thatblvckboyy

[thatblvckboyy]

⋆｡°✩ cloudy with a chance of an encore ✦ sim jaeyun

three months of silence. one concert alert, and the terrifying, beautiful gamble of maybe, just maybe, finding your way back through the hurt.

𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖✦⋆˚ pairing — sim jaeyun x male!reader 

𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖✦⋆˚ tags — some angst … hooh lordie … ITS OKAY I SWEAR, yearning jake is so sexc aha, male reader yall

𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖✦⋆˚ warning + notes — severe pining-induced chest aches (temporary, cured by kissing), swearing, the concert is the catalyst, but the softness? that's all them, also bring tissues

𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖✦⋆˚ word count — 3.9k

𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖✦⋆˚ check my new masterlist — looking for past works? here's the legacy one!

The notification ping felt like a physical blow to your sternum. Three months of radio silence, a carefully constructed barrier against the ache, shattered by a single, innocuous calendar alert: ‘BTS RE: TOUR - Sofi Stadium - TONIGHT w/J’.

You stared at the screen, the glow illuminating your darkened living room – the aftermath of another late shift at the network station. ‘w/J’. Jake. Of course. You’d bought the tickets together in a frenzy of excitement six months ago, back when "forever" felt tangible, not like a fragile glass sculpture Jake had accidentally knocked off the shelf.

Three months ago, that glass had shattered spectacularly.

It hadn't been one cataclysmic explosion, but a slow erosion. Jake, soaring in his new career as a sought-after fashion model, has a chaotic whirlwind of shoots, castings, and freelance gigs connected to the industry. You, entrenched as Head of Production for a major news network, your own life dictated by breaking news cycles and relentless deadlines.

The distance wasn’t just geographical; it was emotional. Promises broken, not out of malice, you knew that intellectually, but out of sheer, infuriating carelessness. Important dates forgotten. Late-night calls missed because he’d fallen asleep after a shoot halfway across the world. A crucial family dinner for you, overshadowed by a last-minute campaign launch he had to attend.

From where you stood, it became a pattern that solidified.

It was you, standing alone at the engagement party of mutual friends, fielding awkward questions about Jake’s absence. It was the hollow ache when you saw his face, impossibly handsome and carefree, splashed across a billboard downtown. It was realizing your resentment had begun to outweigh the love, a toxic equation with no solution.

The breaking point felt almost mundane in its disappointment. Your third anniversary. You’d meticulously planned a quiet weekend getaway, a digital detox just for the two of you. You’d cleared your insane schedule, fought tooth and nail for the time. Jake had promised, sworn on everything, he’d be there.

You’d arrived at the secluded cabin first, lit the fireplace, and set the table. His flight landed… and then silence. Hours of silence. When he finally called, voice thick with exhaustion and genuine remorse, it was from a different city. A major brand had offered an impromptu, career-making shoot. He’d panicked, said yes without thinking, and assumed he could still make it to you after. He couldn’t. The disappointment wasn’t fiery anger; it was a cold, heavy weight settling in your chest.

The realization that you were perpetually sliding down his priority list, replaced by the next shiny opportunity. You couldn’t handle being an afterthought anymore. The conversation that followed was quiet, devastatingly mature. Mutual recognition that this pattern was unsustainable. Mutual heartbreak.

So, you’d ended it. Calmly, sadly.

There was no blame, just a shared, crushing defeat. Mutual. Necessary. Brutal.

Three months. The supposed magical reset button for dating flings or even starting new ones, and realizing what it means to be in love. Utterly laughable when applied to actual three years of intertwined lives, shared dreams whispered in the dark, and a fracture born of accumulated, soul-crushing letdowns.

You hadn’t spoken since, hadn’t texted. Seeing his face on billboards or fashion spreads was a sharp, unwelcome reminder. You missed the warmth of him, his stupidly infectious laugh, the way his eyes crinkled when he was genuinely happy. But the trust? That felt irreparably broken.

And now this. The tickets. Non-refundable. A relic of a happier past, demanding participation in the present. You could skip it. Let the expensive pieces of digital paper gather dust. But something stubborn, perhaps masochistic, wouldn’t let you. Maybe it was closure. Maybe it was just seeing BTS.

Or maybe, a treacherous voice whispered, it was seeing him.

—

The energy outside Sofi Stadium was electric, a palpable wave of pure, unadulterated joy that felt jarring against the knot of anxiety tightening in your stomach. ARMY buzzed everywhere, clad in merch, faces painted, singing snippets of songs. You felt like an imposter in your simple dark jeans and hoodie.

Then you saw him.

Leaning against a pillar near the designated meeting spot, Jake looked… different. Not just the model-polished version plastered everywhere but subtly changed. He’d grown his hair slightly longer, the styled waves a bit less rigid. He wore some kind of designer jeans and a simple, well-cut sweater that really looked expensive, but his posture lacked its usual confident ease. He looked tense, scanning the crowd, his gaze sharp until it landed on you.

His eyes widened, a flicker of something unreadable – surprise, nervousness, pain? – before settling into careful neutrality. He pushed off the pillar, offering a small, tentative smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Hey."

"Hey," you replied, your voice thankfully steady. The awkwardness descended instantly, thick and suffocating.

Three months vanished, replaced by the visceral memory of his scent, the specific curve of his jawline. You shoved your hands deep into your hoodie pockets. "Made it."

"Yeah. Traffic was… something." He ran a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture you remembered well. "You look good."

"Thanks. You too." The pleasantries felt like shards of glass. The roar of the crowd seemed to amplify the silence between you. "Should we…?" You gestured vaguely towards the gates.

"Yeah. Yeah, absolutely."

The walk-through security and into the cavernous bowl of the stadium was excruciating. You walked side-by-side, yet miles apart. Conversations died before they started. Stilted observations about the sheer size of the venue, the impressive stage setup, felt hollow. Every accidental brush of his arm against yours sent a jolt through you, a confusing mix of familiarity and painful distance.

Finding your seats – good ones, center stage, a testament to how frantically you’d clicked when sales opened a lifetime ago – was a new level of torture. Squeezing past people, brushing arms accidentally, the proximity was a cruel reminder of how natural closeness used to be.

You sat down, leaving an empty seat-width between you on the plush stadium chairs. The pre-show music pulsed, the massive screens flickered with graphics, and the crowd buzzed.

It was deafening, yet the silence between you two was the loudest sound in the universe.

Jake cleared his throat. "Forgot how big this place is."

"Yeah," you agreed, staring straight ahead at the empty stage. "Massive."

And that was it. The chasm remained. You stole glances when you thought he wasn’t looking. He seemed thinner, maybe. The confident model posture was there, but there was a tightness around his jaw, a vulnerability in the way he occasionally chewed his lower lip – a habit he only had when nervous or deeply unsettled. You saw it. You recognized it. And it twisted something inside you. He misses this too. He misses you.

The knowledge was a sharp ache, tangled with the lingering hurt.

Then the lights died. A collective gasp, then a roar that shook the stadium floor. The opening notes of "ON" exploded from the speakers, a barrage of drums and fierce energy. The members appeared, silhouetted against blinding light, and the world erupted.

You were swept up. How could you not be? It was BTS. It was history. The sheer scale, the precision, and the raw power of the performance were overwhelming. You found yourself yelling, clapping, momentarily forgetting the man sitting rigidly beside you. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Jake leaning forward, captivated, a flicker of the old, unguarded excitement on his face. For a few minutes, the music was a buffer, a shared experience that didn’t require words, just shared awe.

But then came the transition. The fierce energy of "ON" faded, replaced by the soft, melancholic piano intro of "Spring Day". The giant screens are filled with poignant imagery. The crowd’s roar softened into a wave of swaying phone lights, a sea of longing.

I miss you…

The yearning in the lyrics, the imagery of separation, waiting, and the fragile hope of reunion… it sliced through the temporary distraction. It felt personal.

Too personal.

You felt Jake shift beside you. You didn’t dare look. The space between you, previously just physical, suddenly felt charged with the unspoken grief of the past three months. The shared memories flooded back – lazy Sundays listening to this song, Jake humming it beautifully while cooking, the comfort of his presence during times when the world felt heavy.

Now, that comfort was replaced by a chasm of hurt, and the song felt like salt rubbed directly into the wound. A tear escaped, hot and traitorous, before you could blink it away. You kept your face resolutely forward, body tense.

The setlist was a rollercoaster. They slammed into "Dope", the playful bravado and infectious rhythm impossible to resist. The sheer fun of it broke the suffocating tension again. You caught Jake’s eye during a particularly sharp dance break. He offered a tentative, small smile. It wasn’t the wide, crinkly-eyed grin you loved, but it was something. Something real. Against your better judgment, you gave a tiny nod back.

A flicker of connection.

"Butter" had the entire stadium dancing, a wave of pure, unadulterated joy. You found yourself moving, bouncing slightly in your seat. You glanced at Jake. He was moving too, looser now, a hint of the easy rhythm he used to have.

He caught you looking. This time, his smile was wider, brighter. It punched the air from your lungs. He looked like your Jake again. He nudged your shoulder lightly with his own. "Still got the moves?" he yelled over the music, a ghost of his old playful teasing.

You surprised yourself by laughing. A genuine, if slightly strained, laugh. "More than you, probably!" you yelled back.

The distance was closing. Song by song, beat by beat, the shared euphoria, the powerful nostalgia woven into the performance, was chipping away at the walls you’d both built. During "Life Goes On", with its gentle acceptance and quiet resilience, you found your hand resting on the armrest.

A moment later, Jake’s hand brushed against yours. Neither of you pulled away. The contact was electric, a jolt of pure, terrifying recognition. Your fingers twined together, almost of their own accord. It felt terrifyingly right. Like coming home. You could feel his pulse thrumming against your skin, rapid and alive.

He squeezed gently. You squeezed back.

The stadium sang along to "Magic Shop", a collective promise of comfort and understanding. You leaned closer to hear Jake’s voice blend with yours, rough but earnest. Your shoulders touched. The scent of him, the warmth radiating off him, the solidity of his presence beside you after three months of aching absence… it was overwhelming.

The hurt was still there, a dull ache beneath the ribs, but it was momentarily overlaid by a powerful, undeniable wave of love and longing.

You felt… better. Closer. Hopeful, against all reason and experience. The carefully constructed fortress of ‘moving on’ felt dangerously fragile.

As the stage’s next number exploded into its final, glittering chorus, the stadium a pulsing mass of pure joy, you turned fully towards Jake. He was already looking at you, his eyes wide, reflecting the stage lights and something else – something raw and hopeful and terrified. The connection was magnetic. The music, the crowd, the shared history, the simple, undeniable fact of missing him… it was too much.

You leaned in. He didn’t pull away.

Your lips were inches apart.

You could feel his breath warm on your skin. The promise of a kiss hung in the air, potent and terrifying.

No.

The thought slammed into you like a physical blow. Cold, hard reality. He forgot you at the airport. He missed your promotion dinner. He let work consume every promise. The trust was shattered. This feeling, this closeness blooming in the artificial, emotionally charged atmosphere of a concert… was it real? Or just a temporary high fueled by nostalgia and shared adrenaline? Was three months enough to rebuild what took a year to break?

Panic surged, sharp and cold, dousing the warmth. You pulled back abruptly, breaking the contact, untangling your hand from his. The hurt flashed across Jake’s face, immediate and profound.

"Sorry I … I-I need air," you stammered, already standing up, pushing past knees, desperate to escape the suddenly suffocating closeness, the intensity of his gaze, the terrifying allure of falling back into old patterns. "B-Bathroom."

You didn’t wait for a response. You plunged into the moving crowd, the pulsing music now feeling oppressive, the joyful screams grating.

You needed a concrete, quiet space to think. To breathe. To remember why you walked away.

You pushed through the stadium concourse, the bright lights and smell of popcorn suddenly nauseating, until you found a quieter hallway leading to restrooms.

You leaned against the cool tile wall just outside the men’s room entrance, taking deep, shaky breaths, trying to steady the frantic pounding of your heart. The muffled roar of the concert was a dull throb here. You closed your eyes, pressing the heels of your hands against them.

Idiot. Stupid, sentimental idiot. You know better. You know what happens. The pattern repeats. The disappointment returns. You can’t trust him not to get swept away again.

The sound of hurried footsteps made you open your eyes. Jake stood a few feet away, breathing heavily, his expression a mix of confusion, hurt, and determination.

"What was that?" he demanded, his voice tight. "Back there? You… you felt it too. I know you did—"

"Jake, don’t," you warned, pushing off the wall, wanting to retreat further.

"No," he stepped closer, his usual easygoing demeanor replaced by a fierce intensity you rarely saw. "Don't shut me out. Not now. Not after… after that. What happened? Why did you pull away?"

"Because it’s not real!" The words burst out, louder than intended, echoing slightly in the tiled hallway. "This! The lights, the music, the fucking nostalgia! It’s a fucking drug, Jake! It makes you forget! But I can’t fucking do that!" The dam broke.

Months of suppressed hurt, disappointment, and the terrifying vulnerability you’d just felt poured out.

"I miss you! Okay? God, I fucking miss you so much it feels like I’m missing a limb most days! Seeing your stupid face on billboards, hearing your laugh in a stupid ad… it kills me! Because I remember what it was like. I remember us."

Jake flinched, but he held his ground, his eyes locked on yours.

"But then," your voice cracked, thick with unshed tears, "I remember waiting at the airport. For an hour, Jake. After three weeks of hell at work, all I wanted was to see you. And you forgot. I remember sitting alone at Minho and Soojin’s engagement, smiling while people asked where my boyfriend was. I remember the promises, Jake! The ‘I’ll slow down’, the ‘next week will be better’, the ‘I’ve got you’ whispered in the dark that just… evaporated. You made me feel like an afterthought. Like I was just another item on your chaotic, overbooked schedule!"

He looked stricken. "I know," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "I know I did. And I hate myself for it. Every single day."

"Do you?" you challenged, the anger a brittle shield against the raw pain. "Because it felt like you just… got swept up. Like you couldn’t help it. Like your career, the shoots, the travel, the excitement… it was just this force that pulled you away, and I was supposed to understand. To just… wait. Indefinitely. Until you remembered I existed."

"That’s not true!" Jake’s voice rose, matching your intensity. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "It was never about you not mattering! You mattered too much. That’s the fucked-up part!" He took another step closer, his eyes pleading.

“Look at me. Please."

Reluctantly, you met his gaze. The pain there was raw, undisguised.

"I got scared," he admitted, the words tumbling out. "It happened so fast. The modeling, the attention, the pressure to say yes to everything… it was like being caught in a riptide. And I panicked. I thought… I thought I had to prove I deserved it. That I had to chase it all, now, before it vanished. And I was so fucking stupid, thinking I could handle it all at once." His voice dropped, thick with emotion. "I thought juggling was possible. That I could keep all the balls in the air. But I dropped the most important one… you."

He gestured helplessly. "I never meant to deceive you. Never. I’m not that guy. You know me. I’m just… I’m just a guy who gets overwhelmed. Who gets into dumb situations because he doesn’t know when to say no, or ask for help, or just… fucking stop. I got lost in the noise.”

