#tech is more lucrative now than ever. i genuinely believe that these cuts are to keep record profits at record heights

[joheun-saram]

To Make a Power Couple (knj) | 03

Chapter 3 - Coincidences

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Summary- Do their dates ever go according to plan? Well, who knew watching George Clooney was such an aphrodisiac. 

word count- 6.2k

pairing- idol!namjoon x ceo!reader

rating- R

genre- series, slow burn, fluff, smut, strangers2lovers

warnings- unwanted sexual advances (don’t worry, it’s not namjoon and it’s not overly discussed), alcohol consumption, oral sex (f. receiving), hickeys, dry humping, sex

a.n- okay so I wrote my first smut scene. AAAAH. I’m sorry if it’s not the best - I tried and realized I don’t know how to get into a guys headspace during sex lmfao 🙃  Namjoon is also a high-key cheeseball and God of Destruction strikes. I’m sorry but I had to - his face when he breaks things makes me simultaneously laugh and uwu.

Also, in case you missed it I have a lot of feelings about Batman having a credit card. Batman and Robin is an absurd movie but I still love it.

Feedback much appreciated! 💕

taglist - @beach-bitch-bitch-beach​, @sassyuniversitytacopeanut​, @rjsmochii​, @jinjccns​

-

You were greeted by Siwon and a coffee as you walked to the elevator of your office building yawning furiously, uncharacteristically dressed in a navy pantsuit with a white turtleneck in anticipation of your big meeting today. To say you were nervous would be an understatement. You were meeting one of the big tech companies’ senior VP and your deal hinged on his approval. You were not looking forward to it - he was a certified creep. 

“Alright so your meetings in about four hours, we can finish the proposal in about two and then we can prep for the next two.” Siwon was in full assistant mode, rattling off details to add to the proposal that unbeknownst to him you had already finished last night.

“Proposal’s done so let’s skip to the prep,” you say as you step out of the elevator to your floor.

“Did you stay late? Yah Y/N! You know you can’t overwork like that! Also, this building is so creepy at night. Don’t tell me you stayed here alone.” He scolded you, effortlessly switching from employee to friend. You loved that he cared so much about you.

“I’m sorry, but if it makes you feel better - I wasn’t alone.” As you make your way to your desk you notice the kitchen filled with pink pastry boxes. “What’s all that?” you questioned as you forego your desk making a beeline for the kitchen, having skipped breakfast that morning for a much needed hour of sleep.

“What do you mean you weren’t alone?” Siwon was looking at you suspiciously with his eyebrow quirked. When you reached the boxes you noticed that they were filled with all sorts of breakfast goodies, from croissants to danishes to doughnuts. Your mouth watered as you grabbed a buttery croissant, anticipating the taste before it even made it on your plate.

“Y/N! Someone sent them over this morning with this note.” Timothy, your head of curriculum, handed you a pink envelope that matched the boxes. Placing your breakfast on the table you opened the note, hoping it wasn’t a client because that meant you would have to send something to them and would get caught in one of those one-upping gifting circlejerks. Arguably the worst part of corporate life.

Good luck on your meeting today. I’m rooting for you!

-N

PS: this is also your reminder to drink water - stay hydrated! ;)

Your mouth flew open as you reread the note, a grin slowly spreading on your face. As Siwon read over your shoulder, he gasped loudly. Luckily no one else was within earshot or else they would notice you not so gently elbow your assistant and call HR.

“Oh my god… Is this from who I think it’s from?” He sputtered, grinning and wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. “Was he the one keeping you company last night?”

“What? NO!” You giggled nervously as he playfully smacked your arm. “Maybe…” you whispered, shrugging, giving in to his charms.

“Is this why you are wearing a turtleneck? Did he rock your world? Did he bangtan that sonyeondan?” 

“Shut up please!” You hissed at Siwon. You really wished you had a closed office now as you walked to your desk and grabbed your laptop, going into one of the meeting rooms that hopefully no one else booked that morning.

“So spill.” Siwon said as he settled into the chair next to you on the long stained oak table.

“There’s nothing to spill. We worked together and had pizza. And before you ask, no we did not have sex. It was our first date!” You huffed as you started your laptop.

“What did you do to him?” He asked in awe.

“Excuse me?” You were getting irritated now. To insinuate that you did something to him was pretty callous of Siwon. It reminded you of the times in university when your best friend dropped you because her crush told her that he liked you instead of her. You had no intentions of liking that guy, he was honestly not your type, too lazy and self-entitled to ever catch your attention, but she did not hesitate in cutting all ties and insisting you moved out of your shared apartment. According to her, you seduced him with your looks and personality. Pfft. As if life were so easy that you could manipulate whoever you liked into liking you back. However, Siwon was unaware of this incident so you decided to calm your annoyance a little.

