wyngigi

[wyngigi]

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TACE!!!

@minkieater made me actually cry guys

[wyngigi]

big day for the rorwoo girlies 😛😛i feel yunror truthers pain so i shall sympathise… plum i love u real bad this was a spectacularly written chapter n im itching for more which im sure u know already hehe

'could we fix you if you broke? and is your punchline just a joke? i'll never talk again, boy you've left me speechless. i'll never love again...'

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➳ college!teez x fem!reader (oc) - nice for what cast ➳ 13.4k (part seven of ten) ➳ 18+, explicit sexual content, drugs/alcohol, college life, all the drama, angst, mentions of anxiety/depression… IF I MISSED ANYTHING PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

september 22nd ~ monday ~ 8:28 am

“I miss when he used to sleepover.”

Yoongi looked up from his phone in the backseat, his eyebrows twisting together. Spread out in the middle of the seat of his own truck, he eyed his brother in the rearview mirror. “Odd thing for a father to say.”

Twisting around in the passenger seat, you gave your uncle the tightest smile and rolled your eyes. “Right?” Curling your lip entirely, getting a laugh out of Yoongi, you faced your father. “He stayed for dinner, maybe he’ll call and ask for a second date.”

Yeonjun smacked his teeth and lobbed a hand over to shove you while his brother snickered at his expense. “I just mean… This friend thing.” He softened, relaxing his shoulders under the baby blue hoodie he slipped over his cropped black hair before he left the house with Yoongi’s keys in his fist. “You’re friends. That’s it. Just friends.”

The sincerity in his voice, the genuine curiosity, the slight disappointment… 

Shoving your hands up into your sleeves, you crossed your arms over your lap with a shrug. “We always were.”

One of his bands played through the radio, the volume low, nothing more than the shredding of the guitar heard. You recognized the riff immediately, a combination of chords that defined your life, for as long as you can remember, from the backseat strapped into a booster seat with a juice box in your hands to now. Yeonjun schooled you, he made sure you knew who was who and what song was which, never forgetting to mention he only listened to this band because an old friend of his adored them almost as much as he did.

Brows pulling together, he palmed the steering wheel rough from years of friction. “Is he… Is he like Keeho?” He glanced at you, and you smiled.

“Bi? Yes, he is, but that’s not… that’s not why we called it off.”

With a sharp inhale, he adjusted in his seat and nodded, really fast. “I think,” he started, then paused, then shook his head. “No, I don’t need to fully understand,” he muttered. “I guess, it’s just, yesterday,” he sighed, giving you a look, “Seeing you two in the lobby.”

Months flashed in his eyes, eyes he gave to you. Months of him walking out to the lobby with his brother and his doctor to find you and Wooyoung a mess of limbs in the chairs, or on the floor, or behind the desk with Kamara, sometimes sitting on her counter sucking on the last of the peppermints in her tiny ceramic puppy shaped dish.

“I used to hear you guys before I saw you,” he smiled. “Knowing that when I walked out the door you’d be there, he would be there.” He smoothed his fingers over his chin, resting his elbow on the console. “Sometimes I could hear you laughing while I was in there.” His hand slid down to his chest, over his heart.

Gulping, you whispered, “Dad.”

He glanced over at you and smiled.

“Are you okay?” you asked, “You said it was a good appointment.”

Scrunching up his face, he dropped his hand to yours and nodded, focusing on the road. “It was. I’m fine.” His eyes flickered to the rearview mirror, sharing a look with Yoongi.

Whirling around, you pushed his arm away. “Don’t do that,” you half laughed, “You said it was good, both of you did.”

Yoongi bobbed his head, his face not giving much away. In your twenty something years of life, since you can remember, your uncle has never been one to show much outward emotion. Unlike your father, hot headed and reactive, Yoongi kept it inside.

“It was good,” he said, unmoving, eyeing Yeonjun in the mirror.

Squinting, you pouted your lips when he looked at you.

Yoongi scoffed, pushing a laugh through his lips. “Don’t give me that.”

“Why?”

Looking anywhere else, he shook his head. “Because.”

Pouting more, you sighed, and prolonged it, and tipped your chin back. “Why?”

Yeonjun snickered. “Weak.”

And Yoongi was, and he is. Your plea, your childish act, it cracked him.

With the release of a breath, he sat forward and softened his brows. “They changed his meds.” Your stomach sank. “To something… stronger.”

“Stronger, wait, didn’t they say-“

His hand flew out to grab your shoulder before you launched yourself out of the passenger seat. “It’s okay, it’s a good thing, everything is doing what it’s supposed to be doing, everything is working right, it’s just… it all needs a boost.”

Shrugging him off of you, you turned to your dad who met your glare with a sheepish smile. “That is not everything is good.”

“Everything is good,” Yeonjun said. Settling into his seat, he took a breath and set his eyes on the road. “The past just wants to catch up with me.”

The past.

“When was your last cigarette?” you questioned.

Without sparing you a glance, he muttered, “July.”

“Your last alcoholic drink?”

He and Yoongi started to laugh before he sighed, “Alcoholic dri…” he faced you, “July. All in one night, before I ate concrete.”

A chill shot down your spine, your insides going cold. The thought of him going unconscious, hitting the floor, it’s a vision you could never stomach. Not then, and not now. “Don’t. Say it. Again.”

Yeonjun blinked, acknowledged your discomfort with a nod, and turned to the wheel. “I’m sorry.”

Brushing him off, you asked, “The last time you did-”

His hand cut you off, he held it up and laughed aloud. Once. “I haven’t touched a hard substance since the day you were put in my arms, don’t even try.”

Giving Yoongi a look, matching his curious brow, you smirked. “Define hard.”

Grumbling, groaning and mumbling something under his breath, Yeonjun screwed up his face and leaned against the door, keeping his right hand on the steering wheel. The years were another tough pill to swallow, no pun intended, another moment of time you couldn’t stomach.

And you know he couldn’t either.

It’d taken entirely too long to get him to do this. Talk to you. And vice versa. You and Yeonjun, you and your father, this was rare. Speaking to one another this way, talking about these things, the past, a chunk of important years that should break what the two of you have in half, equally weird as it was rare.

“I’m not judging you, Dad,” you said softly. 

You used to. Heavily.

“You’re… working really hard,” you nearly whispered, “I know it’s hard. To be one way for so long, to live one way and then suddenly come to the absolute hardest of stops.”

He gulped. Giving his brother a look in the mirror, he pursed his lips and answered the question you didn’t finish asking. “July,” he whispered.

For a second you went numb. The pulse of the radio went distant, the floor of the car had been ripped out from under you, ice was injected into your veins. A buzzing awoke in your chest, around your lungs, trapped beneath your ribcage, stuck there, triggered.

Yoongi shifted in his seat, his eyes on your back, you could feel him. Words he spoke to you the night your father regained consciousness and woke up haunted you. Words Wooyoung agreed with. Sobbing into your uncle's shoulder, curled up in a ball on his couch while your father laid in a hospital bed a half hour away, you clung to Yoongi. Wooyoung’s fingers drew circles between your shoulders.

It’s not his fault. I know what you want to do, I know what you want to say, and trust me, Aura, when I tell you he already knows… He’s gotten so much shit from you and I, and it’s deserved, but… this time, we have to be on his side. Keep him in check, but be on his side. He needs support, he needs to be able to lean on somebody… Just, love him.

“I have a friend,” he said.

“What shall I call her?” you joked, getting a laugh out of both of them, breaking the sudden tension.

Yeonjun sucked in a deep breath, finally looking at you. “It’s a guy, and-”

“Congratulations,” you cooed, and he lobbed another hand toward you, shoving you at the shoulder. Yoongi laughed, his hand smacking his knee.

“Aura, please,” your father snickered, “He’s a guy, he’s been sober for over ten years, he’s got the medals, yadda yadda, whatever, he’s been helping me. We’ve gone out a couple times, he’s… he’s an old friend.”

“An old friend,” you said, narrowing your eyes. “All the old friends you have live in Contramano.”

He raised his brows and gave you a glance. “This one lives in Sicuro.”

“Oh,” you breathed, sitting backward. Relief didn’t begin to describe what you felt. “Sicuro, okay, well, good. He’s… He’s nice? He’s… safe?”

Yeonjun nodded, a proper smile lived on his lips. “It’s funny, really. The guy he’s become.” Shaking his head, his fingers found his chin again, memories flashing through his head as he pulled off the highway and onto a busy Delo road. “Being the one to help me through this, when I was the one who-”

“Don’t do that to yourself,” Yoongi cut him off, “His decisions were his own.”

Scoffing, Yeonjun shot him a glare. “C’mon Yoon, it wasn’t just him, it was all of them, and-”

“And, if they weren’t getting it from you, they would’ve found it somewhere else. And they did, didn’t they, and it put them in deeper shit.”

“Yeah, but I-”

“Yeonjun,” the strength in Yoongi’s voice startled you, the big brother coming out, “What did they tell you? What did she tell you when the two of you spoke?”

Shoving yourself in the middle, you asked harshly, “Who?”

Yeonjun sighed. “Who gave it to her doesn’t matter, Yoongi, I still-”

Yoongi was sitting forward now, his front pressed to the back of the driver's seat. “If she can forgive you, can’t you-”

Yeonjun slammed a hand against the steering wheel, his voice raised as he nearly shouted, “She shouldn’t forgive me, are you fucking kidding me? She has a daughter, I have a daughter. How the fuck can she forgive me? I don’t deserve that,” his voice broke as he sank in his seat, “I don’t deserve to be fucking forgiven for any of it, I don’t care what kinda gentle parenting, therapeutic bullshit they all eat for dinner over there, I don’t deserve forgiveness.” Sliding his hand over his face, he whispered, “And she didn’t deserve any of that. From all three of us.”

Blinking, jaw agape in shock, but mostly confusion, you drew your gaze over both of them and rested a hand on your fathers shoulder. “Take a deep breath, please.” He listened to you, and after a minute of needed silence, you asked, “Who the hell were you talking about, and please don’t say my mother.”

Yoongi sighed and sat back. “You want him calm and you ask that?”

Your glare pierced through him. “If it is, I think I should know.”

“Why the fuck would it be your mother?” Yeonjun spat.

Throwing your hands out to the side, you dropped a sarcastic laugh. “Uh, maybe because she’s been bothering us recently, I dunno, Junie. You’re talking about a girl and you won’t name drop which is hysterical ‘cause you both talk more shit than any bitch I know, so either it’s my mother or these people are a secret for a much bigger reason, and if they are being kept a secret, there goes your he’s nice and safe argument.”

Silence.

An entire sixty eight seconds worth of silence.

“You do want to tell her,” Yoongi mumbled.

Yeonjun smacked his teeth. “Yeah, when I feel ready to do so, asshole.” Yoongi’s laugh was maniacal. “Oh-ho, asshole? Maybe you are feeling better.”

Slapping your hands against your thighs, you groaned. “So you aren’t feeling better?”

Yeonjun sat his chin in his hand and sighed. “Good god, can we go back to you and Wooyoung, please? Are you sleeping with him?”

“Dad!”

Yoongi laughed, loud. “What the fuck!”

As if what he asked was normal, Yeonjun said, over the laughter, “I wanna know where the relationship stands!”

Clapping your hands together, you leaned toward him. “Friends, we are friends.”

“Wild question, dude,” Yoongi mumbled.

“I’m trying to make sense of it all,” your father said, “A lot has happened. You’re not with Wooyoung, you’re making up with Yunho now, the ATZ boys are bothering you again… why?”

Tightening the lock on loose lips, you folded your arms over your lap and relaxed backward into the oversized seat. “Because they’re annoying.”

The brothers shared that infamous mirror look.

Yoongi said, “And, you aren’t president anymore.”

“Right,” Yeonjun breathed. You could be sick everywhere. You wanted nothing more than to end the conversation. “And that, Aura…”

“Dont,” you grit your teeth. “I want to graduate, and graduate with decent grades. I’m on a scholarship, boys. I can’t risk that, remember?”

“Right,” Yeonjun whispered.

“Boys,” Yoongi parroted, getting a smile out of you.

Smoothing your hands over your sweatpants, you said, “Tori can do it. She’s got it.”

She’s had it since the start, the better fit for the gig, the shoes to fill, the drive for success, she’s always had it. Dumbfounded, really, how your name was written instead.

Yoongi shuffled around. “But…”

You spun around. “No buts!”

“I’m just saying,” he said, speaking with his hands, “How they went about it…”

“Thank you,” your father spoke up.

Whipping your head back and forth between them, you willed the calming of your blood pressure, but it didn’t work.

Yoongi asked, “Why did they wait so long?”

Yeonjun asked, “Why did they let you feel these things?”

“Exactly,” his brother agreed with him, “If they were worried about you, or their organization, or whatever the shit it’s called… I would’ve said something sooner.”

Yeonjun started, “Makes me think about…”

“No,” you whispered.

“Last year,” Yoongi finished.

“Yep,” Yeonjun nodded.

Pressing your lips together, you sucked in a breath. Tightening your arms around yourself, you shook your head. “It’s not like last year. Tori is my best friend. She wouldn’t hurt me.”

Yeonjun tapped his fingers on the wheel. “You’re a pistol, Aura, but you let people get in your head easily. Their voice turns into your voice, and suddenly that’s the truth.”

You sunk further down in the seat, your voice tiny. “Tori wouldn’t hurt me.”

Yeonjun sighed. “It’s man eats man in the real world.”

Yoongi bobbed his head. “Especially where you’re at.”

Yeonjun clicked his tongue. “People do things for their own benefit.”

“People can get selfish.”

“You’ve got big things on the line, Aura,” your father looked over at you cowering in your seat.

Yoongi hummed. “Imagine what being president gets you…”

Sitting up, you turned to face them for the last time. Yeonjun’s baby blue hoodie, Yoongi draped in black. “Tori wouldn’t hurt me. She cares about me.”

Yeonjun nodded, his brows twisting with concern as he reached out to cradle your shoulder. “...We know.”

“We also know how people like her work,” Yoongi muttered.

The truck turned onto a road not long before it pulled up to the curb in front of ITZ. The two story home that once filled you with hope and dreams, excitement and adrenaline, now made you sick. Getting out meant leaving your dad. And he’s not okay. And he’s on new medication. And he’s hanging around old friends. And he’s keeping things from you. And he’s not okay, but he’s lying to you about it.

Yoongi’s hand grabbed your shoulder, his brown eyes soft, bringing comfort. “Just be careful.”

“I’m fine,” you whispered, shifting your gaze over to Yeonjun who gave you the smallest smile, “Thanks for bringing me back.”

“Thanks for the surprise,” he whispered as he glanced over your shoulder out the truck window. He curled his brow and leaned forward. “Who is that?” 

Turning, a sense of normality struck you. “Kaz,” you sighed, attempting a real smile. She wandered down the porch in ripped jeans and an ITZ crew neck. “Kazuha. New recruit. She’s cool.”

“Where she from?” he asked.

“Uh,” you giggled, “‘Mano.”

Yeonjun nodded ever so slightly, watching Kaz now watch him. “Oh…”

“Why?”

He studied the freshmen for a few seconds longer before he dropped his hands and sat backward, relaxing his sharp features. “They all look the same there, I guess.”

Huffing a laugh, shaking your head, you pushed the heavy door open and slipped out onto the concrete. “Okay… I’ll call you later.”

“Surprise me again,” he shouted as you slammed the door shut, shooting him a thumbs up and a smile as Yoongi climbed over him into the passenger seat.

They watched you hurry away, all the way to Kaz who stopped at the end of the walkway by the house, typing furiously at her phone. Her hair was pulled up in two little buns on top of her head, she looked adorable.

“Hey Kaz,” your tone matched one you’d used with her before, one equating a leader, but also a friend, “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

Pulling her phone into her pocket quickly, she flicked tiny pieces of bangs from her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. The smile she wore, one you couldn’t read. “You didn’t tell me Yunho had a psycho side.”

“Oh my god,” you muttered between a stifled laugh. Brushing your hands over your cheeks, you shook your head. “He doesn’t, he just has big feelings, yanno.”

“For you, right?” she asked with a cock of her head.

“I- Huh?”

“I mean,” she flickered her eyes around and clenched her jaw, “Obviously, if that’s why he popped off like that. Us girls didn’t even know what he meant… A video?”

Great.

“It’s… It’s nothing,” you stuttered, brushing the matter away with a flick of your hand.

She raised a brow, shifting her weight to her left foot. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah,” you sighed, rolling your eyes. Forcing out another laugh, shoving down the utter fear coursing through your veins, you said, “It’s nothing.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You haven’t seen the Board messages, have you?”

“Um, no,” you mumbled, scrambling for your cell phone, swiping it open. “I was at the doctors with my dad yesterday, I put it on do not disturb…” 

Closing out apps, opening the one labeled Board, you tapped onto a few pages, clearing notifications from a typically quiet app, and then you tapped on some more, and more, and more…

Rumors, about Yunho, about a change in presidency, about you leaving…

Gulping, you opened a new message and posted it directly to the front page.

[Aurora C.] - I’m here. I had a family emergency.

Wonderful. Great. Great and wonderful. Add it to the list of things to worry about that grew a plethora of inches in the last two days.

“Emergency?” Kaz asked, peeking at her screen. “Is everything okay?”

“Sort of,” you breathed, sliding your phone into the pocket of your sweats. Gesturing toward the house, she followed beside you, walking in time. “My dad had a heart attack in July. Kinda… massive. He’s like, a miracle they say, but every doctor's appointment I hold my breath.”

She scuffed her shoes along the pavement as she watched you. “I’m so sorry.”

Shrugging, you said, “It’s okay,” because that’s the only way you know how to answer that after hearing it so many times.

“He’ll be around for parents weekend?” she asked, searching your eyes for an answer. 

Her hope made you smile. “Yeah, finally,” you said, stepping up onto the porch with her, “Typical Junie, showing up at the last possible one.”

She paused at the door, squinting, and asked, “Was he the fox in the driver's seat?”

“Ew,” you squeezed your eyes shut and laughed, “Yes, don’t ever say that again.”

Giggling, Kaz slapped her hand over her mouth and gasped. “It’s just, I understand your mom.”

Reaching for the doorknob, her words stopped you in your tracks. Dead cold. Looking at her, hand mid air, you watched in real time as she clearly didn’t clock what she said. “Huh?”

“Your dad,” she giggled again, throwing a hand toward the truck that no longer sat at the curb, “He’s hot, I understand why she would have you.”

Your cheeks warmed. “Oh… That’s…”

The forest green door pulled open, revealing Tori at the threshold. “He is hot,” she said, her gaze draping over Kaz before it greeted you in uncertainty. “But only I can say that. Ror? Join me?”

Straight leg jeans hugged her curves. The satin edges of the white Chanel tank top she wore brushed her waist. Eyeing her up and down as you followed her through the house, not even giving Kazuha a proper goodbye. Tori’s eyes latched to yours and it was game over. A fire lived within them, much like yesterday when she’d caught you and Yunho out on the porch just the same. 

“Sorry for going MIA,” you said covertly, brushing by girls hurrying about the halls. “Wooyoung took me to my dads appointment.”

She led you to the meeting room. Standing in the doorway, you stopped and she allowed you in first, closing the door behind her. “I don’t have long, I have a class in a half hour.”

You started for the desk, then side stepped and aimed for the mini sofa in front of it, plopping down with a sigh. “Oh, okay, sure, what’s-”

“Please tell me you know,” she muttered, sitting behind the desk, pulling herself into her rightful position. Elbows on the wood, hands folded, chin resting on the backs of her fingers. Her hair was curled, and her lashes were fresh. She looked pretty, and you wanted to tell her, but now was not the time.

Tell me you know.

Scrunching your nose, you let your eyes close for a second. “Yes,” you whispered. “I know. This… video, I know. I don’t even know what’s-”

“We traced it back to Soul.”

“Aha!” your cackle bounced off the walls. Lurching forward, stomping your feet on the ground, you shot her a most crazed look. “You what?”

“I’m sorry,” she didn’t find it the least bit funny. This wasn’t a joke. This was real to her. Something that should be real for you. “Everyone says Soul did it.”

Rolling your eyes, you held up air quotes, “‘Everyone says’, that’s no confirmation.”

She didn’t move. A statue. “Even the girls I met with about it, everyone says the same thing.”

“You met with… What?” She didn’t give you an answer. “Impossible. Nope.”

She finally budged, her hands pressed into the desk. “Ror, we know who he associates with.”

“Yeah, it should be us.”

Something of a groan left her. “Seonghwa isn’t tolerating it any longer.”

“What do you mean?”

She nodded, her glare fierce. “You know what I mean.”

In the three hours you’ve been awake your nervous system has never experienced such up and down. “No. No, don’t, please, he wouldn’t.”