A tear tracked down his cheek. “And I lost you." He didn’t wipe it away.

"But these three months… God, Y/N. They haven’t been healing. They’ve been hell. Pure fucking hell. Walking into an empty apartment that used to feel like home? Seeing your coffee mug still in the cupboard? Hearing a song we loved? It’s like a knife. Every single day."

He moved even closer, his presence filling the small space. "I miss us. Not just the good times. I miss the stupid arguments about takeout. I miss watching you rant about work dramas. I miss falling asleep with your head on my chest. I miss the life we were building. I still picture it. Every damn day. I picture coming home to you, really coming home, not just crashing between flights. I picture quiet Sundays. I picture… a future. With you in it. Because it’s the only future I want." He swallowed hard.

"I know I screwed up. Monumentally. I know trust isn’t a switch I can flip. But I’m not asking you to forget. I’m asking… begging… for you to consider if it’s possible to start rebuilding. Slowly. Carefully. With me showing you, every single day, that I learned. That I’m learning. That you are the priority. That you always should have been."

His words hung in the air, raw, honest, terrifyingly vulnerable. He laid his heart bare, no defenses, no excuses beyond the fundamental truth of his nature – a good person prone to chaotic stumbles. The anger in you flickered, replaced by a profound ache. He saw your hesitation, the fear warring with the undeniable love you still felt.

"I know you want it too," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I felt it back there. I see it in your eyes right now. Please. Don’t shut the door because you’re scared. I’m scared too. But I’m willing to be terrified with you, if it means trying again."

The silence stretched, filled only by the distant thump of the concert and the frantic beating of your own heart. The fear was paralyzing. The memory of disappointment was sharp. But the love… the deep, ingrained, stubborn love you felt for this chaotic, beautiful, remorseful man… was stronger. It had survived the break. It had fueled the missing. It had drawn you back together in this absurd, painful way.

And looking into his eyes, seeing the raw hope mixed with the fear of rejection, the genuine remorse… You knew he meant it. He wasn’t promising perfection. He was promising effort. Honesty.

A chance.

The dam holding back your own truth finally shattered.

"You have no idea," you choked out, the words raw and ragged. "You have no fucking idea how much I missed you. How much it hurt. How angry I was. How angry I still am sometimes." You took a shuddering breath, the final wall crumbling. "But…" You met his gaze, letting him see everything – the pain, the fear, the undeniable, unkillable love. "Damnit, I still love you!"

The confession echoed off the tiles, loud and desperate and utterly freeing.

Jake didn’t hesitate. He didn’t flinch. A wave of profound relief, mixed with overwhelming emotion, washed over his face. He closed the final distance between you in one stride. His hands came up, framing your face, his thumbs brushing away the tears you hadn’t even realized were falling.

"...And so do I," he breathed, his voice thick with tears, yet filled with a certainty that resonated deep within you. "So do I! Okay! So much it feels like breathing!"

He didn’t kiss you immediately. He searched your eyes, asking permission, seeking confirmation. And in that suspended moment, you saw it. The regret. The love. The determination. The fundamental goodness beneath the foolish mistakes. You saw the man you fell in love with, humbled but not broken, asking not for a guarantee, but for a chance.

You closed the gap.

The kiss wasn’t fireworks. It wasn’t the desperate heat of reunion. It was softer. Deeper. A homecoming. A salty mix of tears, the familiar taste of him, and the profound relief of surrender. It was an apology, a promise, and a fragile new beginning all tangled together. It felt like the first solid ground you’d stood on in months.

When you finally pulled back, just inches, foreheads resting together, breathing the same air, a shaky, watery laugh escaped you. "Three months," you murmured, your voice rough. "It really took you three months to figure it all out?"

Jake smiled, a real, full, crinkly-eyed smile that lit up his whole face, chasing away the shadows. He brushed a stray tear from your cheek with his thumb. "No," he corrected softly, his eyes holding yours with unwavering sincerity. "I waited three months. Every single agonizing day of it. Just to prove to myself I meant it. Just to be sure I could be better. Just to have the chance to tell you…" He leaned in, pressing another soft, lingering kiss to your lips. "...that I regret being that foolish. More than anything."

You wrapped your arms around him, holding him tight, burying your face in the familiar curve of his neck. The distant music swelled, a hopeful anthem. The fear wasn't gone. The work ahead loomed large. But holding him, feeling his arms tighten around you in return, the solid, undeniable truth of his presence and his words…

"...And I love you anyway," you whispered against his skin, the words settling into your bones, feeling like the most honest thing you’d ever said.

He held you tighter. "Me too," he breathed. "And I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough at showing just how much I do."

The concert roared on, unseen, unheard by you both. You stood in the quiet hallway, wrapped in each other, the echoes of confessions and the fragile warmth of a tentative new start filling the space where only awkwardness and hurt had been an hour before.

Three months hadn't been enough to heal the wound. But maybe, just maybe, it had been enough time for the roots of something new, something stronger and more aware, to begin to grow.

It wasn't an ending. It was a quiet, tear-streaked, hopeful beginning, forged in honesty and the terrifying, beautiful gamble of love offered a second chance.

EN—D

𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖✦⋆˚ kai's notes — sorry guys i just had the most angsty take from a silly tiktok video HJSFAHFJAS

my masterlist! | made by writhyv 💘

[thatblvckboyy]

summer forever

top!sim jaeyun x btm!male reader smut, angst

Y/n is used to nights that blur together. Strangers, small talk, hands that feel the same. But Jake is different. There’s something too gentle in the way he looks at Y/n, too real in the way he speaks. A client, yes, but one who stays longer than most, asks questions he shouldn’t, and makes Y/n forget just for a moment that this is a job.

warnings: sexworker!reader, objectification, cheating, psychological tension, masturbation, emotional manipulation, subtle gaslighting, dark themes of identity loss, performance vs. reality, emotional vulnerability, heartbreak, elitism, inspired by Anora.

Y/n didn’t know how long he’d been tired.

Not just the kind of tired you fix with sleep, but the other kind — the heavier one. The kind that doesn’t sit in your bones, but in your days. In the way the light comes through the blinds and doesn’t move you. In the silence of your phone when no one texts first. In the walk home, the mirror, the same hoodie on rotation. Just life, rolling over you.

He rented an apartment in Queens, a fourth-floor walk-up that always smelled like something rotting in the hallway. The heater worked when it wanted. The faucet screeched when it turned. The window by his bed didn’t close all the way. But it was his, technically. His name on the lease, his feet on the cold floor every morning. No roommates, no parents calling to ask if he was eating enough. No one to ask anything, really.

He was twenty-something, barely. A student, part-time. Working toward a degree he didn’t fully believe in. It was something safe — communications, marketing, whatever — the kind of thing that could get him “a job” in “a field,” according to his advisor. He showed up when he could. Took notes. Nodded when professors said something worth nodding at. But his head was always elsewhere. Not in a deep way — just scattered, fogged, full of logistics: bills, groceries, charging cords, finding clean socks, pretending he had plans when someone asked what he was doing this weekend.

He wasn’t unhappy. That would’ve meant he expected something more.

Mostly, he was just surviving.

His beauty was something people commented on, but not always to his face. He didn’t think of himself that way. His reflection was just something he passed by — pretty skin under neon lights, bruisey eyes that always looked a little swollen, mouth always parted like he was on the verge of saying something but never did. There was softness there, something boyish, something people sometimes wanted to touch without really knowing why. But he didn’t dress it up. Didn’t try to sell it. He barely even leaned into it. He just was.

Sometimes that was enough.

Other times, it wasn’t.

He didn’t tell anyone when he started seeing clients. He just sort of… slipped into it. There was no big moment. No fall-from-grace arc. It started with a guy on an app who offered him money not to leave after sex. Then another, who said he’d pay more if Y/n let him film it. Then another. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t scary. It just was. Like everything else.

Cash in hand. Lights off. Names not exchanged.

It wasn’t a lifestyle. It wasn’t an identity. It was rent. It was groceries. It was being able to say yes when the class passed around a flyer for some stupid field trip that cost money he didn’t have. It was saying yes to himself when he saw something he wanted, even if it was just a nicer shampoo.

And the truth was, it didn’t bother him. Not really.

Because nobody was looking for him anyway. No one cared who he came home with. His phone stayed dry. His apartment stayed quiet. If he got texts, they were from people who wanted something, or professors reminding him about midterms. No one sent brainrot memes at 3am or sent Tiktoks to keep the fire alive. No one asked where he was when he got home late. If something happened to him — if he just stopped existing — it might take a few days for someone to notice.

So he let the city swallow him up. Let the noise fill his ears on the subway. Let strangers kiss his neck like they knew him. Let men call him puppy in rooms he never wanted to see again.

He didn’t enjoy it. But he didn’t resist it, either.

Because for a second, in those moments — those dimly lit apartments, those rides home in someone else’s Uber — he felt like maybe the city saw him. Like maybe he wasn’t invisible.

And even if they didn’t want him, not really, they wanted something from him — and that was enough. For now.

He told himself he’d stop. Someday. When things settled. When he could breathe easier. When the tired stopped feeling permanent.

But for now, he just kept going.

Because what else do you do when no one’s waiting up for you?

Y/n had never had a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Or whatever they were calling it lately — a thing, a situationship, someone to hold your bag while you tried on a hoodie in a dressing room. He had hookups, sure. Moments. Bodies, pressed and gone before he learned their names. But no one had ever stayed. No one had called him baby and meant it past the second hour. No one had waited for him after class, sent flowers to his apartment, left a hoodie behind like they planned to come back.

He wasn’t the kind of person people fell in love with. He knew that. It wasn’t self-hatred — it was just statistics. He’d watched it happen to others, seen it unfold in real-time from the sidelines. That gravitational pull, the way two people just found each other in the chaos and decided to make it work. He’d seen it in coffee shops, in late-night phone calls, in the way someone reached for another’s hand without thinking. But no one reached for his. No one had ever looked at him like he was the reason they’d come out tonight.

And it wasn’t like he was cold. He wanted it. Sometimes. When the night got too quiet, and the apartment too dim. When he woke up from half-dreams of someone tracing lazy circles into his back and realized it was just the radiator clicking. But it was a want he kept quiet, even inside himself. Because what was the point in naming something you were never going to have?

His family never asked, either. Not if he was dating, not if he was happy, not if he was eating enough. They didn’t really ask anything. Not out of cruelty — just habit. Distance had always been their language. Love, for them, had meant practicalities: forwarded emails, tax forms, occasional money in his account with no message attached. Not hugs. Not I miss you’s. Certainly not the kind of affection that made you feel like someone really saw you.

Holidays were mostly formalities. Calls on speakerphone. Empty wishes through gritted teeth. If he didn’t reach out, the silence could stretch for weeks. Once, just to see what would happen, he stopped calling for a month and a half. No one noticed. No one came knocking.

So he got good at not needing things. At least not out loud.

He learned how to take up less space — physically, emotionally. He was always polite, always quiet in group settings. The kind of person you forget was there until someone asked for a headcount. He smiled when expected. Laughed softly. Listened. But inside, there was this growing sense of something missing — not a hole, not a gaping wound, but a kind of fading. Like he was becoming see-through. Like no one had ever pressed hard enough on him to leave a mark.

And the truth was: no one ever told him he was worth staying for. Or that his body was more than a transaction. Or that he deserved to be touched gently — without being paid for it.

That kind of closeness felt like fiction. Something other people got. People who had been loved before and knew how to expect it. People who had childhood photos framed in their apartments. Who kept birthday cards in drawers. Who had someone to text just landed when their plane touched down. He didn’t have any of that.

He had keys that turned in locks no one else ever used. A phone full of unanswered messages, most of them from class group chats or delivery confirmations. The only things that knew his schedule were apps. The only ones who touched his body were strangers.

And maybe that was the most unbearable part of all of it — not that he was alone, but that no one even minded.

He could disappear tomorrow, and nothing would shift. No orbits disturbed. No hearts broken. The city would keep moving. Classes would carry on. The bills would still show up in his inbox.

And maybe that’s why he started taking clients more often — not for the money, but for the noise. The movement. The proof that someone still wanted something from him, even if it wasn’t love. Even if it wasn’t real.

It didn’t take long for someone to tell him he had the kind of face that belonged on camera.

Or under light.

Or on his knees.

Different men said it differently, but it all came down to the same thing: he was nice to look at. That soft, sleepy kind of pretty. Big eyes, pink lips, skin that bruised like peach flesh and always seemed a little too warm. He looked like he was about to say thank you, even when no one gave him anything. And sometimes, people liked that more than anything else.

He didn’t try to be desirable. That was the trick. He just was — in that way a quiet summer evening is beautiful without meaning to be. Like the end of a perfume ad. Like a boy in a poster you forget to take down even after you stop caring what it means.

The first time someone brought up Club Belle, he wasn’t even listening. He was half-naked on someone’s couch, hair sticking to his temple, scrolling through a cracked phone while the man in the kitchen rattled around for something to drink. “You could work at Belle, you know,” the guy had said, casual. “You’re prettier than half the boys there already.”

Y/n blinked, like he wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or a joke.

It wasn’t either.

Belle wasn’t the kind of place you found on Google. But if you were the kind of person who needed to know it, someone would always whisper it in your ear. It was all glass and velvet and violet light, just past the corner where the normal world stopped pretending to be clean. Half nightclub, half showroom. Not a strip club, exactly — no poles, no routines, no glittery thongs — but something slower. Darker. More curated. You didn’t go to Belle to get off. You went to watch. To orbit. To ache.

The owner, Marcus, was the type of man who never smiled with his eyes but always knew your name. People said he’d worked in fashion once. Or casting. Or modeling. Or something in Europe, years ago. No one really knew. All they knew was that he found boys like Y/n. And kept them.

“You’ve got a face people remember,” he said the first time they met. “And a body that says yes, even when you don’t speak.”

Y/n had just nodded.

Marcus liked that.

He didn’t audition, exactly. He just came one night, quiet, observant, standing near the bar in a secondhand sweater and those little white socks that always made him look innocent. The light loved him. The camera, too. Even the regulars — men in suits, girls with glossed lips, couples with more money than intimacy — looked at him like he was already part of the set.

He didn’t dance. Not really. He just moved the way he always did — slow, careful, with that little halo of golden-boy awkwardness that made people want to touch him just to see if he’d flinch.

They gave him a stage name that sounded like sugar. They told him to show up after ten. They gave him a locker, a pair of shorts that sat low on his hips, and a perfume that wasn’t his but smelled like it could be.

The first time he went out there, the crowd didn’t even blink. Like they’d been expecting him.

And honestly? It didn’t feel that different from anything else. Just a little louder. A little more dressed up. The drinks were stronger. The lights were pink. People tipped in cash and compliments and sometimes phone numbers. But he never called anyone. He didn’t need to. If they wanted him, they’d come back.

And they always came back.

He didn’t feel special. That was the thing.