“Sorry. I mean he’s sending the whole office breakfast after a first date. He must really like you.” He caught on to your tone and corrected himself. He was good at catching your tonal nuances by now, and you were grateful.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to get annoyed.” You sighed, smiling forcefully, as you pulled up the proposal you worked on earlier that morning. “I really like him too.” You admitted. It kind of felt nice to share that with someone. Usually you would pick up your phone the moment you felt a date go right and tell Jiyoung right away, but knowing what a huge fan she was you wanted to feel out the situation more before she got too excited.

While relaying the events of last night to a very excited Siwon, you texted Namjoon.

Y/N: Wow. Breakfast for the whole office? Big moves.

Namjoon: Well I am trying to woo the CEO. Gotta bring in the big guns!

Y/N: And you think you can woo me with baked goods?

Namjoon: That depends…

Namjoon: Is it working?

Y/N: Yes. Yes it is...

Y/N: Thank you btw. This was really sweet!

Namjoon: Then everything is going according to plan :)

Y/N: I’m excited for tonight

Namjoon: Me too! I miss you!

Y/N: Joon you saw me like eight hours ago!

Namjoon: Eight hours too long!

Y/N: Omg! Stop! You’re so cheesy...

Namjoon: Never!

You walked into the conference room with Harry and Siwon twenty minutes before noon and the three of you started setting up, nerves on high alert. You wrung your hands as you rearranged the printouts on the table for the sixth time, before Harry pulled you into a hug.

“You got this bub! We’re gonna kill it and then celebrate and blow all the money from this deal.” You laughed as your nerves melted. This was the reason he was your best friend and partner in crime. You got out of the embrace, infinitely more calm as you settled in your seat at the end of the table. 

Soon, your client, Mr Li, arrived with two other people from his team. The presentation went smoothly if you were to ignore the fact that every time you glanced at Li his eyes seemed to be fixated on your chest. His team, however, was much less sleazy. After you finished presenting, you and Harry spent about an hour answering their questions and concerns before negotiating another lucrative contract for your company. With this deal done, you will be able to meet your company’s quarterly goals. 

As soon as the meeting ended, Li’s team, now joined by their legal team, that arrived a few minutes before the end, was escorted to your legal floor to sort out the details of the contract.

“So this is a cause for celebration!” Li booms loudly as he shakes Harry’s hand, before pulling you into an unwanted hug. The hug was extremely tight as you felt your chest being squished by his, knocking the air out of you. You awkwardly try to escape, confused by his less than professional behaviour, eyes widened and staring at Harry. “We should all get some drinks in a few weeks to truly seal the deal.”

“Yes, we will definitely set up something with our assistants. I’m not sure if Y/N will be able to join because of her hectic schedule, but I will definitely be there.” Harry swiftly stepped in to shake Li’s hand one more time, subtly but clearly giving you an out. You were immensely relieved till you heard Li’s next words.

“It’s no party without the CEO. I bet she’s a real firecracker with a few drinks in her!” He laughed full-bellied, elbowing an uncomfortably stunned Harry as you gave him a tight lipped smile.

“Of course. We’ll set something up soon, Mr Li. Now if you excuse me I have another meeting to attend. We’re very excited to work with you!” You forced a fake smile as you exited the cringe-inducing situation. You grabbed some water when you reached your desk, drinking it to get the nasty taste of the situation out of your head. Sometimes you truly hated having to plaster a smile to appease clients, but unfortunately it was part of the job.

Your mood lightened significantly as your phone buzzed, instantly forgetting about the creepy old man. You picked up to hear Namjoon’s baritone voice greeting you as you ducked into a small meeting room, locking the door and settling on the comfy couch at the end.

“How did it go?” He seemed a bit out of breath.

“Nailed it! Although the guy was a certified creep.”

“Oh I’m sorry for that. What happened?” Genuine concern laced his tone.

“He just didn’t have any concerns for personal space” you sighed but your heart warmed at his worry for you. “Why are you out of breath?”

“That sucks! I just got done with dance practice.” He quickly picked up on your hesitance to go into further detail. “I haven’t danced this intensely in a while!”

“Oh! I would love to see you dance!” You giggled.

“Trust me I’m not good. It is not worth it.”

“I don’t believe you. I guess I’ll have to see it to judge for myself.”

“Hmm… maybe. Fair warning, there are literal twitter pages dedicated to my terrible moves.”

“Well then those people are assholes. I bet they’re jealous because you are an amazing dancer.” 

_________________________________

Namjoon hung up the call and stared at the call log on his phone, displaying that he had been on the phone with you for over thirty five minutes. It felt like it had been barely two. He didn’t know why talking to you improved his mood this much, but just hearing your voice was enough to make him forget the stress from messing up the choreography almost every run though this morning, and especially Hoseok’s disappointing face as he tried and failed to correct his moves.