And if you were still the president, Soul wouldn’t be facing expulsion.

Tori tilted her chin. “We talked about them all going, but, all other hands are clean.”

“Oh, sure,” you laughed, bobbing your head, sharpening your glare, “We gonna forget this summer, or…?” If looks could kill, you’d be dead on sight. “Let me talk to him first. Please.”

She dropped her eyes to the desk and sighed. Somehow, whatever piece inside of her that didn’t get instantly warped into presidential mode let you have it. “You have until tomorrow,” she said, then stood to leave. 

Twisting on the sofa, you tested her. “Or, what?”

She turned on her toes. “Or he’s gone,” she whispered, heading toward the door once more.

Jumping to your feet, you shouted, “Tori!”

“What?” she spat, her curls wrapping around her shoulder with how fast she’d turned her head. “I need to go.”

Her tone, venomous.

“Nothing,” you sighed. “Have a good class.”

She left you with a huff and a close of the glass doors.

Tori wouldn’t hurt me.

Sitting back down on the sofa, you pulled out your phone and took it off of do not disturb, opening your messages and the few notifications there. There was one missed call waiting for you, but no voicemail.

{three men and a baby}

[you]: it was soul?

[kee]: what was

[wooyo <3]: No way…?

[tae bae]: impossible.

[you]: i said the same thing.

[tae bae]: who is saying that?

[kee]: what did he do

[you]: tori told me, we just had a weird meeting.

[wooyo <3]: Oh?

[you]: i have until tomorrow to talk to him about this or they’re kicking him out.

[wooyo <3]: Oh, wonderful.

[tae bae]: what the hell???

[kee]: oh the video thing!?

[tae bae]: good job babe

[kee]: thanks <333

[you]: i’m gonna hunt him down after class tonight.

[tae bae]: i do know there’s an atz party tonight…

[you]: of course there is.

[wooyo <3]: You gonna be in attendance, Ro?

[you]: yes. hell yes. and i’m gonna get every motherfucker there to speak.

september 22nd ~ monday ~ 9:17 pm

Two classes, one shitty lunch, and three phone calls with your dad got you through the rest of your day. Shoving the homework aside, the supposed essay you had to throw together in a month, you didn’t have half the brain to focus on it anyway, the idea of this party suffocated you. Hallways full of people, half you won’t even know, Soul wandering about, probably actively avoiding you, everyone beneath that roof knowing you had a video circulating somehow, and now Tori, getting ready at her vanity.

Deciding to come with you last minute, as though nothing had gone down between the two of you this morning, or yesterday, she had draped her arms around your shoulders when you arrived back at the house after your last class and opted in.

Slipping a baggy tank over a lacey bra, letting the frillies peek out, you turned to her. She brushed shimmer over her eyelids, her cheeks rosy and bronzed, her lips perky and glossed. Dragging your fingers beneath your makeupless eyes, you tousled your hair and admired her perfect waves.

“This time last year we had to sneak out our window,” she mumbled with a small laugh, swapping the shimmer shadow for liner.

“Don’t remind me,” you said with a smile. “I pray I never have to shimmy down the side of this house ever again.” Taking a few steps across the room, you jumped up to sit down on the edge of her bed and watched her draw one swift black line across her lid. “Any of the girls know yet? Officially? That we switched?”

Capping her liner, she blinked a few times and pursed her lips at herself in the mirror. “Not yet. You and I have paperwork to do and then we can have a meeting and tell everyone together.” She turned her chin, her eyes meeting yours. “That okay?”

“That’s fine,” you whispered, shoving your hands between your bare knees exposed by the barely there length of your mini skirt. “Can we tell Yuna together first?”

“Of course,” she nodded, “Let’s do it tonight.”

“Cool,” you breathed, “Thanks.”

Muffled noise from the hall leaked through the cracks in your shared bedroom door. Tori’s lips perked up in a smile. “Why’d we stop getting so excited for these things? You hear them out there?” 

Underclassmen’s feet pounding on the floor, doors swinging open and shut, yelps for assistance with hair, or makeup, or an outfit. You and Tori used to rotate through Yuna’s closet, and she had made her way through both of yours. Next door, Ryujin and Isla’s floor, the place to be if you wanted Isla to touch up your face, to add to your hair.  

Drawing your eyes around your room, your half disheveled, Tori’s half equally as messy, at least one thing hadn’t changed. “We know what to expect now, I guess,” you muttered.

“No boy in that house can surprise us anymore,” she said, tapping her long white nails on the lid of her shimmer. 

“No they can’t,” you whispered, giving her a look. Both of your brows straightened as a few seconds of silence passed before you broke out into giggles. “It’d be nice to have just one though, right?”

Tossing her hair backward, she groaned between laughs and shook her head. “Who knows. Maybe the ATZ curse is done with.”

“ATZ curse?”

“Yeah,” she said matter-of-factly, standing up from her chair with the shimmer and shadow brush in her hand. “The ATZ curse,” she repeated, stepping in front of you, wedging her waist between your knees she parted herself. Blinking up at her, she furrowed her brows and stuck a finger beneath your chin, lifting it higher. “Evil boys, secret plots,” her voice turned into a mumble. She took the lid off her shimmer and dipped her brush in, delicately touching the tip to your eyelid. Shimmer dust sprinkled onto your cheek as she fanned it over your eyes. “Sure, they’re assholes, but it no longer feels malevolent.”

“Malevolent,” you whispered, eyes flickering to her pursed, focused lips. 

She looked into your eyes and shrugged. “Evil,” she said, then focused back on glittering you. 

“You think so?”

“I know so,” her voice quiet in focus, she dipped the brush in the shadow and finished your other eye, “When I tell you that Seonghwa isn’t tolerating it anymore, he’s not. He never did from the start. That’s why Hongjoong is in his back pocket, constantly.” 

“Why?”

She twisted the lid on the shimmer and perked a brow. “Evil,” she shrugged again.

Tap, tap, tap.

Jumping a mile, you and Tori both, you ripped your gazes off of one another and whirled toward the window beside your bed. 

“What the actual fuck,” she mumbled as you reached up to gently push her away.

Smile growing, almost tripping over jeans crumpled up on the floor, you leapt onto your bed and threw open the locks on the window. Curling your fingers under it, you yanked it up with one solid creak. You would’ve launched yourself out of it, but his arms came inside instead, catching you, pulling you into him. His heart pounded, much like yours, and his hands held you tight.

“It’s been a day guys,” Tori groaned, plopping down in front of her vanity to layer on more lip gloss. 

Yunho pulled away from you, taking one hand to your cheek, his eyes fluttered about your face. “One day too long,” he said softly, and dipped his chin to catch your lips in a kiss.

Sliding your arms around his neck, tangling your fingers in the shaggy hair that grew in at the nape of his neck, you melted into his arms completely. An instant puddle. He had the power and full control to pull you onto the roof, steal you off of it and run away with you for all you cared. The push of his lips, the gentle sweep and teasing of his tongue on yours… 

After twenty four hours of cold, he ignited a spark.

His body against yours, the grip of his hands, your fingers knitting in his hair, god, you could stay here all night… Pulling him through the window, soft giggles as he fumbled his way in, trying to not land on top of you, though that wouldn’t be the worst thing…

“Enough!” Tori declared, sitting backward in her beige rolling chair, tossing her lip gloss to the vanity.

Parting from him with a smack, his arm kept you pulled into his side. “Wanted us together so bad, now that you got it you’re complaining?”

His olive skin, his chronically tired brown eyes, the gentle curve of his nose, the pink of his lips, the curl at the ends of his grown out hair. The black t-shirt he wore, the denim hanging off his long legs, the silver chain he started to wear again hanging around his neck. His scent, his energy, his magnetic pull like you were but a moon sucked into his orbit…

Tori’s brows skyrocketed. “You’re together?”

The orbit spat you back out. 

Whipping your wide eyes toward her, you laughed aloud. “Hang on,” you sneered, pointing at her, then at Yunho, poking the tip of your finger into the squish of his cheek. “Not together, you’re funny.”

Looking down at you, his smile softened. “Not together,” he said with certainty, then shot a look at Tori, “She needs time.”

Your best friend nodded slowly, flipping her brows over. “Sure, sure,” she said, then muttered, “She needs a little more than that.”

“Hey,” you whined, but the look she gave you shut you up.

Moving to her feet, she adjusted her dress and started for the door. “I’ll be downstairs,” she said, then glanced at you over her shoulder, “No longer than five minutes, please?”

Yunho scoffed. “Tell me what you really think of me!”

“Now that’s something I don’t do,” she winked, and disappeared, closing the door behind her. 

Within seconds his hands were on your face, your lips were locked, and he had you pressed to your mattress. Suffocating kisses, a mess of slow, then quick, hard, gentle, parted lips and heavy breaths.

“Yunho,” you whispered, his lips trailing down your neck, beneath your jaw, teeth nipping at your skin. Pressing your hands to his chest, kneading his shirt in your fists, the strength to push him away dissipated when his tongue painted a stripe up your neck and his lips worked a little purple spot beneath your ear. If he didn’t stop, you were going to have a very pissed off Tori. “Yunho, Yo…” 

He pulled away and smiled down at you. “What?” 

Even this view, him on top of you, glistening lips, messy hair over his eyes, the caramel honey famished, ready to eat you alive- How you got him off of you, you’ll never know.

“We need to go,” you said, and he pressed a kiss to your cheek.

“I don’t wanna go,” he mumbled. 

Smiling at him, you whispered, “Your room is over there.”

Any and all emotion wiped from his face. “You’re serious?”

Popping your brows, you whispered, “Maybe.”

He sprung up off the bed, moving faster than you’ve ever seen him move. Holding out a hand for you to take, you grabbed onto him and let him yank you off your mattress. Wrapping his hands around your neck, he nudged your chin up with his thumbs and parted his lips to give you a most perfect kiss, warping the part of your brain that liked to shut off.

There was something in there yelling at you. An emergency switch, the flood lights, some sort of generator back up power that finally allowed you to push him away though you were buzzing.

“Go,” you sighed, fixing your hair, smoothing your skirt, “I’ll see you there.”

He glanced behind him at the open window and laughed. “I have to go back down that way? I can’t use the front door?” 

“Yes,” you said, “Go. You can use the front door when you don’t yell at our girls in coffee shops.”

Rolling his head backward, he groaned, “I’m too old for roofs now.”

Screwing your brows, you shook your head. “Then why the fuck did you climb up in the first place.”

Climbing over your bed, your pillows, he turned on the roof and leaned in, his eyes combing over you. “Because,” he huffed, reaching a hand in to pretend to squeeze you, “This.”

“You’re insufferable,” you smirked.

He winked. “You’re delicious.”

Managing the window shut, he fled from the roof.

And, you were alone.

For the first time in a long time, you stood in a forced silence brought on by no other factor than you stood here alone.

By yourself.

No Yunho to sway your feelings.

No Wooyoung to hold them in his hand and protect them.

No Tori to tell you what to do, to show you how to act.

You’re a pistol, Aura, but you let people get in your head easily. Their voice turns into your voice, and suddenly that’s the truth.

Homework waited for you. Unfinished assignments shoved into the bag that hung on the bedpost. Those decent grades you told Yoongi and Yeonjun you wanted to graduate with, a pipe dream at this rate.

You turned around slowly. 

Tori took your seat. Your position. She’s the president, by your choice, you now have endless time to pull yourself together, to improve your GPA, to stay enrolled in a school you want to graduate from.

And, then do what?

Tori has had an internship since this summer. Mingi, too. Yunho, with what you know, is currently searching for one. 

Where were you even supposed to start? 

What did you even want to do?

You turned around slowly, looking into the closet that had never once been organized.

What did you know about the working world? 

Kids grow up dreaming of what they want to do with their lives once they're of age, most begin before they’re legally able to do so. Typical shit, an astronaut, a singer, a fashion designer, a multi millionaire business owner, whatever the fuck kids dreamt of.

You and Keeho grew up dreaming of one day going out to dinner that was somewhere other than a neighbor's house. You dreamt of consistent warm showers and for your dad’s girlfriends to leave and never come back. Of never having to drive back to the police station to pick Yeonjun up. Of never having to ask Yoongi for twenty bucks ever again.

When Yeonjun disappeared to Contramano, you never knew what he got into, what he actually did, and as much as you didn’t need to know, a part of you always wondered what it was. How he was able to scramble enough money together in one weekend to ration throughout the rest of the month until he’d vanish all over again.

He didn’t work. Not officially. Not legally either.

Your throat tightened.

You turned slowly, facing Tori’s bed.

They would all graduate. They would all graduate with honors, flying colors, big dreams and the drive to chase them. They all knew what they wanted, they had goals to work toward, a future to create. A future Tori spent the summer worried about. A summer spent weeping over change that she now charged headfirst for, ready to make any at the drop of a hat without much discussion.

The school year began and everyone screwed their heads on straight and pulled their shit together.

And, you were… still Aurora.

Messy, unorganized, the girl with sloppy behavior, the one who sleeps with anything, nothing but a jester for the court to fuck with, entertainment.

Because who keeps coming back?

Who can’t leave any of them alone?

Who’s going to slither over there right now, guzzle down drinks to forget these thoughts ever happened, shove the feelings down within her until she finds a way to cope with the weight of them…

september 22nd ~ monday ~ 11:54 pm

“Open up, I’m coming back!”

Pushing off of Yunho, purposefully bumping him with your ass, he tumbled back with a tipsy laugh. Dropping to your knees in the middle of the dance floor, ATZ’s living room, San, in his slutty leather outfit, stood over you and pressed the tip of the bottle of vodka to your lips, pouring slowly at first, then all too much.

Snapping your jaw shut before you showed any signs of weakness, you gulped down what you held in your mouth, coughed once, and jumped onto your feet as a few bystanders cheered.

San grabbed the strap of your tank, pulling you into him. His slurred words and drunken eyes met yours, just as dazed. “Don’t tell me you’re his now, what’d I miss.”

Wrapping your arms around his wide shoulders, you pouted. “Will it make you sad if I am?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said, “I finally got you all to myself, and he swoops back in?”

The look on his face, one that would’ve broken your heart if you hadn’t already lost count of how much you’ve had to drink. Brushing his soft black hair from his forehead, you cooed and squished his cheek. “Oh Sannie,” you breathed, flickering your eyes to his lips to add fuel to the fire, “Thinking you had me all to yourself is your first mistake.” 

Rising to your tiptoes you planted a kiss to his cheek, reached a hand back to smack him on the ass, and spun away to Yunho leaning against the couch waiting for you. 

San pressed the bottle to his lips, some sort of envy warping over his features as he watched Yunho take you by the hand to spin you around and press you to his front. His hands slid down your body, he didn’t take his time, he palmed your hips and gripped your skirt in his fingers, like no time had passed, like this summer didn’t happen, like he didn’t have another female at his disposal while you frequented his bed. Yunho tucked your hair behind your ear, pressing his lips to it, whispering something in your ear San couldn’t and would never be able to make out over the fuckass noise in this house.

He was never a priority to you, in the nicest possible way, and you figured it worked both ways with San. Platonic sex, platonic hook ups. Really, really good platonic sex and hook ups. The first time you had him you kicked yourself for not caving sooner, but it didn’t matter now, and it wouldn’t matter ever. San wasn’t on the roster.

There was no roster.

Spinning in Yunho’s arms you wrapped them around his neck, meeting his lips with a kiss that almost missed and brushed his cheek. “Let’s go now.”

He laughed, pointing his gaze behind you. At San. “What’d he say to you?”

“San?”

“Yeah,” he said, eyes flashing with curiosity.

“Why?”

“I dunno,” he mumbled. “You were pushing me away before, then he touches you and you want to go upstairs?”

Leaning backward, hands using his shoulders for leverage, you twisted your brows. “Excuse me?”

He wiped his expression fast, jaw falling open. “No, no no, no, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m just- Ugh.”

You stepped back, letting go of him entirely. “Say what you mean,” you said, tossing your hands out, “Say it to my face.”

Even Yunho thought it. 

“Rory, I didn’t mean it like that, I swear, it’s just, it’s San,” his eyes were wide, his words were jumbled, his shoulders tensed. “Any guy would feel insecure, he’s… him.”

Propping your hands on your hips, you smiled and titled your head. “He is Him, isn’t he,” you smized. He opened his mouth, but you didn’t stay to hear it. Alcohol fueled your feet. Spinning on your toes, meeting San’s growing smirk with one of your own, you sauntered toward him, looped your elbows together, and pulled him out of the living room toward the kitchen.

San held onto you tight, his bare skin sticking to your own in the heat of the house. Poking his tongue between his lips, he snickered, “They always come back.”

You shoved your elbow into his side eliciting a yelp from his pretty lips. “Shut up and make me a real drink.”

Taking his lip between his teeth, he scrunched his nose. “Yes ma’am.”

The wood of the house, the stairs, the walls, accented with rosewood, amplified the darkness the dim lighting attempted to stave off, unfortunately amplifying the sexy in air no matter which hallway, which room one ended up in. It’s been this way since the beginning. The depth of the darkness, luring you in, piquing curiosity. 

Everyone fell victim to it.

And though you considered yourself somewhat of an ATZ survivor, the eyes that followed you and San as you passed by told you very much so that you were not. You were far from it. You haven’t survived anything, the trials persisted.

Boys of all grades, passing by in groups of three, groups of four, dressed in what you’d consider preppy jackass, they all looked at you the same, like an object, where San became their hero. He held his chin high like one, even if he didn’t mean to, you knew San always walked the halls this way, cocky, sure of himself, hunting down his next conquest.

Brushing by a huddle of your girls, new sophomores whose names you cannot remember for the life of you, you looked up at him and narrowed your eyes. “Who’s your roommate this year?” you asked, stumbling over your feet.

“RorSan! I love your work,” a boy shouted, walking by with his friends, all three of them with curly mops on top of their heads.

Sucking air through his teeth, San held you up and leaned in. Your noses almost touched. “Yeah, we haven’t talked about that yet, have we?”

Giving your head a shake, laughing at him, you shouted, “Our sextape!? No, we haven’t!”

“Okay, shut up,” he sneered from behind his teeth. Tightening his grip around you he pulled you into the kitchen where stragglers stumbled out with fresh drinks in red cups, in cans, in bottles. Your eyes followed a boy carrying two. 

“Whadda you have?” you asked him, slipping out of San’s hold. The boy paused. He faced you, and his mouth popped open, his cheeks growing pink. Giggling, you reached for one of the cups. “Whatcha drinkin’?”

He blinked a billion times, his head shaking a bit in time with how he stammered, “Uh, um, it’s- it’s-”

“Aurora,” San said from behind the island counter. Slapping a smile on your face, you let the boy go and turned to San who filled up two cups himself. “Don’t talk to any of them tonight.”

Walking on your tiptoes, fidgeting with your skirt that rode up your thighs, you wobbled behind him and wedged yourself under his beefy arm. “Look at you giving me rules.”

He was plastered, he filled both cups with too much vodka, heavy pours for both of you. “They all watched me fuck you, Ror. Stay away from them.”

Oop.

Interesting.

Him saying that shouldn’t make you feel this way.

Warm.

Turning under his arm, you leaned against the counter and let his arm stay wrapped around your hip. A smile toyed with your lips, and though you tried to hide it, he stepped in front of you and gave you a tiny taste of Bedroom San.

“Get that fucking look off your fucking face,” his nose nudged yours, “That’s not a good thing. I’m pissed the fuck off.”

Heart skipping a beat, you pressed your thighs together and sucked in a shaky breath. “You are,” you whispered, half asking, half turned on.

He grit his teeth and sighed. “I am, ‘cause I know what fucked up shit comes of this. Hwa’s been on it since I heard of it, he said something about Soul, but I don’t…”

Sliding your hands up his bare chest, his sturdy, rock hard, defined chest, you looped your arms around his neck. “You don’t what?”

He swallowed, hard. Tipping his chin down, he looked into your eyes, softened his brow, and said, “I room with Intak this year.”

Clenching your jaw, you cracked a laugh. “Course you do. Who the fuck else would do something like this?”

San shook his head, his eyes flickering to your lips. “But, Soul had it. It was sent… from Soul. They never found anything on Intak.”

“What I’m not getting,” you began, rocking forward, your foreheads bumping together, “Is how we were recorded in the first place.”

Pressing his lips together, he poked out his tongue and tilted his chin, like he was ready to lock it in place with yours. “There’s a whole PC set up in there on his side. He streams, shit like that. There’s cameras.”

“That’s fucking it!” Grabbing onto his chiseled cheeks, you pulled him into you and kissed him, letting him bend you backward over the counter. Parting with a breath, you tapped his smooth skin twice and beamed, “You’re so smart, Sannie, good job.” 