Belle made people look like movie scenes, but it didn’t mean anything. Not really. The glitter didn’t stick after the lights went out. No one walked you home. No one asked your real name.

And Y/n didn’t expect them to.

He kept his locker clean. He folded his clothes in neat piles. He showed up on time and didn’t ask questions. Most nights, Marcus barely looked at him. Some nights, he stared too long. But it didn’t matter. Y/n had learned that early on — that being noticed wasn’t always a good thing. Sometimes it just meant you were next.

There was a greenroom behind the main floor, past a thick black curtain no client was allowed to touch. That was where the boys waited — lounging across velvet cushions, slouched on gold-rimmed sofas, half-dressed in glittery mesh or low-slung denim or whatever Marcus had told them to wear that night. It always smelled like heat and hairspray. Somebody was always laughing. Somebody was always crying in the bathroom with the door cracked open.

Y/n didn’t talk much. He wasn’t rude — just quiet. There were louder boys who loved the performance of it all, who turned heartbreak into brand, who leaned into the flash of it like they wanted to be famous for this. Not him. He was soft. Background. People thought that meant he didn’t know what was going on, but he did. He noticed everything. Every time Marcus picked a new favorite. Every time a client offered more for something off-script. Every time someone came in and never came back.

It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t scary. It just was.

He’d come in through the back entrance most nights, hoodie up, headphones in. By the time he changed — white tank, soccer shorts, lip balm — he was someone else. Or not even someone. Just a thing. A beautiful thing you could look at. Whisper about. Pay for, if you knew the right words.

Marcus liked when he didn’t speak. He said it kept the mystery alive. “You look like a secret,” he told him once, watching Y/n adjust the waistband of his shorts in the mirror. “Everyone wants to be the one who finds out.”

Some of the other boys hated Marcus. Some were obsessed with him. Y/n didn’t feel anything. Not hate. Not love. Just a kind of blank obedience, the way you feel toward weather or a bus schedule. He just wanted to keep his place. He didn’t need to be adored.

The clients came in late — men in their forties with pressed collars and wedding rings they pretended not to wear. Women who didn’t know what they wanted until they saw it. Industry people. Sometimes rich college kids with too much money and no shame. Some of them were kind. Some were rough. Most didn’t look at his face when they talked.

But sometimes they tipped well. And sometimes, if Y/n smiled, they stayed longer.

He didn’t enjoy it. But he didn’t hate it either. It was just a job. It didn’t make him dirty or interesting or broken. It just made him able to pay rent without asking anyone for help.

And when the music started — the slow pulse of something sensual, the bass heavy and honey-slick — he would take his place under the light, barefoot, lashes wet from the makeup spray. He didn’t need to do much. Just sway. Just exist.

Because someone was always watching.

And that was enough.

It was somewhere between the second song and the cigarette break when Marcus pushed the curtain open with his ringed fingers and stepped into the back room. The air shifted.

Not because he shouted. Marcus never shouted. His presence just did that — stilled things, like heat before a storm. A few of the boys looked up from their phones. One of them muted the speaker playing a remix that hadn’t even hit Spotify yet.

Y/n didn’t move. He was sitting near the vanity, knees pulled up on the armchair, sipping ginger soda through a straw. There was gloss on his mouth. Leftover shimmer on his collarbone.

Marcus scanned the room like he was counting how many mouths he paid for. Then, he smiled. It didn’t look warm. It looked expensive.

“Alright, glitterballs,” he said, smoothing down the front of his shirt. “We’ve got a visitor tonight. Big name. Private. Be smart.”

A few boys perked up. Some groaned. Someone whispered, “Another finance creep?”

Marcus smiled wider, ignoring them. “He’s from Australia,” he said, looking directly at Y/n now. “Important. Family money. PR clean. The whole thing.”

He let that hang there a moment, like perfume.

Then: “I want you to sit with him.”

Y/n blinked.

He didn’t say yes. He didn’t say anything. But he set his drink down, slowly, like he understood what was being asked. Which he did. That’s why Marcus liked him.

Because Y/n didn’t ask dumb questions like “Why me?”

Because Marcus could tell him anything and it would land in silence.

Because there was no pushback — only movement.

“He’s already at Table Nine,” Marcus added, tucking something into his blazer. “No friends. No handlers. He asked for soft company.”

A pause. A beat. A gaze that lingered just a second too long.

“You’re soft,” he said, almost thoughtfully.

Then he left.

No one else in the room said anything. They didn’t need to. This was how Belle worked. Sometimes, it was your night. Sometimes it wasn’t. Most of the boys had had their turn at Table Nine or Table Thirteen or behind the velvet screen in Marcus’s office. It was just a part of it. Like hairspray and low lighting. Like swallowing your gum when you felt a client staring too long.

Y/n got up without ceremony. He didn’t reapply his gloss. He didn’t change. The outfit had already been chosen — sheer tank, soccer shorts, hair soft and boyish. The effect wasn’t “hot.” It was innocent. Touchable. Something you think you can protect while your hands are already around its throat.

The hallway to the main floor was dim. Blue lights ran along the ceiling like runway strips. He followed them until the room opened up, velvet-lined and amber-lit, bodies scattered like shadows across plush furniture. Music hummed low — something slow and retro and a little suggestive. He didn’t look around. He knew where Table Nine was.

And when he saw him — the boy, the man, the Australian client — Y/n hesitated, just slightly.

The guy wasn’t old. That was the first surprise. He wasn’t wearing a ring or suit or cologne that screamed entitlement. He was sitting back, relaxed, a drink in hand he hadn’t touched. His shirt was open at the neck. His hair looked like it had been raked through a few times.

And he was staring right at Y/n.

Not in the usual way.

Not like he was picking him off a menu.

Just… staring.

Like he’d seen him before, in a dream or something. Like Y/n had walked out of a song that played once on the radio and never again.

Y/n stepped forward.

Not because he wanted to.

Because that was the job.

Because Marcus told him to.

He stepped up to the table, posture open, unthreatening. Not shy — just quiet. Just easy to be near. That was part of it too. His appeal wasn’t loud. It was that you could imagine your arm around him without needing to ask. You could picture his legs over your lap like he belonged there, even if he never looked you in the eye.

Jake didn’t say anything at first.

Neither did Y/n.

There was the music — low and lush, some 80s track with synths melting into each other — and there were other conversations happening, drinks being poured, a burst of laughter from the bar. But at Table Nine, it was still. Slowed down. Like they’d been cut out from the frame and set apart.

Jake looked… not nervous, but thoughtful. Like he’d been waiting, not just for Y/n, but for something, and wasn’t sure now if it had arrived.

“Hi,” he said, finally, voice smooth and even. His accent curled around the word like honey around a spoon. “You’re Y/n, right?”

Y/n nodded once. He didn’t ask how Jake knew his name. They always knew. Marcus made sure of it.

“Marcus said you’d join me.”

Y/n blinked. Still standing. He looked at the space on the couch beside Jake — plush velvet, too soft for the kind of things that happened here. His legs moved before he told them to, body gliding into place like it had practiced this scene a hundred times. Maybe it had.

Close, but not too close. Angled slightly inward, the way Marcus liked. Like he was available. Like you could imagine his knee brushing yours if you leaned just an inch too far.

Jake’s eyes moved to his mouth, briefly, then back up. Not in a creepy way. Not in the usual way.

“You don’t talk much, huh?”

Y/n gave a small smile. A tilt of the lips, nothing deeper.

Jake let out a soft breath. He looked down at his drink — untouched, still cold.

“First time here,” he said.

Y/n didn’t answer. Not because he was rude. Just because there wasn’t a question in that sentence. He knew the type. Rich. Clean. Pretty enough that people opened doors just to see him walk through. But alone, too. You didn’t end up at Belle, in a private booth, with Marcus’s favorite, unless you were looking for something you didn’t have.

“I told him I didn’t want anything heavy,” Jake added. “Didn’t want a show. Just… someone who wouldn’t bullshit me.”

Y/n’s head tilted slightly. He didn’t speak. But his silence was gentle — not disinterested. Just soft, like snowfall. Like static on a TV screen you fall asleep to.

Jake smiled a little. He leaned back, settling deeper into the cushions, and something in him uncoiled. Like maybe this — the music, the lights, the boy with his knees drawn up and a ghost of shimmer still clinging to his neck — was exactly what he’d wanted. Even if he couldn’t name it yet.

They didn’t touch.

Not at first.

Jake just watched him.

The club swirled on around them, bodies moving like slow waves, perfume and cologne mingling with smoke. But Y/n was still. He didn’t fidget. Didn’t blink too much. His presence was steady in the way clouds hang before a storm — weightless and full at once.

“So what’s your deal?” Jake asked, after a while. “Are you—like, are you happy doing this?”

Y/n didn’t answer.

He didn’t even smile that time.

He just looked at him. Not in a confrontational way — but with a softness so neutral it bordered on unreadable.

Because that was the real trick: never lie. But never give them the truth, either. Just give them silence they could project into. Let them make up the story they needed.

Jake nodded, like he got it. Or pretended to.

He took a sip of his drink. Then another. And he didn’t say anything else for a long time.

Y/n finally spoke.

His voice was softer than Jake expected. Smooth in a way that didn’t try to be. Like the rest of him — quiet, golden, a little warm from the lights.

“I’m not unhappy,” he said.

Just that.

Jake’s mouth parted slightly, surprised. Not by the answer, maybe — but by the fact he’d answered at all.

“That’s not the same thing,” Jake said.

Y/n tilted his head again, just a little. A small crease between his brows.

“I know.”

The space between them shifted. Not closer, not more intimate — but denser. Like the room got heavier with the way they were looking at each other.

Y/n turned his eyes downward. Not dramatic, not performative. Just… tired of being looked at.

Jake noticed. He didn’t touch. He didn’t reach. His hands stayed on his lap, fingers lightly drumming his thigh.

“I don’t want to keep you long,” he said. “I know how this works. But—”

He paused. Looked down at his drink. Then back up at Y/n.

“But I’d like to see you again. Outside of here.”

Y/n didn’t move.

Jake clarified: “I’m staying uptown. It’s a nice place. Big windows. I’m not expecting anything. I just— I don’t know. I want to talk more. Sit with you a while. Where it’s quieter.”

Y/n’s face didn’t change.

Not really.

He was used to this. Clients who thought they were different. Who wanted to save him, or collect him, or both.

But Jake’s voice wasn’t possessive. It wasn’t sweet, either. It just was — even, earnest, like he meant it but wouldn’t beg.

Y/n blinked, slow.

“No one ever wants to talk more,” he said.

Jake gave a short laugh. “Well. That’s the thing about me. I talk too much.”

Y/n let a corner of his mouth pull up. Not a smile. Not fully. Just a suggestion of one, delicate and gone too fast.

“I’ll ask Marcus,” he said.

Jake nodded once. Not pushing. Not hopeful. Just acknowledging the answer for what it was.

“I’m here all week,” he added. “If it matters.”

It didn’t. Not really. But maybe it could.

They didn’t touch that night. They didn’t flirt, or fake affection, or lean too close. Jake asked no more questions. Y/n offered no details. But when he stood to leave — just before Marcus came to usher him to the next booth — Jake caught his wrist, gently, with two fingers.

“Just think about it,” he said. “That’s all.”

And Y/n, after a second, gave the smallest nod

The sky was just starting to bleed into color when Y/n got off the bus.

He blinked slowly, shoulders hunched against the morning air. The cold didn’t bother him as much anymore. Not like it used to. He pulled his hood down lower, hands shoved deep into his pockets, and started walking the few blocks to his apartment. The streets were quieter than usual — that liminal hour where the drunks had already collapsed into taxis and the early risers were still making coffee. Everything felt kind of paused, like a held breath.

The city was ugly in a beautiful way.

Pink fog curling above scaffolding. Empty bagel carts being wheeled into position. Steam rising from the grates in the concrete like ghosts. A delivery truck reversed somewhere, its beeping like a heartbeat in the distance.

Y/n’s building was one of those old pre-war walk-ups in Queens, with a rusted fire escape and a flickering hallway light that had been broken for months. His unit was on the third floor — a small apartment with peeling paint. The kind of place where sound traveled through the walls too easily, where you could hear someone crying next door like they were right there in bed with you.

But it was his. He paid for it himself. And when he locked the door behind him, he felt something settle. Something real.

He dropped his bag on the floor and peeled off his hoodie slowly, moving around the apartment in practiced quiet. The silence here wasn’t heavy. Just full. Like the walls had learned to keep his secrets.

He poured himself a glass of water from the sink — cold and a little metallic — and leaned against the counter, staring out the window at the sky turning sherbet. It looked soft. Brushed in pastel strokes. The kind of color you’d want to sleep inside.

The bus ride home had been quiet, too.

He remembered watching the light shift on the seats in front of him — how the sunrise had crept up and lit everything sideways, slicing shadows across the glass. He hadn’t had his headphones. Just watched the city move, tired and enormous. Tower cranes silhouetted in gold. Trash glinting on the pavement. A pigeon walking over a flattened hot dog bun like it was something holy.

And then there was the woman.

She’d gotten on around 31st, old and bundled, hands wrinkled like maps. She was digging through her purse, mumbling to herself, voice cracked with sleep.

“No change,” she was saying, to no one in particular. “Just a loaf… just enough for a loaf, I thought—”

Y/n had gotten up before he could think better of it. Quietly pressed a folded twenty into her palm.

“Buy something sweet too,” he murmured, not looking at her.

The woman blinked. Her eyes were milky but kind. She said thank you like it was a prayer.

He just nodded and sat back down.

Now, in the stillness of his apartment, he let that moment return. Not because he wanted to feel good about it. He didn’t. It hadn’t made him feel anything, really. But it stayed with him anyway. Like the taste of cheap lip gloss. Like perfume on someone else’s sheets.

He stepped out of his sweats and climbed into bed in just his underwear, the sheets cool against his skin. His body ached — not in a sharp way, but in that slow, ghostly way, like he was still half-dancing somewhere under the club lights.

The window hissed faintly as wind pushed through the frame.

Y/n turned his face into the pillow.

And slept.

Not like a boy escaping something.

Just like someone who needed to.

When Y/n woke up again, the sun had already passed over the window, casting long, pale shadows against the chipped floorboards. His mouth tasted like sleep — dry, a little sour — and the pillow had left faint lines on the side of his cheek. The apartment felt different when he was alone in it like this. Not sad, just hushed. Like a museum after hours.

His phone was buzzing faintly under the corner of the blanket. He fished it out without sitting up.

jake (client): just wondering if you’re awake. no pressure. but… i’d still like to see you.

There was another one, sent a minute later. A little less composed.

i can send a car. or walk over. up to you. i don’t wanna be weird.

Y/n stared at the screen. Then locked it.

He rubbed at his face, pushing his hair back, and let his eyes adjust to the dim. The room smelled like cheap detergent and something sweet — maybe a neighbor’s incense burning through the vents again. Somewhere downstairs, someone was frying eggs. The hiss of it slipped through the pipes.

