read, but his face is exceptionally opaque now. Maybe it’s the shadowy landscape; more likely it’s the uneasiness that began to mount within you once you noticed the lights in the gym were still on.

“It’s been a while,” he greets.

“Coach,” you return, lowering your head. “I want to apologize for—”

“Save it,” he says, not unkindly. “There’s nothing to apologize for, alright? The team is lucky to have you.”

You manage a grateful smile. “I’ll be back starting next week.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He starts to walk away, stops himself, and glances into the illuminated building. “I would give him some space, by the way.”

Your uneasiness morphs into anxiety as you watch his broad back retreat into the shadows. You remain outside the gym for a few minutes more, accompanied by the distant melodies of cricket chorales and the muffled squeaking of shoes against laminated hardwood, the harsh sounds of flesh meeting leather.

Briskly, you walk home, rummage around, and return to the gym ten minutes later with your textbook tucked beneath your arm. This time, you unlock and enter the building without a moment of hesitation.

Hyunjin is positioned multiple yards behind the service line, rotating a volleyball in his hands. A high toss, two resounding steps, and a collision like the crack of a whip. The previous ball has barely landed in the furthest corner of the court when he’s picking up the next, retreating to the same spot to do it all again. His tank top is the color of charcoal over his sweaty skin, his hair auburn where it’s plastered to his neck. He’s alone.

You only catch sight of Hyunjin’s face when you descend the stairs. His expression is crystalline, hardened with concentration and fortified by courage, but fragile all at once, rendered delicate by fatigue and fear, spilling from his every seam and splintering off his person like a broken vase. You recognize it as clearly as if you were looking at a picture of yourself from the worst years of your life.

“I was told to give you space,” you call out, and Hyunjin drops the volleyball he’s holding.

His lips fall apart. Nothing comes out of them. The only sounds to follow are your footsteps as you make your way towards the bleachers, a vertical wall of plastic now that they’ve been retracted for the night. You fold your legs into a criss-cross as you take a seat at their base.

“Is this enough space?”

More silence. You gesture to the volleyball nervously.

“Don’t make me go further, please. I’m not ready to die.”

Finally, this earns you a smile. It’s not much, but it loosens the nervous coils in your heart, permits your lungs to contract once more, and it remains on his face as he swipes the ball back into his hands. You open your textbook.

The rest of the night elapses in turning pages and soaring volleyballs. You don’t care for minutes or hours; you give him all the time in the world, as he did you.

The only time you glance at the clock on the wall is around midnight, when Hyunjin hobbles to the middle of the court and collapses. You’re worried at first. Then he rolls onto his back and releases a guttural groan into his hands, and your held breath comes out a laugh. You set down your book and stand up.

There’s a lake of perspiration forming around him. You pay it no mind and flop onto the floor, your eyes instantly narrowing beneath the fluorescent lights.

“How do you see under these things?”

“I don’t,” he returns. “I complained about it to Coach once.”

“And?”

“He made them brighter.” Sounds about right.

Hyunjin spends the next few minutes catching his breath, his chest rising and falling in your peripheral vision. You sift through your mind for phrases of consolation or gestures of support and come up empty. You wish you had Hyunjin’s way with words.

But you think about the way his smile reached his eyes as he thanked you for caring about him, the tenderness with which he caught your hand at the arcade, the I give a fuck about you he blurted before ending the study call. You think about the voice note. It’s not that Hyunjin has a way with words; it’s that he’s brave enough to break the silences that you can’t, like he perceives your anxiety for the aftermath, shouldering the responsibility so you won’t have to.

This cannot be his burden alone.

You inhale. “What’s on your mind?”

Hyunjin doesn’t answer right away. You give up on squinting and close your eyes. The lights are still bright enough to dance around the murky darkness.

“I don’t think I know how to put it into words.”

You nearly laugh; you know how that feels. “Don’t think, just talk. I’m here.”

The same advice you gave yourself seems to work on him as well.

“Do you remember Ishikawa Yuki?”

His role model.

“He’s currently playing for a club team in Italy called Allianz Milano.” He blows out a deep breath. “I’ve been talking to their coach, Roberto Piazza, for the last six months.”

The gears in your head creak in their effort to process the implications of these words. “Holy shit, Hwang.”

“He emailed again, this morning. Said he was coming to the tournament later this month, he’s excited to see me play in person, whatever. And it hit me, finally, that this is all real. Like, this is actually happening to me. I spent all of today freaking out and asked Coach to let me stay back after practice. Usually, it wears out my brain if I tire my body, but it only half-worked today. I couldn’t wrap my head around anything. I still can’t.

“I am who I am because of that man, and now…I have a shot at playing with him. I keep asking myself why I’m not—not happier. I should be bouncing off the fucking walls, no? If I told my past self that this would be happening to him one day, he—he would—”

You open your eyes, confused by the sudden silence.

Hyunjin is sitting up next to you, staring intensely into the bleachers. You first notice the tip of his tongue prodding into his cheek, then his shuddering breath. He lifts a hand to his face, pressing against his eyes.

You stop thinking after that.

You sit up with him. When you settle your fingers around his wrist, he allows you to pull his hand back to his side. But he turns away as if trying to hide from you; he squeezes his eyes shut as if that would obstruct your view of his pain.

You reach to cradle his face, bringing him back to you. The cuff of your sleeves wipe at the saltwater on his cheeks, push the hair off his forehead with gentle sweeps. The two of you are close, close enough that your lips would meet the space between his eyes if you so much as lost your balance. His gaze traverses to your face, but you resolve not to meet it. You know you will traipse into uncharted territory the moment you do.

“Don’t fight it.” You trace over the hill of his cheek. “Healing becomes easier if you let yourself hurt. Trust me, Hyunjin.”

His first name should feel foreign on your tongue, yet you suspect the syllables have accompanied you all your life.

“You don’t have to continue if you can’t.”

“S’okay.” Hyunjin lifts your hand away from his face, presses a kiss to the base of your palm. “I want to.”

You feel yourself stumble ungracefully into the uncharted territory from before; does he do the same?

“I used to play volleyball on this expanse of cracked blacktop, behind my primary school. It was pretty brutal on my feet—I blew through so many different pairs of sneakers my mom almost made me quit.” He smiles at the memory. “But every time I came close to quitting, I’d go home and rewatch the same USA vs. Poland match from the 2008 Summer Olympics I asked my dad to record, and I’d promise myself it would be me on some other kid’s screen someday.

“That kid would tell everyone who’d listen about how cool I am. That I’m a secret superhero. That I’m living proof humans can fly if they really, really try—just like I talked about the volleyball players I grew up watching on my TV.

“The other day, Coach told me that hope would consume me. I thought it was just some senile drivel at the time, but..I think I get what he means now. I would do anything and everything to make that kid proud—even if it meant losing myself.” He lowers his head, auburn strands falling into his eyes. “That’s what’s on my mind.”

Amidst the ensuing pause, a storm approaches. It does not come in the form of rain or snow, sleet or hail, no; it is a gathering of words unsaid and emotions unacknowledged, all emerging from the deepest chambers of your heart in synchrony. The same entities you used to scapegoat for all the times things were awkward between you and Hyunjin when you were the culprit all along. You and your blind cowardice.

The storm tears open the seam of your lips. You do not resist; it’s long overdue.

“Every time Changbin sees you, he turns into a smitten schoolgirl,” you say. “He is physically unable to contain how endearing he finds you. He told me so himself.”

Hyunjin looks at you with widened eyes. You think you can see your own reflection in them, and you are the spitting image of a lighter dropped into gasoline, unstoppable in your vehemence.

“Jeongin comes to you for advice before anyone else,” you continue, “even for things related to school—which I still find hard to believe, I’m not gonna lie. But you have his best interests in mind, and it shows in everything you do for him. Of course your opinion matters more than anything in the world.

“I know you think he can’t stand you, but you are the reason Coach Bang loves this job, why he loves this sport. It’s written all over his face every time he calls you something mean, every time he makes you run another lap, every time he looks at you. You’re like a son to him. Everyone sees it but you.”

“Then there’s me.” You pause to catch your breath. “When I think about what my life used to be, I remember a lot of things. I remember loneliness. Insecurity. I remember my books and my backgammon boards and the way I taught myself to disappear inside them so the world would never find me. I remember avoiding mirrors like a vampire because I didn’t like seeing my own reflection. I remember feeling like I had to put on someone else’s personality every time I left the house because nobody would want to know me for me. All I ever wanted was a place where I could be myself, love myself, without consequence. I have yet to find that place.