Getting back to the big mirrored room, he decided to go through the steps again alone to really nail down the routine, his head full of your plans later this evening. Initially, he had planned a romantic dinner to a high end restaurant in Gangnam but after his manager’s email this morning that he might be being followed, you both had decided on a quiet evening at your apartment. You had insisted it would be safer this way since the suspected stalker would not know where he was going, but he still felt a little uncomfortable about possibly putting your home in danger. He remembered when Yoongi had a stalker three years ago and they all had to pretty much be holed together in the dorms to ensure their safety. Luckily, they were smarter now with a much larger budget for security so these incidents barely encroached on their everyday activities. Still, this was the first time he was seeing someone while dealing with this and that made him wary.

After practicing for another couple of hours, Namjoon headed back home before getting ready for the evening. The closer the clock ticked towards 7, the more nervous he seemed to get. He had butterflies in his stomach as he styled his hair for the fifth time. Giving up, he grabbed the small bouquet of sunflowers he had prepared for the evening and headed towards the car waiting to pick him up downstairs.

As much as he had talked to you over the last few days, the pressure of this being a real date made him want to make a good impression. He was disappointed that he couldn’t wow you with a gourmet meal and even though he was confident that you enjoyed his company, the fact that you would basically be forced to stay with him if you wanted to leave tonight made him uneasy. 

Fidgeting with the collar of his black t-shirt, he braced himself as he knocked on your door. You took his breath away when you opened the door, dressed in a beautiful red sundress that hugged all your curves perfectly. You smiled widely at him as you greeted him. Your pink dusted cheeks and the way your eyes sparkled as you saw him, made all his earlier worries disappear. His heart sang as you excitedly took the bouquet, sniffing the flowers before busying yourself and looking for a jar to place them in. He was glad he went through the effort of buying them. Well, the effort of bribing one of the staff with lunch for them.

“How did you know these are my favourite flowers?” You sounded shocked.

“I saw them everywhere at the gala, so I figured even if they weren’t your favourites you at least liked them.” He smiled widely, internally celebrating going for those over Jin’s suggestion of the typical roses. He watched as you carefully snapped the stems of the flowers and placed them in the jar a little too small to contain all the flowers. He couldn’t help but think how stunning you looked biting your lip concentrating while arranging the flowers, taking care not to break off any leaves.

Your apartment reflected your personality it seemed. The kitchen was attached to the large living room, separated by a large island that you were working on. The living room had a large comfortable yellow couch with a few fuzzy blankets and white pillows, facing a television on the wall surrounded by framed posters of music festivals, which he gathered from the dates were ones you attended. He also noticed a vintage looking record player next to the opposite wall with a shelf full of books and records, arranged in seemingly no order; the books differing in lengths with random records popped between them. Everything was extremely clean but he could make out some clutter like a pair of keys attached to an Apeach keychain next to the window, and a pair of sunglasses that were precariously hanging off the edge of a small table in the corner. He felt that he was looking inside your brain a little, and it made him extremely grateful that you had deemed him worthy enough to invite him over. He didn’t know if that was something you were comfortable enough doing with everyone you met or dated, or if inviting him to your apartment was an anomaly, and he’d be lying if he didn’t hope it was the latter. The thought that he was getting special treatment made him giddy.

After arranging your flowers, you made your way to Namjoon, and he felt your arms around his waist as you wrapped him a hug. 

“Thank you” you whispered into his chest and even this small gesture made him blush.

“I just wanted to cheer you up after that shitty meeting.” He wrapped his arm around your shoulders. He could feel you smile into his chest, something that was confirmed when you separated after a few seconds and made your way to the couch. He missed your warmth already.

“Honestly, just talking to you after it cheered me up.” He sat next to you on the couch as you poured two glasses of white wine, handing him one. “I know we just talked but how was the rest of your day?”

You both shared news about the rest of your days with each other while waiting for dinner to arrive. The conversation was easy and fluid, easily shifting from mundane everyday events to anecdotes about your friends while you ate your pastas and finished the bottle of wine. He appreciated that unlike other people he had dated you didn’t seem surprised that he had friends outside the band and that most of his stories revolved around them rather than BTS. He always felt that so much of his friendship with the guys was broadcasted that he’d be retelling something that people had already watched so to the disappointment of a lot of his dates, he shared more about his other friends. Like how last year he went on a trip to Paris with childhood friends and got kicked out of the Louvre because they accidentally almost knocked down an exhibit. Or when one of his friends got so unbelievably drunk he had to bribe him with actual money to ensure he didn’t sleep in the park. He enjoyed hearing your university tales too, laughing out loud when you recounted the time you had drunkenly won a debate with one of your friends on which Batman was the best, resulting in the said friend to streak around the neighbourhood.

“Wait so you’re telling me if you lost, you would have to streak instead?” His eyes were wide as he looked at you. He had not expected you to have this wild side. He was intrigued, if not slightly turned on by the idea that this side might show up later.

“I would. I never break a promise.” You looked smug as you smiled over your wine glass. “But if I’m being honest, I knew I would win. Who thinks Clooney is the best Batman? He had a bat credit card for crying out loud!” He smiled as you ranted about how Batman would even apply for a credit card and the unlikelihood of him having a social security number without giving away his identity. Sure, Namjoon had never seen this particular Batman movie, or any to be fair, but the way you passionately discussed the superhero was so endearing to him that he couldn’t help nodding along enthusiastically at each point you made, giggling as he did so.