Then the phone buzzed again.

marcus (boss): don’t bother coming in tonight. australian boy paid for exclusivity. he says “not for sex,” whatever the hell that means. look pretty. don’t fuck it up.

Y/n stared at the message.

His jaw clicked, just once.

It wasn’t the “exclusive” part that surprised him. That happened. Sometimes clients didn’t want to share. Sometimes they wanted to feel like they’d discovered something precious and small and only theirs. It was always temporary. Always performative. That wasn’t new.

What caught him off guard was that Marcus didn’t seem annoyed about it. If anything, the message had a strange lightness to it. Like Marcus was pleased. Like this kid from another continent had done something interesting. Unpredictable.

Y/n pushed the blankets off and swung his legs down, standing slowly. His muscles tensed out of habit — his spine clicking, knees stiff. His body remembered nights even when his mind tried not to. He walked barefoot across the creaky wood floor, opened the window wider. The air that came in was thick and gold, humid with July heat, but not unbearable.

Below, the street buzzed softly — dog walkers, food trucks setting up, a man unloading a mattress from a van. Someone had left a box of books on the curb, and people were sifting through it like scavengers in a half-dream.

Y/n stayed at the window longer than he meant to.

Not thinking. Just… watching.

There was a rhythm to these hours — when the night had emptied out of him, but the day hadn’t filled him up yet. When he wasn’t anyone. Not Y/n with glossed lips and soccer shorts. Not the boy Marcus called soft. Not the kid Jake looked at like he was remembering something that had never happened.

Just someone.

The text from Jake was still unread on his screen.

He picked it up again, thumb hovering, then tapped it open.

The typing bubble appeared almost immediately.

And then disappeared.

Then appeared again.

Then—

what kind of food do you like? i can have it waiting.

Y/n exhaled softly through his nose.

He didn’t smile.

But he didn’t close the phone, either.

He set it down on the windowsill and looked out again, eyes following the sun as it slipped higher, bleaching the bricks of the building across the alley. The world didn’t feel real exactly — but it didn’t feel fake either. Just muted. A step removed.

Y/n stayed by the window for another few minutes, half expecting another text to come in. But Jake didn’t message again. He just waited — or maybe he knew he didn’t need to ask twice.

Eventually, Y/n picked up his phone and typed.

y/n → jake i’ll go.

He hovered over it for a second.

Then sent it.

Not “i want to.” Not “i’d like to.” Just: i’ll go.

He didn’t have the option not to, really. Jake had already paid Marcus. That made it official. It didn’t matter if he showed up eager or hollow-eyed — it was all the same product, wrapped differently. Just a matter of delivery.

Almost as if on cue, another message blinked across the screen. Marcus. Always watching the clock. Always one step ahead.

marcus (boss): good boy. wear something from the green bag. the looks they like... soft, low, clean. you know the drill. :)

Y/n stared at the smiley face for a beat too long. The kind of thing a teacher might send. Or a mother. It always landed wrong from Marcus — too sweet, too sharp underneath.

He closed the text and crossed the room, kicking gently at the duffel bag near the foot of his bed. It had been there since the last time Marcus dropped by to “refresh his closet.” A few outfits in plastic. Two already worn. One folded, untouched.

He unzipped it and pulled out the last one: a pair of branded basketball shorts — navy with a small designer logo embroidered low near the hem, the kind of detail that whispered money. The material felt new, but already worn in — soft and heavy. Marcus liked buying things like that. Things that made the client feel like the boy was already theirs. Familiar. Used.

The shirt was a pale heather gray baby tee, cropped just high enough to show skin if Y/n raised his arms. A fake vintage print stretched across the chest, some private-school looking name in collegiate font. It made him look expensive, but still easy. That was Marcus’s whole angle.

He peeled out of the sleep-shirt he was wearing and pulled the new one on. It clung softly to his stomach. The shorts rode low, elastic biting into his hips. They looked like something a rich kid might wear to bed in a Malibu guest house. Not really his — just borrowed. Just part of the scene.

In the mirror above the sink, he caught a glimpse of himself and paused. His face hadn’t changed. Still tired, a little dull around the eyes, lips soft. The kind of face people liked. At least that’s what Marcus always said. “The kind they think they can save. The kind they want to fuck.”

Y/n looked away before he could start thinking about that too hard.

He brushed his teeth with cold water. Rinsed his face. Didn’t bother with cologne — Marcus said Jake liked it when he smelled clean, like nothing. Like skin.

The room was still quiet when the knock came at the door downstairs. Two soft buzzes — then silence. He didn’t need to check. Jake had sent a car.

Y/n slipped his phone into his back pocket, grabbed a hoodie from the hook — even though it was too hot out — and walked out of the apartment without locking the door behind him.

He’d be back.

Maybe.

The car pulled into a part of the city Y/n barely recognized — all wide sidewalks and buildings that didn’t need to announce how much they cost. It was the kind of neighborhood where windows stretched from floor to ceiling, not to show off but to quietly remind you that no one had anything to hide. Even the trees looked cleaner here. Taller. Like they grew different in rich soil.

He sat back against the seat, arms folded in the hoodie he wasn’t wearing, watching the streets tilt and blur past. Everything looked a little unreal, like a commercial you’d see for perfume or anti-depressants. Too bright. Too slow. The kind of life that didn’t touch you — just hovered out of reach.

The driver didn’t say a word, which was fine. Y/n didn’t feel like talking. He didn’t know what he would’ve said anyway. He kept thinking about how soft the seat was, how it barely made a sound even when they turned. Somewhere along the way, he realized the AC smelled faintly like cedarwood and laundry detergent — not in a fake air freshener kind of way, but like it had been built into the car itself. He didn’t even want to imagine what that cost.

When the car finally stopped, it was in front of a tall glass building with no sign. Just a steel canopy and a quiet doorman who opened the car door without asking who Y/n was.

The lobby was all echo and light — marble under his feet, gold accents tucked into the corners like they didn’t need to shine to be noticed. No receptionist. Just a security desk where a man nodded once, then looked away. The elevator opened with a hush. Y/n stepped inside, thumb pressed into his palm to keep from fidgeting. The button was already lit.

Jake lived at the top.

Of course he did.

The doors opened onto a hallway so quiet Y/n could hear his own heartbeat. No buzzing lights, no chatter behind closed doors — just thick carpet and tall ceilings, the kind of silence that cost money. The apartment was the only one on the floor. He didn’t even have to knock. The door opened before he reached it.

Jake stood there barefoot, in a loose black t-shirt and joggers that probably cost more than Y/n made in a week. His hair was damp, like he’d just stepped out of a shower, and he looked softer this time — less styled, less composed. His voice was gentle.

“Hey,” he said, like he was surprised Y/n came, but not really. “You made it.”

Y/n nodded. His hands were in his hoodie pocket. He felt suddenly underdressed, even in Marcus’s curated outfit. Like he was playing a part in a movie without reading the script.

Jake stepped aside, letting him in.

The apartment was something out of a magazine. Not cold, but curated — modern furniture in soft greys and woods, shelves lined with art books and heavy ceramics. Floor-to-ceiling windows opened onto a balcony with a view of the Hudson, glittering in the afternoon light like a promise. There were plants, too. Real ones. Alive.

Y/n stepped in slowly, shoes still on, hoodie still clutched in one hand.

He didn’t say anything. He just looked around like someone who’d never been in a place like this. Because he hadn’t.

Jake watched him. Not in a creepy way — more like he was trying to figure out what Y/n was seeing. Or maybe what he was feeling.

“Do you want anything?” he asked. “Water? Food?”

Y/n blinked. “Water’s fine.”

Jake nodded, disappeared into the kitchen — which looked more like an art installation than something people cooked in — and came back with a glass of water so clear it looked like nothing at all. Y/n took it with both hands. The glass was heavy. Real.

“You can sit down,” Jake said, smiling faintly, nodding toward the couch. “You don’t have to stand like that.”

Like that. Y/n didn’t even realize he was standing like anything — one foot curled over the other, posture half-defensive, half-wired. Like he was still outside. Like someone might ask him to leave if he touched the wrong thing.

He sat.

The couch was soft in a way that didn’t make sense.

Everything here was too soft. Too quiet. Like a dream you weren’t supposed to wake up from.

Jake sat beside him, not too close, not far. And for a long minute, they didn’t talk. They just existed in the same air — Y/n holding the glass in his lap like an anchor, Jake looking out the window with a calm that didn’t feel fake.

It was the kind of silence that didn’t demand anything.

And Y/n wasn’t used to that.

They sat there for a while. Not talking. Not doing anything. Jake’s shoulder angled just slightly toward Y/n, like he wanted to say something but hadn’t figured out how. And Y/n — who was used to men with fast hands and faster words — found something strange in the stillness. In the way Jake didn’t touch him. Not yet.

Outside, the sun had started to slide lower, casting long gold shadows across the floor. The apartment seemed to glow from the inside out. It was beautiful, really. Almost sad.

Jake exhaled softly. His fingers were laced in front of him, resting against his knees.

“I don’t really… do this,” he said, barely above a whisper. “This kind of thing. I don’t know how it works. I just…”

Y/n turned his head a little. Just enough to look at him. Jake’s mouth was still parted, like he didn’t know how to finish.

“You can say it,” Y/n said gently. No mockery. No pressure. Just quiet. Understanding. “Whatever it is.”

Jake looked down at his hands, then back at Y/n. His cheeks were tinged with color, soft and uncertain.

“I just… I’ve been thinking about you,” he admitted. “Since that night. I didn’t know if it’d be weird. Asking. But you being here, it feels…”

Y/n let him trail off. Sometimes people needed silence to say what they meant.

“I’m not weirded out,” he said, voice low, soft as breath. “I know why I’m here.”

Jake blinked. Y/n held his gaze.

“You want something,” Y/n added, just slightly tilting his body toward Jake now. Not seductive. Not obvious. Just open. “You don’t have to be nervous about it.”

Jake gave a small, embarrassed laugh and shook his head, biting the inside of his cheek.

“I guess I just… wanted to know if you’d… if you’d touch me.”

Y/n didn’t smile, but something in him relaxed.

“You want a handjob?” he asked, quiet, but direct.

Jake nodded once, like it was the most vulnerable thing in the world.

Y/n reached over slowly, not yet touching. Just letting his hand hover near Jake’s thigh. His eyes didn’t leave Jake’s face.

“You can ask me,” he said. “Out loud.”

Jake swallowed. Looked at him.

“Will you…?” His voice broke just a little, but he didn’t stop. “Will you touch me?”

There it was. Real. Unmasked. Fragile in a way that didn’t feel fake.

Y/n nodded. Then he shifted closer, careful, letting the space between them dissolve naturally. There was no rush. He let his hand rest lightly on Jake’s thigh, warmth bleeding through the soft fabric of his joggers. Jake’s breath hitched — and Y/n could feel the tension in him, but it wasn’t fear. It was want.

Y/n leaned in just a little, his lips close to Jake’s ear, his voice barely more than a murmur.

“Just breathe,” he whispered. “Let me take care of you.”

Jake sat still like he was holding his breath.

Y/n’s hand was warm on his thigh — deliberate, unhurried — resting there like it belonged. Not claiming. Not coaxing. Just waiting. A simple weight in the silence between them. Y/n leaned back slightly, giving Jake time to pull away if he wanted to. But he didn’t. He looked down at Y/n’s hand, then up into his eyes again.

Jake gave the faintest nod.

That was enough.

Y/n’s fingers moved slowly at first. He didn’t rush — didn’t go for the waistband or press too hard — just let his hand glide a little higher. There was a reverence to it, like he was smoothing out nerves instead of skin. The silence wrapped around them like gauze, stretched only by Jake’s faint breath.

It wasn’t performance.

It wasn’t what Y/n was used to: rushed backseats, hungry mouths, someone groaning his name without even knowing it.

This felt… slow. Personal.

Jake exhaled as Y/n slipped his hand beneath the fabric — soft cotton, warm skin — and wrapped his fingers around him, firm but gentle. Jake’s cock twitched in his palm, already half-hard from tension alone. He was warm, flushed, and trembling faintly like he wasn’t used to being touched this way. Like he’d thought about it for too long.

Y/n’s touch was confident, practiced — stroking with slow precision, thumb grazing the tip in lazy, upward circles, just to feel Jake jolt under him. Not teasing. Just learning him. Reading the way his breath hitched and his thighs tensed, the way his fingers clenched helplessly in the couch cushions like he didn’t know what else to hold onto.

Jake’s head tipped back against the couch. His mouth was parted. Eyes fluttered shut.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

Y/n glanced up. He liked the way Jake looked like this — undone in silence. Not desperate. Just open. Honest. His other hand pressed lightly against Jake’s stomach, steadying him as his strokes picked up just a little more rhythm. Just enough.

He leaned in, lips brushing just below Jake’s ear.

“You can touch me if you want,” Y/n murmured, voice low. “Or just stay like this. Whatever feels good.”

Jake didn’t answer right away, just gasped softly, his hand reaching blindly until it found Y/n’s wrist. Not to stop him. Just to feel something.

The tension rolled over them like a wave. Not frantic. Not pornographic. Just intimate.

Jake started to move — hips twitching up into Y/n’s palm, his breath catching, his thighs shaking faintly now. Y/n stroked harder, more deliberate, feeling the way Jake’s cock throbbed under his touch, slick now, hot and pulsing. It was messy in a quiet way, almost graceful. Like they both knew it wouldn’t last much longer.

Jake came with a soft, broken sound — his whole body going rigid, then loose all at once. His breath stuttered, hand still clinging to Y/n’s wrist, like he was afraid to let go too soon.

Y/n didn’t say anything. Just stayed there for a moment, holding him through it, watching the rise and fall of Jake’s chest. Then he reached for a tissue from the table nearby, cleaning him up with a softness that didn’t feel like obligation.

Jake opened his eyes, flushed and glassy. He looked at Y/n like he didn’t know what to say.

“You okay?” Y/n asked softly, tucking the used tissue away.

Jake nodded slowly.

“Yeah. I just… didn’t think it would feel like that.”

Y/n didn’t ask what “that” meant. He just gave a quiet nod. Leaned back slightly. Waited.

“You hungry?” Jake asked after a while, breaking the ice, voice barely there. “I was gonna order something.”

Y/n blinked once. Then nodded.

“Sure.”

And just like that, the moment folded into the next — like nothing happened, and yet everything had. The city outside glowed through the windows, alive and distant.

Inside, the air was thick with something unspoken — not tension exactly, not comfort either. Something in between. The kind of silence that lingered after skin touched skin and something else slipped in along with it. Not love. Not even affection. Just the strange gravity of being known, for a second longer than either of them had planned for.

Jake reached for his phone with a clumsy kind of ease, scrolling through a delivery app. He didn’t ask what Y/n liked. Just hovered over menus like he was trying to remember what people usually ate together. He settled on something—Thai, maybe—and hit order, setting the phone face-down like it embarrassed him.