“But I found a person. Someone who wouldn’t know time and place if they kicked his dick into his body. Someone who thinks instant ramen is high in nutritional value because it comes with dried vegetables. Someone who sweats the same amount of rain the Sahara Desert receives yearly—your body is not normal, by the way.”

Hyunjin giggles; it is soft and short, a small, tearful huff into the quiet air that makes you feel like you’re flying.

“Don’t get me wrong,” you say. “Your sense of humor sucks and your taste in coffee is so boring and you are the one with no media literacy, not Professor Kim. But I love spending time with you. I love who I am when I’m around you. And none of that has to do with volleyball.”

The next time you blink, you discover that he’s not the only one with tears in his eyes. How long has that been going on?

“There’s so much about you to be proud of, Hyunjin.” You give him a watery smile. “That kid will be spoiled for choice.”

When Hyunjin pulls you into his arms, you fall into each other like going to bed after a long day. Your face burrows into the crook of his neck in your embarrassment; he is laughing and crying at the same time when he mumbles something into your shoulder: “I knew you cared about me.”

You are so happy for the comedic relief you could sob. It helps that you already are.

“How the fuck are you still sweaty?” You choke out, and you think you like his cologne after all.

Six days later, Hyunjin opens the door of his apartment.

A fun-sized flurry of black and white barrages into the hallway outside and almost runs headfirst into the figure waiting there. You fall to your knees like you’ve just been gravely wounded, emitting an ear-piercing wail to match. All it takes is a few good head scratches for Kkami to stop yipping bloody murder and start whining for attention instead.

Upon minute five of watching you and his dog cuddle in the hallway directly outside his home, Hyunjin sighs.

“Can you come inside, please? My RA will think I’m doing some freaky shit again.”

You side-eye him as you walk into his apartment, Kkami perched happily in your arms. “What, exactly, does freaky shit entail?”

He smirks as the door falls shut. “You want me to tell you or show you?”

You turn to Kkami, disgusted. “Your owner’s a bit of a pervert, my dear.”

Kkami licks you on the chin. Hyunjin’s eyes narrow to slits.

“Traitor.”

Naturally, Hyunjin’s parents chose the eve of his final anthropology exam—and the week before the tournament that will determine the trajectory of his career—to ask him to look after Kkami for a few days. He nearly canceled their plane tickets himself, but his impromptu roommate is currently ransacking your face with kisses on his couch, and he thinks your laugh complements his studio better than any decoration.

“Do you want anything to drink?” He calls from the kitchen area.

You meander over, Kkami (still) perched happily in your arms. “What do you have?”

“Alcohol.” He opens his fridge far enough so you can peer over his shoulder. “Americanos.”

He stops speaking.

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Wait—and apple juice.”

“You are about to be a professional athlete.”

“What the Italians don’t know won’t hurt them. You want apple juice, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

“Maybe. Can you open it for me? My hands are full.”

Hyunjin does so with far less reluctance than he feigns. You thank him jubilantly, popping the straw into your mouth.

“Let’s get this over with.”

At 10:32 P.M., all is calm. You are sitting on the floor, your back against the side of his mattress. Hyunjin is where the universe intended: curled up in bed, both him and his laptop lying on their sides. You have studied eight out of ten units in only two and a half hours, and the night is still young. Kkami is but a fluffy, sleepy Oreo by your waist.

At 10:33 P.M., the Oreo begins to retch.

You startle a foot into the air. Hyunjin is out of bed and on his feet in the blink of an eye, the very image of a dog dad on duty. He grabs three different things off the kitchen counter with one hand and scoops up the long-haired chihuahua with the other, and then he’s kicking open the door.

Seungmin appears out of thin air carrying two heaping bags of groceries. Hyunjin nearly knocks him and a month’s worth of fresh produce down four flights of stairs.

“Hyun—Kkami?” Seungmin swivels. “Yo, what the fuck is—”

Hyunjin is already out the door.

A few minutes later, Hyunjin squats off to the side, pouring fresh water into a portable dog bowl. A little ways away, Kkami is throwing up ebulliently; a set of footsteps approaches.

“What is this thing?” Seungmin squats down next to Hyunjin, picking up the piece of patterned fabric lying on the grass.

“Kkami gets sad after throwing up,” he sighs. “His blanket makes him feel better.”

Seungmin watches the chihuahua for a few moments, a soft flinch crimping his features. “He ate too fast again?”

Hyunjin rakes a hand through his hair. “I don’t get it. Nobody’s gonna take his food from him.”

Seungmin laughs. “I didn’t even know he was on campus.”

“I picked him up last night. My parents are traveling for work—they say hi, by the way.”

“I say hi back. I miss your mom’s cooking.”

“Me too,” Hyunjin says, smiling. “She would love to cook for you again—she’s always saying you’re too skinny.”

“She really is.”

A beat passes; it is then that Hyunjin has an epiphany.

Seungmin was the one who put a volleyball in his hands for the first time. Back then, Hyunjin was the lesser troublemaker between the two of them—a concept that neither of them can wrap their heads around to this day. Seungmin suggested they use the clotheslines in Hyunjin’s backyard as a makeshift net, despite Hyunjin’s dissuading; half of Hyunjin’s father’s wardrobe caught on fire, Seungmin had a black eye for a week, and nobody knows what happened to that volleyball. The two of them have been attached at the hip ever since.

It is a crazy thing, having your best friend as a teammate; a singular flick of the wrist or a point of his shoe and Seungmin will know exactly Hyunjin wants the ball down to the net’s fraying fibers; Hyunjin will be exactly where Seungmin needs him down to the flecks of paint on the volleyball court. Hyunjin has always been Seungmin’s hitter—Seungmin, always Hyunjin’s setter. Nothing will ever change between them so long as that remains the case.

At least, that’s what Hyunjin used to think.

Learning that Seungmin was in a relationship was as much a wake-up call for Hyunjin as it was for you. At first, he was just fucking pissed; how could Seungmin be so stupid as to turn down someone like you, especially when Hyunjin had shot his mouth off about his wingman services? More importantly, how long had his best friend of eighteen years been in love, and why was he the last to know?

Only now, as they wait for his nine-year-old chihuahua to finish barfing, does Hyunjin realize that he can’t remember the last time he and Seungmin talked. Not “talked” as in a brief exchange inside the locker room or the lecture hall, about a new approach he wants to try or what Seungmin got on number four or if he wants a ride to practice—“talked” as in talked, about Hyunjin, about Seungmin, about the eighteen years they shared, about all the years yet to come.

Hyunjin sees his setter every day; he stopped looking for his friend a long time ago.

“Yeonwoo, right?”

He senses surprise in Seungmin without having to look at him. But he also senses a smile, a subtle show that Seungmin recognizes what he’s trying to do—and forgives him.

“Yeonwoo,” Seungmin affirms. “We’re in the same songwriting intensive this semester.”

“Also a singer?”

He shakes his head. “Piano player. Performed at the Carnegie Hall in the United States at, like, seven years old. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so talented.”

“Wow, that’s—hi, old man. You done?”

Kkami walks over with his head hung low and tail between his legs, and Hyunjin hurries to drape the pup in his favorite blanket, pulling the bowl of water in front of him in tandem. Seungmin runs a hand over the top of Kkami’s head as he hydrates.

“You’ve suffered,” he tells him solemnly, and Hyunjin snorts.

“As I was saying—that’s crazy to hear, coming from the most talented person I know. You guys looked so good together.”

“Thanks. It’s weird. I’m happy.”

“You deserve it. You really do, Kim.” They exchange smiles, and Hyunjin gives Seungmin a playful nudge. “When are you introducing us?”

“The arcade wasn’t enough?”

“Don’t insult me.”

“Whenever you want, then.”

“Dinner with my mom, dinner with Yeonwoo,” Hyunjin recounts. “I’m holding you to it.”

“Bet.”

They shake on it. If Hyunjin wasn’t already reassured by Seungmin’s smile, he knows by his clasp around his hand that they’ll be okay.

“What about you?” Seungmin asks. “Are you together yet?”

Hyunjin knew this was coming. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Seungmin strings his hands together, letting them dangle in the space between his knees. “Someone you have questions for that you’re too scared to ask. Someone who’s lived in your mind since the day you met. There’s someone like that, isn’t there?”

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek.