“Okay. I have not seen that movie, but that sounds hilarious.” He commented as he finished the last of the wine in his glass.

“What? It is a cinematic meme masterpiece! We have to watch it!”

_________________________________

That’s how you ended up watching Batman and Robin, a second bottle of wine open on the coffee table. You hadn’t imagined that’s how you’ll be spending the next few hours with Namjoon. In fact, you did not want to impose your nerdy views on him at all, but tipsy you had other ideas. He seemed to be enjoying the movie too, laughing justly at the bat nipples and stupid ice puns. However with each corny flirt Poison Ivy threw at one of the many men on screen, you couldn’t help but notice how closely you were sitting next to a man hotter than any on your television. He had his arm around your shoulders and your head rested slightly on his chest, engulfed in his woodsy scent. You couldn’t help but steal glances at him, resisting the urge to reach up and kiss his jaw where it rested on his hand.

You had wanted to kiss him the moment he walked in the door with flowers in hand. No date had ever brought you flowers before and it set your heart aflutter. If he was any more perfect, you’d be worried you had imagined him and that you’d wake up from a very long, very surreal dream. The next time you glanced up at him you found him looking at you, a soft smile on his face, his dimples looking extra cute as he looked into your eyes.

Feeling uncharacteristically bashful, you smiled back at him, willing yourself not to avert his gaze. “Hi,” you muttered.

“Hi” His deep voice reverberated through your body and before you could tell your heart to stop thudding at your chest, Namjoon closed the space between you. His lips were slightly chapped as he brushed them against yours gently -  unrushed and soft. He took his time, his lips dancing around yours as if in a practiced waltz, as he moved his hand to your cheek, thumb stroking your cheekbones. Before you could deepen the kiss, you separated, much to your disappointment and he went back to watching the movie.

“Oh look! It’s the credit card scene.” He said nonchalantly as if he had not just taken your breath away.

“Joon! This movie is stupid,” you whined as you reached for his face, but before you could reach it he grabbed your wrist.

“But it’s a cinematic meme masterpiece!” He teased you with your earlier comment, his eyes lit with mirth. 

You pouted in defiance. “You can’t just kiss me like this and expect me to go back to watching the movie.”

“Aww! Cute!” He cooed as you huff, but before you could protest further, he kissed you again. Unlike the first time, this kiss was fierce, sparking a need in you. His lips pressed firmly against yours as his arm moved from around you to maneuver you on top of his lap. He did not hold back as he kissed you with a yearning you felt pulsate through you. He coaxed his way into your mouth as you didn't hesitate for a second, your hands running through the hair at the nape of his neck.

His hands were on your hips and as he pulled you closer you couldn’t help but roll your hips on him, feeling him hardening under you, a moan escaping from your mouth into his. Your dress was almost pulled to your waist and the rough material of his jeans felt delicious against your lace panties. You couldn’t help but roll your hips again, wanting him much closer than he already was.

“Baby you can’t do that to me.” He whined, his voice heavy with desire, as he started placing kisses down your face to your neck.

“Why not?” Your eyes spoke of challenge as you once again grind on him, a light moan escaping your lips, teasingly.

He stops kissing you as he looks up at you sternly, his jaw jutting out slightly. “Because I’m trying to be a gentleman here.”

“Fuck that. Let’s be b-” 

Before you can finish your sentence, he is spinning you around to lay you on the couch, hovering above you, your legs on either side of his body. Your head is caged between his arms, your dress barely covering your panties, as he smirks at you before rocking his hip against you, eliciting a loud gasp from you.

“Are you sure?” He asks as he kisses your neck, softly biting in a way that you’re sure there will be marks tomorrow, before soothing it with his tongue.

“Yes” you whisper as you reach down to palm him over his pants, making him groan where he’s kissing behind your ear.

“Fuck… Can I take this off?” His hand is on the zipper of your dress and as soon as you nod, he is pulling it down, increasing his force when it gets caught. Suddenly he stops, his eyes wide with alarm. Leaning up slightly you follow his gaze to his hand where he holds your zipper, no longer attached to the dress. He looks like a kid that broke an expensive vase in a store and you can’t help but laugh.

“Oh shit! I’m sorry!” The more he apologizes, the more you laugh at the situation, tears filling up your eyes. How could he be sexily growling in your ear one moment, making you drench your panties, and be this adorably guilty looking the next? Pushing him off you stand up and coax the rest of the zip down, letting the dress pool at your feet, as you grab his hand, urging him to stand up.

“Let’s go to the bedroom.” You lead him across the hall to your bedroom, and he quickly recovers from his blunder, wrapping himself behind you as he continues to kiss your neck and face.

“I’ll buy you a new dress! Sorry!” He says as you sit down at the end of your bed.