Y/n was still sitting on the edge of the couch, legs slightly apart, hands loose between his knees. He wasn’t tense, wasn’t shy. But there was a certain stillness to him now, like he was letting the moment breathe instead of filling it. The dim lighting made his skin look soft, like he was made for quiet places, and the shadows brushed under his eyes like he hadn’t slept properly in a week.

Jake glanced at him again. Not in a hungry way. Not even in a curious one. Just… looked. Like he was trying to understand how someone like Y/n just existed out in the world. Like maybe this wasn’t what he thought it would be, but he wasn’t ready for it to end.

“You don’t talk much,” Jake said, almost smiling.

Y/n tilted his head, not as a defense — just considering.

“Most people don’t pay for that part.”

Jake didn’t respond right away. He ran a hand through his hair, then down the back of his neck, like trying to shake off the line. But something about the way Y/n said it stuck — honest, not cruel. Just matter-of-fact.

There was a knock a little while later — the food — and Jake moved quickly to grab it, mumbling a soft “be right back” as he left the room. Y/n stayed where he was, eyes trailing across the apartment again. It was the kind of place you could tell was expensive even in its quiet. Clean marble counters, dim gold lighting, a record player that probably cost more than Y/n’s rent.

It was different here. Not just because of the money — that part was obvious — but because Jake seemed untouched by the world Y/n had grown used to. He wasn’t jaded. Wasn’t transactional. At least not entirely. And that made this — whatever this was — feel a little off-balance. Like something might tip.

Jake returned with the food, and they ate in a strange kind of peace, side by side on the couch. A movie played in the background, but neither was watching. Jake kept stealing glances. Y/n pretended not to notice.

When they were done, Jake didn’t ask Y/n to leave.

He didn’t ask for more, either. Just sat there, closer now. Maybe without realizing it. Maybe on purpose.

“You can stay a while,” Jake said quietly, eyes flickering toward him but not holding. “I mean—if you want. No pressure or anything.”

Y/n studied him, chewing the inside of his cheek for a second.

“Didn’t think I was allowed to,” he said. Not mean. Not sarcastic. Just honest.

Jake looked at him then, properly. And for a moment, he looked almost small — like someone trying to ask for something without knowing how.

“I want you to.”

Y/n nodded once.

He didn’t say okay. Didn’t make a joke or ask why. He just leaned back into the cushions, letting his eyes close for the first time since he walked in.

And Jake, for once, didn’t feel the need to fill the silence.

Y/n let the quiet settle a little longer before he spoke. His voice didn’t shift much — still low, still calm — but there was a pause before it came out, like the words had to climb through something first.

“You know you’ll have to pay extra.”

It wasn’t sharp. Wasn’t cold. But it landed between them with weight anyway, like a line being drawn, even if his fingers weren’t steady on the chalk.

Jake turned slightly toward him, eyebrows raised — not offended, not surprised. Just taking it in. Letting it sit. He didn’t answer right away.

Y/n exhaled through his nose and leaned forward, elbows to knees. His eyes didn’t meet Jake’s. Instead, they lingered on the polished wood of the coffee table, the faint reflection of his own wrist against the lacquer. He rubbed his palm once down the front of his thigh — a nervous tick he didn’t usually let anyone see.

“If it were someone else,” he said, more to himself than to Jake, “some guy twice my age with weird breath and a ring mark where his wedding band used to be—” he broke off, giving a small shrug, “—I wouldn’t blink. I’d charge him extra and make it sound like a favor.”

Jake was quiet.

Y/n finally looked up.

“But with you, I—” he stopped again, lips parting like the rest of the sentence might find its way out if he just let the air carry it.

Jake didn’t push. He just waited, soft-eyed, the way someone might wait for a deer to walk closer. He was good at that — at sitting still, at letting people take their time. It made Y/n want to say more and nothing at all.

“I just don’t want you to think…” Y/n’s voice thinned out. “That I’m trying to take advantage. Or that I stayed here to upsell you. I didn’t.”

Jake’s mouth parted slightly, like he might say something — but then he closed it again, nodding slowly. Thoughtfully.

“I know,” he said, almost too gently. “I didn’t think that.”

Y/n breathed in once, then out again — like he’d been holding something tight in his chest without realizing. He nodded, too. Not at Jake, exactly, but at the space between them. At the fact that the moment didn’t collapse.

Still, some part of him curled in defensively — not out of fear, but out of habit. The survival kind. The kind that taught him long ago that softness was a luxury you performed, not one you let happen to you. And here he was, breaking his own rules in real time.

“But it is still work,” he said, more evenly this time. “I’m not just some guy you picked up in a bar.”

“I know,” Jake repeated. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to. Even if I pay.”

That made Y/n smile, barely. A small twist at the corner of his mouth, sardonic and tired and a little sad.

“I always do things I don’t want to. That’s part of the job.”

Jake flinched slightly at that, then looked away, jaw ticking just once. He reached for the glass of water he’d left on the side table and took a sip, like it might ground him.

Y/n watched him, head tilted, and there was something strange flickering behind his eyes now — not regret exactly, not guilt. But maybe something like grief. For himself, or for how easy it was to say these things now. How used to it he’d become.

“But I don’t mind this one,” he added softly, after a beat.

Jake looked up again.

Y/n let the sentence hang there a second, watching the way Jake’s eyes flickered — not with lust, not immediately. More like relief. Like permission.

“You can touch me,” Y/n said. “If that’s what you want.”

And this time, there was no smile. No irony. Just honesty, plain and gentle.

Jake’s hand moved first — tentative, warm — brushing across the top of Y/n’s thigh through the soft fabric of the basketball shorts. He didn’t go any further. Just left it there, testing the moment like stepping into shallow water.

Y/n didn’t stop him. Didn’t flinch. His pulse ticked steady at his neck, visible under the soft gold of the lighting. And somewhere deep down, under the professionalism and the blurred lines, he felt the quietest shiver of something else.

He wasn’t sure if it was dread or want.

Maybe both.

Y/n didn’t know how long they stayed like that — Jake’s hand resting over his thigh, warm and unhurried, the apartment glowing with late-night softness, everything outside them distant and blurred.

He’d been touched like this before.

By men who wanted him to pretend this very feeling. By men who paid him extra just to fake comfort — to let his body go pliant and still and close, as if their hands meant safety, as if he could be held and not bought. But that was theater. Every move practiced. Every smile just right.

This wasn’t the same.

Jake’s fingers didn’t roam. They didn’t squeeze or drift up his shorts like hands usually did when clients got quiet and sentimental. They just… stayed. A kind of quiet, grounding pressure. Like Jake didn’t need anything else right then. Like the closeness was enough.

Y/n stared down at the hand. At the difference in their skin tones, the lazy spread of Jake’s thumb, the veins beneath the surface. It was a nice hand. Strong. It wasn’t trembling. It wasn’t cold.

And for the first time in what felt like a very long time, Y/n didn’t feel like he was performing.

He wasn’t moaning softly into someone’s ear. He wasn’t panting on cue, twisting the elastic of his waistband or arching his back just enough to give them a fantasy they could grip. He wasn’t being someone’s weekend secret, their therapy, their wife-replacement.

He was just… here.

In someone’s home. In someone’s shirt. In someone’s quiet.

And it messed with him.

Because it wasn’t supposed to feel good. Not like this. Not this simple. This wasn’t part of the service. This wasn’t what he’d trained his body to tolerate — the pressure, the role, the routine.

This was dangerous.

Because he hadn’t felt taken care of in so long he forgot what it felt like.

And now, out of nowhere, this Australian stranger with a golden voice and trembling eyelashes was handing it to him like it was nothing. Like Y/n didn’t have to earn it with skin and sweat and silence.

A flicker of something crept up his spine — not fear, but a sort of stunned sadness. The kind that reminded him of being a kid again. Not the good parts — not playgrounds or birthdays or summer rain — but the heavy, bone-deep ache of waiting for someone to come home. Waiting for someone to stay. Waiting for love that always arrived in fragments or not at all.

Jake’s thumb moved, just barely, brushing back and forth against his thigh now. Thoughtless. Gentle.

Y/n blinked hard, suddenly too aware of how his chest felt — tight and full and not in the way he was used to. He swallowed once, then again.

Jake looked up at him, eyes soft. So open it hurt.

“You okay?” he asked, echoing what Y/n had said earlier.

Y/n gave the faintest nod.

Then, before he could think twice — before he could remind himself what this was, what it wasn’t, what it couldn’t be — he leaned in.

It was barely a kiss at first.

Not hot, not slick, not the kind of kiss he gave to play a role.

Just… the press of his mouth against Jake’s. Like a question. Like an accident. Like something that didn’t need to be deserved.

Jake didn’t flinch.

He kissed him back with the same hesitancy, the same restraint — like neither of them wanted to break it, or make it more than it was. Their mouths moved softly, barely parting. No urgency. No transaction. Just quiet mouths, close breaths, the weight of everything unspoken pressed into a few fragile seconds.

When Y/n pulled back, his eyes were still closed.

He hadn’t meant to do that.

Not really.

Not when there was still time left on the clock. Not when he hadn’t even told Jake the total. Not when kisses — real kisses — were supposed to be off limits.

But he couldn’t regret it either.

Because in that moment — in the hush of that borrowed apartment, in someone else’s T-shirt, with Jake’s hand still resting where it had always been — Y/n felt something dangerously close to being loved.

Not adored. Not desired. Not worshipped or used.

Loved.

And maybe that was worse.

Three days passed like that.

Not in a blur — not exactly — but in the kind of slowed-down daze that made Y/n feel like he was dreaming with his eyes open. He kept waking up in Jake’s apartment — too warm, too soft, too high up — like the city had disappeared somewhere beneath them. And every morning, Jake was still there. Not rushing to kick him out. Not awkwardly showering or mumbling thanks like most of the men did after paying.

He stayed.

He made coffee.

He smiled, gentle and boyish and unguarded, like he didn’t realize what Y/n was. Or worse — like he did, and didn’t care.

Marcus texted each morning with the address, saying Jake had already wired the money. It wasn’t even discussed anymore. Like Jake just wanted him there — no negotiation, no haggle, just come back. It wasn’t a rate Y/n would ever normally expect for something so… uneventful. For holding hands and sharing a couch and sometimes touching each other so quietly it barely registered as sex work. There were handjobs, yes — slow, trembling ones that made Jake shudder and stammer out apologies because of the mess he made — but they felt like tiny confessions, not transactions. The kind of intimacy Y/n never knew what to do with.

On the second day, Jake had taken him shopping.

Not anywhere seedy or rushed — not a quick run to buy a hoodie to hide hickeys. He brought Y/n to some upscale boutique with glass shelves and soft jazz playing through invisible speakers, and when Y/n hesitated by the doorway, frozen by the quiet security guards and the sterile perfume in the air, Jake had only touched the small of his back and murmured, “Just pick what you like.”

Y/n had stood there like a stranger inside his own skin, unable to move.

He wasn’t used to choosing.

His life was built on being chosen — by strangers, by men with money, by whatever Marcus wanted him to do that week. Clothes were things picked for him. Styles meant to accentuate — not to comfort. Not to keep.

But here was Jake, nodding patiently as a sleek saleswoman brought over stacks of folded T-shirts and slacks too clean for Y/n’s fingers to touch. The price tags were shameful. More than a week’s rent for some pressed white shirt with tiny stitching.

Y/n only picked three things — he didn’t have the stomach for more. A pale hoodie, a soft black T-shirt, and a pair of cargo pants that hung low on his hips.

Jake paid with a black card. He didn’t even blink.

And when they got home — yes, home, because that was starting to feel like the right word — Jake cooked something simple and said, “You look good in black,” without even looking up from the pan.

Y/n didn’t know how to respond. So he said nothing. Just watched the egg whites settle like clouds and wondered what the fuck was happening.

Because nothing about this made sense.

He was supposed to be the poor kid who kept his charger in his sock and his cash in the lining of his coat. He was supposed to walk past buildings like Jake’s and never look up, never ask questions. He was supposed to let himself be pulled into dark cars for three hundred a night and not think twice about what came after. He knew the codes. He knew how to survive.

But this?

This wasn’t survival.

This was… an illusion. A fragile, golden bubble where people said please and bought him breakfast and let him sleep in shirts they’d worn the day before. Where windows overlooked skylines and water ran hot forever. Where hands didn’t grope or grab. They touched like they meant it.

He didn’t know how to live in that.

Every time Jake smiled at him — soft, unforced, like they were just two boys with time — Y/n felt something split inside him. Because he couldn’t tell if this was a job anymore. Or a fantasy. Or if maybe he was starting to want something that wasn’t included in the price.

And that terrified him more than anything.

By the fourth night, it was different.

Jake had been quiet all evening. Not distant—just watching. Watching Y/n walk around the apartment in one of the hoodies he’d given him, sleeves too long, hem skimming soft skin where the shorts ended. The lights were low. The city flickered outside the windows like something far away. Y/n felt it in the air—how close they were to something breaking.

Jake sat on the couch, legs spread, head tipped back as if he were trying to breathe through something thick. Y/n stood across from him, unsure. Not nervous. But waiting. Like if he moved first, it would become real.

Then Jake said, voice low and hoarse:

“Come here.”

And Y/n went.

It wasn’t slow. Jake pulled him down by the hips the second he was close enough, mouthed at the skin just above the waistband, fingers slipping under the elastic like he’d been waiting days for this. And maybe he had. Y/n didn’t speak — just let his body say yes. Let Jake kiss his stomach, his hips, tug the shorts down, bite softly at the inside of his thigh.

“Been thinking about this,” Jake muttered. “About you. About how fucking good you look when you’re quiet like that…”

Y/n flushed. His knees nearly buckled when Jake’s mouth met his cock — warm, wet, unhesitating. It was messy, a little unpracticed, but full of hunger. Jake took his time. Moaned when Y/n’s fingers tangled in his hair. It was the kind of pleasure that felt like losing shape, like forgetting who you were supposed to be. Y/n didn’t even realize he was gasping until Jake pulled back, breath hot against his skin.

“Get on the couch,” Jake said, voice rough.

Y/n obeyed, climbing up, back against the cushions, legs loose. Jake followed — not rushed, but focused. Every touch felt deliberate, as if he was learning Y/n by memory. By instinct.

When he pushed in, slow and steady, Y/n bit down on his own wrist just to stay grounded. Jake was thick, hot, overwhelming. He cursed softly under his breath, gripping Y/n’s thigh like it was the only thing anchoring him.

“Fuck, you feel—God, you feel so good,” Jake rasped, hips rolling deeper.

Y/n choked out a sound that wasn’t quite a word. His head tipped back, throat exposed, body stretched open. Jake kissed him there. Fucked him harder. Their rhythm turned erratic, sweat-slick and desperate. Every thrust filled the room with the sound of skin, breath, tension snapping over and over.

Jake leaned in close, nose brushing Y/n’s cheek, breath hitting his ear.

“You want it deeper, don’t you?”

Y/n whimpered.

“Say it.”

And he did. Voice cracking, hand fisting into Jake’s hair.

“Deeper. Please—Jake—fuck, don’t stop—”

He didn’t.