Ever since that night on the gym floor, Hyunjin’s been having these dreams. By the time his alarm goes off in the morning, every detail of the dream has eluded him, leaving behind only a ghost of emotion, akin to the breeze that grazes your face moments after walking past another person.

But then he’ll get out of bed, and walk to that café on the east side of campus, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. There, he’ll order a vanilla latte with extra sweetener, then turn around to see you standing five feet away, holding an Americano and trying not to laugh. And he’ll just know, with everything in him, that you are where his head goes when he’s not keeping watch.

He still addresses you by the pet names you hate. He still finds any excuse to be close to you; he still pesters you like a child with a crush. But now, he calls you his baby like one wishes on a star; his eyes drift to your lips every time you’re within two feet of each other; he makes fun of your likes and dislikes only because he’s happy to know about them at all. Ever since that night on the gym floor.

It’s impossible for nothing and everything to change at once. Two people teetering on the precipice of something cannot withstand a gust of wind so powerful. He’s already hanging off the ledge, losing his grip; where are you?

Next to him, Seungmin lets out a soft laugh. “There is.”

Hyunjin doesn’t know what to say.

“It might’ve been me, at some point,” he hums, returning his hand to scratch the back of Kkami’s ears. “But it has always been you, Hyun.”

Four floors above them and inside Hyunjin’s place, you are pacing between his fridge and his bed, nervously awaiting his and Kkami’s return.

Something catches your eye, wide and flat and hung on the wall by his bathroom door. You approach it curiously, your lips pulling into a fond smile the moment you realize all that’s in front of you.

Many of the photographs are of Hyunjin: him in his preteens, dead asleep in bed while dressed head to toe in volleyball gear, braces visible because his mouth is open; an action shot taken at what must’ve been a U21 match, the South Korean flag stitched into the shoulder of his jersey; him with half a birthday cake in front of him and the rest smeared all over his face. There are headlines, too: Underdog team earns district’s first high school volleyball state title; Hwang Hyunjin proves himself worthy of “ace spiker” label at South Korea V. Croatia U19 match; Coach Bang “Christopher” Chan leads Seoul National University to second consecutive KUL championship. There’s one—Who is Hwang Hyunjin? Meet the twenty-year-old instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution—beside which he’s written the singular word “mouthful.” You laugh; you agree.

But pinned to the corkboard is also a photograph of Minho, surrounded by stray cats in the alleyway outside a K-BBQ restaurant; his parents cradling Kkami in an apple costume; his high school volleyball team silhouetted against a pretty sunset. Him and Seungmin as kids, covered in grime and scrapes but beaming nonetheless; him and Seungmin at age nineteen, stadium lights on their backs, unadulterated elation on their faces as they charge towards each other, beaming still. Changbin piggybacking Felix through the hallways of the gym, neither of them wearing a shirt; Jisung offering Coach Bang a beer while the latter looks direly unamused (you make a mental note to ask about that one later); what looks like a Rock Lee cosplayer grimacing in the middle of your anthropology classroom.

You rush forward as if decreed by gravitational force. Not too far away is another picture of you, in which you boast a Miffy headband and a face full of foaming cleanser. Then another, your eyes narrowed like that of a sniper taking aim as you’re playing Tetris; you with so many volleyballs piled into your arms that you can’t see your own face; your cheeks squished by a bandaged hand after you lost a bet about pandas (they can swim); you clutching your stomach on the library floor, brought to hysterical tears by Professor Kim’s email. You, you, you.

You bring your pointer finger to this last image, tracing it over the curve of your own cheek. You see a dimple on your face you didn’t know you had. You realize it only comes out for him.

It has always been him.

The front door opens. A man with telephone poles for legs and a long-haired chihuahua in his arms appears behind it. You sense in him that something has changed since you last saw each other. The two of you lock eyes.

It’s not awkward this time.

Multiple yards behind the service line, Hyunjin is rotating a volleyball in his hands. It feels solid and sentient, an extension of himself held in cotton-clad fingers. He knows how this story will end.

He moves his eyes to his best friend’s back. Four fingers flash back at him twice, signaling a high lob set to the left, the very play they’ve practiced tirelessly for the last five weeks. The breath Hyunjin blows out of his cheeks seems to crystallize in the air, almost solid in all its exhilaration.

He bends low and throws high. His arms drop behind his body like a spread of feathered wings; his feet fall into place below him like a meteor shower, two consecutive strikes against the earth that fissure its mantle. The lights overhead are bright. His palm pulls taut when it slams into leather. He knows how this story will end.

The volleyball tears towards the ground. It trembles as if scared by all that it holds: the guarantee of a flawless denouement, the catalyst of a radiant future. Hyunjin’s heart is beating hard enough to crack his ribs when he lands back on the ground, when the volleyball lands in the furthest corner of the court. He’s not scared at all.

He balls his fingers into fists.

“JUST LIKE LAST YEAR, BACK TO BACK ON AN ACE—”

An arm seizes Hyunjin’s neck; another drags him onto the floor. His head thuds onto the hardwood with a sound he hears over the whole world detonating. His vision fills with the faces of the people he cares for most, some covered in tears and others rivaling the ceiling with their blinding smiles. He can’t feel most of his body; his sweat drips into his mouth. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

“—DEFENDING THEIR TITLE FOR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR—”

His eyes find Seungmin’s among the fray. Their hands clap together with such force that Hyunjin cusses at the impact. Seungmin’s gaze burns into his with a ferocity that Hyunjin plans to take to his grave. His setter. His best friend.

He says something inaudible, but Hyunjin reads the words off his lips, and his eyes fill with tears: we win everything.

“—YOUR NATIONAL CHAMPIONS: SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY!”

Hyunjin’s post-game interview is a lawless affair. He is allowed at most half an answer before a new teammate is barreling over with an animalistic screech or a new friend is screaming congratulations from out of frame.

The reporter is visibly agitated by her final question, unpursing her lips to ask: “Is there anyone you’d like to thank?”

Hyunjin exhales. “You want the short answer or the long—”

Changbin seizes him by the head. Hyunjin bursts into a peal of high-pitched laughter as the libero litters kisses all over his face, nearly crumpling to the floor in his attempt to escape.

“Love you,” he yells before hurrying off.

“Love you too, Bin.”

Hyunjin turns a sheepish smile to the reporter.

“The short answer,” she deadpans.

He starts counting off his fingers. He thanks his family—his first and last teammates, his eternal anchors. His other family, his actual teammates, the best boys he’s ever known. His coach, who will let him call him Chris someday. His best friend and setter, Kim Seungmin, who set a clothesline on fire once and changed his life forever.

In the distance, a figure emerges from the locker rooms. There’s a navy blue SNU banner draped over your shoulders, two overflowing duffel bags in your hands. Jisung and Jeongin run over to take them from you, and the smile you give them is wide and flushed, a remnant of the elation you shared from afar. The three of you start walking out of the gym.

Hyunjin thanks you.

You didn’t ask for the position, he tells the reporter, but some idiot roped you into it, and they’re all so grateful that you decided to stick around. You know the team better than they know themselves—it’s hard to believe you’ve been with them for five weeks instead of five years.

What are you like? What aren’t you like, is the better question. You’re caring, smart, strong; you see so much goodness in the people around you, all while unaware that it is your warmth that brings it out of them. Flowers only bloom in the sun’s doting radius, and so did he.

You have the sort of soul that incurs the scorn of the stars. They are the only ones to deserve you, they'd argue; you’re wasting your potential among humans when you belong to the sky, and they’d be right.

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek, suddenly annoyed.

“Why the fuck am I still talking to you?”

“Pardon?” The reporter returns, but Hyunjin is already vaulting over the bleachers, making a mad dash for the exit. She gives her cameraman an affronted glare. He shrugs.

He explodes onto the concrete, looking around in a frantic haze. He finds the blue banner heading toward the team bus and flanked by his teammates with ease.

He calls out to you.

You glance backwards. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the area’s busy thrum. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram again, but he’s used to this feeling by now. Jeongin and Jisung make themselves scarce.

You’re beautiful. God, you’re fucking beautiful. That was the first thought to enter his mind when he spilled an iced Americano on your lap all those months ago and you looked at him like he hailed from another planet. And it is the first thought to enter his mind now, when he runs up to you and cradles your face in his hands, his touch infinitely, impossibly gentle, and you look at him like he’s everything that has ever existed, everything that ever will.

Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes—if he didn’t have something far better to do.

“Tell me now if you don’t want me to do this,” he whispers.