You pushed him off of you, sending him backward a step with hooded eyes and a strain in his tight leather pants. Grabbing one of the drinks he made, you took a sip and cringed. The San Special. Without a care if he followed you or not, you started for the hallway, but paused the moment you spotted Yunho.

“Hi,” you sighed with a smile, trying to walk past him.

He stepped in front of you, his glare bouncing off of San, back to you. “Where are you going?”

“San’s room,” you said, walking around him.

He stepped in front of you again. “I don’t think so.”

Craning your neck back to look up at him and his worried brows, you laughed once it all clicked into place. Placing a hand on his chest, you said, “Oh, you think… No, we have to-”

“You have to stay right here,” he said, his tone growing more stern the more he spoke. “I made you upset, I get that, but don’t ruin what we started ‘cause of it.”

Jutting your chin back, your smile faded.

“Don’t look at me like that, I just watched you kiss him, Rory,” he tossed a hand toward where San stood perched on a counter now talking with a few boys. “Did you kiss Wooyoung while you were with him, too? Is that what we’re doing?”

Oh.

Oh, no.

Taking a sip of your drink, you licked the liquor off your lips, glanced away from him, and rolled your eyes.

“What do you want, Aurora?” he asked. Someone shouted in the hallway, a girl, it sounded like Tori, she laughed after she shouted. Looking back up at him and his shaking head, he asked again, “What do you want?”

“To do something other than this,” you muttered, and you pushed by him, leaving him in the kitchen. Following the sound of Tori’s voice, you gulped down your drink and met her at the end of the hallway by the front door on the first landing of the steps. She stood with Yuna and Mingi, her arm around the waist of her boyfriend who held her around the shoulders. “Friends,” you said, sneaking up behind Yuna.

“Oh!” She yelped, then grabbed onto you once she realized who you were. Pulling you in, she squeezed you, her cheek smushing against yours. “Ror! I have been so worried about you, I’m so pissed our schedules are so opposite this semester.”

“Not much to worry about,” you shrugged, wiggling away from her, “It’s just me.”

“Are you kidding?” She kept one hand on your shoulder, her manicured nails digging into your bare skin. “This whole… situation going on? Are you okay?”

“Situation?” you asked, rocking on your toes.

She leaned toward you. “That video,” she whispered, and you giggled.

“Oh, yeah, that.”

Tori, concern written all over her face, she gestured to the cup you squeezed the life out of. “How many have you had tonight?”

Glancing at it, then at Yuna, then at Mingi, then at Tori, all three of them giving you the same face, you laughed and held it up. “I don’t remember.”

She took her arm from Mingi and gave him a raise of her brows. “We’re gonna go,” she said not quietly. 

Jumping backward, losing Yuna’s grip, you waved a hand in front of you and shook your head. “No, no no, no!”

She sighed, giving her boyfriend a hug while he kissed her on the cheek. “Yes, we’re leaving.”

Bad. Very bad.

You wanted to stay. You had to stay. You needed to find Soul. You needed to find proof that it wasn’t Soul.

Catching Yuna by the wrist, you pulled her toward you and whispered, “I gave Tori president, she’s the president now.”

Her eyes went freakishly wide. “What?!”

Jackpot!

Yuna launched herself towards the couple, her mouth moving a mile a minute with questions, shouts of disbelief, some congratulations, but mostly questions, and you were free to vanish into the living room where swarms of people camouflaged you.

Dancing through them, recognizing a couple of your sisters, you spun around with them, one arm over your head as you downed the rest of the San Special. You thought about what Tori said, how neither of you got excited for these parties anymore. Twirling with the girls, shouting lyrics to songs years old, the room sideways and your balance nonexistent, you don’t know why you agreed with her.

You were having a great time.

These girls weren’t looking at you funny, the boys wanted your attention, dancing bodies passed by you, some taking you by the hand to spin you around, phones were held up, selfies were taken, flashes went off everywhere. You lost track of who you danced with, who you danced on, who pulled you into another group, who poured you another drink in the middle of the crowd. Arms held you by the waist, by the shoulders, you couldn’t see faces, you could barely hear voices, letting yourself get pushed around the room, nothing but laughter and singing ringing in your ears.

A pair of strong hands grabbed you at the hips, pulling you out of a group you were just catapulted into. They did what all of your so-called saviors did to you nowadays, they picked you up, they took away your feet privileges and moved you out of the chaos.

“Yunho, I swear-”

They put you down at the bottom of the stairs. “Yunho?”

You spun around and scoffed, falling straight into a fit of laughter. “What the fuck?”

“What the fuck indeed,” Seonghwa said, the slight widen of his eyes striking you from within. Long black hair swayed at his shoulders, at the black satin of the button down shirt he wore. “You think I don’t know what's going on tonight?”

Bending at the waist a smidge, locking your knees, you squinted and smiled up at him. “What?”

He huffed, glancing away before glaring down at you. But a smile ghosted his lips. “You, wreaking havoc in my house.”

“Wreaking havoc,” you snickered, crossing your arms over your tank that now laid a bit sideways, “Even if I knew what that meant, I assure you, Hwa, that no havocs are wreaking.”

He blinked once, then nodded up the stairs. “Go.”

Warm.

“Fun,” you whispered, biting down on your lip.

Reaching for him, he grabbed you by the wrist, pulling it down by his side. He curled his lip, “I said go.”

Tilting your head, you smized, “No.”

His sigh became a groan, then something of a growl. “Fucking brat,” he said through his teeth. He yanked you behind him, taking you up the stairs without a care if you were nearly tripping over your feet or the wood. “Not surprised you ended up back with him,” he said on the way up. On the second floor he didn’t stop, he stormed toward a bedroom and hurled you into it, letting you go. “How he handles you…”

Using the bed for leverage, catching yourself on one of the bed posts, you laughed breathlessly and turned to him, slowly, screwing your brows up. “You handled me once.”

“Once,” his jaw snapped. “Sit down,” he said, nodding toward the bed.

Clasping your hands over your front, you teased, “Yes, daddy,” and listened to him.

Seonghwa, a step out the door, turned in warning, his eyes pointed. “Don’t.”

“Why not? You’re the only guy I know that likes that,” you said, standing up, stepping toward him. With every scuff of your foot you had a song to sing to the siren himself. “I can say it again. It doesn’t scare me. It’s not weird. It’s sexy. Am I the only girl that likes it, too? Do you make H call you-”

“Sit. Down!” 

Smoothing your hands over the door, over his, you pouted. “Gonna leave me here all by myself?”

A breath caught in his throat, his eyelashes fluttering for but a second. He shook his head, shook the feeling away. “Aurora, sit down. Stay here. Don’t come back downstairs, you’ll make more trouble for yourself. I’m going to get Yunho, I’ll bring him to you.”

You giggled. “It’s like DoorDash but for sex.”

Seonghwa released a breath, his eyes rolling for what felt like the umpteenth time. “Whatever. Don’t leave.”

Standing up straight, you saluted him and he finally let out a real laugh, shutting the door, shutting out the downstairs noise. Shutting out almost all noise, actually. 

And, you were alone.

Not by your own choice.

By Seonghwa’s for some reason.

Wandering around Yunho’s room, you rocked back and forth on your feet and giggled to yourself. Not much had changed from last year to now, he still didn’t know how to clean his room. You giggled again. You were just as messy. Clothes from yesterday lived on his floor, his books were scattered, it looked like a project was laying out on the carpet waiting to be finalized. 

Pulling open some of his drawers, peeking in at the folded clothes, you reached for a pile of shirts and pulled out one you recognized. A grey Nasara cut off he made himself, the N and the A cut in half on accident. He wore this that night at Wave, this summer, when he carried you out of the bar.

You sat on the beach that night. You sat in his lap on the beach. The way he looked at you, something you can’t explain, only something you were able to feel. 

It hurt. It reached into your chest, grabbed onto your heart, and strangled the life out of it. How he could look at you like you were the only girl in the world when months before he had shattered your heart into a trillion pieces… 

He wasn’t supposed to hurt you.

He was the one person who wasn’t ever supposed to make you doubt, make you worry, make you cry.

That’s how you knew you loved him, how you knew that this was what love felt like, because it hurt.

It hurt like a fucking bitch.

And now, to have him back, learning to trust him all over again, he stood in front of you and doubted you.

You turned around to study his bed and the nightstands on either side of it. 

He brought her in here. She slept in his bed. They had sex in his bed. She stood in here, she did everything you did. She kissed him, she saw him naked, she touched him, she probably let him finish inside her.

Don’t go there.

“I’m gonna,” you muttered, throwing the shirt to the floor, storming over to the nightstands, pulling open every drawer until you found what you were looking for.

A strip of silver wrapped condoms in the top drawer.

“Motherfucker,” you spat, taking them out, throwing them onto his bed.

They were new. There was no way to know whether or not he wrapped it before they slept together. If these always lived in that top drawer though, it was news to you. He never brought them up. He never asked, and neither did you.

It wasn’t just on him, it was on you.

“Nope,” you said out loud, shaking your head, taking your hands to your cheeks to tap the thought away.

You spent that week alone, on your own, and whose fault was that? You could’ve called him. You could’ve told him. He deserves to know, kind of, doesn’t he? But, you lied. You decided to erase it from existence, warping reality, forcing everyone who knew into believing something else happened instead.

It wasn’t real. It didn’t happen.

At least there’s a chance Mina didn’t get to do that.

“Fucking bitch,” you mumbled, kicking one of his drawers halfway shut.

Time to leave.

Teetering toward the door, you pulled it open and popped your head out.

The coast was clear.

Giggling to yourself, you stepped into the hall and shut the door behind you quietly. Rubbing your eyes, adjusting to the dark, you smudged the glitter over your cheeks and wiped the rest on your skirt. No one was up here, and it didn’t sound like anyone was above you on the third floor either.

San’s room was up there.

That meant Intak’s room was up there. Intak’s room and his computers and his cameras and his spank bank of whoever the fuck else San takes up there.

You teetered to the other set of stairs.

Why wouldn’t he leak anyone else's video? Why yours? He’s had a personal agenda against you for god knows how long, and he decides to do this?

Each step was a chore, but you made it to the top, with only almost going over the railing twice. His room lived right at the top of the stairs to the left, and good news for you, it was unlocked.

Glancing behind you, at the silence, you smiled and slipped inside swiftly, closing the door behind you, leaning your back against it. You weren’t expecting a desk lamp to be on. Nor were you expecting two boys to be staring at you, startled.

“Oh good,” you sighed, stepping toward them. Their eyes dropped to your legs and drew up slowly from there. “You’re both here.”

Intak turned in his desk chair, his cropped black hair and tanned skin illuminated by the warmth of the lamp on the top shelf of his set up. “Aurora?”

You looked down at yourself. “Uh, yeah.” Directing your glare to the boy on the end of Intak’s bed, leaning over the frame to watch whatever it was they were doing on his PC, you didn’t bother to smile.

He didn’t know where to look. Your legs, your eyes, the lace of your bra, the glitter smeared across your face. 

Warm.

You could hear them both gulp. You could almost hear them tremble.

“Hi,” Soul whispered.

“Talking to me?” you asked, tone all too nasty.

You watched him cringe. “Yes,” he whispered.

Taking yourself to the edge of Intak’s bed, you rested your hands on the duvet and leaned into Soul. His breath hitched.

You smiled. “It wasn’t you, was it?” His wide black eyes glistened in the lamp light. Shaking his head, fast, fried blonde hair splaying over his forehead, you nodded and reached out to caress his cheek. “S’okay. I knew it. You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?” He shook his head again and you giggled.

“If you knew that, then what are you doing here?” Intak asked. 

Turning your chin, you eyed him as he chewed on the nail of his pinky, his gaze drawing down your body.

Warm.

Sighing, you stood up straight and looked at them both. “Hopefully one of you,” you shrugged, climbing onto Soul's lap. They both jumped, but Soul’s muscle memory clocked in and his hands wrapped around your waist, sliding down to the curve of your ass. Brushing your lips to his neck, arching against him, you felt him stiffen and let a breathy laugh fall from your lips. “I’ve been blue balled all night,” you whispered, pressing your lips to his cheek, taking your hands to his jaw, lifting it to look him in the eyes. Peering over at Intak, locked in on him, you parted your lips and laid them over Soul’s, the boy melting in your arms. His kisses haven’t changed. Rough. Too hungry. You didn’t care. “Help me,” you whispered to Intak before sinking into Soul entirely.

He hurried to his feet, his hands grabbing the hem of his shirt, unsure of what to do, or where to go. Grinding down on Soul’s lap, you reached backward and pulled him in by a handful of his tee. Lips locked with Soul, the boy's tongue already down your throat, you felt Intak press himself against your back, his tentative hands hovering over your hips. 

Pulling away from Soul, the shiteating grin on his face made you laugh. You took Intak by both wrists and guided him, telling him without words where to touch you. Beneath you, Soul bucked his hips and gave you the friction you’ve been craving since Yunho climbed out your bedroom window. The sound that tumbled out of you had them answering with one of their own.

Taking a hand backward, you wrapped it around Intak and leaned your back to his chest. Swirling your hips in a circle over Soul’s lap, you tipped your chin up and beckoned Intak's lips closer with a single look. He wasted little time, and his hands gained the confidence you knew he possessed. His kisses, slower than Soul’s, worked like he knew he had to pace himself, like if he jumped in headfirst it’d be over before it started. His hands though, they were greedy. From your hips, to your thighs, to your waist, your ass, your tits– He didn’t stop.

Pulling away from his lips you sat forward and grabbed them both by the neck. Catching your breath, you eyed them both. “I don’t need all this,” you gasped, reaching for the hem of Intak’s shirt, telling him to take it off. You did the same to Soul, then pulled your skirt over your hips. “Someone just please make me fucking cum.”

“Fuck. You had months of this?” Intak asked Soul, voice shocked as much as he was breathless.

The smirk that grew on your boy's face filled you with pride. “Months.”

You slid your hands around his neck and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, whispering, “Show him, Soulie.”

Holding onto you, kicking Intak away, he flipped you over and hurried for the button on his jeans. “You’re serious.”

San likely wasn’t taking you to bed.

Yunho was yelling at you in the kitchen.

Seonghwa obviously cares too much about Hongjoong to involve himself, though he thought about it.

Blue balled didn’t even come close.

Wrapping your legs around his waist, you nipped at his lip, whispering, “Dead.” Lacing one hand in his hair you tugged at the roots and he groaned, kicking his jeans to the floor. “Fuck me.” Your other hand reached out for Intak, grabbing onto his arm. “Come here,” you breathed, pulling him on top of the bed beside you. Lips parted, his eyes were alight, best night of his life. “Kiss me?”

He moved on command without a word, tucking a hand behind your head, knitting his fingers in your hair. Even as Soul hooked a finger in your thong and pulled it aside, sinking himself into you agonizingly slow, Intak slipped his tongue along your teeth and drank up your gasp, humming his praise while his hands explored your body.

Soul snapped his hips twice, harsh, his length filling you up more than anyone else's, even San’s. Even Yunho’s. He turned your brain to mush in seconds, an intoxicated ecstasy roared through your body. He knew how to move, he spent months learning how to break you, it came as no surprise he could do it in less than a minute. Pushing down on your belly, angling his hips in a way that made your thighs shake, Intak couldn’t keep up his task, you couldn’t shut up.

“God. Fucking. Damn,” each thrust of his hips punctuated his words. “You think… You think you know… What it’s gonna be like… Right?” He spoke to Intak who could only watch you now, one of his hands toying with the lace of your bra, the other tightening around the sides of your neck.

“Right,” he sighed, dipping down to mark up your neck.

Soul groaned, then he whined, and you squeezed him tight. “Fuck. You think you know, you think you can imagine this shit… When I tell you, everything you think is wrong, believe me.”

He spoke about you like you weren’t even there. Writhing beneath him, tangling your fingers in Intak's hair, you reached the other up to lay it on Soul’s chest. “S-so good… Missed you…”

“Everyone else has to pull out the tricks right?” He smacked his teeth just as he shifted and pressed a thumb to your clit. You cried out for him, growing louder. Intak palmed himself in his jeans. Soul twisted his thumb and sped up the snap of his hips, black eyes locked on yours. “What’d I say?”

“Ev-every…” You gasped, back arching off the bed. Throwing your head backward, you couldn’t form words. It all came out in a mess of moans.

Soul smirked. “Everyone needs the tricks, Ror. Even San, huh?” Your eyes snapped open. “You’re filthy for him, you know that?” Pressing your elbows into the mattress, you sat up, but he wrapped his hand around your neck and pinned you back down. “Yeah,” he breathed, groaning in his chest, “I watched it.”

“You watched…”

“I did,” he whispered. “Felt good to know…” he started, twirling his thumb steady, but faster, eyes narrowed as you whined louder, and louder, and louder, and silence.

Your vision bled white. Your knees trapped him within you. Euphoria washed over you.

“…That I make you cum the fastest,” he finished, his grin triumphant. He planted his hands on the mattress, hovering over you. “Still want it inside you?”

Blurry. Everything. His voice. The room. His words though, warm. “Please,” you whispered. Intak pushed away with half a laugh, hiding his shock with a hand to his mouth.

Soul dropped down on top of you, pressing his teeth into your neck. “Slut.”

He came after three snaps of his hips, spilling into you with a groan. Barely letting him relish in his pleasure, you swallowed nothing but dry air and tucked your legs between you. Feet to chest, you pushed him off of you and moved onto your knees. Rubbing your eyes, glitter smearing on your fingers, on his bed sheets, you crawled up to Intak on his pillows and pinned him to the headboard.

“W-what are you… You wanna…”

You blinked at him. He was so cute. A pretty jumble of cheekbones, plump pink lips, and sexy eyes to top it all off. Out of them all, you thought for sure you’d have Intak first. Oh well.

Second is the best.

“Yeah, I wanna,” you deadpanned, straddling his waist. “Do you not wanna?” You furrowed your brows and threw a thumb over your shoulder. “I can leave.”

“No!” He sat forward, his anxious arms stringing around your waist. “Don’t,” he said. Soul’s soft laughter echoed in the air. “I just,” he whispered, glancing down between you, then back at his friend, then back at you, “I can’t… Do that as fast as he can.”

Pursing your lips, focused on nothing but boy in front of you, boy beneath you, you moved his hair from his forehead and leaned in to give him a soft kiss. His eyes fluttered shut. “Do you wanna cum?” you whispered, and he nodded slowly. You kissed him again. “Do you wanna fuck me?” He opened his eyes, dazed, and nodded. Nodding with him, you smiled and started for the button on his pants. “Then help me.”

A switch flipped. He latched his lips to yours and worked his pants off, pushing them to his knees. Soul appeared behind you, his hands sliding down your front over your shoulders and his lips sucking at your neck. Slipping Intak your tongue, you pushed his hands away and did the work for him, situating yourself above him. He didn’t listen. Grabbing your waist, he parted from your lips and pushed you down, wanting to watch the gasp, the face you made when he filled you. 

He thrust his hips up and tipped his head back with a moan.

“Careful,” Soul warned, and Intak shook his head.

“You were right, you were right, you were right,” he mumbled. “I can’t, I’m gonna… I need… I…”

Soul’s laugh, music to your ears. “Look at him squirm,” he said quietly, taking a hand under your chin to hold you in place. “You haven’t moved and he’s gonna bust.”

You whined, trying to look up at him. “I wanna ride him.”

“You can’t, baby,” Soul whispered, “He’s done for.”

Intak gasped, his eyes squeezed shut. “Let her.”

Your lips perked up. “Let me.”

Soul sighed, then moved his arms underneath yours, setting you free. “Fine.”

“Yes,” you breathed, falling forward onto Intak’s chest. Snaking one hand around the base of his neck, you drug your lips over the shell of his ear and let him hear you. Holding onto you for sanity, he melted into the headboard, unmoving, a whining bitch. He panted, and twitched, not a brain cell left for his hands to use, all he could do was hold on.

You didn’t have much time.

“Why’d you do it?” you whispered to him, and he gulped.

“D-do what?” he asked, voice broken.

“The video,” you whispered, swirling your hips in a circle, “Why’d you do it? If you wanted it all you had to do was ask.”

“I-I-I didn’t,” he whimpered, bucking up into you. 

“Liar.”

“I’m gonna cum,” he groaned.

You didn’t have the energy for games. Not anymore.

“Who did it?”

“I don’t know,” he whined.

“You’re serious?”

Digging his fingers into your hips, you met his eyes before he squeezed them shut. “Dead.”

He pushed up into you and finished.

Rolling off of him, leaving him to catch his breath, you didn’t give Soul an ounce of attention and moved off the bed. Situating your clothes, wobbling on your feet, feeling the ache in your hips already, you stared at the floor for a few seconds, then whispered, “Shit.” You took three steps toward the door. Then, you stopped. Turning around, you found Soul already looking at you. 