“Joonie, stop apologizing and fuck me.” You pull at his shirt, and thankfully he gets the hint, smoothly taking it off and throwing it beside you with a quick “Yes, ma'am.” You are mesmerized by his body, as you trace your hands up to his toned chest, thanking the god you didn’t believe in for this moment. Smirking at your adoration, he kisses you again, pushing you to lie down with his arm around your waist as he pushes you further up the bed till your head hits the pillows.

He continues kissing you as you run your hands over his chest and back, wanting to consume all of him. “Mmm, you’re so beautiful.” He moans as he kisses down your neck to your chest, rubbing himself on you, his fingers lingering at the waistband of your panties. He looks to you for consent and seeing your enthusiastic nod, he pulls them down, groaning at your arousal that liberally coats them.

“Baby, you’re so wet.” He whispers, amazed as if you had any other choice considering his earlier teasing. He kisses your lips again as his fingers slide against your lips teasingly, making you rut your hips against his hand in an effort to feel him inside.

“Joonie, please. Stop teasing” You whine against his lips, and thankfully he does, pushing one finger inside, making you cry out as you tip your head back against the pillows. Taking advantage of your angled head he presses his lips to your neck, leaving another hickey as one finger becomes two, deliciously stretching you and making you clench against him. Your head is cloudy with endorphins as he curls his fingers expertly thrusting in you, filling the room with your wanton moans. He kisses up to your ear, nibbling a little at your lobe.

“I want to taste you.” His voice is heavy with want and it sends a shiver up your spine. You clench around his fingers in anticipation as he kisses down your body, pulling your bra cups down to pay extra attention to your hardened nipples. His bangs brush against your skin raising goosebumps as he places multiple small pecks on your soft belly before reaching his destination.

“Look here, baby.” He says and as soon as you make eye contact, he pulls out his fingers, placing them in his mouth sucking on them with a groan, making heat rise up your neck. “You’re fucking delicious.”

Your heart is about to explode out of your chest and you can’t help but squirm but he holds your legs apart, slowly kissing each inner thigh as he takes his time. He really has a knack for teasing, and you wouldn’t complain if not for the aching between your legs. You’re desperate for him.

Finally, he lays on his stomach, his long legs dangling off the bed, as he holds your gaze, grinning, before giving you a long lick, making you shudder. He moans into you as he continues his long licks, your fingers making their way to his hair.

He focuses his attention on your clit, sucking and increasing his speed. No one has eaten you out like this. You remember after drinks with your friends claiming that it sucked that you were straight because guys always suck at eating pussy. Oh how wrong you were, you thought as Namjoon added his fingers back into the mix, thrusting as his tongue lapped at your clit, making you see stars. You could feel the familiar heat in your core as you tugged his hair, making him groan, a chant of his name on your lips as you feel yourself becoming undone. Your toes curl into the comforter below you as your legs shake screaming his name. He coaxes you though your orgasm, slowing his thrusts and licking you clean as you come down. When you could feel the overstimulation, you called his name, lightly stroking his hair. You kind of felt bad for pulling on it that tightly earlier.

He wiped his face as he came up towards you, smiling triumphantly. He kissed you and you could taste yourself on his lips. 

“You did so well for me, baby.” You had never been praised for orgasming and although you had just cum you felt yourself getting wet all over again. You kissed him again, reaching to undo his jeans and struggling.

“Are you sure? We can stop here if you want.” Namjoon says against your lips.

“Shut up and get naked, Joon” you huff against his lips as he chuckles, flipping on his back next to you to undo his pants and pulling them off along with his boxers. You bite your lip as you see his cock emerge, bouncing against his stomach, his head dripping precum. Your mouth waters as you undo your bra, tossing it to the side, before reaching for his generous length. He hisses as your thumb runs over the tip, and you use the precum to stroke him slowly.

Suddenly, he grabs your wrist, stopping your exploration. “I’m going to cum if you don’t stop.”

You peck his lips as he lets go, turning around and reaching out for the condoms in your bedside drawer. Ripping the packet open, you pinch the tip, smirking as you place it in your mouth, enjoying the way his eyes widen in surprise as you stroke him twice before using your lips to encase his length in latex. 

“Holy fuck. You’re perfect.” He grabs your face as soon as you’re done and kisses you fiercely as he once again lays you under him. His length rubs against your clit, sending jolts of pleasures up your spine as you rut your hips upwards. Getting the hint, he grabs his cock and lines it to your entrance. Your insides flutter as you feel him run his tip between your folds collecting your arousal, making you mewl a weak “please”. His face is flushed and his eyes are dark as he guides himself in smoothly, both of you moaning at the pleasure. The stretch is unbelievable, and you close your eyes as the sensation.

He waits a beat for you to accommodate him and as soon as you nod, he pulls back to thrust in again. Slowly he builds up to a rhythm that has you both panting. The room is full of the sounds of your bodies colliding and heavy breaths. You open your eyes to see him with his tongue between his lips and his jaw clenched. The same look of concentration he had when he was writing his songs in your office last night, and you felt yourself clench around him in pleasure. He moaned lowly and it was like you could feel his voice travel through you.