A stupid smile crosses the face of the smartest person he knows. “My lips are sealed.”

Hyunjin kisses you. He kisses you until the banner around your shoulders is wrinkled under his touch, until your hands are tangled in his hair and aching his scalp, until the breaths you take are breaths you share, passed between your mouths like a puff of smoke before they’re colliding again.

He kisses you until he’s crying, again, until he’s no longer tasting your lips but your grin, and he kisses you only harder when those scornful stars start to dance before him, for you are his, not theirs, and he’s really won everything, now.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Six months later, Hyunjin sees Coach Bang standing a few yards away with a grim air about him. He stops in his footsteps and glances at his captain, confused.

“I know nothing,” Seungmin says, walking away. “Good luck!”

“Thanks, cap.” Hyunjin swears he’s had this exact exchange before.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace still reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. But there are two picture frames on his desk now: one of his family in front of the Sydney Opera House, the other of a band of boys clad in navy blue, draped over one another in exhausted bliss. The latter lends the room a much-needed sense of vitality. Too bad it still houses a rusty cyborg.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “Read.”

From: Nicola Daldello «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Re: Allianz Milano V. Pallavolo Perugia practice game Christopher, Allow me to apologize for my delayed response as I shared your request with Chairman Piazza. It is my great pleasure to inform you that we would love for Mr. Hwang Hyunjin to participate in our practice game versus Pallavolo Perugia. The match is scheduled for Monday, October 7th, 5-7 P.M. CET in the Giurati Sports Centre in Milan. Mr. Hwang will be playing for Allianz Milano as an outside hitter alongside Mr. Matey Kaziyski, Mr. Osniel Mergarejo, and Mr. Ishikawa Yuki. Please let me know of your availability to call regarding Mr. Hwang’s travel logistics. His transportation and lodging costs will be paid for by the club. I’m looking forward to speaking with you and welcoming Mr. Hwang to Italy once and for all. Yours, Nicola Daldello Assistant Coach, Allianz Milano

“I told you, some opportunities just present themselves,” Bang says, turning his monitor back around. “As for next steps, I need a holistic calendar view of your entire month of October, including social ev—Hwang, is that foam coming out of your mo—NOT ON MY CARPET! HWANG!”

In a park about a ten minute walk away, a small crowd of elderly people are scattered across a few stone tables, hunched over the fading chess boards painted into the granite surfaces. Mrs. Choi whisks away Mrs. Baek’s king with a triumphant yelp.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! That opening is unbeatable!” She swivels towards you, shaking a fist threateningly. “You! Get over here. Your reign is over.”

You are sitting cross-legged in the shade of a broad magnolia tree, clearing out your storage. You tried to take a picture of a particularly rotund pigeon to send to Hyunjin earlier and couldn’t even do that. It was then you decided you couldn't live like this anymore.

“As excited as I am to beat you again, Mrs. Choi, I need ten more minutes,” you call back.

She presents you with an unpleasant hand gesture. You turn your attention back to your phone, grinning. Two new notifications sit at the top of your lock screen.

Hyunjin: Omw now. Sorry had to talk to Chris Hyunjin: Same park? Y/N: yes Hyunjin: Who’s our opponent today Y/N: mrs. choi Hyunjin: Not that bitch again Y/N: ?

He’ll be here in eight minutes.

You return to the task at hand. You’ve already cleared out your apps, your documents, and videos; all that’s left is the audio files. You conduct a quick mental review. Surely you’ll live without your downloaded music and accidental voice memos.

Instead of hitting the “delete” button, you extract a pair of tangled earphones from your jacket pocket.

You go back to your texts with Hyunjin, open the shared attachments tab, and scroll for a long time before you find the voice note he sent you seven months ago.

He finds you a sobbing mess.

“Hey, hey, whoa.” He’s on his knees in an instant, gathering your hands into his, a world of concern in the brown of his eyes. Your earbuds fall out and clatter onto the cement below. “Baby, what’s happening? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you say in a flustered haste. “Yes, I’m okay. I don’t—I don’t really know what’s happening.”

“Did that hag do this to you?” He asks this question so seriously. “I’ll beat up a senior citizen, I don’t give a fuck—”

“No!” You let out an ugly laugh through your tears. “No, no. Leave Mrs. Choi alone.”

“Then what is it? What’s wrong?”

Eventually, your vision clears enough for you to look at the man kneeling in front of you. His roots grow out longer every day, his hair by now nearly equal parts gold and black. A spot of sunlight infiltrates the magnolia leaves and lands on his left eye, turning it the hue of melted bronze.

Your fingers drift to the sides of his beautiful face as you lean in close; he smells like a combination of smoky rose and tropical coastlines.

“I’ll tell you later,” you murmur, pressing a kiss to his hairline.

He is dissatisfied with this, hooking a pointer finger beneath your chin, guiding your face back to his. He laves the saltwater from your lips, your tongue, and then you’re smiling again, barely able to remember why you cried in the first place.

You rest your foreheads together. “Have I told you that you look like a bumblebee these days?”

He smiles. “Does that make you my flower, then?”

“Because you’re irresistably drawn to me?”

“No, because I wanna put my pollen in—”

You shove him away. “You are grotesque.”

He returns in a flash. “You love me.”

You kiss him again. And again. And one more time for good measure, during which you mumble I do against his lips, and then you remember something.

“Why did Coach hold you back, by the way?” You pull away, tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. “Are you in trouble again?”

“No, no. The opposite, actually.”

Your brow furrows. “The opposite? What—”

“In this lifetime, please,” Mrs. Choi hollers from the chess tables. You roll your eyes. Hyunjin smiles helplessly.

“Duty calls, my love.”

“Tell me your thing later too?”

“Of course.”

You dust yourself off and stand up, making your way to the battleground. But not before you whisper to Hyunjin, “now watch me beat up a senior citizen.”

He laughs with his whole body, his eyes the shape of crescent moons, his mouth a little rectangle.

“Hypocrite.”

Hyunjin: [1 Audio Message]

This is my seventh take and I’m not recording an eighth. What you get is what you get. I don’t care anymore.

I understand if you don’t wanna talk about what happened at the arcade. I wouldn’t, either. I just wanted to say that you don’t have to do this tutoring thing anymore. I won’t be able to fulfill my end of our deal, so…yeah, it wouldn’t be fair to you. You’ve already done so much for us. For me.

As for team manager, you’ll have to talk to Minho and Coach Bang if you wanna quit. Doesn’t sound like a fun conversation, I know—but if that’s what you decide, I’ll have your back. They don’t scare me. Well, they do. Sometimes.

You’ve been…distant, this week. I’ve known peace and quiet for the first time since we met, and I fucking hate it. I realized I couldn’t care less if you’re my tutor or my team manager or whatever—I just don’t want you to be a stranger. Maybe that’s selfish of me to say, but I’m tired of pretending the idea of losing you doesn’t terrify me. It does. It truly fucking does.

I’m gonna end this here, because I almost just stopped recording on accident and I would’ve committed first degree murder if I had to do this all over again. Sorry that this got so long, and…I’m sorry about everything. You deserve better.

Come back to me whenever you’re ready, okay? I’ll be waiting.

🔖 (send an ask to be added)・@astraystayyh・@like-a-diamondinthesky・@fire-08・@starsandrqindrops・@txtxlz・@laylasbunbunny・@strayghibli・@nuronhe・@seungminsapuppy・@vivisoni・@moon0fthenight・@sweetpickledjins・@svintsandghosts・@nhyunn ・@ur-boyfiend・@liknws・@hotgorloikawa・@randomwimp・@automaticpersonabatpaper・@aceofvernons・@linos-kitten・@newhope8・@weedforthoughtz・@hyunverse

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usedpidemo · 6 months

Text

Acquainted (Red Velvet Yeri)

(Thank you for the commission! I hope it's to your liking.)

You’re just about ready to head off to sleep when you check the group chat. This is your nightly tradition. These strangers, now your closest friends despite the anonymity, are active and in good spirits, as usual. Outside of your weekday 9-to-5, these few moments are the most interesting parts of your day, and you just so happen to join during a particularly lively conversation:

> [22:48:01] yerimiese: (posts a link to a red velvet album article)

> [22:48:14] flutter mane: :sanapog:

> [22:48:23] silksong sulker: k-pop is saved

> [22:48:33] wonyoung cockjuicer: ew red velvet

> [22:48:37] wonyoung cockjuicer: wonyoung can peg me tbh

> [22:48:39] irene’s tokki: Bae J:floshedjiggle::floshedjiggle:hyun

> [22:49:06] milf hunter: :floshed:

> [22:49:11] milf hunter: gape sugalo

So of course, you chime in as well.