He stood up and took one step closer to you. Tangling his fingers together, he gave you the slightest shake of his head. “It wasn’t us,” he said quietly. “I promise you. Don’t listen to them. I didn’t do it. We’re trying to figure out who did.”

Taking him in, the boy you gave so much to once upon a time, you nodded, accepting his answer.

Leaving the room, leaving the boys behind, in the quiet hallway you froze.

Cold.

You swallowed nothing, your mouth and throat utterly dry.

Looking down the staircase that spun, your stomach lurched, but you wouldn’t let that happen. Swallowing again, you grabbed onto the bannister and took a step. You took another and your knee almost gave out. Holding onto the railing, you were certain you’d leave finger prints behind.

You didn’t even know where you were going.

You didn’t even know who you were going to look for.

Yunho was right, you shouldn’t have gone to San’s room, but damn, he sucked right now.

Tori was right, you should’ve left when she told you so.

Seonghwa was right, you should’ve stayed put and sat down on the bed.

Your dad was right, can we go back to you and Wooyoung please?

It took you too long to get down the stairs, by the time you reached the bottom you could hear people leaving and feel tears streaming down your cheeks. You had no phone, you didn’t know what time it was, and you had no idea whether or not your friends were still in the building. You could wobble over to Yunho’s room, stay in there like you were supposed to, like you were ordered too before your mind pissed you off. He’d come up and maybe things would be okay, but he used to bring her in there.

Leaning against the wall you pressed your hands to your cheeks, sliding them over your eyes. The tears you felt grew into sobs. Quiet heaves of breath you wouldn’t let anyone hear. Sinking down onto the floor, your knees pulled into your chest, you cried in the corner of the wooden stairwell, the beautifully crafted architecture the only thing to partake in whatever the fuck was happening to you.

You couldn’t bother them. Your friends, how were you supposed to tell them any of this, tell them you didn’t know what you were doing, that you weren’t sure what you saw for yourself after you left the school, that you didn’t know if you even deserved anything after all of this, these four years of what?

“Only good for one thing,” you mumbled to yourself between sobs, sucking in harsh gasps of air. “Good for what?” You dropped your hands and laid your head back against the wall. “Good for what? He didn’t even want me.”

“I think I hear her.”

You clawed your hands in your hair, hanging your head over your lap. “He didn’t even want me, can’t even say good for one thing, he didn’t want me.”

“What’s she saying?”

“I dunno, she’s crying.”

“Shit, she’s a mess. Do you want me…”

“No, let me, you called. You’ve got lots of girls to watch over, let me take care of this one.”

A gentle hand touched your shoulder, jolting you upright. You moved in slow motion. Wiping your eyes with the backs of your hands, blinking in the dim light of the hall, your cries ceased for a few seconds until you made out who knelt in front of you and who stood behind him.

“Hey,” Wooyoung said softly. He wore black sweats. No jewelry. His waves were unruly. He’d been sleeping. Your lips trembled and tears welled in your eyes. “Don’t cry, it’s just me.”

“Hi,” you managed to say, voice rough.

Wooyoung reached behind him. Following his hand, you found Tori, who slipped him a water bottle. She smiled at you, you think, but her eyes read differently.

“They said they lost you,” he said, twisting the bottle open for you, handing it to you without a cap. Shaking hands lifted it to your lips. You couldn’t take more than half a sip. He glanced up the stairs. “Where’d you go?”

“No where,” you whispered, still crying.

Wooyoung nodded. His gaze dropped to your neck, to your chest, to the clothes you did a shitty job at fixing. “Yunho told me he said something to you that made you upset,” he said, and your wince told him plenty, “Is that why you’re crying?”

A breath shuddered through you. “I dunno.”

A door in the hallway up the stairs creaked open. Wooyoung and Tori glanced up at Soul and Intak peering down, curious about the voices they were hearing. They disappeared as fast as they appeared.

Wooyoung pursed his lips. It took him a second to look at you. He met your eyes and the tears fell faster.

“Okay,” he breathed, reaching his hands out for you, “Come on. You come home with me.”

“Why,” you sobbed, looking up at Tori who wiped her cheek, “She doesn’t want me either?”

She opened her mouth with a gasp, but Wooyoung pacified her with a raise of his hand. “You know that’s not true,” he said, his tone stern, yet gentle. “She cares about you so much she called me,” both him and Tori let out a soft laugh. You would’ve too if you weren’t crying. “She’s got a lot on her plate right now, okay, we all know that. She called me ‘cause you need someone who can give you all of their attention right now. That’s a true friend.” You looked at her and watched her wipe her cheeks again. “You should thank her.”

Tori shook her head, sniffling. “I don’t need that, it’s… it’s fine.”

Swallowing, you swiped a palm over your cheeks and whispered, “Thank you.”

Her bottom lip crinkled. With a nod she shrugged.

Wooyoung held his hands out toward you. “Come with me?”

Nodding again, you handed over your water and waited for him to grab onto you.

“You know,” he sighed, slipping an arm around your back, “I’m kinda tired of helping you off of these floors.” He shot you an innocent smile and used his thumb to clean your tears. “You’re gonna be okay, Ro” he whispered, giving your cheek the gentlest kiss.

NU home ✧ speechless masterlist ✧ talk to me ✧ ao3

you do not have permission to copy or translate my works without my consent.

[wyngigi]

I AM NOT

maybe yunho is endgame

[wyngigi]

anyways look what just arrived

someone please put me on a photocard ban this is not good for my bank account

[wyngigi]

someone please put me on a photocard ban this is not good for my bank account

[wyngigi]

oh jeonghan how i love u

[wyngigi]

Guys its getting serious like i REALLY love jun i cant stress this he is my everything omg

[wyngigi]

hes my snow white i love him so much

[wyngigi]

god i love jun

company benefits 🗂️ junhui x reader.

you can’t really call wen junhui your ex-boyfriend. it was more of a friends with benefits situation—except you only got ghosted, while he got an internship at your recommendation. people always say to not bite the hand that feeds you; it looks like jun didn’t get the memo.

🗂️ pairing.  marketing intern!wen junhui x copywriter!reader.  🗂️ word count.  12k.  🗂️ genre/warnings. smut, romance, humor, pinch of angst. alternate universe: non-idol. mentions of alcohol, food; profanity. semi-public & unprotected sex. ex-situationship, forced proximity, tension... so much tension!!!, contract terms i’m not 100% sure about. soonyoung from eunha’s Be My Tigress? 🗂️ footnotes. this is part of the that’s showbiz, baby! collaboration. eternally grateful to all the writers in the server who motivated me to finish this. above all, indebted to @diamonddaze01, who pitched this collaboration to me over six months ago. what a pleasure to finally write a long fic for jun!!! goin to take a veryyy long nap now. 🎵 recommended listening ⸻ company benefits.

You never dated Wen Junhui.

You made out with him in the backseat of an Uber once. Shared a bowl of tteokbokki at 1:00 a.m. and left a toothbrush at his place. He sent you voice notes saying things like, “I wish you were here,” in that half-awake tone he got when he couldn’t sleep, which was often.

You spent entire weekends tangled on his couch, watching movies you barely remembered because you were too busy tracing the veins on his arm with your pinky. You cried once, in front of him. He didn’t flinch.

You never dated Jun, so when he shows up as one of the interns at your company, it's not like you can call him your ex. You can, however, nearly snap a Pilot G-2 pen in half.

The intern orientation is a thirty-minute slide deck with enough corporate jargon to resurrect a Roman senator. You're sitting near the back, doodling tiny skulls in the margins of your notes, when your manager says, “Let’s all welcome this year’s marketing interns!”

And there he is.

Wen Junhui. Hair longer than you remember. A navy button-down that you’re 90% sure used to be yours. He spots you in the crowd like it’s nothing. Like no time has passed. And then—the male audacity of it all—he smiles.

Your pen creaks, spine bending until the plastic gives a quiet, pitiful snap.

You recommended him. That’s the worst part. 

Back when he was unemployed and soft-spoken and yours in a way you never could quite name. You filled out a glowing referral form like an idiot. Said things like creative thinker and natural collaborator when what you meant was: makes me laugh when I don’t want to, makes me feel like I matter.

Now he’s here. Mid-career intern. Probably labeled as non-traditional in the onboarding notes. Definitely labeled as dead to me in your mental CRM.

You corner him in the coffee room after orientation. He’s stirring oat milk into some artisanal nonsense, back to you, as if this isn’t the beginning of your villain arc. “You’ve got some nerve, Junhui,” you declare, properly pissed. 

He doesn’t even flinch. Just turns, holding his mug like he’s in a toothpaste commercial. “... I was just getting coffee,” he answers, one perfect eyebrow already arched. 

You fold your arms. “What are you doing here?”

“Interning.”

“You’re in your thirties.”

“I’m only twenty-nine, actually.”

“You had a whole job before this.”

“And now I have a new one.”

You resist the urge to glower. “As an intern.”

“Mid-career transition,” he says smoothly. “It’s a thing. There’s a podcast about it.”

You’re aware. You introduced the podcast to him. “Why here?” you bite out. 

He sips his coffee, meeting your gaze without hesitation. “It’s the best, isn’t it?” he drawls. “And I always want the best.”

There it is. That infuriating sincerity, tucked behind some metaphor you can’t afford to unpack. That must mean I wasn’t the ‘best,’ then, you nearly snap, considering, you know, you up and left. 

You hate that your chest aches. You hate that he still looks at you like you mean something. Like he didn’t disappear. Like he didn’t cut the cord with clean hands and a lazy smile.

You made your bed. Now, you have to lay in it. 

–-

This Agreement was entered upon by Wen Junhui [“FORMER SITUATIONSHIP INTERN”] and You [“ABSOLUTE FOOL COMPANY”] and shall remain in effect until either party learns how to stop looking for closure in a coffee room.

–-

You decide to be a professional about it.

Which is to say: you ignore him. Flawlessly. The way an inbox ignores unread emails from old flings or the way a cat ignores physics. With dignity, aloofness, and a very calculated schedule of exits and arrivals.

You walk into Monday morning’s marketing sync with an iced Americano, a bullet-pointed agenda, and an expression that says try me. Jun, mercifully, sits at the far end of the table, between a girl who uses color-coded spreadsheets and a guy whose entire personality is PowerPoint animations. You pretend not to notice when he nods at you. You definitely pretend not to notice that he’s taken to twirling his pen the same way you do.

Soonyoung, the Marketing Director, is wearing a shirt printed with neon tigers. Again.

“Okay, okay,” he claps his hands once, then dramatically slaps a stack of post-it notes down. “Let’s make this week roar!”

The interns balk, but none of the full-timers bat an eye. You’re all used to it. The man once themed an entire quarter around ‘predator energy.’

You run through project updates with the calm precision of someone who did not threaten emotional homicide in the coffee room last Friday. You lead the discussion on the spring campaign revisions, answer questions, deflect unnecessary input, and even sneak in a joke that makes Soonyoung laugh hard enough to drop his whiteboard marker.

The meeting ends. You gather your things. You’re halfway out the door when he catches up to you. “Hey,” Jun says, gently, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. “You killed that. You always do.”

You glance at him, expression neutral. "Thanks."

He looks like he wants to say more. Like he wants to be invited to say more. But you walk away, shoes clicking a little faster than necessary.

You still remember the other times he said it. After your first promotion. After you helped him rehearse for a job interview he never got. After a random Wednesday when you had ranted over a headline you couldn’t get right and he said, I wish you could see yourself the way I do.

You don’t want to remember any of it, so you go get coffee with Jihoon.

The head of HR is not known for emotional delicacy. Or any kind of delicacy, really. He wears monochrome like it’s a moral stance and drinks black coffee like it’s a dare. But he’s your friend, and he gets to the point.

“I’m not asking for details,” Jihoon says, stirring his drink with the slow menace of someone thinking about a compliance form. “But I saw the way you looked at the new intern.”

You feign innocence while you still can. “Which one?”

“Don’t insult both of us.”

Short-lived. You sigh. “It’s fine. He’s fine. We’re professionals.”

“Good. Because if I get even a whiff of nepotism, I’m lighting your recommendation form on fire.”

“You’re throwing around the word nepotism pretty lightly.”

“Am I?”

You lean back. “Everything’s professional,” you insist. “I wouldn’t jeopardize my own career over someone who thinks career pivots counts as a personality.”

Jihoon gives you a look. You sip again. Neither of you smiles.

Business as usual.

At least, that’s what you keep telling yourself. Some of it fractures two days later, in the breakroom with the flickering fluorescent light. You’re there for a sad granola bar and a moment of peace. Instead, you walk into chatter. The kind with edges.

Three interns—clipboard girl, PowerPoint boy, and someone new who looks like she does CrossFit for sport—are huddled near the snack station, laughing in that tight, conspiratorial way that means something mean is about to follow.

“I swear, he’s like, ancient,” Clipboard says.

“Wasn’t he in finance before this?” PowerPoint Boy adds. “Kind of sad, right? Like, starting over in your thirties?”

“He’s not in his thirties,” CrossFit interjects. “I checked. He’s twenty-nine. But still. Mid-career intern? Kinda screams washed-up.”

There are no names being thrown out—the slightest practice of discretion. It’s not difficult, though, to nail the topic of their breakroom gossip. The oldest intern in the pool. The one who hasn’t quite meshed with the Gen Z-ers who take OOTD mirror selfies and film TikToks in the bathroom. 

You clear your throat. Loudly. The interns freeze, a tableau of bad choices and instant regret. “Funny,” you say dryly. “I thought interns were supposed to observe before speaking.”

Clipboard opens her mouth. Closes it. Tries again. “We didn’t mean—”

“You did,” you interrupt. “But that’s okay. Not everyone gets to be interesting on their own, so I understand the appeal of tearing someone else down.”

PowerPoint looks at the floor. CrossFit suddenly finds the nutritional facts on her trail mix fascinating.

Your words come out with their trademark sharpness, with the type of teeth that has silenced board rooms. “Jun has more experience than most of you. He chose to be here. He got in the same way you did. Maybe keep that in mind next time you’re measuring someone’s worth by your own insecurities.”

Silence. Blessed, blooming silence. You grab your granola bar and turn around.

And then you nearly walk right into Jun.

He’s standing by the doorframe, coffee in hand, eyes wide. You have no idea how long he’s been there. Long enough, judging by the way he looks at you. Not shocked. Not smug. Soft. And a little sad.

He doesn’t say anything. Neither do you.

You nod once. He nods back.

You walk away, heart tapping a rhythm that feels like a memory.

–-

IV. In addition, the Intern will be eligible to participate in bonuses and other employee benefits established by the Company for its employees. The Employer currently offers the following benefits to its employees: momentary witness to your better nature, free of charge.

–-

The assignment happens on a Wednesday. Which already feels unfair. Mid-week emotional warfare is always much more draining than, say, a Monday terror or a last-minute Friday deadline. 

You’re sitting in the glass meeting room with a half-dead laptop and a whole-dead espresso shot when Soonyoung bursts in with his usual flair, dragging Jihoon behind him like a reluctant paperweight.

“Alright, team!” Soonyoung announces, sleeves rolled and tie nowhere to be seen. “It’s time to mentor the future!”

Jihoon sets down his folder with the quiet judgment of a man who had no say in this decision. “Intern shadowing,” he says, flat. “Mandatory. Two weeks. No complaints.”

“Like a tiger teaches its cubs,” Soonyoung adds, teeth bared in a wide grin.

Pairings are doled out quickly. Clipboard girl is assigned to someone in data. PowerPoint boy goes to Accounts. CrossFit intern gets Soonyoung himself (“I will break her spirit or befriend her forever,” he declares).

And then—

“Junhui,” Jihoon reads. And then your name. 

You don’t flinch. You nod once, hand still moving across your notes. Professional. If the pen’s plastic creaks underneath your grip, that’s between you and whoever invented Faber-Castell ballpoints. 

Jun, across the table, shifts. “Is that... final?”

Jihoon frowns. Never a good sign, even if it is his default. “Would you like to dispute the legality of this HR-approved decision?”

“No,” Jun mutters. But he doesn’t look at you.

The meeting ends. People scatter. You’re organizing your things when Jun corners you in the hallway, by the glass copy room that reflects everything you don’t want to see.

“I was trying to give you an out,” Jun says curtly, almost explaining.

You glance up at him. “What?”

“Back there. In the meeting. I was trying to not make things worse.”

“By publicly questioning a department head’s assignment?”

“By not forcing you to work with me when things are clearly… complicated.”

You back out a laugh. “It’s just work, Junhui. Not everything is personal.”

He stares at you, like he’s trying to figure out if you mean it. You mean it. Mostly.

There’s a flicker of something—memory, maybe. The last time you fought, back in the vague non-label limbo of your not-a-relationship. Something about a canceled plan. Or the way he left your texts on read. It spiraled, and somehow you ended up half-yelling and then making out in his kitchen, back against the fridge.

Those arguments never lasted long.

This one already has.

You tuck a pen behind your ear, shoulders squared. “We’ll get the intern materials from Soonyoung this afternoon. I’ll book a conference room.”

“Okay,” Jun says. He still looks like he wants to say something else. Maybe everything else.

You walk past him before he can. The hallway feels colder than usual.

Just like that, the stage is set. You. Him. Two weeks. One shared desk. Zero unresolved tension whatsoever.

The project brief lands the next morning like a meteor.

Marketing strategy for upcoming romantic comedy starring Jeonghan, the email reads. The subject line includes a heart emoji. You click it with a growing sense of dread.

The film’s title? Just Friends.

“Fuck me in the ass,” you mumble underneath your breath, the same way a corporate slave does once or twice a week. 

You open the attached pitch deck. The logline reads: Two friends navigate the blurred lines of a no-strings-attached relationship until one of them catches feelings.

You close your laptop. You reopen it thirty seconds later. Professionalism, you remind yourself, is a decision.

By 2 p.m., you and Jun are in a borrowed conference room with Soonyoung, who has inexplicably brought snacks and a whiteboard shaped like a heart. “Okay! Let’s ideate,” Soonyoung says brightly, cracking open a soda. “No bad ideas. No wrong answers. Just vibes.”

“How about a trailer that ends with both characters alone,” you start, “because some things aren’t meant to be mutual.”

Jun’s lips quirk to one side. “A little bleak for a rom-com.”

“Not if it’s honest.”

“Or bitter.”

“Not everything has to be about you.”

Soonyoung pauses mid-sip.

Jun clears his throat of the faux pas. “We could do a digital campaign,” he offers. “Confession booth at the premiere. People record what they never told their almosts.”

You write it on the board. Then, without looking at Jun, you add: “QR codes on limited-edition tissues.”

“You still have those?” Jun asks, his tone a little snide. “Thought you threw them out.”

“I did.”

A beat. The marker you’re holding is probably going to run dry by the end of this hour. Jun’s fingers are tightly clenched over the table edge. Soonyoung is unashamedly looking back and forth between the two of you, as if this is a particularly interesting tennis match between Carlos Alcaranz and Jannik Sinner.

“Maybe a microsite,” Jun says quickly. “Where users can soft-launch their regrets anonymously. Could include heat maps for popular phrases.”

You nod. “We could include copy like Sometimes the fine print on friendship is heartbreak.”

Jun’s next words are spoken under his breath. “Right. Friendship.” 

Soonyoung raises his hand like he’s in school. “Sorry,” he squeaks. “Is this a pitch or—an actual breakup in real time?”

“Both,” you say simultaneously with Jun.

Jun clicks his pen. “At least I’m trying.”

“Is that what this is? Trying? Looked more like derailing.”

“Better than deflecting.”

“Better than ghosting.”

Soonyoung reaches for another snack. You turn back to the board. “Let’s bring in Jeonghan for a cheeky teaser. Maybe he narrates bad firsts. First kiss, first fight, first time you find their ex’s number still in their contacts.” 

Jun exhales, sharp. “How about the first time they refused to introduce you to their friends?” 

“Not as bad as the first time they said someone else’s name during sex.” 

Soonyoung coughs, intentional and interrupting. “Wow. Okay,” he exhales. “Let’s take a break, cubs. Hydrate. Process.”

No one moves.

You cap your marker slowly. “I’ll send a write-up.”

Jun’s stiff fingers flex on the table. “Looking forward to your notes.”

–-

V. The Employer also offers the benefit of one (1) shared creative meltdown in the presence of your manager, and unlimited awkward silence thereafter.

–-

Jihoon calls you into his office with the same tone someone might use to summon a guilty terrier who’s chewed through a power cord. You arrive with your laptop and your most composed expression. You know better than to ask what this is about.