“Oh my god, Joon!” you cried as he changed his angle, hitting your g-spot directly, and increased his speed, thrusting harder.

“I got you, baby. I got you.” He reached for your hand and intertwined your fingers, pressing his forehead against yours, pressing kisses against your cheeks. You could feel yourself getting close again as he continued his pace, and by the way his grip on your hand tightened you could tell he was getting there too. You wrapped your legs around him as he started to get sloppier, getting lost in chasing pleasure.

“Cum for me baby, please.” He pleaded as his fingers reached between you to tease your clit, shooting waves of pleasure through you. He sucked on your neck and the sensation was too much. You feel yourself tighten around him and he groans as the tension building in your stomach snaps, making you cum hard around him, his name on your tongue as your fingers dig into his back.

He fucks you through your orgasm, hard and fast, before cumming himself with a loud groan and collapsing on you. Your bodies panting in unison as you both try to catch your breath. You’re both still holding hands, as he sweetly kisses your cheek, before pulling himself off of you, discarding the condom in the trash can, and laying back next to you. After you both calm down, he speaks staring at the ceiling.

“Do you have cameras in here?”

“What?” You are confused as you turn to look at him.

“Wouldn’t wanna make a sex tape on our second date.” He laughs, turning on his side and wrapping his arm around your waist.

“Oh my god. I hate you.” You playfully swat at his chest.

“Nah, you like me.” He grins, kissing the tip of your nose as you roll your eyes. “But it’s okay because I really like you too.”

“You are so cheesy!” you groan, but your face flushes at his words, your heart dancing in your chest. “I’m going to pee.”

“No, stay.” He whines pulling you close to his chest. You oblige him for all of two minutes, before grabbing his shirt from the end of the bed, putting it on, grabbing a fresh pair of panties, and making your way to the ensuite.

When you return you find him still on your bed, albeit in his boxers now, lying amongst your many pillows with his hands behind his head. Hearing your footsteps, he turns to you and smiles, reaching his hand out to pull you in with him. Cuddling you into his chest, he pulls the comforter over the two of you.

“You’re staying?” You hadn’t expected him to stay and you felt your heart warm at the way he did not rush to leave after sex. You knew he wasn’t the kind of person to just be in it for the sex, but it was your second date so you had kept your expectations low.

“Do you not want me to?” He asks with a pout, stiffening, and you could hear how fast his heart was beating.

“Please stay.” You snuggled closer to him, wrapping your arms around him, as you felt him relax and kiss the top of your head. “Want to see something cool?”

He hummed as you asked your google home to show you the sky. It was a dumb impulse purchase you made after a week of late nights of work at home and you hadn’t had the opportunity to show it off yet. You watched his mouth open in awe as the connected device turned off all the lights in your room and projected the milky way on to your ceiling. You chuckled at his child-like reaction. After talking to him this much, you were kind of sure that this would be how he’d act. You were pretty similar and you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t had the same reaction when you first saw the constellations on your ceiling. He was quiet for a while, taking in the view and the only way you knew he was awake was by the way his hand softly caressed your hair.

“Hey Y/N. Do you ever think how crazy it is that we met?” His voice was almost a whisper as he turned on his side to look at you. Turning to face him, you placed your hand on his cheek as he continued. “Like you would have to make a company at the perfect time, get your contract with Samsung, decide to move to Korea, convince my boss to sign with you, and then throw that gala, and at the same time I would have to decide to be a rapper, sign to this company, make it big at the right time, come across your non-profit at the right time, and successfully convince Bang PD to let us go to your event. Isn’t that crazy how all those little decisions led to this?”

You were stunned. You had never thought about it that way. How everyone you met was by such a coincidence, how you met Joon was such a coincidence. The way he phrased it made it seem like fate. Maybe it was.

“You forgot about the part where I almost didn’t let you come to the gala.” You joked. You knew he was being serious, but your internal defense mechanisms were in full gear. You didn’t know why you were making light of his beautiful statement, but you felt if you didn’t, you’d fall for him even further and you weren't ready for that.

“What do you mean?” He chuckled, his hand rubbing circles into your waist.

“Your team asked me four hours before the gala that you were coming.” He snorted at your response. “You’re lucky Jiyoung is a fan.”

“Well, then I’ll send a thank you card to her.” He gazed at you adoringly as he pulled you closer. “You know I wasn’t joking earlier… I really like you.”

“I really like you too, Joon.” you whispered as he captured your lips into a kiss. You both continued discussing the coincidences that had to align for you to meet, stealing kisses as you drift off to sleep. 

Wrapped up in his arms, with the twinkling stars on your ceiling, it was the best sleep you had had in a long while.