> [22:50:12] You: lets get it, new rv fancams

You’re in no mood to chat for longer than five minutes, but before you head offline, you receive a private message from your closest friend:

> yerimiese: so when are you in korea again?

> You: Next week, why?

> yerimiese: nice. why don’t we meet up, that would be dope as fuck

> You: You’re in Korea?

> yerimiese: yeaaaah? why wouldn’t i be?

> You: I thought you’d be doing other schedules abroad

> yerimiese: nah sm definitely won’t fly us out to film an mv. cheap ass bastards ㅋㅋㅋ

Yerimiese then sends you a video link. It’s a Yeri fancam, her weapon of choice. Your conversations began with small, intimate talks about your personal life, soon transpiring into open fapping, degrading, and casual lewdness with each other. Despite the usually depraved nature of your messages, you both continued sharing snippets of your day to day lives. That’s how close you’ve grown as friends.

> You: Well i’m very tired, today was a long day at work, had to work overtime. No time to lewd, sorry

> yerimiese: it's alright. you did well today

Yerimiese sends you a pic this time. It’s an event; the internet can’t load any quicker. You’re hungry, impatient, dying. Whether it’s intentional or not, the photos she sends whenever you’re tired or stressed out are hotter than her usual swimsuit or photoshoot reel. You’ve shared enough about your daily routine to her that a camera crew might as well be recording you.

It’s nothing out of the ordinary; a simple candid pic of herself lying in bed, her face perfectly cropped out of the background, showing nothing but her body on full display in front of the huge mirror, dressed in skimpy black panties and a white shirt that accentuates her shapely breasts. As usual, she’s not wearing a bra; you can clearly see her hard nipples demanding all of your attention.

> yerimiese: no need to send a dick pic tonight if you don’t feel like doing it

You can’t help it. Tired as you are, you feel obligated to send her one. Luckily, every pic she sends is more than enough to make you instantly hard. It feels more guilty not to be turned on, rather.

It’s a mostly quick and painless affair, powerful enough to put you out of commission within minutes. Even though you’re mentally checked out, Yerimiese’s sexy body is too hot not to crank one out. Taking a pic of your erect cock as you pump yourself to her is second nature; sending it on sticky fingers after you’ve spurted all over your phone and blankets is a different story. There’s no other way to put it, she was the perfect reprieve from the day’s exhaustions—a perfect high note to go out on.

> yerimiese: fuck you’re THROBBING THROBBING tonight :ningasm: your dick looks so damn nice. i can taste your cum through the screen

> You: Happy now?

> yerimiese: more than, and then some. I wish you were here right now so you could feel how wet I am

> You: Just wait. I can’t wait to fuck you hard. Goodnight

> yerimiese: goodnight

> yerimiese: :tukkwithkiss:

—————

The next time you’re able to communicate with her, you’re one day away from being in Korea. In that period, you’ve been inactive in the group chat because work. What welcomes you back is a barrage of lewd photos and Yeri fancams.

> yerimiese: see you tomorrow :chuupeek:

It’s an open secret that you know she’s Kim Yerim. Yes, that Kim Yerim of Red Velvet fame. It was a giveaway right from the first explicit photo she sent you; those tits in a tight, petite package couldn’t have belonged to anyone other than hers. That, and the fact that her username is the same as her Instagram handle, and that she has a photo of herself in the group as a display pic. How she would end up stumbling into your private K-pop server objectifying her body and her profession is one of life’s biggest mysteries, yet here she is, giving you a very personal look into her shapely figure, better than any fancam and photoshoot could ever provide. To others, she’s merely a casual acquaintance, but to you, she can freely open up herself.

Mainly because you’re one of three people in the group chat that still cares about Red Velvet.

Her latest sent photo is relatively tame; a tight fitting white silk sundress, and the skirt is virtually nonexistent, her panties practically out in the open. Luckily for you, she seems to be sitting down, but not in her usual living room. The notion that this is what welcomes you to Korea, that you’ll be balls deep inside an idol’s pussy right when you land—it ruins you.

Almost.

An airport guard manages to break your deep train of thought. “Sir! No phones please,” he sternly commands, saving you from total disaster; you’re inches away from walking straight through a metal detector with your phone in hand, the belt around your pants, and some spare coins lying deep in your pocket after you bought some traditionally expensive bottled water. Luckily, no one manages to see the photo—and even if they did, she’s still smart enough to cut out her face, leaving nothing else to your imagination.

If there’s one thing you’ve learned about immigration and airport security, it’s that there’s little need for repetition. You go through security four times. At the entrance, after the check-in counter, then within your departure gate, and even before boarding your flight—repetitive. It’s frustrating enough to tell Yerim, to which she responds with more lewd photos of herself.

> yerimiese: yeah ive been there before ㅋㅋㅋ

> yerimiese: how long’s ur flight?

> You: About 13 hours

> yerimiese: cali?

> You: Yes

> yerimiese: kinda random, but seulgi misses los angeles

> You: How come?

> yerimiese: something about an ex-boyfriend that i didn’t know about until the other day ㅋㅋㅋ i bet she’ll be jealous when she hears about you coming over just to clap my cheeks ㅋㅋㅋ she’d wish it was her bf instead of you

> You: does she know about this?

> yerimiese: of course not LOL i bet you’d rather fuck her instead of me, so she’ll never know. smh.

> You: That’s not true ur my RV bias since day one!

> yerimiese: stop lying LMAO i don’t blame you tho seulgi has some really toned legs and a nice slappable ass XD anyway, i’m gonna send you something to pass the time while ur onboard

> You: If it’s a masturbating clip i swear to god

> yerimiese: fuck you got me LOL

> You: Goddamit if anyone finds out on a plane of all places…

> yerimiese: i still can’t get over your clip of you jerking to me. i can taste your dick. you’re depriving me by leaving me out to dry for a week ㅋㅋㅋ

> You: You’ve been touching yourself to that clip for a week??

> yerimiese: can’t help myself, album prep has been tiring and i haven’t really found any opportunity to relax in the meantime

> You: I’ll be there soon, just wait a bit longer

> yerimiese: can’t trust me with that, i’m very close to making a huge mess of my hotel room ㅋㅋㅋ

> You: You’re in a hotel?

> yerimiese: just to meet you! I won’t be able to meet you at the airport (duh, idol dating shit), so this is the next best thing. just message me when you’ve landed here, okay?

> You: Sure

—————

It’s ingrained deep within Yerim’s mind. A core memory. If her phone could present count how many times she’s played the clip, it would be over a thousand.

It’s very straightforward. A 45 second clip of someone masturbating between the sheets, pressing their erect cock against their phone with a brightened image of a scantily clad woman on the screen. But it’s not just any woman, it’s her. She’s pleasuring herself to the idea of a man jerking off to her. She’s following his rhythm, timing the pace her fingers rub her clit to the tempo of the man’s cock pumping to her zoomed-in breasts.

And she’s mere minutes removed from a conversation with that exact same person.

Slumped against the hotel room walls, her bliss spirals out of control rapidly. Her legs are instinctively spread wide, juices already leaking through her panties and spilling to the floor; that’s how used they are to Yerim’s impulses to pleasure herself. In those brief moments, she imagines how the next few days play out, skipping past the formalities and pleasantries and going straight to the fucking. She moans and shouts as if that very man’s cock is penetrating her pussy hard at this very moment. Her other hand bashes the wall, tongue screaming streams of profanities, as if he’s manhandling her, using her to his personal delight.

“Fuck! Suck those fucking tits!” she screams, slipping one strap of her sundress down to pinch her own tit, enhancing the illusion. Her phone rings; in her mind it's functionally a vibrator. He’s come fully prepared, and she’s riding high knowing that this person is doing exactly what he said in their private messages from the very start.

Yerim drags her fingers along her clit violently, desperate to reach climax, the realization that this is her third orgasm of the day way beyond her. The evidence can be found everywhere: on the soiled bed sheets and in the smell of the shower; she envisions herself getting railed in those parts of the room, and then some—essentially turning the entire hotel room into the backdrop for all of the things he’d do to her: fingers around her throat, sunk into her ass, until it’s red and hurting, the way she’d quiver and cream all over his throbbing cock. Her neediness has no limits; it even breaks past her very own personal quarters, the loudness of her own self-induced pleasure drawing concern from occupants nearby.