He shuts the door. Points to the chair opposite his desk. You sit. Jihoon steeples his fingers. “Soonyoung says the marketing brainstorm was intense.”

“I’d call it thorough,” you say wryly. 

“He used the words ‘emotional combat.’ Also ‘trauma-fueled campaign ideation.’”

You exhale through your nose. “We delivered on the brief.”

“Is there something I should know?”

The question hangs. You think about deflecting. About redirecting. But Jihoon’s office is too small for half-truths, and cluttered with evidence of a man who lives off structure and caffeine. You suspect he can smell lies the same way bloodhounds smell fear.

You lean back into the chair and pick out the bullet points. “Jun and I were… sort of a thing. Before. It wasn’t official. But it also wasn’t not.”

Jihoon doesn’t even blink. “Yeah,” he huffs. “I figured.”

Your brow furrows. “Then why ask?”

“I wanted to see if you’d admit it like an adult,” he replies. “You passed. Barely.”

“I’m not going to make this a disciplinary thing,” Jihoon continues, flipping through some papers just to emphasize how above it all he is. “But you have to keep it together. Finish the project. Grin and bear it.”

“I am grinning,” you mutter. “Aggressively.”

“Good. Because this is what happens when you mix personal history with professional decisions.”

You squint at him. “You mean helping a qualified former friend apply for a job and letting HR do its job?”

“See,” Jihoon says, pointing with his pen, “this is why nepotism is bad.”

You groan. “It wasn’t nepotism. We weren’t even dating. He was unemployed. I had a moment of generosity.”

“And now you have a moment of regret,” Jihoon says. “Funny how that works.”

You cross your arms. “I liked it better when you barely spoke to people.”

“Me too,” he replies. Then, almost kindly: “Finish the campaign. Keep it clean.”

You nod. He returns to his laptop without another word. You take that as your dismissal.

As you leave Jihoon’s office, you hear him grumble, just loud enough: “God, I hate romantic comedies.”

You invite Jun for coffee the way some people file restraining orders. Terse. Cold. Legally sound. “After work,” you say, passing his desk without slowing. “Fifteen minutes. Corner place with the green awning.”

Jun, understandably, looks mistrustful. “Is this a trap?”

“Only if you make it one.”

Thirteen minutes later, he shows up. Hair slightly mussed. Shirt rolled at the sleeves like he’s trying to look less guilty. It doesn’t work. You’re seated already, nursing a decaf and a dull headache.

He slides into the chair opposite you. Eyes scanning your face like you’re a riddle he once solved and forgot the answer to. “If it’s not a trap, is it a truce?” he asks outright.

“Not everything has to be war, Jun.”

“You spent half our brainstorm launching missiles.”

“Well,” you say, sipping. “Some of them were paper airplanes.”

He grimaces. “I’m not doing this sober.”

You hate it when he’s right. 

The bar you two agree on is dim and semi-functional. Exposed brick. Mismatched stools. The music sounds like it was curated by a heartbroken DJ. Jun orders a peach soju; you get the blueberry one.

“So,” he says around the rim of his soju bottle. “Where should we start?” 

“How about,” you exhale, “with your obnoxious sipping habits?” 

“My what?” 

“The way you slurp. It still gives me the ick.” 

Jun’s responding laugh is humorless. The drinks go down quickly. The second round is unnecessary and immediate. 

“Remember that fight we had about ice cream?” you ask, after he chewed you out for being emotionally unavailable and unnecessarily anal-retentive about halving bills.

Jun laughs into his glass. “You said anyone who chose mint chocolate chip was self-sabotaging.”

“And you defended it like a personal religion.”

“You called it mouthwash in disguise.”

You shrug. “Still true.”

More drinks. More memory lane. There’s a half that has teeth, that tears through the gripes and frustrations. But there’s also a half that’s almost tender, that provides a montage of why it could have worked once upon a time. 

“You kept a spare toothbrush at my place,” he says.

“You gave me a drawer.”

“You never used it.”

“You never asked why.”

Silence. Real, this time. The music changes to something softer. A song you both know. You hate that you both know it.

“I was always trying to be careful,” he says delicately. “Trying not to overstep.”

You stare at your glass. “Yeah. Well.” 

In not overstepping, Jun ended up taking no steps at all. Another silence tugs. Longer. It doesn’t bite. Just lingers.

“We were never good at timing,” he says eventually. 

“We were never good at talking.”

You expect him to push back on that. He doesn’t. For a moment, you contemplate asking the million won question. Why did you ghost me? 

Before you can, though, he’s saying something too sincere for you to ruin. “Thanks for the rec. For the job.”

“Thanks for finally thanking me,” you answer, taking a long enough sip of your soju to ignore the way your heart flutters. 

He winces, smiles. “Small steps.”

You nod.

“So, we’re okay?” he asks.

You think about it. The ghosts, the drawer, the campaign brief that cut too close. “Whatever ‘okay’ means,” you say, because you never lied to Jun; you weren’t about to start now. 

He raises his glass in a wordless cheer. You clink.

The second brainstorming session is mercifully normal.

You arrive ten minutes early, not because you’re eager but because you’ve started pre-gaming meetings with silence. Jun arrives exactly on time, not a second more, not a second less. He looks at you like he’s bracing for shrapnel. You nod like you’re not holding any.

Soonyoung plops into the seat across from you both, wearing a tiger-print shirt that says FIERCE IDEAS ONLY. You want to make fun of it. You don’t. Growth.

The meeting flows. That’s the only way to describe it. No barbs, no barbed metaphors. Jun pitches clean, clever ideas. You counter with strategy. There’s laughter. There’s alignment. There’s a genuine moment where you look at him and say, “That’s a good one.”

He smiles, appreciative and maybe even a little fond. You have to look away from it. The compliment tastes like a penny on your tongue.

“Hehe,” Soonyoung cackles, eyes flicking between the two of you. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Just your reign of chaos,” you deflect.

“Horang-haaay,” he sighs. “Anyway. Love this direction. Run with it. Make it beautiful. Make it bite.”

You do.

The presentation goes well. Soonyoung beams like a proud zookeeper. Jihoon nods once, which is his version of a standing ovation. The execs approve the romantic comedy campaign with minimal edits. There are even murmurs of early awards submissions. You pretend not to care. You care deeply.

Jun catches you after the meeting, shoulder brushing yours in the hallway. “Hey,” he says. “We made that work. Really work.”

The pride blossoms in your chest, persistent and unwelcoming. “We did.”

“So,” he starts, casual but not, “Want to grab a drink? Just us. Not like before. Or maybe not not like before. Whatever works.”

You hesitate. 

If it were anyone else, you probably wouldn’t balk. This offer isn’t a romantic advance. It’s a grabbing-a-drink-with-your-workmate-after-a-job-well-done. Unfortunately, your mind is a slideshow of late texts, half-finished thoughts, and the sound of silence where a goodbye should’ve been.

“I can’t,” you answer. Not unkind. Just honest. You give no explanation, and Jun doesn’t press even though he flinches. Wavers. As if he’s remembering his place. 

He nods slowly. “Okay,” he says with faux cheer. “Another time.”

You don’t say yes. You don’t say no. He walks away like it doesn’t sting, and you stay rooted like it does.

To ease the hurt, you take yourself to dinner like a pity party with better lighting. Your comfort place is a hole-in-the-wall Italian spot tucked between a laundromat and a locksmith, which is, frankly, how you know it’s good. The tables wobble slightly, the waitress knows your name, and the carbonara tastes like a hug from someone who never judged you for your bad taste in men.

You order your usual. Set your phone face-down, then pick it up again. Jun’s contact is open. 

You don’t remember when you opened it. Your thumb hovers over the keyboard, caught between being impulsive and being pathetic.

You almost start typing. Something like, Hey, my schedule cleared up. Drinks on me? or Were you flirting with me or am I delusional? or I’m at the place where we had our first date. At the very same table we sat at, in fact. 

Then the door chimes.

You look up.

Jun walks in. Not alone.

He’s with another intern—the one from finance, maybe? She laughs at something he says as they walk toward the back. He’s relaxed. Rolling his sleeves like he wants to look like effort. He gestures to the menu like this place wasn’t once yours.

You watch, stone-still, as he orders. You catch fragments. “You’ll love the tiramisu.” “This place is a hidden gem.” “No, seriously, the carbonara—life-changing.”

You’re vaguely aware that you’re gripping your fork too tight. You don’t name the feeling. Not jealousy. Definitely not jealousy. Just territorial spite and righteous betrayal with a dash of indigestion.

Your pasta arrives. You pick at it. Every bite feels like chewing a memory that now has someone else’s fingerprints on it. In your head, it’s a litany of fuck you Wen Junhui, fuck you Wen Junhui, fuck you Wen Junhui. 

The carbonara is wrong. Too salty. Not al dente enough. And Jun is sitting a couple of seats away, smiling at his date. Blissfully unaware that he’s ruined your comfort food for life. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Fuck you, Wen Junhui. 

You flag the check. You tip generously, because if you’re having a terrible night, then the waitress might as well have a good one. 

Jun notices you only as you brush past his table. His expression morphs mid-laugh—first surprise, then something else. His companion’s gaze flits to you, recognizing you as a senior at the company.

“Hi!” she says politely. 

You give her a tight nod. “Hello.”

Jun rises. “Wait, hey—”

But you’re already pushing past the door. The air outside is cooler than expected. He catches up halfway down the block.

“Hey,” he calls, a little breathless. “I didn’t know you were there.”

“Clearly.”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Didn’t ask.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“Oh, what, colonize my safe spaces?” You stop. Turn to him. “I didn’t realize you gave restaurant tours now. How generous.”

He runs a hand through his hair. Frustrated. “I wasn’t thinking about it like that.”

“You weren’t thinking. That tracks.”

The words hang. Sharp. Petty. 

“Don’t be rude to your not-date,” you grit out. “Haven’t you got some life-changing pasta to share?” 

You don’t wait for his reply.

You walk off, fast. The kind of walk that dares someone to follow.

He doesn’t.

That, too, tracks. 

–-

VI. The Intern is entitled to unlimited paid time off (PTO) for as long as they do not do it at bygone date spots. In light of this, the Employer may claim a lifetime of pettiness. 

–-

Soonyoung makes the announcement as if it’s a reality show reveal.

“There might be one or two interns we absorb after the cycle,” he tells the room of department heads, bouncing on the balls of his feet like this is an exciting twist instead of a budget conversation. “Jun’s doing well. Also, that other one—what's her name? Finance intern? The one who has a nice laugh.”

You freeze mid-note taking. He means the girl from the restaurant. The one who knows about the tiramisu. Your stomach coils, and your poor pen jabs into your paper a little too hard. 

You make it through the rest of the meeting on autopilot, the kind of dazed professionalism that only corporate trauma can birth. Jihoon gives you a look on the way out. You ignore it.

As expected, you’re assigned to write Jun’s intern evaluation.

It’s a task you’d normally treat like any other. Bullet points. Benchmarks. But the cursor on the blank Google Doc blinks at you like a dare. Because it’s not just about campaign contributions or interpersonal skills. It’s about putting on record what he it, or what he isn’t.

You close the tab. You’ll come back to it. Maybe. After a lobotomy.

Two days later, Jun finds you by the vending machine. “You’re evaluating me?” he says by way of greeting.

You take your time selecting a soda. The machine whirs dramatically. Maybe if you ignore him, he’ll go away. 

He proves otherwise. “Soonyoung told me,” Jun presses. “He said you’re writing my assessment.”

You procure your strawberry Fanta with deliberate coolness, fingers already toying with the metal lid. “Do you greet all potential references this way?” you say dryly. 

“I just—I figured you wouldn’t be neutral.”

That stops you. You turn, slow. “Excuse me?”

“I mean, after everything. The way we—” He gestures vaguely. “That night. The restaurant. You were pissed.”

You laugh. You can’t help it. God, what did you do in your past life to end up in a situation like this? The last of your patience snaps like a rubber band, and the words spill out of you with a kind of cutthroat that could melt tungsten. 

“I gave you a glowing recommendation, Jun,” you snipe. “I said you were sharp and collaborative and vital to the pitch. Which, in case you forgot, you were. I did my job. Maybe try doing yours.”

He gapes. You don’t stop. “You’ve been the unprofessional one here. You keep making things personal. You bring other people to restaurants that aren’t yours to share. You act like I owe you something when I don’t even owe you eye contact.”

Jun opens his mouth. Closes it again. You toss your still-full can in a nearby bin. You don’t have the appetite for anything sweet right now.

“You haven’t changed, Wen Junhui,” you bite out—the last word, huzzah!—before walking off.

It’s not the cleanest exit, but it’s something final. And right now, that’s all you have.

Jun pretends like nothing happened.

You’re not surprised. Denial is practically his native language. He nods at you in meetings, leaves polite spaces between you in the break room. He’s mastered the art of the neutral expression, the kind that suggests nothing has ever gone wrong. That everything is fine.

Then a package arrives at your desk.

No note. Just a brown paper bag tied up with string, like something out of a middle school crush fantasy. Inside, nestled in tissue paper, is a bouquet.

Of ballpens.

Dozens of them, in your preferred brand and ink weight. All black, all clicky. Not one of them chewed, cracked, or snapped in half—yet.

You stare at them like they’re a coded message. Maybe they are.

Jun used to tease you about it. How you went through pens like breath mints. How he’d hear the telltale crack of a barrel and look over to find you sheepish, a half-dismembered pen in hand. Once, he said he was going to buy you a box just to see how long it would take you to kill them all. You laughed and told him that was the most romantic thing he’d ever said.

You use one of the pens in the next meeting. On purpose. Jun notices. You can see it in the flick of his eyes, the way he registers it with a twitch of his mouth that isn’t quite a smile.

After, as people are clearing out, he lingers.

“That one working okay?” he asks.

You click it. Unclick. Click again. “Still alive,” you say. “No casualties yet.”

He nods. You don’t say thank you. He doesn’t say sorry.

All the same, it hangs there, between you. The closest either of you has come to being a decent person.

–-

VII. The Intern will respect all intellectual property of the Company, and in return, the Company will provide necessary tools for productivity—and occasional forgiveness.

–-

The interns are tasked with planning the company party to cap off the end of their rotation. It’s meant to be a fun assignment. Low-stakes. High morale. Naturally, it turns into an emotional landmine.

Jun, for reasons you pretend not to think too deeply about, takes the lead.

He delegates well. Manages expectations. Schedules with military precision. In the end, what catches your attention is the uncanny accuracy of his planning decisions.

The venue is one of your favorites. The playlist includes that one obscure indie-pop band you once had on repeat. The snacks avoid all your known aversions—no olives, no red velvet, no sad carrot sticks masquerading as party food.

You raise an eyebrow when he unveils the plan in the department-wide meeting. He doesn’t look at you directly, but when you glance his way, he winks. Later, when everyone’s clapping for the effort, you wait for him to slide into the seat next to yours. You lean over and mumble, taunt just for him, “Stalker.” 

He raises one shoulder in a shrug. “I shadowed you for two weeks. I’m observant.”

The party is in a week, which is probably why you run into him at the grocery store later that night, arms full of sparkling water and overpriced string lights.

You’re already in line, clutching a frozen meal and a bottle of wine that screams dinner-for-one. He falls in behind you, a little breathless, a little smug.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says.

“Is that rosemary sea salt popcorn?” you ask, peering into his basket. “Wow. Intern budgets have really changed since my day.”

He grins. “Only the best for Carat Company.”

You point at a tub of hummus. “That brand’s terrible. Too tangy.”

“Noted,” he says, and swaps it out for another without fanfare.

You don’t know what makes you say it—maybe the buzz of fluorescent lights, maybe the way he’s stacking paper plates like it’s an art form—but you tilt your head and ask, “Bringing a date?”

Jun doesn’t miss a beat. “Nope.”

“Finance intern not free?”

“She’s got better taste than me,” he says. Then, a little more tentatively: “Position’s still open, if you’re interested.”

You click your tongue. Before you can think better of it, a responding flirtation breaks free. “I could be convinced.”

Jun giggles, quick and honest. He tries to cover it with a cough, but he’s still smiling as he sets down his basket.

The next couple of days unfold with unnerving ease. You tell yourself it’s just the party approaching, just everyone being unusually cooperative for once. But there’s a rhythm to the way you and Jun move around each other now—a familiarity that feels inherited. Like muscle memory. Like relapsing. 

You catch him finishing your sentences, anticipating your notes in meetings, handing you the pen you’re about to ask for before the words even leave your mouth. It’s annoying. It’s also disarming.

You’re in the office late one evening, finalizing a last-minute asset for the event. A print layout no one else had the brain cells to catch. Most of the floor’s lights have gone dark, save for your corner, glowing sterile and soft. But Jun’s still there too, cross-legged on the carpet like he lives here, surrounded by poster tubes and tangled cable wires, wielding a stapler with the intensity of a man on the edge.

“You know we have tape, right?” you say, leaning against the copy room door frame, sipping cold coffee that tastes like regret. 

He glances up, squints. “Yeah. Tape’s a coward’s tool.”

You snort. It sounds like something he would’ve said back when you were sharing fries and arguments on your living room floor, when evenings blurred into 2a.m. discussions about plot holes in movies and whether hotdog sandwiches were burgers.

“Besides,” he adds, popping a staple in with too much flair, “this is more permanent. It says, I commit.”

You raise an eyebrow. “To the banner?”

“To the bit,” he says, deadpan.

You roll your eyes and go back to your screen, but your grin lingers longer than you want it to.

He offers you a ride home. Says it casually, like it’s a weather update. You accept. Too casually. Like you haven’t already memorized the way his dashboard lights flicker, or how he drives five over the limit.

In his car, it’s too quiet. The AUX cable is broken. His windows fog slightly from the humidity. The air smells like mint gum, vinyl from a new car freshener, and something else—something old. You give him the directions without thinking, because they haven’t changed. Neither has the weight that settles in your chest when he takes each turn with instinctive precision.

Outside your apartment, the silence hovers. “Thanks for the ride,” you say, hand on the door handle, already half-gone. Trying very, very hard not to think about the dozens of other times this ride has happened, and how each of them ended the same way. 

He doesn’t answer for a moment. He just watches you, head tilted slightly like he’s solving a puzzle or waiting for permission. You face him, nose scrunching with mild confusion. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says. 

And then he kisses you.

It’s not sudden, but it still surprises you. Your body forgets to protest, forgets the smart thing to do, forgets the narrative you’ve been building for weeks about being over this. His mouth is warm, and patient, and frustratingly familiar. The kind of kiss that bypasses logic. The kind that knows too much.

You kiss him back. Automatically. Completely. As if no time has passed. As if the ghosting, the tension, the HR talks and overused pens never happened. Just mouths and memory and momentum.

It isn’t until you break apart—his thumb still barely touching your jaw, breath heavy in the space between—that you hear yourself say, “What are you doing?”

He exhales a laugh, like he’s embarrassed. “Convincing you.” A beat. “Is it working?”

The panic rises in your throat like bile. You’re not sure what you’re about to throw up—regret, probably. But for what? Which part? 

You don’t know the answer to that question. And so you peel away from a confused Jun, and you open the car door. The night air rushes in, cool and intrusive. You get out without a word.

He doesn’t follow. Doesn’t call after you. You don’t know what you’d want him to say, anyway. For once, you’re grateful that Wen Junhui has never chased after you when it counts. 

The morning after, you walk into the office like nothing happened. Which is to say: you walk in five minutes late with a coffee too hot for your tongue and sunglasses still on because your soul isn’t ready for fluorescent light.

You make yourself a promise. You will not acknowledge the kiss. You will not dwell. You will do what Jun did months ago. You will ghost in broad daylight.

It feels very mature.

Except, unlike Jun, you have to see him at the printer. And at the shared snack drawer. And at the joint team huddle where Soonyoung teaches everybody how to this weird, new hand gesture he picked up on. 

Jun keeps looking at you. That too-familiar softness, that edge of disappointment creeping around the corners of his mouth like he expected better from you. You don’t return the look. You don’t even return the stapler he loaned you yesterday. If professionalism is a hill to die on, then consider your gravestone already drafted.

Two days pass. You think you’ve successfully rewritten history until Jun corners you by the vending machine. Again. Before you can half-joke we have got to stop meeting like this, Jun is already snipping at the strings of your defenses. 

“Is this revenge?” he asks, low voice, eyes scanning your face.

Your hand hovers over the button for salted almonds. “What?”

“This,” he gestures vaguely at the space between you, which has become somehow both intimate and unbearable. “You pretending like it didn’t happen. Like the kiss didn’t happen.”

You choose the almonds. Not because you want them, but because silence is at least with vending machine clatter.

“You kissed me back,” he says. Almost an accusation. 

You shrug. It’s not as nonchalant as you probably want it to be. “People kiss. It’s a thing.”