____________________

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[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

In late November, the Justice Department unsealed indictments against eight people accused of fleecing advertisers of $36 million in two of the largest digital ad-fraud operations ever uncovered. Digital advertisers tend to want two things: people to look at their ads and “premium” websites — i.e., established and legitimate publications — on which to host them. The two schemes at issue in the case, dubbed Methbot and 3ve by the security researchers who found them, faked both. Hucksters infected 1.7 million computers with malware that remotely directed traffic to “spoofed” websites — “empty websites designed for bot traffic” that served up a video ad purchased from one of the internet’s vast programmatic ad-exchanges, but that were designed, according to the indictments, “to fool advertisers into thinking that an impression of their ad was served on a premium publisher site,” like that of Vogue or The Economist. Views, meanwhile, were faked by malware-infected computers with marvelously sophisticated techniques to imitate humans: bots “faked clicks, mouse movements, and social network login information to masquerade as engaged human consumers.” Some were sent to browse the internet to gather tracking cookies from other websites, just as a human visitor would have done through regular behavior. Fake people with fake cookies and fake social-media accounts, fake-moving their fake cursors, fake-clicking on fake websites — the fraudsters had essentially created a simulacrum of the internet, where the only real things were the ads.

How much of the internet is fake? Studies generally suggest that, year after year, less than 60 percent of web traffic is human; some years, according to some researchers, a healthy majority of it is bot. For a period of time in 2013, the Times reported this year, a full half of YouTube traffic was “bots masquerading as people,” a portion so high that employees feared an inflection point after which YouTube’s systems for detecting fraudulent traffic would begin to regard bot traffic as real and human traffic as fake. They called this hypothetical event “the Inversion.”

In the future, when I look back from the high-tech gamer jail in which President PewDiePie will have imprisoned me, I will remember 2018 as the year the internet passed the Inversion, not in some strict numerical sense, since bots already outnumber humans online more years than not, but in the perceptual sense. The internet has always played host in its dark corners to schools of catfish and embassies of Nigerian princes, but that darkness now pervades its every aspect: Everything that once seemed definitively and unquestionably real now seems slightly fake; everything that once seemed slightly fake now has the power and presence of the real. The “fakeness” of the post-Inversion internet is less a calculable falsehood and more a particular quality of experience — the uncanny sense that what you encounter online is not “real” but is also undeniably not “fake,” and indeed may be both at once, or in succession, as you turn it over in your head.

The metrics are fake.                        

Take something as seemingly simple as how we measure web traffic. Metrics should be the most real thing on the internet: They are countable, trackable, and verifiable, and their existence undergirds the advertising business that drives our biggest social and search platforms. Yet not even Facebook, the world’s greatest data–gathering organization, seems able to produce genuine figures. In October, small advertisers filed suit against the social-media giant, accusing it of covering up, for a year, its significant overstatements of the time users spent watching videos on the platform (by 60 to 80 percent, Facebook says; by 150 to 900 percent, the plaintiffs say). According to an exhaustive list at MarketingLand, over the past two years Facebook has admitted to misreporting the reach of posts on Facebook Pages (in two different ways), the rate at which viewers complete ad videos, the average time spent reading its “Instant Articles,” the amount of referral traffic from Facebook to external websites, the number of views that videos received via Facebook’s mobile site, and the number of video views in Instant Articles.

Can we still trust the metrics? After the Inversion, what’s the point? Even when we put our faith in their accuracy, there’s something not quite real about them: My favorite statistic this year was Facebook’s claim that 75 million people watched at least a minute of Facebook Watch videos every day — though, as Facebook admitted, the 60 seconds in that one minute didn’t need to be watched consecutively. Real videos, real people, fake minutes.

The people are fake.                        

And maybe we shouldn’t even assume that the people are real. Over at YouTube, the business of buying and selling video views is “flourishing,” as the Times reminded readers with a lengthy investigation in August. The company says only “a tiny fraction” of its traffic is fake, but fake subscribers are enough of a problem that the site undertook a purge of “spam accounts” in mid-December. These days, the Times found, you can buy 5,000 YouTube views — 30 seconds of a video counts as a view — for as low as $15; oftentimes, customers are led to believe that the views they purchase come from real people. More likely, they come from bots. On some platforms, video views and app downloads can be forged in lucrative industrial counterfeiting operations. If you want a picture of what the Inversion looks like, find a video of a “click farm”: hundreds of individual smartphones, arranged in rows on shelves or racks in professional-looking offices, each watching the same video or downloading the same app.

This is obviously not real human traffic. But what would real human traffic look like? The Inversion gives rise to some odd philosophical quandaries: If a Russian troll using a Brazilian man’s photograph to masquerade as an American Trump supporter watches a video on Facebook, is that view “real”? Not only do we have bots masquerading as humans and humans masquerading as other humans, but also sometimes humans masquerading as bots, pretending to be “artificial-intelligence personal assistants,” like Facebook’s “M,” in order to help tech companies appear to possess cutting-edge AI. We even have whatever CGI Instagram influencer Lil Miquela is: a fake human with a real body, a fake face, and real influence. Even humans who aren’t masquerading can contort themselves through layers of diminishing reality: The Atlantic reports that non-CGI human influencers are posting fake sponsored content — that is, content meant to look like content that is meant to look authentic, for free — to attract attention from brand reps, who, they hope, will pay them real money.