It went on like that until they were both coming undone, bodies locked together, shaking. Jake didn’t pull out right away. He stayed there, breathing hard, forehead pressed to Y/n’s. There was something almost reverent in it.

And then — the moment passed.

Jake exhaled and rolled off slowly. He kissed Y/n’s shoulder. Said, “I’ll get you some water,” and disappeared into the kitchen.

Y/n laid there, body trembling, chest still rising and falling. He didn’t feel used. Didn’t feel bought. He felt… needed. Maybe even wanted. And that scared him more than anything else.

By the time Jake came back, phone in hand, he was already talking — low voice, clipped, unfamiliar. Not to Y/n. To someone else. He answered another call almost immediately after. Then another. The room changed. It wasn’t just sex anymore; it wasn’t just them.

Y/n watched as Jake stepped out to the balcony, voice growing fainter, words inaudible through the glass.

He wrapped the throw blanket around himself, suddenly cold.

He didn’t ask who Jake was talking to.

But the silence that followed felt different now — not warm. Not close.

Distant. Like the city outside. Like reality finally catching up.

Y/n didn’t hear what Jake was saying out there. Just the low rhythm of his voice on the phone, rising and falling, paced like someone in control. His hand was in his pocket. His head was tipped toward the glass. The city lights scattered across his silhouette like jewelry — expensive, unreachable.

Y/n blinked and let out a breath.

It wasn’t unfamiliar, exactly. He’d seen this a dozen times before — men stepping away after sex, answering work calls, slipping into voices that didn’t belong to the boy who had just whispered you feel so good into his neck. He’d laid in hotel beds while men scheduled business meetings, called their wives, checked on daughters, texted assistants. It never bothered him. Not really. It was part of it. Like folding towels or brushing teeth.

But this was different.

He pulled the blanket tighter around himself, sat upright, legs still warm, sore. The air around him smelled like them — sweat and skin and something breathless. His body still ached where Jake had been, and his chest — his chest was tight in a way that had nothing to do with the sex.

He could hear Jake’s voice again. Not the words. Just the tone. Focused. Like he’d flipped some invisible switch. Like he had a place to be and Y/n was… background.

And it shouldn’t have stung. But it did.

Y/n tried to look away. Tried to focus on the glass of water Jake had left on the table or the hoodie still puddled on the floor. But his eyes kept drifting back. Back to the man outside, to the way his jaw tensed as he nodded, said something, listened. He hadn’t smiled since he took the call. He hadn’t looked back once.

Y/n shifted on the couch, sat forward, bare toes pressing against the expensive rug. The thought crept in slow and uninvited: Who is he talking to?

Not what. Who.

That surprised him.

Because he never asked that. Never cared. If a client had a wife, he let it be. If they had children, he pretended not to hear when they mentioned names in the dark. It wasn’t his business. It was better that way. Cleaner.

But now…

Now the silence between them felt personal. Now every nod, every unreadable expression Jake made through the glass felt like a secret. Like something Y/n didn’t have access to.

His stomach twisted.

He hated this part. The part where you start wanting to know. Not for money. Not for safety. But for… closeness. The part where the lines started smudging. Where the version of the man you’d built in your head — all hands and warmth and sleepy murmurs — started clashing with the version on the phone, cold and unavailable. Prioritized.

Jake paced once across the balcony. Said something sharper, more final. His voice dropped again, almost tender. Like he was trying to reassure someone.

And that’s when Y/n felt it. That odd sting of jealousy. Of curiosity. Who was on the other end of that tenderness?

He bit the inside of his cheek.

He didn’t want to be the kind of person who asked. That wasn’t who he was. That wasn’t what this was supposed to be. Jake had paid for his time. For his company. That should’ve been enough. That had always been enough.

But it wasn’t tonight.

Not after the way Jake had kissed him. Not after the way he had looked at him like something he didn’t want to let go of.

The ache spread slow. Ugly.

He leaned back again, pressing his knuckles against his lips, trying to quiet the part of him that was suddenly, painfully aware: he wasn’t the only part of Jake’s world. Not even close.

And he wanted to be.

He really, really wanted to be.

The room was dark, washed in navy and silver — the city outside breathing slowly through the half-open window, lights blinking like faraway lighthouses. Jake was asleep beside him. His chest moved in that steady rhythm Y/n had learned to recognize over the last three nights, a cadence of someone who had nothing to run from. One arm thrown lazily over the blanket. Skin warm against the pillow.

Y/n had been trying to sleep.

He’d curled up at the edge of the bed, sheets twisted around his legs, the memory of Jake’s hands still vivid on his skin. They hadn’t said much before falling asleep. Just touches. A glance. Jake had pulled him close, buried his face in Y/n’s neck, and whispered something about how good he smelled. You’re like home. Fuck.

But sleep didn’t come easy tonight.

Not after the way Jake had been acting— calm, yes, but… distant. Something in the way he had left the room for hours earlier, brushing it off when Y/n asked. Just work. Something in the way he didn’t kiss him as deeply before bed. Like something was pulling him away again, slow and invisible.

Y/n shifted, trying not to disturb him.

That’s when he saw the screen glow.

Jake’s phone, forgotten on the dresser across the room, buzzed with a soft hum. Then again. And again. The light flickered against the wall, illuminating part of Jake’s shirt crumpled on the floor, the rim of a watch he’d taken off and left beside it. Another buzz.

Y/n didn’t mean to look.

He told himself he was just checking the time. Just making sure it wasn’t morning already. Just… reaching. Just breathing.

But the screen lit up again, and this time, the name was clear.

Dad.

Y/n stared at it.

Then, seconds later, the preview popped up without him touching it. Just a sliver of words — enough to undo everything.

Flight confirmed. We’re all set for the wedding next weekend. She’s thrilled, by the way. Everyone’s so proud of you.

Y/n’s body went cold.

Wedding.

Wedding.

The word sat in his chest like stone. His first thought wasn’t even betrayal. It was confusion. Disbelief. A sense that he must have misunderstood something. That maybe it was a joke. An old message. A mistake. But as he stared at the rest of the screen, saw the message timestamp — Today, 12:04 AM — the pieces started slotting in like a knife sliding slow and silent between ribs.

The phone buzzed again. A photo this time. Blurred preview. Laughter. Someone’s hands on Jake’s shoulder.

Jake, who had kissed him like no one else mattered.

Jake, who had made him breakfast and brushed Y/n’s bangs behind his ear and said you’re different from the others. Jake, who had bought him clothes — beautiful ones. Too beautiful. A new cologne, too. A vintage jacket that had cost more than Y/n made in two weeks. Jake, who had paid Marcus every night without blinking, just to have him here. In his space. In his bed. With him.

And now this.

Wedding.

Y/n didn’t move for a long time.

The room felt suddenly unfamiliar. Too big. Too sterile. Too quiet. Jake shifted slightly in his sleep, the sheets rustling. His mouth opened just slightly, breath soft, lips pink and parted like a boy — just a boy — dreaming something innocent.

Y/n looked at him.

And everything ached.

Not because Jake was married yet. But because Y/n realized, with a heavy finality, that he had never really belonged here. No matter how soft Jake’s hands were. No matter how many times he whispered stay the night. No matter how good it felt to be held.

Y/n got up.

Quietly.

His feet didn’t even make a sound on the floor. He didn’t take the hoodie Jake had given him. Didn’t touch the box of new clothes still folded in the guest room. He didn’t take the cologne, or the jacket Jake said reminded him of his eyes. He left everything. Every trace.

Because none of it had ever been his.

And he knew — he knew — Jake cared. That wasn’t fake. It wasn’t one-sided. There had been something real in the way Jake looked at him, in the way he touched him like he was scared to break him. But that something… wasn’t enough.

Not when there was another life waiting.

A fiancée.

A family.

A wedding.

Y/n slipped his shoes on slowly. He didn’t cry. He didn’t let himself. He left without turning the lights on. Without making a sound. Without saying goodbye.

The apartment door clicked softly behind him. The hallway outside was dark and cold and vast, and Y/n stood there for a second, frozen. Just breathing.

Then he walked.

Away from the silence. Away from the man who made him feel wanted, briefly. Softly. Almost.

He walked until the ache became distance. Until Jake’s world felt like something he had only dreamed.

Y/n didn’t go far. Not really. Just enough to feel the cold again — the kind that reminded him he was alive and alone and himself. Enough to let the city seep back into his skin, coarse and real and uncaring. The sound of traffic rolled over the horizon like a wave, distant and low, and the sky was still dark, bleeding into blue.

He walked for blocks with his hands in his pockets, head low. Not running. Just… escaping. One corner turned into another. His feet hurt. He didn’t know what time it was. He didn’t want to know.

Eventually, the city began to shift — not the part Jake lived in. Not the manicured kind with concierge lobbies and heated floors. No, this was his side. The cracked sidewalks, the corner bodegas still shuttered from the night, the lamplight flickering against warped windows. Somewhere between then and now, the air changed. Lighter. Rougher.

He sat at the bus stop even though he didn’t know when the first one came — if it came. In New York, some lines ran 24 hours, but this one didn’t seem like it. The schedule on the faded sign was sun-bleached and peeling, like no one had touched it in years. Still, he sat.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it.

The wind moved through the street like a lullaby, brushing his arms, cooling his skin through the too-thin hoodie he’d thrown on in the dark. The clothes Jake bought were folded in the apartment. Left behind, like a costume he didn’t have the right to keep.

He pulled his hood up, leaned his head back against the glass behind him, and slid his headphones in.

Shuffle.

A soft, dreamy beat filtered through — slow and wistful, with harmonies that wrapped around his ribs like a memory. A girl’s voice hummed into his ears, delicate and dreamy:

“All my fears thrown out the window…”

He closed his eyes.

“Makes it feel like summer forever…”

The irony stung. He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, curling inward, making himself small. Smaller. As if he could fold himself into the music, into the fabric of the early morning haze. He imagined Jake’s bed, still warm. The smell of that linen detergent. His hair still wet from the night before. His arm draped loosely over the pillow like he was still dreaming, still untouched by everything.

“I truly think you’re special”

Y/n blinked hard, once. Twice. No tears. Just air that burned a little too sharp.

He didn’t feel special. He didn’t feel remembered.

He felt like a stain.

But still, the song stayed. Gentle and aching. The kind of song that meant something when you heard it at the wrong time. Or maybe the right one. He didn’t know anymore.

A car drove by slow. Someone yelled something from a block away. Sirens pulsed faint in the distance.

Y/n closed his eyes again and let himself drift.

There was nothing left to do but wait for the first bus. Or sleep. Whichever came first.

By the time Y/n got home, the sun had started to claw its way over the skyline — not golden and warm, but pale and cold, like a hospital light. The street outside his apartment was empty, except for a dog barking somewhere and a sanitation truck crawling by, slow and loud and indifferent.

His key scraped in the lock louder than he remembered. Or maybe it just sounded louder now, after the night. He pushed the door open and stepped inside his tiny apartment. No heated floors. No minimalist decor. No espresso machine gleaming under designer lights. Just the same old weak bulb in the kitchen, the one that flickered when the heater kicked on.

He stood by the door for a long moment. His hands hung limp at his sides.

Then, quietly, he moved. He took off his hoodie and shoes and dropped his phone face down on the chipped countertop like it had offended him. The apartment smelled like dust and cheap body wash. His blanket was still crumpled at the foot of the bed. The curtains hung half open, letting in too much light. Too much reality.

His phone buzzed. Once.

Then again. And again.

He didn’t move.

He stood over it, staring, the same way someone might look at a ringing alarm clock after a nightmare. Blinking. Slow.

Buzz.

jake (client) [6:48 AM]: baby? where are you?? why did you leave??

Buzz.

jake (client) [6:50 AM]: please answer me y/n please just let me know you’re safe.

He turned the screen off.

A few seconds passed, then another vibration hit the counter — different tone.

marcus (boss) [6:52 AM]: hey. did you get home okay?

Y/n stared at that one longer. Something in the tone felt more normal. Less frantic. But it still made his skin prickle.

He didn’t respond. To either of them.

He walked away, into the bathroom. Washed his face with cold water. Stared at his reflection. His eyes were puffy, but not red. He hadn’t cried. He still hadn’t. That would’ve made it real. Made him real — and he wasn’t ready for that.

He dried off with the same towel he’d been using for weeks. It smelled like detergent and city air and something else — something his own. Something that hadn’t been touched by Jake’s hands.

Buzz.

He ignored it again.

He climbed into bed without changing clothes. The sheets were cool, not soft. The way they always were. The room was small and quiet and his. Nothing expensive. Nothing new. The kind of place you don’t bring someone like Jake to, because you know they’ll flinch at the paint chipping or the tiny roaches that skitter from the light.

Y/n curled up in the middle of it.

Not dramatic. Not poetic. Just small. Just there. Like a body waiting for the rest of him to catch up.

More buzzes came, but he didn’t reach for the phone. He knew what they said. Or he didn’t need to. Either way, it wouldn’t change anything.

Jake was marrying someone else next week.

Y/n was just… an accident he forgot to sweep up.

And now, Y/n was finally back where he belonged.

Alone.

Y/n didn’t remember falling asleep.

He only remembered the weight of his limbs when he woke up — heavy and slow and sore, like his body had fought something all night. Like grief had curled up beside him and held on tight.

The light in his room had shifted, warm now, slanting through the cracks in the curtain like fingers. Afternoon, maybe. The kind of hour that felt lazy and in-between, where nothing urgent was supposed to happen.

Then came the knock.

A firm, deliberate knock at the door.

Y/n blinked against the light. The sound didn’t register at first. It felt disconnected — like it was happening in someone else’s world.

Another knock. Three of them. Then a pause. Then—

“Y/n,” came a voice. Muffled through the door but unmistakable.

Jake.

Y/n didn’t move. Not at first. He just lay there, his eyes wide open, watching the ceiling like it could tell him what to do. His heart was already beating too fast, as if it had known before his brain did.

Another knock.

“Y/n, please.”

The blankets slid off his body slowly. He didn’t want to get up. Didn’t want to look at Jake. But something made him move. Like his body didn’t trust him to decide on its own.

He padded barefoot toward the door, past the old heater and the unwashed dishes and the phone he’d left facedown, still buzzing hours ago. He didn’t touch it.

He didn’t open the door all the way either. Just enough.

The chain lock stayed on. Jake stood on the other side, flushed and messy, like he hadn’t slept. His hair was pushed back but uneven. His jacket looked expensive and wrong against the peeling paint of the hallway walls.

Y/n leaned against the frame, tired and too bare in his own skin.

“Jake,” he said, voice flat. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Jake’s eyes jumped all over him, like he couldn’t decide where to land. “I—I needed to know you were okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“You weren’t answering. I—fuck, I didn’t know where you were. After last night—”

“That was a mistake,” Y/n cut in. Not sharply, but final.

Jake’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Y/n looked at him, really looked. The way Jake stood there — in his tailored coat, in his good shoes, in his panic — like a man who still believed this was about him.