Jun recoils, and something like white-hot guilt flashes through you. You douse it as Jun huffs out his next words with poorly-concealed offense, “Wow. Is this what being the bigger person looks like now?”

You pocket the almonds. “Well, you always said I was good at taking notes.”

His jaw flexes. Hurt flashes in his eyes before he smooths it over with a tired smile. “Right. Got it.”

You don’t stop him when he walks away. For the both of you, it’s a lesson learned. Turns out, the taste of your own medicine is bitter. 

And, sometimes, it comes with a side of overpriced almonds.

–-

VIII. The Employee acknowledges that emotional clarity is not listed among official job responsibilities, and therefore will not be provided under Company policy.

–-

The company party is held at a rented rooftop bar with fairy lights, questionable shrimp cocktails, and cheap beer masquerading as an open bar. Someone’s playlist is stuck on a loop of early 2010s hits, and there’s a half-deflated inflatable swan in the punch bowl. It’s all very on-brand. 

There are icebreaker games, a makeshift red carpet, and a cardboard cutout of Soonyoung in a tiger costume posing with the slogan: ROAR FOR Q4! It is, in every way, excessive.

You don a black silk blouse tucked into tailored high-waist trousers, sharp and clean and the only ironed thing in your apartment. Your lipstick is a soft red. Strategic, not romantic. You wear your hair up, simple earrings, and shoes that are just shy of painful. You look like someone who planned not to linger.

Jun shows up in a white button-down with sleeves rolled past his elbows, collar slightly askew like he got halfway ready and forgot to care. There’s a wine-colored blazer slung over one shoulder and, unfairly, it works. He has the ease of someone who didn’t expect to be watched yet somehow is.

You avoid each other all night with the precision of two people still nursing unspoken sentences. You talk to other departments. He lingers around the interns. Jihoon drinks exactly one cocktail, makes direct eye contact with you for three seconds too long, and vanishes like The Judgmental Ghost of Situationship’s Past.

The party buzzes on. There’s a chocolate fountain that no one trusts and a dance floor that Soonyoung won’t leave. There’s a photo booth filled with props from last year’s pirate-themed anniversary campaign. You find yourself laughing at something someone from Legal says, and immediately hate that it reminds you of how Jun used to make you laugh just like that—like you were surprised by it.

It’s going fine. Almost.

Until the awards begin. Soonyoung, of course, is the MC, beaming with chaotic delight. “And now,” he grins, pausing for effect, “for the honorary award for Best Enemies-to-Lovers Plot Unfolding in Real Time…”

You blink. Jun blinks. You both know how this film is going to end, and sure enough, Soonyoung is screeching your name and Jun’s. 

There are cheers. Some gasps. Mostly laughter. You rise with the grace of someone preparing for emotional war. Jun’s already on his feet, giving you that look like this is either his worst nightmare or his best bit. Possibly both.

Onstage, you are handed a trophy of a basketball player bought from the dollar store around the corner. You and Jun pose awkwardly for a photo as a chant of Speech! Speech! Speech! resounds in the crowd. 

You contemplate handing in your two week’s notice tomorrow.

Under string lights and scrutiny, you take the mic first. “I’d like to thank HR for not firing either of us,” you say for the lack of better thing to say. 

Polite chuckles. Someone from the Events team yells, “Not yet!”

Jun takes the mic next. “And I’d like to thank, uh, Soonyoung. For teaching me what a ‘horanghae’ is. Seriously, it’s done immeasurable damage to my vocabulary.”

Louder laughter. A few whoops. You both smile too hard, too bright, too fake. 

Later, you spot him near the edge of the bar, half-shadowed by a potted ficus. He’s slipping away. Classic Jun, retreating mid-scene. 

You excuse yourself before you think too hard about it. You follow him down a stairwell half-lit by emergency bulbs, the music above thumping faintly through concrete. He hears your steps before you speak.

“You always leave like this?” you ask.

He turns, hands in his pockets. His expression—initially closed-off, ready to bolt—creaks open ever so slightly. “I didn’t think you’d notice,” he answers. 

“Can’t help it.”

He looks at you like it hurts. Like you’re saying too much without saying enough. “Is this the part where you ask me why I’m leaving?”

You fold your arms over your chest, over the maddening beat of your heart. “No,” you breathe. “I want to know why you left.”

You don’t care about tonight. Jun could leave this party and never look back at The Carat Company, and you wouldn’t blame him. You care about the way his texts stopped coming in, the way it was radio silence for weeks. How he didn’t even come to take back his things, so you made the executive decision to donate them to a thrift shop like it might somehow make you feel better about yourself. 

Jun exhales, long and tired. He shifts from one foot to another. For a moment, you think he’s going to make a run for it. 

He doesn’t. 

“I didn’t think I could be enough,” he says, finally. “Not for you. Not for the version of you that has her life together, who writes like a scalpel and moves like she’s never tripped over anything in her life. I didn’t want to hold you back. I didn’t want to be another unfinished thing in your life.”

When Jun had gotten laid off his previous job, he’d fallen into a rut that you tried so hard to get him out of. You sent him motivational LinkedIn posts. You pointed out Harvard courses and helped him scour JobStreet. All the while, you were working your ass off at The Carat Company. Coming home burnt out but still willing to help him back on his feet. 

You hadn’t realized how that might’ve looked like for him. You hadn’t seen the cracks, stretching like spiderwebs over his fragile male ego. Obscuring the reason why you did it all in the first place. 

Love. Crazy, stupid love. You clear your throat, refusing to let the rage tip out of you. Some of it bleeds into your incredulous question, anyway.  “So you decided for me?”

His shoulders flinch. “I was scared.”

“You don’t get to do that,” you say, your attempt at being cool fracturing. “You don’t get to leave me, then show back up like a better man, when the truth is—you didn’t even let me choose.”

He looks at you, stunned. “I—”

“No,” you say, stepping forward. “Who I want to suffer for is my call.” 

This time, you kiss him. 

It’s not clean. It’s not soft. It’s messy and fierce and fueled by months of bitterness and longing, of misspoken lines and things unsaid. His hands find your waist like they’ve never left it. Your mouth moves like a dare. There’s a wall at his back, and your chest at his front, and none of this feels professional at all.

It feels like something finally falling into place. Or breaking open.

Jun’s car is parked two levels down, the far corner of a concrete lot that smells like rain, gasoline, and the ghost of things unsaid. It’s far from the rooftop’s sticky laughter and company-wide inebriation. A hush broken only by the soft echo of your heels and the low, restless rhythm of your breathing. His, too.

You’re kissing again by the time you get nearer to the car.  This time, it’s slower. Hungrier. The kind of kiss that drags a sound out of him—half-sigh, half-swear. 

Jun groans into your mouth, hands moving instinctively. One finds your jaw, the other your waist, fingers curling with intent. Your back hits the side of his car with a quiet thud. You smile against his mouth, sharp and satisfied.

“You gonna run again?” you mumble, voice low, all edge.

He shakes his head, dazed. “Not unless you tell me to.”

“Good,” you say, fingers slipping under the hem of his shirt, grazing hot skin. “Then shut up and get in the car.”

He listens. He always did know how to listen when it mattered.

The door slams shut, muffling the world. The air smells like him—clean linen, faint spice, something faintly sweet beneath it. The dash glows dim. Your blouse is unbuttoned by the time you straddle him, knees digging into the leather seat. He fumbles to push his seat back farther, and you don’t wait. You settle on his thighs, hungry hands pushing his shirt up, over his head.

His eyes are already wild. Chest bare. Breath uneven. Like he can’t quite believe this is happening. You kiss him again, rougher this time, teeth grazing his bottom lip. He gasps.

“You want this?” he asks, voice cracked, part awe, part fear.

You lean in, lips brushing his ear. “I need this.”

Clothes are tossed somewhere in the front seat—jacket, trousers, shirt, all lost to heat and haste. Your fingers fumble with his belt; he helps, hands shaking. You lift your hips, letting him drag your trousers down, your underwear already damp and sticking to your thighs. His knuckles brush the inside of your legs as he pulls them off, slow and reverent, then not-so-slow.

His fingers ghost along your inner thigh, then between your legs, slipping through slick heat. He exhales like it guts him.

“Still so wet for me,” he breathes, voice shredded. “How are you still so wet?”

You take his hand, guide his fingers to your lips, and suck your own slick clean. Your eyes on his the entire time. The sharp, guttural sound he makes is a reward in its own right.

The kiss that follow doesn’t end so much as it fractures. Broken by breath, by the heat of your thighs still spread over his lap, by the way your hips keep shifting like you haven’t quite had your fill.

Jun exhales sharply when you pull back. His mouth is swollen, his chest rising and falling like he ran a mile, and his hands—God, his hands—don’t stop touching you. One strokes your thigh, the other drifts higher, sliding back between your legs.

He groans, thumb dragging through your slick, and you shudder. “You always get like this,” he whispers, like it’s a secret meant only for you. “I touch you and you… fuck, you melt for me.”

You grind into his palm, voice already too hoarse to feign nonchalance. “Don’t pretend you’re in control right now.”

His eyes flick up, wide and wrecked. “I’m not,” he laughs. “Not even close.”

His fingers slip in. Two at once, with a stretch that makes your eyes flutter. You gasp, back arching, one arm braced against the seat in front of him as he starts to work you open. Slow. Deep. A rhythm that feels almost reverent, like he’s savoring this. Like he’s making up for every missed chance.

“So warm,” he grunts, forehead pressed to your collarbone. “So perfect.”

You reach down to find his cock still half-hard and twitching. Your fingers wrap around him, familiar with the way he likes to be touched, with how he reacts when you drag your thumb just under the head. He shudders. Moans. His hand falters inside you.

“Don’t—don’t do that,” he stammers.

You smile, sharp and smug. “Why not?” 

You jerk him slow, just enough to keep him on the edge. His eyes flutter. His mouth opens, breath catching on every exhale as your hand works him while his fingers fuck into you.

This is how it used to be, back when it was messy and undefined, back when you still pretended this didn’t mean something. His hands in your pants after a long day at work. Your mouth on him in a shared shower.  But this is different. Sharper. Hungrier. The way he looks at you now—it isn’t casual. It’s not temporary.

His lips graze your jaw. His voice cracks. “You feel so good,” he says, his words slurred with pleasure, “s-so good. I can’t think.” 

You lean closer, nipping at his throat. “Don’t think. Just give me your fingers.”

He does. He gives you everything. Curling deeper, pressing harder, stretching you out until you clench around him and gasp, nails digging into the side of his neck. “Shit,” you whisper. “There, please. Right there.”

He moans, like he’s the one being burned alive. His hips jerk up into your palm. “So polite,” he says affectionately, placing a quick kiss to your shoulder before going on, “You’re gonna come for me, baby? Huh? Just on my fingers?”

You grind down, breath punching out of you. The pleasure coils hot and fast in your stomach, that dizzy, electric pull that tells you you’re about to break. When you register that the old pet name had slipped out of him—baby—you shatter.

It hits you all at once. Tight, breathless, a wave crashing through your spine and curling your toes. Your moan rips through the silence, raw and wild, as you pulse around him.

Jun curses under his breath. Even as you climax, your hand hasn’t stopped moving. He trembles, thighs tight beneath you. “Fuck, stop, stop—please, I’ll come,” he pants. “I’ll come and I’m not inside you yet. Please.”

You still your hand, fingers flexing around the base of his cock. His hips twitch anyway, desperate. His head falls back against the seat, jaw slack, chest heaving.

You watch him. The boy you almost had. The man who’s trying not to lose you now.

“You good?” you ask, voice low. Fond. Worried. 

He nods, swallowing hard. “Barely,” he croaks. “Need you.”

You lean in, mouth grazing his. “You’ve got me,” you promise, and it’s the truest thing you’ve said all night. 

The second your hand lifts from his cock, Jun fumbles between your thighs with shaking fingers, lining himself up. His touch is clumsy, reverent, desperate. His breath hitches when the head of his cock drags against your slick, catching at your entrance.

“Fuck, yes,” he gasps, the sound raw, like he’s already too close.

You sink onto him in one motion.

It’s not graceful, not slow. It’s greedy.

Your body takes him deep, full, stretched wide around him in a single sharp thrust that leaves you both dazed. His head snaps back, mouth open in a moan that cuts off halfway, swallowed by the thud of your hips meeting. “Jesus Christ,” he chokes out. “You’re—fuck. Fuck. You’re perfect.”

Your nails dig into his shoulders, anchoring yourself. The leather creaks beneath your knees. You don’t wait, don’t answer. You ride him fast, rough, punishing—like you need him to feel just how badly you've wanted this.

His hands scramble to keep up, one sliding to your waist, the other gripping your thigh, then your ass, then back again. He can’t seem to pick where he wants to touch you, so he settles for everywhere.

“You’re taking me so good,” he groans, eyes flicking down to where you’re joined, completely lost in it. “So fucking deep. Missed this. Missed you.”

You grind down harder, pace unrelenting. “You missed me, or just my pussy?” you bite out, even as a moan escapes.

He laughs, broken and breathless. “Both. Don’t make me choose.”

You lean in and kiss him, open-mouthed and hungry, your teeth dragging against his bottom lip before you suck it into your mouth. His hands tighten, fingertips bruising. Your hips roll, bounce, grind. Every motion is intentional. Relentless. He’s twitching inside you already.

He lets out a strangled sound when you clench around him. “Trying to—hng—ruin me?” he whimpers, forehead pressed to yours.

“You’re doing that all on your own,” you exhale before chasing his lips. 

The car rocks. Windows fog. Sweat beads at your spine, your thighs, the crease of his neck where you bury your face to muffle a cry.

He’s fucking up into you now, meeting every downward slam of your hips with a thrust that has you seeing stars. His rhythm is messier than you remember, but it’s probably the moment. The setting. The reunion. 

“Gonna come,” he warns, voice wrecked. “Shit—baby, please.”

You pull back, lips brushing his ear. “Then do it,” you whisper. “Come—ah—inside me. Make a mess, baby.”

His whole body jerks. His fingers dig in. He groans deep in his chest like it hurts to hold on. You don’t let up.

Your pace gets rougher. Sloppier. He’s moaning, practically whimpering. The kind of sounds you’ve only ever pulled from him when he’s too far gone to pretend. “You sound wrecked,” you pant, dragging your nails down his chest. “You close, baby?”

He nods, dazed, unable to speak.

You fuck down harder. Grind meaner. Your clit drags against the base of him and your whole body tenses. It hits you without warning—full-body and sudden. Your orgasm crashes through you like a wave, ripping your breath away as your muscles seize around him.

He cries out, high and choked. His hips stutter. “Wait—wait, fuck, baby, stop—please,” he pleads, voice cracking. “Need this to last. Need to have you for longer.”

You freeze, panting against his mouth.

He’s trembling.

“Alright?” you ask.

He nods, frantic. “Yeah. Yeah. I just—don’t want this to end.”

You stroke his cheek, your body still sensitive in aftershocks.

He looks up at you, eyes glassy, lips kiss-bruised. “I used to dream about this,” he says, voice barely there. “After we... you know. Dreamt of having you again. But it never felt like this.”

“Like what?”

He swallows. “Like I could lose you if I didn’t hold on tight enough.”

The sincerity bowls you over, so you kiss him again. This time, you slow down. Not because you want to, but because you know you’re both too close to let it end like that.

Your next words are a tremble against his lips. “Don’t leave. Not this time."

“I won’t,” he answers without missing a beat.  

You don’t move for a moment. Just sit there, full of him, your body still trembling with aftershocks, hips twitching every few seconds like your muscles don’t know it’s over. Jun’s forehead rests against your sternum, his breath hot and uneven against your skin, his grip around your waist just this side of desperate.

You let it stretch. The quiet. The weight. The ache.

The car is still and humid, your skin sticking slightly where it meets his. All you can hear is the slow, syncopated rhythm of your breath tangled with his. Every now and then, your body clenches around him involuntarily, dragging tiny, startled sounds from both your throats.

After a couple of minutes, you start to move again. Just a slow, idle grind of your hips. Gentle. Lazy. The kind of roll that shouldn’t mean anything, but still makes you both react. A twitch from him. A flutter from you. You do it again. Then again. Just enough pressure. Just enough friction to keep you grounded in it.

He whimpers quietly, head tilting up to look at you through damp lashes. “This is torture.” 

You smile. Kiss his temple, almost laughingly. “I always did like making your life hard.” 

Jun huffs something like a laugh, more breath than voice. His hand curls around the back of your neck, thumb stroking over your pulse. The other traces down to your thigh, fingers dragging along the crease with slow reverence. You keep rocking gently, almost absentminded. Not fucking. Not chasing. Just—resting. Keeping him there. Letting him feel all of you, even in stillness.

It’s unfairly intimate, how your body fits against his like it remembers how. The arch of your spine molded to the shape of his chest, your forehead resting against the curve of his jaw, your hands cradling his face when you lift it.

His heartbeat pounds beneath your palm, too fast. Too vulnerable. “Can I…” he starts, voice cautious, almost shy.

You lift a brow. “Can you what?”

“Take some of the control. Just for a bit.”

It kills you. That he has to ask. That he still doesn’t think you’d give him the world. “Of course,” you say, the word murmured against the corner of his mouth. “Take me.” 

He doesn’t answer. His grip on your ass tightens, fingers digging into the supple fleshed. “Baby,” he says, wrecked and serious, “I’ve been dreaming of fucking you properly since the day I left.” 

Your teeth grazes his lips. “Do it, then,” you hum. 

And he does.

He plants his feet. Braces himself. Then lifts you slightly and thrusts up hard, cock dragging deep, unforgiving. The breath punches out of you like a hit. Your hands scramble for purchase on his shoulders, your head falling forward.

He does it again. And again. Brutal. Precise. Each upward slam meets the drag of your body grinding down, slick and hot and soaked with all the aftermath he’s still pulsing inside.

“That’s it,” he growls, his breath ragged. “Let me fuck you. Let me make you feel it.”

You let him.

You go pliant in his hands, let him chase the tempo, his rhythm messy but deep. Every thrust is a reminder of what you both lost and what he’s begging for now.

He fucks up into you like he’s trying to chase every unsaid apology down your spine. The car rocks with the motion. His arms strain with effort, sweat slipping between your bodies, your skin slapping wetly together with every filthy thrust.

“You’re unreal,” he moans. “So good. So fucking good. I forgot how you feel. I forgot how you sound when I—”

“You didn’t forget,” you cut in, panting. “You just—hng—thought you could survive without it.”

He whines at that. Literally whines. You tighten around him and his hips stutter.

The pressure rises again. Slower this time. No sharp edge. Just steady, building tension in your core. Your muscles twitch with each thrust, your chest pressed to his, damp and heaving.

Jun kisses you hard, tongue hot and desperate. “I wanna feel you come again,” he begs against your mouth. “Please. Please, baby. One more. Give it to me."

You nod, but it’s not conscious. Your body answers before your mouth can.

It crashes into you, serrated and mean. Your third orgasm claws through your nerves, your thighs clamping down around his waist as you cry out into his neck. It’s overwhelming. Scalding. Your body trembles, every inch of you unraveling in his hands.

That’s all he needs. He groans, deep and undone, shoving into you one last time and staying there. His whole body goes tight, shakes. You cup his face. Make him look at you.

The thought occurs to you for the nth time: Jun is so pretty when he comes. 

Even if he does it with a raw, wounded sound. He pulses deep inside you, buried as far as he can get, and you swear you can feel him shaking with it. Like it guts him. Like it saves him.

He clings to you afterward. Breathing hard. Drenched and unraveled.

You don’t say anything. You just stay. Let him hold you. Let him come back to you, slowly but surely.

Because this time, he isn’t running. And for once, neither are you.

The next morning, though, you wake to the absence of weight.

That’s the first thing you notice.

The second is the shape of your own anxiety, curling low in your chest, familiar as a bad habit. The other side of the bed is empty. The sheets are rumpled and cooling. There’s a single long strand of hair caught in the pillowcase. Not yours.

For a moment, you just stare at it. Then you look around. Bedroom door open. A thin shaft of light bleeds in from the hallway.

You don’t call out. You don’t move. You just go very, very still.

This is, after all, a familiar pattern. Boy meets girl. Boy runs away. Girl pretends she doesn’t notice until it’s convenient to feel something about it. The air smells like sex and detergent. The ceiling has a crack in it that you keep forgetting to report to the landlord. Your throat is dry.

Then Jun reappears.

Towel low on his hips, toothbrush in hand. He stops short in the doorway, mid-step, and you watch the exact moment he realizes what his absence must’ve looked like. The moment the air shifts. The look on your face must be something, because his shoulders drop in a slow exhale and his voice goes soft.