The businesses are fake.                        

The money is usually real. Not always — ask someone who enthusiastically got into cryptocurrency this time last year — but often enough to be an engine of the Inversion. If the money is real, why does anything else need to be? Earlier this year, the writer and artist Jenny Odell began to look into an Amazon reseller that had bought goods from other Amazon resellers and resold them, again on Amazon, at higher prices. Odell discovered an elaborate network of fake price-gouging and copyright-stealing businesses connected to the cultlike Evangelical church whose followers resurrected Newsweek in 2013 as a zombie search-engine-optimized spam farm. She visited a strange bookstore operated by the resellers in San Francisco and found a stunted concrete reproduction of the dazzlingly phony storefronts she’d encountered on Amazon, arranged haphazardly with best-selling books, plastic tchotchkes, and beauty products apparently bought from wholesalers. “At some point I began to feel like I was in a dream,” she wrote. “Or that I was half-awake, unable to distinguish the virtual from the real, the local from the global, a product from a Photoshop image, the sincere from the insincere.”

                                       The content is fake.                        

The only site that gives me that dizzying sensation of unreality as often as Amazon does is YouTube, which plays host to weeks’ worth of inverted, inhuman content. TV episodes that have been mirror-flipped to avoid copyright takedowns air next to huckster vloggers flogging merch who air next to anonymously produced videos that are ostensibly for children. An animated video of Spider-Man and Elsa from Frozen riding tractors is not, you know, not real: Some poor soul animated it and gave voice to its actors, and I have no doubt that some number (dozens? Hundreds? Millions? Sure, why not?) of kids have sat and watched it and found some mystifying, occult enjoyment in it. But it’s certainly not “official,” and it’s hard, watching it onscreen as an adult, to understand where it came from and what it means that the view count beneath it is continually ticking up.

These, at least, are mostly bootleg videos of popular fictional characters, i.e., counterfeit unreality. Counterfeit reality is still more difficult to find—for now. In January 2018, an anonymous Redditor created a relatively easy-to-use desktop-app implementation of “deepfakes,” the now-infamous technology that uses artificial-intelligence image processing to replace one face in a video with another — putting, say, a politician’s over a porn star’s. A recent academic paper from researchers at the graphics-card company Nvidia demonstrates a similar technique used to create images of computer-generated “human” faces that look shockingly like photographs of real people. (Next time Russians want to puppeteer a group of invented Americans on Facebook, they won’t even need to steal photos of real people.) Contrary to what you might expect, a world suffused with deepfakes and other artificially generated photographic images won’t be one in which “fake” images are routinely believed to be real, but one in which “real” images are routinely believed to be fake — simply because, in the wake of the Inversion, who’ll be able to tell the difference?

                                       Our politics are fake.                        

Such a loss of any anchoring “reality” only makes us pine for it more. Our politics have been inverted along with everything else, suffused with a Gnostic sense that we’re being scammed and defrauded and lied to but that a “real truth” still lurks somewhere. Adolescents are deeply engaged by YouTube videos that promise to show the hard reality beneath the “scams” of feminism and diversity — a process they call “red-pilling” after the scene in The Matrix when the computer simulation falls away and reality appears. Political arguments now involve trading accusations of “virtue signaling” — the idea that liberals are faking their politics for social reward — against charges of being Russian bots. The only thing anyone can agree on is that everyone online is lying and fake.

                                       We ourselves are fake.                        

Which, well. Everywhere I went online this year, I was asked to prove I’m a human. Can you retype this distorted word? Can you transcribe this house number? Can you select the images that contain a motorcycle? I found myself prostrate daily at the feet of robot bouncers, frantically showing off my highly developed pattern-matching skills — does a Vespa count as a motorcycle, even? — so I could get into nightclubs I’m not even sure I want to enter. Once inside, I was directed by dopamine-feedback loops to scroll well past any healthy point, manipulated by emotionally charged headlines and posts to click on things I didn’t care about, and harried and hectored and sweet-talked into arguments and purchases and relationships so algorithmically determined it was hard to describe them as real.

Where does that leave us? I’m not sure the solution is to seek out some pre-Inversion authenticity — to red-pill ourselves back to “reality.” What’s gone from the internet, after all, isn’t “truth,” but trust: the sense that the people and things we encounter are what they represent themselves to be. Years of metrics-driven growth, lucrative manipulative systems, and unregulated platform marketplaces, have created an environment where it makes more sense to be fake online — to be disingenuous and cynical, to lie and cheat, to misrepresent and distort — than it does to be real. Fixing that would require cultural and political reform in Silicon Valley and around the world, but it’s our only choice. Otherwise we’ll all end up on the bot internet of fake people, fake clicks, fake sites, and fake computers, where the only real thing is the ads.