Only after the blissful haze of orgasm does everything fall back in place. That repetitive knock on the door is a huge wake up call. Yerim’s eyes widen.

“Shit.”

She checks her fingers—they’re coated in copious amounts of slick—and after a little further inspection, she realizes the aftermath.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

—————

Being honest about yourself, you couldn’t have asked to feel hornier at a worse time than this. Thirty thousand feet high up in the air, stuck in economy class because you don’t get paid enough to deal with the bullshit back in the office. Using your one of two allowed leaves in the year for a trip to see a girl you’ve mostly known online, and it isn’t even paid. To make things worse, there’s no layovers—just a point-to-point flight from San Francisco to Seoul. 13 hours.

And boy, is the ride absolutely miserable.

By what you might as well call divine intervention, you’re conveniently seated between a nun and a little girl—the two worst kinds of people to be alongside with. No, not because they’re annoying or anything like that; aside from the girl getting up every thirty minutes from her window seat to get something from her parents across the aisle, you’re practically barred access to your glorified archive of lewd Yerim pics. Opening them up with a kid barely in the first grade beside you is openly asking for trouble.

And the few times you get up for a lavatory break, you can’t get yourself going. There’s always someone at the door every five minutes.

Eight hours deep into the flight, you look over your shoulder, catch one of the male flight attendants sneak inside one of the vacant lavatories with a fellow stewardess while everyone’s fast asleep. Fucking sickening. That should be you with Yerim right now.

When you arrive on the other side of the planet, you’ve gotten only a couple hours’ worth of sleep. You almost fumble your passport at immigration, getting them mixed up with a slew of business and membership cards. Then there’s your forgetfulness working against you, remembering you need some kind of pocket Wi-Fi, and now you have to spend a little more to get back online. It’s a mess, and it wasn’t that long since you were in Europe for a seminar, where these things were merely second nature to you.

At least you remembered that VPNs exist. You message Yerim on the taxi ride out of the airport, unsure of where to begin.

> You: Just got out of immigration

> yerimiese: fuckin finally!

> yerimiese: you got a place to stay here?

> You: Not yet

> yerimiese: don’t bother, lemme send you my hotel address, you can stay here

Of course you don’t know Korean, despite the constant back and forth with Yerim for months. Learning’s been on the backend of your itinerary, and has never been your top priority, even now. You show the cab driver the address, who merely looks at you and the phone with a particularly vacant and dumbfounded expression, as if you’re stupid for not planning this out—which, in that regard, he’d be correct.

When you finally arrive at the hotel, only one message stands between you and finally meeting Yerimiese, once and for all.

> yerimiese: I’ll be at the poolside, third floor. can’t wait to meet you :P

And that’s exactly where you end up going. Forget that you’re lugging two whole bags and a traveler’s backpack on your shoulders; you drop them off at the front desk, expecting the staff to have a clue of what’s going on and what’s about to happen.

Stepping out into the poolside, it’s a completely barren sight. It’s three in the afternoon on a Tuesday; most people probably aren’t even booked, let alone in this supposed five-star hotel. You don’t really question whether she’s being serious or not, the evidence was in the previously sent photos; you’re dying to meet her at this point.

And as if perfectly timed for dramatic effect, a woman emerges from beneath the waters, shaking off the wetness from her damp hair.

Yerim casually swims over the deep waters’ edge, without a care in the world, let alone your presence quietly shadowing over the large pool. Even halfway submerged, you can make out the outline of her shapely bust and hourglass figure, tightly hugged by a pink swimsuit. She was sultry and intoxicating to gawk at from candid photos, but seeing Yerimiese herself in the flesh, that’s when the realization hits you: this is happening.

And you can’t move a muscle, let alone react from the actualization that you’re right in front of her. Even as the waves of water splash on your new loafers, you simply observe. It’s creepy, it’s morally dubious, but it’s one in a million. You’re taking in every moment, every second; soak it all in, you’ll never get an experience like this ever again.

You should be friends by now, if your definition of friendship means sharing explicit body photos and exchanging devious intentions about how you’ll fuck each other online or how much cum you’ve given to each other. But when she turns in your direction—catching you casually observing her, your hands tucked away in your coat’s pocket, grinning like a little kid— it’s back to square one.

Like the very first time.

Yerim takes all the time in the world to wade over from the other side of the pool, her smile growing closer as she approaches you. She lifts her eyebrows, expecting you to make a first move, to which you barely open your mouth, and ultimately only a deep breath, a stilted sigh, comes out.

Well, this is awkward.

Yerim giggles. You’ve previously heard her loud moans and cries, but a genuine laugh—this was your first. She never hops on calls in your group chat, most likely because idol shit, as she often refers to her line of work. Her laughter, her energetic expression—it’s as perfect of a translation to real life as it is online, and embodies the idol Yeri you know on screen.

“How long have you been standing there?” she asks, trying—and failing—to suppress more of her laughter.

Your answer is concise, but doesn’t seem quite right. “A while.”

In reality, about five minutes. You probably won’t be there any longer when she props herself out of the water with her strong elbows. Water cascades down her shapely figure, thicker and meatier than it's ever been, more than what the cameras and pictures present. She’s truly the entire package, through and through.

She walks over to her sunlounger, granting you a nice peek of her ass peeking through her skimpy swimsuit before she wraps herself with a towel. Apart from that, your only other notable observation is that she’s soaking wet, even bundled up. That, and also: she’s barefoot. No sign of slippers or any footwear—she willingly walked on what appears to be scorching cobbled floors.

“I would give you a big hug right now, but you know—” she comments, looking down at her drenched self, pool water endlessly dripping down to her feet. Even if she isn’t soaking wet, you’d still be frozen in place, or even worse, some eagle-eyed stranger or Dispatch reporter catch you in secret and you both end up on national news the very next day.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” you say, trying to dodge Yerim’s eyes. “I left my stuff at the front desk. I should probably go and grab them.”

“Smart.” Yerim sizes you up, nodding in amazement at how you’ve managed to get yourself past the entrance. “See you upstairs, then? Room 1015.”

—————

The difference between you and Yerim couldn’t be any more obvious.

Granted, you’re fresh off a 13 hour flight, followed by an hour's travel from the airport to a five-star hotel in the heart of Seoul. Yerim had all the time in the world to prepare, and yet when she emerges from the bathroom in nothing but a modest bathrobe and her dark hair bundled up, she’s never looked better.

Facing an idol in such a haggard condition, it gives you an underlying feeling of shame. And if you’re being completely honest, if not for your cock, she’d probably be repulsed and call security on you.

But there's no security in sight. Just you, just yeri, the two of you standing in this room - which is, for the most part, quite nice. Multiple bedrooms, a lovely view of the city beneath you, and all sorts of amenities and features you’ll never get to use—you half expect her members to come in later, but perhaps for your sake, you’re better off with just her and her alone.

When Yerim begins to talk, she rambles. She goes on about the status of the next album, discussions about a possible solo debut, her relationships with her members—conversations about topics that you never really had online. It was mostly dirty talk and lewd captions. At best, you knew each other at a surface level, but here she is, sharing everything from her heart like you’ve been lifelong friends since day one.

You let her. She’s as charismatic as what she portrays on screen, and her sass is no different than the private messages she sends you. There’s not a single dull moment whenever Yerim speaks. Though you know her mostly for her body, her personality is what has you sticking around.

You wonder if she feels the same way about you.

“So, how’d you find out about us?” Yerim asks, after blabbering for a while, and you genuinely believe she’d keep going till nightfall. Close enough. Five minutes away from five in the afternoon, and you’d already spent the last hour and a half listening to a personalized podcast from her. You hope she doesn’t notice the plate of bulgogi on the table now completely empty.

“Well, a friend was a K-pop fan and had an extra ticket when you toured here,” you say, casually, slumped on the sofa. “Forgot how long that was—” you pause, “five years ago?”

“Five years? Five years since we went to America?” Yerim appears flabbergasted, face in utter disbelief at the passage of time. The realization causes her to stand from her chair. You’d be too after listening to her drone on endlessly. “Fuck.”

“SM! Give us a fucking world tour already!” she screams, pretending she’s inside the company building and you’re an executive in the room. Watching her snarkiness come to life never ceases to amuse you. You’ll let her go on for as long as she needs to; she’s entertaining in such a unique and charming way that it disarms you.