“Hey. I didn’t leave,” he says, swallowing his toothpaste—what a fucking psycho—before setting his tooth brush on to the nearest flat surface. “Just went to brush my teeth."

You raise an eyebrow. Try to mask the little betrayal that had already crept in. “You know, most people announce their morning survival before disappearing,” you say. “It’s customary.” 

Jun winces. “You’re right. I should’ve said something. I just didn’t want to wake you.”

You sit up, sheets falling to your waist. Your body aches in a way that feels earned. Your hair is a mess after the two, maybe three rounds that you and Jun had when he fell into your bed last night. You don’t care enough to hide the overthinking.

“You could’ve left a note,” you say. Half-serious, half-joking. “Or a sock on the door. A smoke signal.”

He laughs, crosses to the side of the bed. Drops the towel a little lower on purpose, the menace. “Noted. Next time I disappear into the bathroom, I’ll launch a full PR campaign.”

You narrow your eyes. “See that you do.”

His hand lifts to your face, thumb dragging just under your cheekbone. “I’m here,” he says, plain and simple as a promise. And he means it.

Maybe it’s stupid that you believe him. Maybe it’s messier than it should be, that you’re even in this place, in this bed, with this boy again.

But his hand is warm. His mouth is soft when he kisses your forehead. And when he climbs back in bed to hold you to him, you don’t say no. 

It’s a Saturday, so the two of you let the sun climb high enough to slice through your blinds. You’d move, but Jun is draped over you like a weighted blanket with abandonment issues. It’s clingy in a way that would be annoying if it weren’t also stupidly comforting. 

His leg is thrown across yours. His arm is a dead weight on your stomach. He smells like your shampoo and the faint citrus of your soap, and the whole thing is either domestic bliss or a very elaborate trap.

His fingers are tucked into the curve of your hip, not moving, just there. A quiet claim. As if anchoring himself will stop time or stop you from thinking of endings.

You’re not even annoyed, which is suspicious. You should be cataloging all the reasons this is a bad idea. Cross-department entanglements, your no-office-romance policy (written internally, unspoken externally), the sheer HR nightmare of it all. Instead, you’re memorizing the rhythm of his breathing.

“So,” he says after a long moment, voice still scratchy with sleep, mouth near your collarbone, "they offered me a job."

You blink at the ceiling. The fan clicks. One of the blades wobbles slightly. “‘They’ being The Carat Company.”

He nods into your shoulder. You feel the curve of his smile before you see it. It’s smug and sleepy and dangerous—a combination that should come with a warning label.

You hum. Neutral. “That’s… a choice.”

Jun shifts. Enough to glance up at you, catching your expression with lazy amusement. It’s probably somewhere between polite support and visible internal shrieking. “Wow,” he murmurs. “You are doing an excellent job of pretending that doesn’t horrify you."

You sigh, staring at the water-stained patch on your ceiling. “I just think our HR department is one passive-aggressive email away from imploding, and I’m not sure I want to share a copier with someone who’s seen me naked.”

He chuckles. Kisses your shoulder. “That’s fair. But relax. I’m not taking it.”

You pause. Blink. Turn your head just enough to catch his face. “You’re not?”

He shakes his head, pulling back slightly, grinning like a man who knows he’s about to get a dramatic reaction. You squint at him. "So?"

“Sebong offered me something better.”

Record scratch. Full stop. You sit up slightly, sheet dragging across your chest. “Sebong Corporation? Our most flamboyant and passive-aggressive rival?”

“The very same.”

You purse your lips. “The one that sent us cupcakes during Q3 just to say ‘Sorry about your metrics’?”

Jun grins. “A plus for petty. But yeah, they want me.”

“You’re going corporate spy now? Love that for you,” you jab. “Can you wear a wire to our next team sync?"

He shrugs, undeterred by your sarcasm as a coping mechanism. “They offered better pay, better benefits. Free espresso on every floor.”

You make a sound of mock envy. “Now you’re just bragging.”

“I am,” he adds, with that soft arrogance only he can pull off without getting slapped. “I think I’m gonna take it.”

“Why?”

He looks at you with the kind of gaze that burns just a little. Like he’s searching for a permission he already knows you’ll give. Then he says it. The same thing he said when he waltzed back into your life, self-assured and saccharine. 

“It’s the best, isn’t it?” Jun says. “And I always want the best.”

You roll your eyes so hard your ancestors probably feel it. But something in your chest stutters. This time, the words land different. Softer. Honest in a way that makes your ribs ache.

He’s making a concession. He’s doing something to make this, make the two of you, possible. 

He’s calling you something he wants, and calling you the best, in the same breath.  

Jun leans in, presses his forehead to yours, nose brushing yours like an apology. When he kisses you, it tastes like toothpaste and devotion. And also maybe like something terrifyingly close to commitment.

You lie there for a while. Wrapped in warmth and silence and the complicated calculus of wanting things that feel big and breakable. Like him. Like this. Like futures you haven’t even said out loud yet.

At some point, Jun shifts behind you, arms tightening around your middle. His chin rests in the crook of your neck, breath brushing your skin.

“You okay with it?” he asks.

You shrug. “I mean, it’s marginally better than you working across the hall from me and flirting over the printer queue.”

“We’d both get nothing done.”

“Exactly. Chaos.”

Jun kisses the back of your shoulder again. It’s like he can’t stop kissing you, like he can’t believe he can do it all again. Somewhere in the quiet that follows, your brain writes the paperwork.

--

This Employment Contract (“Agreement”) is made between Wen Junhui (“Boyfriend”), and you.

WHEREAS the Boyfriend agrees to remain shirtless in your apartment at least three mornings per week, and to bring the good coffee whenever you run out;

WHEREAS emotional transparency shall be upheld with the same rigor as quarterly reporting, including but not limited to: post-sex vulnerability, Sunday-night anxiety debriefs, and one (1) designated safe word for moments of self-sabotage;

WHEREAS both parties are permitted one (1) bad take per fiscal quarter, to be gently corrected and never mentioned again;

THEREFORE, both parties agree to exclusive rights to back scratches, late-night ramen runs, shared Spotify queues, and slow dancing in the kitchen when neither of you feels like cooking;

FURTHERMORE, cuddling shall not be used as a diversion tactic during emotionally intense conversations, unless unanimously approved by both parties in advance.

Effective immediately. Benefits include forehead kisses, a stupid amount of texting, sleeping on opposite sides but always ending up tangled, emergency ice cream runs, and never having to go to office parties alone.

[wyngigi]

this chapter is for the rorwoo truthers and enthusiasts❤️

‘after all the boys and girls that we’ve been through, could you give it all up if i promise to you, that i’ll never talk again, and i’ll never love again’

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➳ college!teez x fem!reader (oc) - nice for what cast ➳ 7.9k (part six of ???) ➳ 18+, sexual content, drugs/alcohol, college life, all the drama, angst, mentions of anxiety/depression… IF I MISSED ANYTHING PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

september 21st ~ sunday ~ 1:45 pm

{three men and a baby}

[tae bae]: tell me why yunho and aurora walked into blend together ordered together and sat together at t h a t booth…

[kee]: how dare you send this scenario in this groupchat

[tae bae]: i’m serious.

[tae bae]: *1 Attachment*

[wooyo <3]: Holy shit??????

[wooyo <3]: She’s m.i.a all morning and this is what happens?????

[kee]: her dinner was last night we don’t even get to hear about that first and we’re here

[wooyo <3]: Ro moves fast are we surprised

[kee]: no especially since it’s yunho

[tae bae]: guys he loves her so much, i can see it, and i’ve been seeing it. you both can’t see the way he’s listening to her, ugh.

[wooyo <3]: Keep an eye on them

[kee]: yeah let us know if you need backup babe

[tae bae]: i’m gonna bring them more coffee… gonna see if i can hear what they’re talking about…

september 21st ~ sunday ~ 2:23 pm

[tae bae]: oh it’s on. it’s so on. he said, and i quote, ‘it’s over? you’re mine?’

[wooyo <3]: Possessive much?

[kee]: awh

[wooyo <3]: No awh, that’s weird.

[kee]: give it up, she wants him, he wants her

[wooyo <3]: Okay, first of all, rude. Second of all, there is nothing to give up, Keeho, it’s done. As Yunho said, it’s over.

[kee]: hehe yeah okaaaaay whatever you say

[wooyo <3]: ENOUGH

[wooyo <3]: Where’d Theo go, get back here please, update.

[tae bae]: hang on princess, some of her sisters just got here

september 21st ~ sunday ~ 2:41 pm

[tae bae]: think we’ve got a problem.

[wooyo <3]: What.

[wooyo <3]: What happened

[kee]: am i getting in my car

[kee]: taeyang

[kee]: taeyang.

[kee]: TAE

[tae bae]: sorry, talking to shota. ror and yunho just left, they didn’t even say bye to me. all her sorority girls are still here. something happened at the frat, i don’t know, i can’t get words out of my brother. he’s really upset. 

[you]: someone has a video of me. allegedly. tae you can tell soul he has one hour to speak or he’s dead to me.

september 21st ~ sunday ~ 3:00 pm

“It can’t be that bad.”

Scoffing, you sunk further down his leather seat and groaned. “Why must there always be something.”

Yunho reached a hand over and slipped it behind your neck, digging his thumb and his finger into the muscle while he focused on the road. “I’m telling you, it can’t be that bad.”

“You don’t know that,” you muttered, then threw your hands up. “I don’t know that. Half the shit I did this summer? Everything I did with Soul? Who’s to say he didn’t do something one of those times, or filmed something without me knowing, when I was drunk, or whatever.”

The car came to a screeching stop in the middle of the road, the car behind Yunho swerving as you jolted forward, your seatbelt catching you. 

“Yo!” Hands flying for the dashboard, you sat backward and sucked down a gulp of air. His jaw tensed. His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”

He thrust the car in reverse, and down a one lane road drove backward, glare burning a hole in his rearview mirror.

“Yunho,” you sighed, grabbing onto his wrist gripping the shifter. He flipped his hand, offering it to you.

“Wooyoung know about any of this?” he asked, pulling the car out onto the street Blend was on. 

You held in a groan. “No.”

“San?”

“No, if either of them did, they would tell me.”

He raised a brow and shot you a look. “You sure about that?”

“Positive,” you said.

He wound the steering wheel, cutting across the opposite lane to swing back into a spot in front of the coffee shop. Throwing off his seat buckle, setting your hand gently on your lap first, Yunho kicked his door open.

“Stay here,” he ordered, bending in half to stick his head in the car before slamming his door and storming inside.

Through the shades hanging in the windows, the booths shoved up against the glass, the slight tint preserving privacy behind it— Yunho disappeared, and you were certain all of the girls were still inside.

Pushing hair from your face with the back of your hand, you scrambled for your phone and swiped through messages.

[wooyo <3]: What the fuck??? Aurora???

[kee]: nahhhhhh, tell me not the kinda video i’m thinking

[wooyo <3]: Where are you

[kee]: it hasnt even been a month back yet what the hell

[wooyo <3]: Ro where are you

[wooyo <3]: I’m coming to the house. I’m sorry

[kee]: genuinely hate living so far from campus

[tae bae]: yunhos in here. hes pissed. 

[kee]: live updates pls

[tae bae]: can’t really look down, he’s yelling at everyone

What the fuck?

Throwing off the seatbelt, kicking open the door, not a worry that the key still sat in the ignition, your feet burned holes in the concrete with every step, even as you walked into Blend, all eyes pointing toward you with the jingle of the door.

Then, they all looked back at Yunho.

“And, what about you?” he said, his tone stern, slightly raised, but he wasn’t yelling. He leaned over the counter, toward Theo.

“What about me?” he sassed back, slapping one hand on the linoleum. Yunho glanced at it. “I’ve been around a lot more than you have.”

“At her discretion,” Yunho snapped. “You going to let your brother get away with this shit?”

Theo curled his lip and narrowed his eyes. “My brother didn’t do anything.”

“Bullshit, he’s been causing her problems for a while now,” Yunho shot his glare toward Soul, “You gonna speak up or what?”

You hurried to his side, pushing past a few of the girls. Your sisters. “Okay, Yo, let’s not… let’s go.” Reaching for his arm, you gave it a tug. He didn’t budge, solid mass of muscle. “Yunho.”

“No,” he said, looking from you to the girls around you. “Who the fuck do you all think you are?” He shook his head, then nodded at Kaz who cowered behind Eunchae. “You,” he scoffed. “Manners exist. You always greet your seniors the way you did when you walked in here?”

Some type of panic erupted within you, forcing a nervous laugh from your lips. You tugged on him once more, and he gave in. “Yunho, please, we’re leaving.”

Theo watched in awe, taking it all in, a half made coffee sitting in his hands. Lips parted, eyes amused, you gave him a look before finally pulling Yunho out the door.

“What the fuck was that?” you spat, releasing him on the sidewalk.

Stumbling in his rage, he drug a hand through his hair and then tossed both of them aside, letting them slap against his legs. “I’m not gonna let people treat you like that.” Taking a deep breath, he slipped his hands into his pockets, searching. After a moment, he blinked and spun around, realizing he had left his keys in the car. In the ignition. Still running. “Shit.”

“Yunho,” you sighed, following him to the car. He pulled the door open for you, shutting it oh so gently after you slid inside. Much different behavior then the Yunho who just blew his top in front of many people you’re involved with. “Treat me like what?” you asked after the subtle slam of his door.

“A show,” he muttered, peeking over his shoulder before pulling out of the parking spot. “Their entertainment. You’re a person, Rory.”

Your heart skipped a beat.

Rory.

It didn’t feel real.

After he pulled onto the main road he relaxed in his seat, a slight slouch in his shoulders, a shimmy of his hips, the stretch of his legs in front of him. His sweats hung off of him, his thighs protruding through the fabric. He was driving, but you longed to straddle his waist and wrap your arms around him. Just the mere thought of existing in his hold flooded your belly with butterflies, like you were sixteen beside a crush. He suddenly made it hard to breathe.

“It’s fine,” you whispered, tearing your eyes off of him. Lacing your hands together you laid them over your lap. “I’ll handle it. I always do.”

The sigh through his nose filled the car with disappointment. “You don’t have to do it alone.”

“I’m not, I-”

“Rory,” he said, one of his big hands reaching over to cover both of yours. Your heart leapt into your throat, the butterflies were on speed. “Let me be here for you. Please.” He turned his chin, and it took you three whole seconds to muster up the courage to look back at him. 

Honey brown eyes.

Devastating.

Sleepy, undone hair.

Devastating.

The butterflies flew up into your chest and ripped your heart to shreds. Devouring it entirely. Not a crumb left behind. As if each one bore his name.

“Let me make up to you the last year and a half.”

The last year and a half.

You didn’t need to ruminate. There was nothing to discuss, nothing to clarify.

The last year and a half, there wasn’t a single detail left unturned. There was no need for him to say what it was.

And as much as you couldn’t wait to watch him try, the butterflies choked. Gagging on memories, a poison in your heart, they overdosed on betrayal, beautiful wings withering into a pit of hurt that manifested as nausea. 

“Fine,” you whispered, and he squeezed your hands. Phone buzzing in your pocket, you took a quick breath and removed your hands, his returning to the steering wheel. Pulling the text out, you said, “Just don’t talk to the girls like that again, please.”

He glanced toward you and held both hands up to address his surrender. And you trusted him.

[choi asshole #1]: Heading to the dr’s, I’m with Yoongi

Damn, that’s today.

[you]: keep me updated. <3

You swiped and rolled your eyes.

{three men and a baby}

[tae bae]: NOOOOOOO WAY

[kee]: what what WHAT

[tae bae]: yunho spoke on SHOTA

[kee]: shut the fuck u p

[tae bae]: okay so actually maybe he’s crazy, ror, are you good, where is he taking you, are you going to die

[kee]: okay hold up

[kee]: what did this man say

[tae bae]: i’ll call you.

[kee]: wooyoung where tf are u u’ll eat this up lolol

[you]: *replied to ‘wooyoung where tf…’* going to ignore this, cause…???

[you]: *replied to ‘okay so actually may…’* not going to die. he’s not crazy. he’s on edge. remember how everyone else was last year? he’s living it now, we never got to deal with this together.

“Three men and a baby?” Yunho asked, scaring you. Your phone dropped into your lap as you jumped and he laughed.

“Christ,” you gasped, lobbing a hand at his shoulder. He’d been leaning over the center for a few seconds. 

He laughed, taking the blow. “Am I the only victim of this physical abuse?”

“No,” you glared at him, rubbing your hands together, his shoulder hurting your fingers more. “Keeho gets it too.”

Yunho pursed his lips and nodded, the tiniest smile gracing his lips. “I’ll take it. Who’s baby?”

Your stomach rolled and plummeted all at once. Whirling around in your seat after recognizing you were parked in front of ITZ, you grasped your chest, eyes wide, sighing, “What?”

He giggled, nodding toward your phone. “The groupchat, who’s the baby? Three men? Is it you?”

‘Who’s the baby?’

Must’ve missed that part.

Relief washed over you, your entire body going lax. “Oh, no, fuck no.”

He bobbed his head, slow, eyes dragging over your body. “Oh-kay,” he sang, then laughed again. “Then, who is it?”

“Kee,” you said, shoving your phone back in your pocket. “How much of that did you read?”

Rubbing his cheeks with one hand, he squinted and cocked his head. “Uh, not much, just that we… We get to deal with this together… Or, something.” His smile grew tenfold as you rolled your eyes and threw another fist at his shoulder, him actually catching this one. Yanking on it, he pulled you into him, your noses centimeters apart.

The butterflies twitched. Wings yearned to take flight.

“I know I said what I said before,” he spoke softly, “About stuff… being over, and us… happening,” he blinked, “But, I know there’s a lot that has to happen before that.”

“Talking,” you whispered.

He smiled. “Yes, talking. Lots of it.”

It sucked your body knew him. Really knew him. 

There was no other word to put in that sentence. It sucked. Every fiber of your being needed him, screamed for him, needed him. Something primal, a deep rooted instinct, one you’ve ignored for a year that you didn’t realize was pure cause of-

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, pulling you out of an early onset spiral.

“L-Like what?”

He scrunched his brows together. “Like,” his voice dropped drastically, “Sad.”

Because you knew if he knew, he’d-

“I’m not,” you breathed. “Trust me, I… My dad is going to the doctors today.”

“It’s Sunday.”

“He sees a specialist,” you said, and he nodded. “They have select patients, and Junie fits the criteria. They schedule whenever the doctor can see them.”

Yunho drug a thumb over your fingers, you’d forgotten he’d been holding onto you. “I hope it goes well.”

With a smile you pulled your hand back and moved to get out of his car. “Thanks, they usually do, but… I get scared every time he goes.” Pushing his door open, he did the same, following you up the lawn.

“You’re allowed to be scared,” he shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets, taking up the space beside you. “If this guy is a specialist, he’s gotta be good right? Your dad’s in good hands.”

Giving a him look, you winked. “She.”

Yunho’s eyes went wild. “She, forgive me,” he bowed slightly, laughing with you. “She’s taking good care of him.”

Stepping up the porch of the quiet house, odd for a Sunday, an off day, you turned to Yunho who stood on the ground, tipping his chin up a bit to look up at you. “I’ll… see you later?”

Shrugging, hands still in his pockets, he gave you a smile. “Do we need invitations?”

Barging through bedroom doors, crawling on rooftops, pulling up a chair at the library when one spotted the other… It used to be easy.

His smile persuaded yours, corners of your lips perking as you shook your head. “No. We don't."

He nodded once, lips pulling down boyishly as he tapped a step with the toe of his sneaker. “Okay,” he said, hushed, like his own butterflies devoured his own heart, each one bearing your name. They called out to yours, an energy you could feel brewing between you, intensifying as he blinked soft eyes up at you, brows flipped and… down bad crying at the gym.

Theo was going to die.

Reaching out your arms, your hands brushing his shoulders, you leaned forward and let him catch you, all of your body weight hanging onto him, his strength keeping you on your toes on the porch. Wrapping your arms around his neck, he released a sigh into yours and chills shot down your spine. His hands pressed into your back, his grip, his hold, that feeling of safety, godamnit, you were balancing on your toes off the porch, and he was not going to let you fall…

It woke up.

The ten months you spent shoving it into a box, wasted.

Tears welled in your eyes. Your throat, it tightened. Butterflies wept, and it was going to take a lot more than just one day before they could fly again.

Gulping, you remembered what he said in the car.

You don’t have to do it alone.

Sucking in a shaking breath, you whispered, “Yunho…”

And the door to ITZ flew open behind you, Yunho meeting the startled gaze of the culprit catching you in the act before you had the chance to jump away.

But you heard her first.

“...I can place these orders, then we can- Oh!”

Tori.