“Jake,” Y/n said, slow, “you’re a client.”

Jake flinched.

“I’m not your boyfriend. I’m not your fucking soulmate. I’m someone you paid.” The words felt hollow and ugly and necessary. “What happened last night — that was my mistake. I crossed a line. I thought maybe you meant something. I was wrong.”

“I do mean something—”

“No,” Y/n said firmly, leaning closer against the cracked doorframe. “You can’t. Not to me.”

Jake’s hands were trembling now. “I didn’t plan any of this, I swear. But when I’m with you, it’s—”

“—a fantasy.” Y/n’s voice dropped. “It’s something you bought. A night. A few hours. A lie that makes you feel less empty.”

“That’s not fair,” Jake whispered.

“Isn’t it?” Y/n looked past him, at the hallway, the rusted mailbox slots, the dying light bulb in the ceiling. “Look around you, Jake. Look at this place. Look at me.”

Jake’s lips parted. He didn’t say anything.

Y/n smiled — not nicely. “You think this is a love story? You think I have time for your confusion? You think I’m gonna sit here and wait for a married man to figure out what he wants while I scrape together tips and sleep with strangers to afford rent?”

Jake looked like he wanted to cry. He stepped forward slightly, almost like he could fix it if he just moved. Y/n didn’t budge.

“You’re getting married,” Y/n said, quieter now. “You have a life. You have money. I have time slots. That’s the difference.”

The words hit like smoke in a closed room.

Jake finally whispered, “But I love you.”

Y/n let out a small laugh. It was hoarse. Cold.

“Then go tell your fiancée that.”

He didn’t shut the door.

Not yet.

But he didn’t open it wider either.

Jake and Y/n stayed quiet for a long time.

There was too much silence between them — heavy, tense, and stained with things neither of them could wash out now.

The hallway light flickered. Somewhere below, a door slammed and footsteps echoed up the stairs. But in front of Y/n, Jake just stood there, breathing like he’d run miles to get here.

Then, softly — like he was grasping at something already slipping through his hands — Jake said:

“I had fun. I mean—last night… it wasn’t just anything. Not to me. I had fun with you, Y/n.”

Y/n didn’t move.

Didn’t blink. Not at first.

Just looked at him with this slow, unreadable expression — the kind people wore at funerals when they’d already grieved too early. Like the loss had shown up before the death.

Then he smiled.

Wide. Bright. Plastic.

“Yeah?” he said gently.

His voice cracked just slightly.

“You had fun?”

Jake nodded. Desperate. “I did. I—”

“That’s great.” Y/n interrupted, smiling wider, voice trembling now. “That’s really great, Jake. You had fun.”

There was a tiny, broken laugh on the edge of it — not real, not even a little. Like a sound rehearsed too many times. His eyes shimmered like they were about to flood.

Jake’s brows pinched, like he didn’t understand where the hurt was coming from. “Y/n…”

Y/n shook his head and backed away from the door a little, even though the chain still held it. His smile was still there. Fragile. Hysterical.

“You sound just like all of them,” he whispered. “God—how stupid is that? That you’d say the same thing.”

Jake stepped closer. “That’s not what I meant—”

“No, no, I get it,” Y/n said, voice rising slightly, still too sweet. “You had a good time. You liked the way I made you feel. You liked that I laughed at your jokes, or let you kiss me, or whatever. That’s what you paid for, right?”

“Y/n, please—”

Y/n wiped a hand across his cheek quickly — furious with himself — even though the tears hadn’t fallen yet. “Fuck.”

Jake’s face twisted. “Don’t do that. Don’t act like none of it meant anything.”

Y/n’s chest rose and fell too fast. “You think I don’t know what this is? You think I’m stupid?”

“No. I never said—”

“Jake,” Y/n snapped, eyes flashing. “I’m a fucking whore. This is what I do. I pretend. I give people what they need for a few hours, and then they go home to their wives and lives and forget all about me.”

Jake’s mouth opened, stricken.

“But you—” Y/n’s voice cracked again, and his hand curled tight around the doorframe. “You made me forget that. You made me forget I was playing a part. And now I feel fucking stupid for it.”

He sucked in a breath. His eyes were rimmed red now.

“I should’ve stayed in character. Should’ve smiled and sucked you off and thanked you for the tip. Not let you hold me like that. Not sleep in your bed like I belonged there.”

Jake took another step forward, but Y/n yanked the door tighter — the chain still holding, the gap closing like a wound trying to heal too late.

“You were never supposed to see me,” Y/n whispered.

Jake didn’t say anything.

He couldn’t.

Because he had seen Y/n. All of him. The quiet, scared parts. The sweet ones, too. Not just the pretty face or the lithe body or the flirtation he performed like clockwork. He’d seen something real — and still, still, he was marrying someone else.

And Y/n hated himself for letting that happen.

For wanting it to mean more.

For thinking, even for one stupid second, that he was more than just a rented fantasy in Jake’s life.

“You should go,” Y/n said softly, brokenly, and let the chain clink shut between them.

But the door didn’t close yet.

Neither of them moved.

Jake just stood there, framed in the door like something unfinished. Something half-wrecked and still dangerous.

Y/n stared at him, heart pounding loud in his ears, but his expression was cold now. Tired. Like whatever had cracked open inside him was already starting to scab over.

It was taking everything in him not to cry.

Jake opened his mouth again — and Y/n could already see it: the half-hearted denial, the excuses, the “I didn’t mean for it to go this far,” the “you don’t understand.” Always the same script. Always the same ending.

But Y/n didn’t want to hear it. Not from him. Not after everything.

“I don’t want anything from you,” Y/n said quietly, voice stripped of all artifice now. No flirty lilt, no smile, no charm. Just truth. “Not apologies. Not explanations. Not closure.”

Jake’s throat worked like he was swallowing back something sharp.

“I told you,” Y/n went on, and now his voice sounded thinner, trembling again but steadier somehow — like he was finally choosing himself, even if it killed him. “I don’t have time for this. For games. For pretending.”

Jake finally spoke. “It wasn’t a game.”

Y/n gave a hollow laugh. “Yeah. That’s the part that hurts.”

The hallway light flickered above them again. Still, no one moved. There was this awful pause between them — thick and painful, the kind of silence that only comes when something’s died.

Y/n let his eyes drift to Jake’s hands. Big, veiny hands. The same ones that had touched him the night before. That had held his hips, his throat, his waist. That had trembled when they thought no one was watching.

Those same hands were going to be holding someone else’s in a week.

Someone who got the real thing. The ring. The name. The life.

And Y/n… Y/n would be nothing more than a flicker in the back of Jake’s head when he was drunk or lonely or bored.

That realization settled in Y/n’s chest like rot.

He pulled the door just a little farther shut. The chain still clinked gently between them, the last barrier — like even the universe was hesitant to let them touch again.

Jake leaned closer, desperation on his face now. “Y/n, wait—”

Y/n didn’t flinch. He just looked at him — really looked at him — and for a second, the whole mask cracked. His voice dropped to a whisper.

“Bye, Jake.”

Jake looked wrecked.

But Y/n wasn’t done.

“Have a good wedding.”

And then, gently, almost reverently, Y/n closed the door.

The chain slipped loose.

The lock clicked into place.

And Y/n stood there on the other side, fists clenched and heart shattered — breathing as if the air was no longer his to take.

The silence that followed felt unbearable.

The hallway light dimmed behind the door, but Jake’s presence still lingered, like smoke after a fire — like a ghost Y/n couldn’t exorcise. He didn’t hear footsteps leaving. He didn’t care to. Maybe Jake was still standing there. Maybe not. It didn’t matter anymore.

Y/n slid down the back of the door, spine pressed to the cold wood as his knees gave out. His breath hitched in his throat, jagged and uneven, and then it was like something ruptured inside him — something soft and wild and wounded.

He started to cry.

Not like before. Not the tears that slid quietly down his cheeks, not the ones he had learned to hide — the silent ones, well-practiced in mirrors and backseats and hotel bathrooms. No. This was a different kind of crying. This was ugly. Loud. Raw. The kind of sobbing that rips through your chest like it’s trying to crawl its way out.

He gasped through it, fists pressed hard to his mouth to muffle the sound. But it didn’t work. Nothing worked. His body was shaking. His ribs ached. He was so fucking tired.

He didn’t know how long he stayed there. Minutes? Hours? Time bled uselessly around him. The air was thick with the scent of Jake — still lingering in his clothes, his sheets, his skin. Y/n hated it. Hated that even now, even after everything, his body still remembered the warmth. The touch. The way Jake had kissed him like he meant it.

Y/n wiped his face on his sleeve. His eyes were puffy. His lips swollen from biting down so hard.

He reached for his phone with a trembling hand.

The screen lit up instantly — a string of unread messages. Jake’s name glowing at the top like a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.

He couldn’t read them. He didn’t want to know what they said. The lies, the guilt, the apologies that only hurt more.

His thumb hovered over the notifications, but he didn’t delete them. Not yet.

Instead, he opened a new message.

marcus (boss): won’t be working today. sorry.

He stared at it for a long time. It looked so small on the screen. So impersonal. But he had nothing else to say. No explanation. No real reason. Just — not today.

He hit send.

Y/n dropped the phone beside him and leaned his head back against the door again, closing his eyes. The apartment was too quiet. Every sound — the hum of the fridge, the ticking of a neighbor’s clock — felt like it was mocking him.

He used to dream of something like that. Of being saved. Of someone choosing him.

And for a second, it had felt real. Jake had felt real.

But maybe that was the biggest lie of all.

Because in the end, Y/n was still the one left behind. Still the one standing in a shit ass apartment, crying on the floor, trying to catch his breath in a world that never gave him space to breathe in the first place.

He wasn’t Jake’s secret lover.

He wasn’t anyone’s.

He was a memory waiting to be erased.

A pause between someone else’s chapters.

Just a whore who forgot to keep the act on.

The tears slowed eventually, though the ache in his chest stayed. He didn’t get up. He didn’t move. He just sat there in the dark, feeling the last pieces of the illusion fall away, one by one.

And when the morning light slipped in under the curtains, Y/n was still there.

Alone. But real.

note: hi! it’s been a while, hasn’t it? did you miss me? hehe… i missed you. i really, really did. if you’ve just finished reading summer forever, i hope your heart’s still a little warm from it. jake and y/n’s story was something i held close for a long time, and i truly gave it my all. i wanted it to feel special. like a slow sun-drenched ache. like something that stays with you a little after the ending. i know i used to post way more often. honestly, i was always around, always writing, always showing up quickly with new chapters. it became part of my rhythm, and part of yours too, maybe. but this past stretch of time… i needed to pause. not because i didn’t want to write — i always want to write — but because i wasn’t in the right place to do it the way i like to. i think i was letting this space shape too much of how i felt about myself. and i don’t like when that happens. so i stepped back. just a little. enough to catch my breath and put some things back where they belong inside my head. i’m not fully recharged yet — i’ll be honest — but i missed creating. i missed you. and even if i don’t have all the energy or motivation i used to, i still want to keep doing this. writing stories that touch you, even just a little. stories that feel like someone understanding you quietly. i want to keep doing that. thank you for being here. for reading. for caring. i’m back, slowly, gently!!! and i’m so lucky to have you. luke

this work was originally written in portuguese and manually translated into english.

[thatblvckboyy]

Car fun with Jake

mdni | wear headphones 🎧

[thatblvckboyy]

Soo ermmm.... I was riding my dealdough and I think I went to deep and now my stomach feels weird, it generally hurts not so much but it's this wierd feeling

THE MED SCHOOL STUDENTS PLZ HELP A BOY OUT 😭

[thatblvckboyy]

plz make a masterlist.

I'm not active on this app so plz😭 explain wat a master list is

[thatblvckboyy]

heeseung audio(nsfw)

hope you guys enjoy!^^

heeseung cumming hard, groaning and moaning from you jacking him off, edging him until he comes undone under your hands, being such a good boy for you.

[thatblvckboyy]

Do u see it

[thatblvckboyy]

# ♱ I STILL LOVE YOU. [RICKY - ZEROBASEONE]

SUMMARY: M/n reconnects with a friend

WORD COUNT: 1.282k

NOTES: This is a reupload !

WARNINGS: This writing contains explicit sexual content and mature themes.

The deserted streets mirrored the hollowness M/n felt inside. He weaved his motorcycle through the dimly lit alley, its hum the only sound against the late-night silence. There, huddled in a shadowed corner, was his reason for being out: Shen Quanrui. M/n had thought their late-night meetings would fade with Quanrui's debut. He'd been right – until the idol's tearful call confessing a grave mistake.

M/N dismounted, the thud of his boots echoing. He pushed back his hair as he approached the blonde, who sat slumped against the wall, arms wrapped around his knees.

"I'm here," M/N murmured, his voice barely a whisper. He reached out, his fingers brushing against Quanrui's head in a comforting caress.

A beat of silence stretched before Quanrui lifted his head, his eyes red-rimmed and puffy. "You… you came?" His voice cracked, barely audible.

M/N offered a low hum, a sound that spoke volumes without words.

The faint scent of something sweet, almost syrupy, hung in the air as Quan leaned into M/n's touch. "Of course you're here," he slurred, a pitiful smile twisting his usually bratty lips.

M/n chuckled softly, concern lacing the sound. He pulled Quan into a warm embrace. "Mmm, my little prince, you such a crybaby."

Quan swatted playfully at M/n's shoulder, his grip tightening on the denim jacket. "Shut up, don't tease me." He pulled back, a pout forming on his face as he took a long look at M/n. This face. It had been a while.

This was the face he'd seen every day since middle school. The face that went through every emotion – disgust, annoyance, exhaustion, even heartbreak when they'd said their goodbyes, M/n swallowing his own dreams to support Quan's idol journey.

M/n had always been quiet, content to exist on the periphery. He wouldn't argue, wouldn't fight. If someone said they were leaving, that was it. End of story.

He'd even considered Boys Planet, following in Quan's footsteps. But singing hadn't held the same pull as the worn keys of a piano. He doubted he'd have the talent to win anyway.

So, he and his aunt relocated to Korea, opening a jazz bar instead. M/n played and tended bar, keeping a watchful eye on Boys Planet and, of course, Quan's debut with Zerobaseone.

"Let's get you out of this alley, hm?" M/n suggested, his voice gentle. "Auntie's bar is close. She’d be very happy to see you. Good?"

Quan nodded, a flicker of curiosity replacing the earlier pout. He took M/n's hand, the familiar warmth a grounding force. "Since when did Auntie own a bar?" His voice was raspy, a telltale sign of the night's events.

"You've missed a lot, Mr. Planet," M/n replied a hint of amusement in his voice.

The air crackled with a mix of nervous energy and relief as M/n's aunt descended the stairs. "Oh my gosh! My Riri, when did you get so grown up!" she exclaimed, enveloping Quan in a hug that threatened to suffocate him.

As expected, his aunt launched into a tirade of gossip and praise, gushing about Quan's performances on the survival show. M/n watched from the side, a strange furrow in his brow. Quan, usually poised and confident, seemed strangely childish. He fidgetted on the bar stool like a kid in a candy store, a stark contrast to his usual aura.