“Argh, sorry, you know me.” She suddenly stops, faces you, arms crossed, mocking up a pout. “Look at me suddenly losing my shit for no good reason.”

“Are your members used to this?”

That didn’t come out right.

She bats an eyelid. On her face is a mild, blank look of displeasure. That didn’t come out right.

“Used to what?”

“Well, uh, I—I mean—”

You gulp your throat.

“Stop.”

Then, an air of awkward silence. Her eyes quickly scan you, lazing on the sofa.

“Let’s just get to fucking each other right now.”

—————

It isn’t that you’ve forgotten the one purpose you’re there to begin with, it’s that Yerim is very, very impulsive. One moment, upset at her company for doing the bare minimum for her group and her career, the next she’s using you as an outlet to release her frustrations. It’s a good thing your first impression of her was that she was very busty, because otherwise, the other description you had of her was—simply put—bratty.

You’re on your back, plopped against one of the beds, completely caught off-guard by her show of strength. Eyes rolled to the back of your head, you find Yerim already at the bed’s edge, loosening the belt around her waist, quickly disrobing herself within seconds. It’s nothing new; you’ve seen glimpses of her nude figure in pictures, imagined many scenarios where you’ve got your hands on her, but this—to see her completely bare in the flesh—is new.

This is different.

“Just so you know,” you mutter, frantically panting, your heart jumping, as Yerim undresses in front of you, “I haven’t actually had sex before.”

Just like that, the mood instantly changes. She stops. Abruptly.

“What?”

Her mouth drops—again. Might as well stay agape.

You consider retracting your statement. It was a joke, you’d say, something to get her even more aroused, fired up. The sex would be wilder, hotter than anything your fantasies would conjure. Then again, you wouldn’t be in this exact situation if you weren’t so chronically online, simping over pop idols like a kid about to enter puberty.

“I guess that’s to be expected,” she comments, snarkily, grabbing the edges of your pants, daring to rip them off you. “That’s fucking life, baby!”

If you were in her shoes, obsessively waiting for someone with equally unhinged horniness, expressing precisely how you’d get fucked every single time you’d send a remotely lewd photo, you’d feel just as disappointed. You can tell by her partially scornful expression: she’s been fantasizing this moment as much as you have, too. You can’t blame her, but you kind of expected her to anticipate this; after all, you connected in a private group chat that’s been sexualizing her, of all places.

Surely the signs of virginity were right there.

“At least this is real,” she says, leaning her head forward while cupping your growing bulge poking through your trousers. Your tip, at full mast, mere inches away from her chin, instead of a little phone screen. She’s pushing you around, growing slightly more mischievous and uncontrollable with the prospect of throwing someone like you around instead of the opposite. Something her members may have taught and ingrained in her.

It isn’t quite the picture you expected from all the erotic snapshots and clips she’s been sending you. Every photo and video, designed to rouse the filthiest and wildest of your thoughts, was an act, a ruse to let your guard down, to give you this fixed headcanon that you can toss her around like she’s your personal plaything and object of pleasure. Instead, she’s using you for her own desires and wants.

It’s not that you don’t want her to use you and fuck you like this, it’s how completely in control she is that has you reeling, leaves you in a dizzy spell.

“I was gonna let you use my pussy and fuck me to ruin,” she says, playfully rolling her eyes, teasing and mocking. Her hand grips around the denim of your bulge, and it fucking stings. You’re sucking on loose air. “But since we have a virgin over here, I’m gonna do whatever I want.”

The implied connotation is what terrifies you, and no, it isn’t the revelation that Yerim isn’t a virgin—you assumed that much—but the notion that you were gonna have free reign over her cunt that has you contemplating some deep, long forgotten life decisions that set you back years. Their consequences are now starting to show.

She releases her ironclad grip on your pants, frees you of your obstructive clothing, both trousers and boxers down to the floor. Your hard cock springs free, terribly aching, already red and sore from her suffocating clench, and already leaking bursts of precum. The last day and a half hasn’t been kind to your cock.

To add insult to injury, she makes this licking motion with her tongue, aimed at your tip, but relents at the last minute. It leaves your throbbing cock aching harder, without any point of relief. The teasing sight almost renders you unconscious, and sends Yerim into a laughing frenzy.

“Remember when I said I could taste your cock?” she says, chuckling. It’s not playful in the slightest—quite the opposite, in fact. It’s sinister. “I’ll wait a little longer to taste it. Don’t worry.”

Not the most reassuring of words, especially when you’ve got your hands tied—at least, not yet. Actually, you appreciate that she isn’t going to milk your cock dry just yet; when you finally look past the situation at hand, you come to treasure her chest. Her shapely chest, freely bouncing while she bounces her thick body on your lap—keep doing that, you say inside your mind, letting your wandering gaze soak in the unreal scene.

She notices your intrigued eyes, rising and falling in rhythm with her tits. Subtlety was never your intention, and she probably knows from experience, as she says she does. Fixated attention is how she gets herself off, based on how she seems to respond to the lewd messages you’ve sent her in the past, and it shows when she repeats some choice remarks back to your face:

“I’d kill my boss to fuck those tits right now, you’re so goddamn sexy.”

She grips a hand around your throat, another down to the buttons of your shirt, pulling them apart.

“Let me be your personal titty towel.”

Halfway there.

“I’d suck on your tits first, go down on your delicious pussy, then fuck that wet hole of yours three times straight.”

Just like that, you’re both even. Equal in nakedness.

You’re unsure whether it’s the sight of Yerim asserting her dominance over you, tits all up in your face with a devious smirk as she bares you down to your essentials that’s leaving you short on air, or if it’s the hand cautiously coiled around your neck. Either option seems sensible enough. This is how she lives in your head rent free, just being her sassy, sexy self. Even repeating some of the same particularly questionable lewd things you’ve written to her sounds hot with her brazen tone.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she raises an eyebrow, leaning her head close, as if demanding an answer.

Really, there’s no multiple choice here. Of course you nod.

She rolls her hips upward, inches her body across yours little by little, til her dripping pussy completely shadows your view. Her hand grabs the back of your head, meaty thighs pressing between your face. Now you’re truly suffocating. Even with the rather shameful admission, she rolls her crotch on your lips, expecting you to know what to do. No words, just the expectant grind of her crotch on your face, her wet folds opening up for you to take them.

Then, she begins moaning.

Admittedly, the closest you’ve had to trying out oral is using your phone as an outlet for your tongue whenever she sends a boob photo. Thankfully, your inexperience doesn’t show when you first dip your tongue inside her folds, getting your first taste of pussy. Saltier than you expected, but fuck, you’d be lying if you think it wasn’t completely intoxicating—everything you hoped for, and more.

It incites a few expressive reactions from Yerim—some loud, others quieter—with the end result usually a sharper, deeper grind of her waist on your face, splaying her cunt for you to devour. You’ve got one hand pressed on her ass, holding her plump flesh down while the other is at her mercy, pulled by hers, forced to squeeze her breast. You won’t complain. Not when her cries of pleasure motivate you to push yourself harder.

You repeat this addictive cycle, stretch moments into minutes, minutes into hours. Even when you’ve drained her completely, you’ll still be craving for more of her; that’s how hungry she’s made you. Your tongue meets her clit, and it draws out this especially sharp whine that she’s never hit once. Not on a track. Not anywhere. She swears up a storm, juxtaposed between soft, gentle pleas of “yes, more, and you’re so good.”

In return, you take more of her, soak yourself in the continuous downpour of her slick juices freely flowing all over your mouth and tongue. As her pleasure escalates, her fingers tighten their grasp on your head, grab your tousled hair. You add soft, intimate kisses between streaks of licking her folds, and they send the young idol writhing, shaking atop you. Her words have been reduced to nothing but short, needy bursts of “please.” Even in this uncontrollable state, she gyrates her hips around you, rhythm steady, but more determined than ever to let herself go.

By the way her pussy throbs, you’re certain she’s a few critical points away from climax. It doesn’t change your plans, not one bit. You continue to lap at her sensitive folds, bask in her intoxicating heat, purposefully teasing her clit. She won’t demand that you end her —not this quickly, not when you’ve magically learned the art of giving oral to a woman under short notice.

You slowly work her through it. Your tongue dives into her slick entrance, deeper than it's ever been so far. The overpowering sensations send ripples that reach even the foundations of the bed, unlike anything it’s ever felt. Even in the wild throes of bodily pleasure, Yerim has enough willpower to stay in character, delivering a demand in her usual playful, fast talking tone. “Please do it! I’m going to cum!”

You contemplate the thought, completely drunk in her divine taste yourself, but you oblige.

Your tongue sticks to her bud, and it causes this instantaneous, elaborate chain reaction. Yerim cries a sharp cry, waves of orgasm washing down all over her body. She stops in her tracks, completely rigid, mouth wide open, and this torrential gush of slick and orgasm swamps you, drowning you so deep that it's nearly fatal. Her thighs involuntarily clench tighter, too, and you’re temporarily trapped in your own pocket dimension, impossible to clean with all the cum left behind, especially on the sheets.

The most surprising observation from her orgasm is how suddenly calm it becomes. Only the sound of your tongue licking her clean can be heard, and it’s nothing but a gentle rustle. She hangs her head up, face completely flushed, catching needed oxygen in her lungs, letting the aftermath of her climax pass over.

While her breath normalizes, she lifts herself up, moves to the side of the bed. In her wake, she’s left behind a drenched lake of slick around your face, leaking down to the muddled sheets beneath you.

“Well,” she says, panting and pausing for air. “There goes the other bed.”

It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out what she meant. Even when you’re still mindlessly occupied by the sticky residue around your lips. You let out this muffled exhale, designed to be a laugh, but it backfires in your face. Amused, she giggles on your behalf.

“Not bad.” Yerim smiles at you. Charming and cute, a contrast to what had just transpired. “I thought you said you never had sex?”

It takes you a moment before you answer back, “I haven’t. You just taste really good.”

“You still have some left on the edges of your face,” she comments, her eyes mesmerized by how much she’s cum all over you. “Let me help you clean that up.”

And she helps, but not in a conventional way. She lifts you from the bed by your torso, then submerges you again, this time at the mercy of her bosom. You’ve got your arms wrapped around her waist while you’re kissing and sucking on her Yerim’s tits, not exactly tidying up, but creating a larger mess that no amount of tongue cleaning can resolve.

In the meantime, she whispers in your ear some of your more—questionable—comments:

“They need to give her a solo debut with a very sexy concept and trust me, I’ll be the guy who breaks the world record for jerking off if they do that.”

“It must feel heavy to carry them all the time. Let me lend a hand to you.”

“The only thought I had inside my mind when I saw her is every member would milk her 3x a day so that they don’t have to go outside and buy milk to eat cereal to the point they would just drink it from the source.”

You stop. You give her this strange, confused look. Even you couldn’t believe you said that.

“Did I actually say that?”

“Yes!” she replies, quick and straightforward, unable to hide her enthusiasm, while brushing your hair. “Not gonna lie, that sent me to the floor. I was laughing so hard, Irene ran in to check up on me!”

To make things worse, she flashes this wide, toothy grin that makes you regret your life choices.

“God. I don’t wanna drink anymore.”

“Hey, if there’s any consolation, you wouldn’t be sucking on my tits and eating me out now if you never made that comment,” she says, caressing your chin and giving you a peck on the lips. As if it’s still not one of the most out of pocket comments you’ve ever made about anyone, let alone a celebrity—and you weren’t fully yourself.

“Relax. Don’t think about it too much.” Yerim pushes you back down to the bed, crawls atop you, meeting your lips again for an intimate kiss. Your hard cock, which has been left unattended for quite a while, captures your attention—and especially hers. “Lean back for me, will you?”

You comply. Involuntarily, your legs straighten, but Yerim pushes them apart, places herself at center view, seemingly ready to take you in her mouth. It makes sense; a woman with a mouth that runs like hers probably only stops when there’s cock stuffed inside them. The theory proves to be plausible when she gives your sensitive tip a delicate, yet dangerous lick, her eyes glinting at you with renewed vigor and lust.

“I told you I’d have a taste of that cock,” she says, half smug, half seductive, gloating with her brows. Your tenseness slightly recedes—until you realize your cock’s moving past her lips, in the direction of the space between her cleavage. “I didn’t say I wanted to suck on it.”

And she was right—not once has she ever expressed her desire to choke, gag, deepthroat on it.

You grit your teeth, watching your cock disappear between her shapely tits, with Yerim personally making sure you comfortably fit like a glove. You fold. It’s snug. Hot. Breathtaking.

“Fuck, Yeri,” you mutter, closing your eyes as her inviting warmth leaves you weak in the knees, trembling. You don’t realize you’ve used her stage name over her real name. “God—”

“Does this feel like everything you wanted?” she asks, tone sultry and triumphant. A little slide up sends you into a frenzy.

You nod—even though there’s no other available options. The erotic image in front of you is permanently seared into your head: Kim Yerim, popular idol and to an extend, your ‘friend with benefits,’ grinning like a maniac, slowly fucking your cock between her tits, coated with your saliva, sweat, and copious amounts of precum. To think your little crude messages on a random forum would have such long term and drastic consequences such as this.

Not that you’d want to make sense of it all, especially when she gets into a rhythm. Sliding her breasts up and down, she’s delicate, intentional, and masochistic; you’re on the receiving end of how she felt when you were slowly eating her out. She’s dangerous, teetering between the line where your cock can be safe between her bosom and where she can break you in half. You’re already falling apart—and fast.

“Holy shit, Yerim. Fuck.”

Each word you deliver is long and drawn out, especially the profanities. Heavenly music to her ears. She’s out of reach where you can pull by her hair, so you settle for the sheets instead. Your gaze wanders, travels everywhere but in her direction, because you don’t need to see the tortuous scene happening between your legs. Looking at the descending sun, this is probably the last time you’ll see the sun set in your life.

Her eyes challenge you to look at anywhere from her. Panting frantically, you find yourself at the mercy of Yerim’s whims, your cock fading and swelling into view, sticky and wet, gushing cum all over her tits. The sight drives you further mad, has you making sounds that have never been recorded—ever. She takes you in, delights in your suffering, eager for you to say the magic words.

“Ready to cum? I know you want to cum.”

Even under duress, you’re not ready to fold just yet. There’s a little stubbornness inside you fighting back, pulling all the stops to keep you from surrendering to Yerim’s demands. You close your eyes, grip on the sheets even tighter, control your breathing, but it’s too little too late. You can only do so much with two hands.

“Cum for me.”

You hold onto a particularly deep breath, desperate to cling to whatever dying vestiges of control there is left, but your fate has already been sealed from the moment you’ve allowed your cock to enter her chest.

“Yerim, I—”

The exhale you release is the most relieving and satisfying. With it, comes out a rope of thick, creamy cum splashed all over her neck and chest. The aching, violent sensation doesn’t stop; more seed spills between the warmth of her cleavage. In one fell swoop, you feel all of your energy sapped from you, leaving you completely weak and powerless.

In the gap between your climax and post-orgasm haze, you wonder if she’ll take some of your cum in her mouth, with the way she looks at your cock as it throbs beneath her chin. No. She lets it drip down her perfect naked body with a sticky white sheen that glows under the natural light piercing through the hotel’s window.

“Just like that, hm,” she comments, casually flicking the last of your withering orgasm and cum with her wrist. She lathers the slick on her fingers on her shoulder, then places some into her mouth for a taste.

After you regain a semblance of normalcy—after Yerim’s finished entertaining herself with your cum, staring at her coated body and fingers with curious interest—she rests her elbows on your knees, in the process of relearning how to bend. You sink back against the headrest, watch as the fading sun glimmers on an idol like her, destined to shine for every occasion possible—on the stage and under the afterglow of sex. She smiles, bright and wide, taking you in, as you are.

There’s something brewing, especially in the tender few minutes that follow. Something special, something more than just a spark.

“So—” Yerim runs a sticky finger on your knee, dangerously close to stirring up your cock again. “You wanna try anal with me next?”

You pause. Widening your eyes, staring back with a look of disbelief. Just when you’re about to open your mouth to reply, she adds:

“Kidding. You do know that you’re gonna have to delete those tweets and comments, right? If they find out you’re here, you’re fucked. And I mean, a thousand times worse than now.”

—————

(A/N: This was an absolute joy to write. The nature of the request meant I could go very meta with it. About time we get a proper Red Velvet full album, so perfect timing! If you're able to figure out some of the references and easter eggs, then you, my friend, are too engrossed in the Tumblr K-pop male reader smut lore. Thank you for reading!)

(P.S. If you want to have your own story/idol written, you can ask for a commission :D)

#smut #kpop smut #yeri #red velvet

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