Taking a closer look, M/n noticed a series of subtle changes. Quan's skin seemed to have an unnatural glow under the dim bar lights. He sat tall, a far cry from his former awkwardness. Most striking was his face – the once chubby cheeks had morphed into a sharper, almost sculpted perfection.

He was… different.

Aunt Fei finally seemed to tire herself out. "Ah, it's good catching up with you, Riri," she wheezed, gesturing dramatically to the bags beneath her eyes. "But this old lady needs some beauty sleep. Look at these bags! They could hold all the liquor in this place."

Quan chuckled, playing along. "Auntie, you're beautiful already, really. But get some good sleep!"

"Mmm, and nephew!" she called out as she made her way to the back stairs. "Make sure I see him in the morning, okay? Don't snatch him up before I make breakfast!"

Annoyance flickered across M/n's face. "Mm, I will. Go upstairs, go, go," he rushed, wanting to shut off his aunt's tipsy rambling.

Quan giggled softly. "She's the same, that's a relief." He set his elbows on the counter, a flicker of sadness crossing his eyes.

M/n moved behind the bar, tossing his empty bottle in the trash. "Some people don't like much change. It can be… unsettling."

Quan nodded, his heart sinking a little. M/n's words hung in the air, heavy with unspoken meaning. A question lingered unspoken – was Quan's change a positive one?

"Are you staying the night?" M/n asked, his voice neutral. "Auntie prepped my room for you."

The air hung heavy with unspoken questions as Quan tilted his head, a confused frown replacing the remnants of his earlier amusement. "Made up your room? You don't stay here?"

M/n shook his head, a hint of sheepishness coloring his features. "Moved out a few weeks ago. I got that Wake One job, remember? Vocal coach for their trainees?"

A flicker of recognition washed over Quan's face. "Right, right. That one." He took a sip of his coffee, the clink of the glass against his teeth betraying a sudden nervousness. "Extra cash, you said."

"Yeah," M/n mumbled, running a hand through his hair. "Figured it wouldn't hurt. Besides, it's good experience."

Silence settled between them, thick and uncomfortable. Quan seemed to shrink into the bar stool, his shoulders slumping. The confident idol M/n had braced himself for was gone, replaced by the small, helpless-looking boy from the alley.

"Oh," Quan finally said, his voice barely a whisper. "So, how's the… the idol life? You dreamed of it for so long, I just-"

He trailed off, his eyes downcast. M/n opened his mouth to speak, to offer some words of encouragement, but the question that tumbled out of Quan caught him completely off guard.

"Do you still love me?"

The words hung in the air, heavy and unexpected. M/n felt a hollowness in his chest, a vast emptiness that seemed to echo the emptiness of the bar before it filled with customers. He parted his lips, words forming and then dissolving on his tongue.

"What?" he finally managed, the question barely audible.

Quan's cheeks flushed a faint pink. "I said," he repeated, hesitantly, "do you still love me? Like… you know, like you said when I left."

M/n turned, leaning his back against the smooth wood of the bar. He bit his lip, the memory of that day vivid in his mind. It had been his most vulnerable moment, a raw outpouring of emotion as Quan stood on the precipice of his idol dreams. And he had said it. He had confessed his love, a declaration that hung heavy in the air now, two years later.

It wasn't a lie. Not then, not now. He had spent those two years carrying that love, a silent ember burning in his chest. He had moved to a new country, tackled a new language, and poured his heart into helping his aunt. Yet, part of him had always remained here, waiting.

He met Quan's eyes, a silent conversation passing between them. Quan's gaze was filled with a vulnerability that mirrored his own. A hesitant hope flickered within it, a silent plea for reassurance.

M/n reached out, his fingers gently cupping Quan's cheek. With a soft sigh, he pulled Quan closer, their foreheads touching. His lips ghosted over Quan's, a whisper of a promise.

"I still love you," he finally murmured, the words carrying the weight of two years of unspoken longing. He pulled back slightly, a small smile gracing his lips, "More than words can say, Quanrui."

Quanrui didn’t answer right away. His breath hitched, lips parting in surprise, eyes fluttering closed when M/n’s words settled in. The world around them blurred—the hum of the fridge, the distant jazz humming low from Aunt Fei’s old speakers—all of it faded. All that existed was the heat between their bodies.

"You can’t say stuff like that," Quan whispered, voice thick, trembling. "Not when I’ve missed you like this."

M/n didn’t pull away. His hand lingered against Quan’s jaw, thumb stroking softly across his cheekbone. “Then don’t miss me,” he said lowly. “Just have me.”

The silence cracked shattered when Quan surged forward, capturing M/n’s lips in a kiss that was all teeth and desperation. It wasn’t gentle. It was years of frustration, of swallowed feelings and what-ifs. M/n’s hands slid to Quan’s waist, tugging him forward across the bar stool as their bodies collided, feverish and urgent.

Quan gasped into the kiss when M/n’s fingers slipped beneath his shirt, tracing the toned skin underneath with reverent slowness. “God, you’ve changed,” M/n muttered against his lips, breath hot. “But you still taste the same.”

“You’re not even gonna ask me what mistake I made tonight, huh?” Quan laughed breathlessly, eyes fluttering as M/n kissed along his jaw, dragging his mouth down to his neck.

“I don’t need to,” M/n whispered, tongue flicking out to taste the skin just beneath his ear. “You called me, not anyone else.”

A low moan escaped Quan when M/n sucked a mark into his neck, biting just enough to make it sting. “You’re terrible,” he panted, tilting his head to give more access.

“And you’re drunk,” M/n murmured, lips pausing. “Tell me to stop.”

Quan opened his eyes, glossy and half-lidded. His hands gripped the front of M/n’s jacket tightly, pulling him even closer. “I’ll tell you in the morning,” he said hoarsely. “Right now, I want to remember what it felt like to be yours.”

That was all the permission M/n needed.

He lifted Quan off the stool with surprising ease, carrying him down the dim hallway that led to the guest room—his old room. Each step was lined with kisses, their mouths never straying far from each other’s skin.

The door barely clicked shut behind them before M/n had Quan pressed up against it, their mouths locked in a mess of lips and tongues. Quan clung to him like he was afraid he’d disappear again, fingers knotting in M/n’s shirt, tugging it upwards until it bunched between them.

“Take it off,” Quan whispered against his lips, breath ragged. “Wanna see you.”

M/n smirked faintly, eyes dark with heat as he peeled off the shirt slowly, deliberately. His body was lean and toned, the kind of subtle strength earned from late nights hauling liquor boxes and standing behind a bar for hours.

Quan let out a soft, shaky sound as his eyes roamed. “You look so- so grown,” he breathed, hands sliding up M/n’s chest. “So different.”

“You saying I wasn’t hot before?” M/n teased, leaning in close, his voice rough with desire.

“You were,” Quan rasped. “But now… you’re mine again.”

That possessive little growl in his voice lit a fuse in M/n’s chest. He grabbed Quan by the hips and spun him around, guiding him gently toward the bed. They tumbled onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs, laughter dying on their tongues as M/n settled on top of him, straddling his thighs. His fingers ghosted under the hem of Quan’s shirt, then pushed it up slowly inch by inch until his pale chest was exposed beneath the warm glow of the bedside lamp.

M/n kissed down the center of his chest, soft and slow at first, then added the scrape of his teeth just above Quan’s ribs. Quan gasped, hips bucking beneath him, and M/n had to press his hands down to keep him steady.

“You always squirmed so easy,” M/n murmured, voice dropping lower as he dragged his tongue over a nipple. “Still sensitive?”

Quan’s answering moan was all the confirmation he needed.

“Thought you were grown now,” M/n teased against his skin, biting down just enough to leave a mark. “Idol and all. But you’re falling apart like it’s our first time.”

“Because it feels like it,” Quan panted, eyes hazy. “You always knew how to ruin me.”

M/n moved lower, trailing kisses down his stomach, nuzzling where the muscles trembled under his touch. He hooked his fingers into Quan’s waistband and paused, eyes flicking up.

“Still want this?” he asked, voice a low rumble.

Quan nodded quickly. “Yes. Please.”

That one little word, please cracked something open in M/n.

He tugged Quan’s sweats down in one smooth motion, lips ghosting over every newly exposed inch of skin. Quan shivered, legs twitching as M/n settled between them, kissing along his inner thigh, licking up a line that made him keen into the sheets.

The room was filled with soft gasps and the rustle of the sheets as M/n finally wrapped his mouth around him, slow and deep, like he was savoring every second. Quan whimpered, fists clenched in the sheets, thighs trembling under the intense, unrelenting pressure of M/n’s tongue and lips.

“M-M/n,” he moaned, back arching. “Feels s’good, I missed you, I-”

“I know,” M/n whispered, lifting his head just for a moment. “Let me remind you how much.”

He moved back up, kissing Quan again; this time with slick, wet heat between their mouths and then guided their bodies together, grinding slowly. Their bare skin met, hot and desperate, the tension boiling over between grinding hips and tangled hands.

“Condom?” M/n rasped, forehead pressed to Quan’s. “I got one in the drawer-”

“Already got it,” Quan whispered, reaching past him, pulling it out like he knew this would happen, like he wanted this from the second he made that call.

M/n let out a soft, breathless laugh. “You’re so bad.”

“You love it,” Quan whispered, kissing the corner of his mouth.

“I do,” M/n growled and then he pushed inside him, slow and deep.

Quan’s breath caught in his throat, legs tightening around M/n’s waist. They moved together in a rhythm that felt both brand new and achingly familiar. Every stroke was slow at first, like they were memorizing each other again, then deeper, harder, sweat-slicked skin colliding as moans echoed off the walls.

“M/n, I’m-” Quan choked, voice breaking.

“Let go,” M/n whispered, mouth hot against his neck. “I’ve got you.”

And when Quan finally did, trembling and gasping beneath him, M/n followed with a soft groan, collapsing beside him, breathless and shaking.

They lay there in silence, the only sound their panting breaths and the hum of the old fan in the corner. M/n reached out, brushing Quan’s hair from his damp forehead.

“I missed you so much,” he whispered, pulling him in close.

Quan curled into him like he belonged there, like he always had.

“I’m not leaving again,” he promised, voice hoarse but certain. “Not this time.”

[thatblvckboyy]

Just so u guys know I ordered a dild0 and it got here and it kinda looks likes Chan's dick, so this boy is gonna be having fun

[thatblvckboyy]

To all the skz x male reader writers I have an idea!!!!

Skz being obsessed with femboys idc which members just make it a fic

[thatblvckboyy]

Intro- firstly no minors

»»————> 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑒<————««

ᴴᶦ ᵐʸ ⁿᵃᵐᵉ ᶦˢ ᴹᶦᶜᵏᵉʸ ᵃⁿᵈ ᴵ'ᵐ ¹⁹.

ᴵ'ᵐ ᵒⁿ ʰᶦᵃᵗᵘˢ/ᵇʳᵉᵃᵏ ᶜᵘᶻ ᵒᶠ ᵐʸ ᵐᵉⁿᵗᵃˡ ʰᵉᵃˡᵗʰ ˢᵒ ˢᵒʳʳʸ ᶦᶠ ᴵ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ᵖᵒˢᵗ

ᴵ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵏ ᵗʰᵃᵗ'ˢ ᵃˡˡ ʸᵒᵘ ⁿᵉᵉᵈ ᵗᵒ ᵏⁿᵒʷ

ᴹʸ ᵖʳᵒᶠᶦˡᵉ ᶦˢ ᵏᶦⁿᵈᵃ ⁿᵒᵗ ᵒʳᵍᵃⁿᶦᶻᵉᵈ ᵇᵘᵗ ᴵ'ᵐᵐᵃ ᶠᶦⁿᵈ ᵗᶦᵐᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ˢᵘʳᵉ ᶦᵗ'ˢ ᵒʳᵍᵃⁿᶦᶻᵉᵈ

🆁🆄🅻🅴🆂

ᵗʰᶦˢ ᶦˢ ᵃ ᴺˢᶠᵂ ᵃᶜᶜᵒᵘⁿᵗ ˢᵒ ᶦᶠ ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ ᶦᶠ ᵘ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ˡᶦᵏᵉ ᶦᵗ ᵇˡᵒᶜᵏ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ʳᵉᵖᵒʳᵗ

ᴵ ᵖᵒˢᵗ ᵐᵃˡᵉ ᶜᵉⁿᵗʳᶦᶜ ᵃᵘᵈᶦᵒˢ ˢᵒ ᴵ ᶜᵃⁿ'ᵗ ᵈᵒ ᶠᵉᵐᵃˡᵉ ˡᶦˢᵗᵉⁿᵉʳ ᶜᵘᶻ ᶦᵏ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ ᵃ ˢʰᵒʳᵗᵃᵍᵉ ᵒᶠ ᵐᵃˡᵉ ᶠᵃⁿ ᶠᶦᶜˢ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵃᵘᵈᶦᵒˢ ᵃˡˢᵒ ᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ᶦᵗ ᶠᵉᵉᵈˢ ᵗʰᵉ ᵍᵃʸ ᶦⁿ ᵐᵉ

ᵀʰᵉ ᵍʳᵒᵘᵖˢ ᴵ ᵈᵒ

ᵀˣᵗ

ᴮᵗˢ

ᴾ¹ʰᵃʳᵐᵒⁿʸ

ᶻᵇ¹

ˢᵏᶻ

ᴱⁿʰʸᵖᵉⁿ

ᴮᵒʸ ⁿᵉˣᵗ ᵈᵒᵒʳ(ᵇᵘᵗ ᴵ'ᵐ ˢᵗᶦˡˡ ⁿᵉʷ ᵗᵒ ᵗʰᵉᵐ)

ᴿᶦᶦᶻᵉ (ᵃˡˢᵒ ᵏⁿᵉʷ ᵗᵒ ᵗʰᵉᵐ)

[thatblvckboyy]

I have a Lee know audio saved but idk wat to make it about Y'ALL PITCH ME SOME IDEAS

[thatblvckboyy]

I wanna just find a way to look not cute but apparently that's impossible. Because why are so many guys flirting with me and trying to date me. Most are literally guys in college and some are like a year or two younger than me. Like most guys are flirting with me in person others are online friends flirting with me. I already have bad social anxiety and anxiety in general. I can't even talk to them properly without being scared. Haha, I need help. -🏳️‍⚧️

I have a social anxiety and no guys flirt with me am I doing something wrong

Idc if these stories r real or fake keeping spilling that tea 😭

[thatblvckboyy]

“But if you forget to reblog Madame Zeroni, you and your family will be cursed for always and eternity.”

[thatblvckboyy]

Idk who needs to hear this but @writhyv is the best writer of enhypen x male reader fics I be kicking my feet and giggling while reading the fics. The gay in me is so happy

[thatblvckboyy]

Bought some lomo cards today.

Should I lock my doors and windows 😭

[thatblvckboyy]

eric gym mirror selfies - the gift that keeps on giving