Using your balance, you pushed off of Yunho and turned on your toes to face her and Mingi who wore the world's biggest, cheesiest grin. Tori however, glanced between you and Yunho suspiciously, almost like she didn’t believe what was happening in front of her.

“Okay, so you were right,” she said to Mingi, “They did leave together.”

He put a hand on her shoulder and bounced on his knees, his eyes stuck on Yunho. “I told you.” Sparing you a glance, he pressed his lips together, but couldn’t contain his joy. 

Tori steadied her gaze, pointing it to the titan at the bottom of her stairs. Stepping forward, she crossed her arms and tipped her chin. “Why did I get multiple messages that you were harassing my girls?”

Breath catching in your throat, you turned to her, shock overriding every sense. She stood on business. Never faltering. Never taking back a word. She’d been prepped, informed, and ready.

Yunho held up his hands. “It was directed at Soul, I swear, I-”

“Let’s be honest with ourselves.” Tori narrowed her eyes.

He dropped his hands and his brows shot up. “I am, I just-”

“Blame me,” you said, trying to step in front of her. “He was defending me, I-”

She wouldn’t let anyone finish a damn sentence.

“Ror, those were my underclassmen,” she said with a snap of her jaw. Flashing you her done up eyes, fresh lashes, bronzed cheeks, she stood her ground, with or without noticing how your world shifted before you in less than a second.

“...Your-”

She turned. “Yunho, I’m glad this,” she gestured toward you, “is working out today, but please don’t yell at my girls again.”

Yunho, standing up straight with his arms tucked behind his back, nodded toward you. “I’ve already received those orders.”

“Well, now they’re official,” she smized, “And, if you-”

A black BMW pulled in front of the house, bumping music, parking across the street. Mingi perked up, Tori rolled her eyes, Yunho hadn’t moved. He gave you a look, one curious, one analyzing. You met his eyes, and all at once, a new found anger flowed through his veins. 

“Is Wooyoung here?” Mingi asked.

You released a breath. “Oh, thank god.”

Familiarity fueled your feet, in seconds you’d flown from the porch halfway down the lawn.

“Hey,” Yunho called after you, “Where you going?”

Wooyoung's tinted windows begged you to keep moving, to come closer, to get inside, but you stopped at the sound of his voice, and you turned as he got closer. Behind him, Tori and Mingi whispered to one another, heading toward her car.

Shooting a thumb over your shoulder, you said, “To talk to him.”

Yunho stood centimeters in front of you. “Why?”

“Uh,” you stammered, not knowing you needed a reason. “Because, he’s my friend.”

He glanced at the car, then at you. “Friend? He’s your ex.”

“No he’s not, he’s my friend,” you said with a tilt of your head.

It took everything in him to not react how you knew he wanted to. “Aurora, everyone says you broke up.”

“Y-Yeah, well, we don’t… hook up anymore. We… ‘cooled off’, or whatever.”

“Oh,” he mumbled, looking down at his feet, “Okay, yeah.”

“Ro!” Wooyoung shouted from his window, the beat of the song he played flooding the quiet street.

Yunho looked at you and something flashed across his face.

“Just give me a few minutes, please?” you asked, and he shook his head.

“It’s okay, go,” he shrugged his shoulder toward the music, “I have a meeting I have to get ready for anyway, text me.”

Swallowing, hard, you nodded. “Okay,” you whispered.

A small smile snuck onto his lips. Closing the space between you, he stepped forward and leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek. 

A flutter.

“I’ll see you later,” he whispered.

Smiling, you whispered back to him. “You gonna sneak onto my roof?”

“Maybe,” he smirked.

You furrowed your brow. “We have classes tomorrow.”

His nose brushed yours, your lips ghosting one another. Knees buckling, heart thumping, your yearn suffocated you.

“Who cares?” he whispered.

“Yo,” the sound barely came out, “You care, I know you do.”

His eyes fluttered shut, his forehead pressed to yours. “I care more about you.”

“You,” you whispered within the shared air, eyes glazing over with something rose colored, “Shit, I don’t even know your schedule, I have nothing to use against you…”

He smirked, whispering, “Checkmate.”

And his hands grabbed your waist, telling you what he wanted, what his lips couldn’t, what he didn’t want them to say just yet. He kissed you, a delicate moment in time, sealing his promise, this kiss much different than the one in the hall. This one was new. This one meant something new.

This was new.

It would be new.

“I want you to be mine, Aurora,” he whispered against your lips, pressing one more soft kiss to your hungry lips before he forbade you from taking more. “Thank you for today, for talking to me.”

A silly thing to share gratitude over, but necessary you supposed. “We should do that more often.”

He huffed. “Yeah, we should.”

Blinking open your eyes, finding him already gazing down at you, you blushed. “I have a lot of questions for you.”

“I have a lot for you, too.”

You smiled, biting at your bottom lip. “Bring your notes, come prepared.”

“For you, I will be.” Smiling with you, he stepped back, the loss of him more devastating than anything ever before. 

Taking a deep breath, reeling in the drama, you told yourself that it meant he had to come back. You would have to see him again. And you would. You would make that happen almost immediately.

Reading you like a book, for filth, like he always could, he gave you a glimpse of the Yunho who sat beside you in English. A glimpse of the Yunho who used to wander two steps behind you in the library. After a once over, he shot you half a smile, then started for his car, leaving you weak in the knees.

This time you knew why.

How you never saw it before is beyond you.

It’d been a few hours and he already had you screwed.

Wooyoung honked his horn and you jumped, slapping a hand to your chest. Ripping your eyes from Yunho’s ass as he walked away, you glared at the tinted window and charged for it, leaping into the passenger seat, somewhat out of breath.

With one look he told you every thought in his head. “Already?”

You whined, throwing your hands up, ragdolling in his seat. “It’s too easy, I dunno.”

He pulled away from the curb after Yunho passed by, the two not sparing each other even a look. “What did you guys talk about?”

Sliding your hands over your face, you sat up and folded your arms over your chest. “You.”

“Great,” he deadpanned. “He have a problem with you getting in my car?”

“Not really,” you said. “I think. I explained,” you sighed, glancing out the window as he pulled onto the main street. Everyone and their mother were out for the day apparently, couples littered the sidewalks, walking dogs, shopping bags in hand. “We’re friends.”

Wooyoung shot a look and a scoff your way, spinning you around.

“What’s that for?” 

He huffed. “Friends is funny.”

“Why?” you asked, narrowing your eyes.

“Nothing.”

“Wooyoung.”

Lifting a hand, he dropped it back on the steering wheel. “He lost you, twice. And still let you go get in my car.”

Mouth going dry, you asked, “Twice?”

Keeping his eyes on the road, he pulled into a highway entrance and bobbed his head. “When we first got together, before you guys existed, and then again, after the… thing happened. He must just really trust you.”

Staring him down, his unruly waves and his black hoodie and his dark denim baggy jeans and his silver jewelry, you scoffed. “Are you saying if you were him you wouldn’t trust me?”

He slapped the steering wheel, his teeth peeking through his lips as he breathed through a laugh. “I knew you were going to say that.”

“No, you didn’t,” your tone mocked him.

“Yes, I did,” he teased you right back, “And as much as you’re butterflies and rainbows right now about him, something is bothering you, what happened?”

Groaning, flopping backwards again, you asked, “You have somewhere to be?”

“Nope, I’m yours,” he said.

“Keep driving,” you half whispered, “My dads at the doctors, I don’t wanna sit anywhere.”

september 21st ~ sunday ~ 4:17 pm

“Since we’ve been back you’ve been with San,” he said, voice low, eyes pointed, taking in information, piecing it apart, “And… me.”

You nodded, facing him entirely, legs crisscrossed over the seat. “Yes.”

Holding up a hand, he said, “I did not do anything, you know that.”

Taking it in yours, you laced your fingers with his and set it down in your lap. “Of course,” you smiled, “If you did, I would cut your dick off.”

He cocked his head and snickered. “Sounds about right,” he released a breath and shook his head, “As much as San fucks… I don’t think he’d ever cross a line like that. Not without consent.” You agreed with a hum, and he smirked. “And he sure as hell wouldn’t share it with anyone else. He’s a freak, he’s not a jackass.”

“I don’t even know who he shares a room with though,” you said, thinking back to that night at ATZ with San. You had told Wooyoung almost everything. “What if his roommate did something?”

Thinking to himself, his smirk grew. “If San was in a sex tape, we’d be hearing about it right after it happened.”

A giggle slipped through your lips. “That night…”

The sound outside in the hallway grew. Doors were opened and shut, more voices filled the space. Muscles tensing, San felt it. Not worried in the slightest, he slid a hand down your back and leaned over you, pressing kisses to your shoulders.

“Don’t listen,” he whispered between slow kisses, the soft smack of his lips and gentle rutting of his hips into your center grounding you, keeping you in the room with him. “You and me,” he whispered. 

“You and me,” you whispered, but your words twisted with a moan. Hooking a finger in your thong he tugged it aside and had his zipper down in a flash. He wore nothing beneath his pants, because of course he didn’t.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Your body jolted.

Soul shouted in the hall, laughter following.

His dipshit asshole friends.

“There were boys in the hall… I thought it might be Soul, or Jongseob, ‘cause it sounded like they were in their room,” you mumbled, toying with his fingers.

Giving you a once over, watching your fingers play for a second, he focused back on the road. “You think Soul would do that to you? The guy who would… forgive me… fuck you like an animal, then infodump Pokemon to us for an hour after?”

You laughed, but you didn’t want to. Soul was something else entirely, something you’ve never experienced. A little weirdo, but a sweetheart all packed into one gangly body wired with stamina. “I don’t know, what if it’s revenge or something?”

Wooyoung screwed his face up. “Revenge for what?”

“I dunno.”

He pulled his hand away to grab onto one of yours. Shaking his waves around, he sucked in a breath and let it out with a groan. “Not everyone is out to get you, Ro.”

Widening your eyes, throat tightening, for the very first time you felt as though he couldn’t see you. “Feels like it,” you whispered.

Like he could hear the thoughts in your head, his grip tightened, and in mere seconds, without a word, he steadied your heart.

You used to hate to admit it, but he was right.

Another aftershock of Yeji.

Minutes passed before you spoke again, the radio filling the comfortable quiet you used to speak to one another with a mere touch of your palms.

“That’s why he went into Blend and got mad,” you whispered.

“Wild way to handle that,” he muttered.

Dragging your thumb over his, tracing his knuckle, you smiled. “That’s Yunho… Wildcard.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, rolling his eyes. “Wildcard.”

Consistent, though, he was in his wildcard status. Yunho, the textbook definition of never let them know your next move, partnered with that one friend who always has a new hobby, new job, new circle of friends… No one knew what he would say next, no one knew what he would do next, no one could predict the pattern, because there was no pattern, Yunho flew by the seat of his pants. Forever unsatisfied. Insatiable for more. More, more, more. His big brain needed it, craved it.

Nausea sat in your stomach, forever associated with him.

Voice meek, you asked, “Where are we going?”

Wooyoung said quietly, “I’m just driving.”

“Okay,” you whispered, and he looked at you.

Clearing his throat, he started, “How was the dinner last-”

“I gave up my spot.” 

Lips parted with an unfinished thought between them, he sang, “Uh… What?”

“President,” you said, then laughed involuntarily, “I gave it to Tori.”

He almost slammed on his brakes, frantically glancing over his shoulders at the traffic around him. “What!? Why?”

Letting go of his hand, you waved yours around. “You really have to ask?”

“No, I don't," he sighed, sitting forward, merging lanes, shooting you a glare all at once, “But, Ro…”

Clenching your jaw, you returned his glare. “She deserves it. I don’t.”

Silence.

After a beat, he sharpened his glare, and you wanted to gag. Stomach rolling into a ball, heavier than ever, your chest squeezed.

“I make and cause problems,” you said, trying to keep your cool, hiding the shaking of your voice. He dropped his head backward and loosed a breath. “I’m also irresponsible. I couldn’t handle the spot, she did it all anyway. I was in the way.”

A chill shot through him, one that had him figuratively shaking your words off and out of his energy. “Have you gotten any schoolwork done?”

Your brows flatlined as you snickered at him.

“Any?!” he asked, strength in his tone.

“Some.”

“May I suggest something?” He placed his elbow on the console separating you and pointed a finger at your face.

A smile tugged at your lips. “Always.”

Spinning his finger around, he came to a stop at a light and dropped his chin to give you a look. “Put the boys away, and focus on Aurora. You have to graduate with me, that’s an order.”

You giggled, and he smiled, his cheeks dimpling. “An order?”

“An order,” he breathed, grabbing the steering wheel with both hands, sitting backward in his seat. 

On the screen in front of you, the one that told you what songs were playing through the speakers, a text popped up, from someone named Cirrus, in a group chat called, senior philosofuckers.

“Who’s that?” you asked, sitting forward to tap on it.

Wooyoung grabbed your hand and gently redirected it to his lap. “Someone in my psych courses, not important.”

You watched the message disappear, then turned toward him, fighting the urge to lean all the way over and pop a kiss to his cheek, or his nose. God, his nose.

“All your classes are going good?”

He nodded, ignoring your gaze. “For the most part. Not too hard yet.”

Rocking with the car as he pulled onto an empty street, you tucked your bottom lip between your teeth and nodded with him. “I hope they stay good,” you whispered, dropping your eyes to his lips. 

Hitting you with a quick side eye, he almost laughed. “Me too, thank you.” Turning into a parking lot, he returned your hand to your lap and tapped it twice. “It’s been a week. You can do this.”

You retracted from him faster than he let you go and curled your lip. “Shut up.” 

Shifting further from him, leaning against the car door, you peered out the window and perked up. You knew that building. You knew those cars. You knew this asphalt, every bump, every dip. The one story tall brick hell hole with tiny windows and sliding glass doors.

He’d driven you out of Delo and into Soro.

Parking right out front, he pulled off his buckle in time with you. “You, uh… You didn’t tell Yunho about-”

“No,” you said swiftly, twisting your brows in utter confusion, “And, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Right,” he said, lifting his chin, “What am I talking about?”

Narrowing your eyes, you whispered, “You’re crazy.”

He shrugged. “I am clinically insane.”

“You’re getting memories mixed up, you’re pre-dementia, or something.”

Sighing, he pursed his lips. “Something like that, damn.”

Tossing a hand toward the building, you pouted. “You really brought me here?”

Wooyoung took in the building, his gaze softening. Months stood in between you, hours spent inside this building together, endless time he selflessly gave up, for you. For your dad. He tried to smile. “You need him.”

Tears brewed beneath the surface as you blinked at him. “Come with me?”

Within a breath, he whispered, “Of course.” Stepping out of the car and onto the curb, you latched yourself to his bicep, wrapping yourself around his arm, curling your fingers in his. Pulling open the door for you, he led you inside with the occasional glance. A soft smile sat on his face, one small enough to go unnoticed by others, but this face you knew. 

And if your heart could blush, she’d be a flushing mess of pink hues.

Wooyoung tucked your hair behind your ears before you stepped through the main doors of the lobby, a flicker of the past, a few months back, muscle memory. Except now you weren’t teary eyed and sporting bed head after a weekend of anxiously pacing your bedroom floor wondering how the next appointment would go.

He’d fix your hair. His thumbs would brush along your lashes, drying them. With a kiss to your cheek he’d aid you with a deep breath.

But today he stopped at the hair.

And you cursed your greedy heart for wishing he’d take it further.

Memories, that’s all it was, all you were left with. It’s what you asked for, it’s what you wanted, you said it yourself, that there was nothing left between you, that you were better this way. Friends. He’s the one person who never needed an explanation, he’s never once questioned you, who you were, what you wanted, nor has he ever gone to lengths to hold you back, from what you want, from what you need. 

In a single year he’d completely rewired your brain, he’d taught you things you never once considered to be true, things you never thought existed, how to live, how to survive, how to be happy. Taught you how to enjoy life when it feels like there’s no end to certain suffering, then taught you how to reel back the dramatics for no other reason than to protect your own sanity.

An emotionally mature hot head, if the two could be true at once, Wooyoung earned the title, and he wore it with pride. 

The things he’d done to protect you, and the things he continued to do to protect himself, logically moving through decisions with precision and thought, but for himself. No one else.

Unless you stood in front of him.

“Aurora! Wooyoung!” Her voice bounced off the cream colored walls and enveloped you in a hug, just as she did with her arms. Kamara, a five foot ten curvy beauty with espresso colored skin and a personality to match. Old enough to be your mother, she didn’t look a day over thirty. “Good to see you,” she sang, rocking you both back and forth in her arms.

“Kam,” you sighed, burying yourself in her, staying for as long as she’d have you. Wooyoung slipped from her arms, but his hand still cradled the small of your back.

“Want me to bring you back? They just got to his room,” she said, looking down at you, her eyes a warm milk chocolate. 

You gave her a small smile. “We’ll wait out here, if that’s okay?”

Kamara glanced over your head into the empty lobby that housed six chairs, a coffee table, a singular bookshelf, and a TV on the wall. “We’re slammed, baby, I don’t know if you’ll find yourselves a seat.”

“Damn,” you mumbled, taking a step back under Wooyoung's arm, “Wanted to come hang behind the desk with you.”

Flashing you her stunning white grin, she shook her head. “Too bad this place has a rat,” she spat, glaring at the woman behind the computer on the opposite side of their office space. Edith was her name, a retired woman in her seventies with a long silver brain down her back.

Typing away, Edith shook her head and muttered, “Protocol. HIPAA. Safety violations. Patient privacy. Insurance fraud…”

Kamara flickered her eyes over to the two of you and almost lost it at the smiles you and Wooyoung wore. “She’s gonna keep going.”

“...Security breeches. It’s small back here. If I roll over a toe, she can sue me…”

“Oh, the toe,” you whispered, and Kamara widened her eyes.

“Look out for the toe,” she squinted, then she winked at Wooyoung. “Make yourselves at home, please.”

Edith turned around for only a second. “Nice to see you, kids.”

It wasn’t until she faced her screen again that Wooyoung whispered, “I think she smiled,” and accepted your gentle slap to his chest with a laugh.

Bringing you with him, he turned to the chairs and plopped you into one, facing the TV, and flopped down beside you. Pulling out his phone, he scrolled for a solid minute, eyes scanning texts. He typed one out with fervor, then slid it back into his pocket and sunk backward in the chair, his thighs parting as his feet stretched out, resting on the heels of his boots.

He was wearing jeans, and a hoodie, when he wore a hoodie here he would…

Fold his hands together inside of the pocket.

Like he just did.

If he wore a t-shirt sometimes his hands would slip under the hem and rest on his belly.

If he wore sweats instead of jeans he’d put his hands in those pockets, or he’d tuck his legs under him on the chair. 

Sometimes he’d sit on the floor in front of you, and he’d let you play with his hair. One time he fell asleep, his head between your knees, resting on the chair, and you used the top of his head as a bookstand. You’d read almost every book that lived on that singular shelf, the fantasy series, the children's chapter books, the smutty mom novels that ‘weren’t porn’. At one point you’d woken Wooyoung up to have him read a page or two, the look on his face priceless when he read what the CEO’s beefy secretary would do to her before a very important meeting…

To think a little over a week ago you sat here as a different person.

Before your dads birthday, before everyone knew you and Wooyoung were over, before you made San your crutch, before your alleged OnlyFans career took off, before you ever heard your mothers voice…

Nine days ago you were the president. 

Nine days ago you were Choi Yeonjun’s daughter.

Just his daughter.

And now you’ve kissed Yunho three times, you stepped down from the biggest position of your life to date, Wooyoung won’t let you get closer than holding his hand, Tori took on her new role really, really quick, and hasn’t even given you a chance to talk about it again.

Not even a message. A check up. An, are you okay?

Maybe you didn’t need one. You were pretty certain about giving it up, and it’s not like you were the world's greatest president, they were clearly fed up- Tori, Seonghwa, Hongjoong…

Seonghwa and Hongjoong… Still top of their board, in the highest positions, regardless of what happened last year, regardless of their involvement with Yeji and her master plan. Sure, Seonghwa owned up to his bullshit, he took your side, he had been threatened by the bitch as well, he did what he had to do for his safety, but Hongjoong?

Former president who kept Wooyoung on a short leash, who ran ATZ like his own personal cult rather than the organization it should be, personal growth and networking. He allowed the parties to rage, to rally on endlessly, people waking up there to do it all over again, a tumultuous loop. After Seonghwa stepped up the hype slowed, the parties varied, he managed them with strategy, the boys were happier, a certain freedom lingered in the air.

You shook your head and sighed.

The TV on the wall changed from a cooking show to an old sitcom from the 90s, one your dad raised you on. Glancing over to the desk you caught Kamara lowering the remote and shooting you a wink. It was a random episode this time, but the entire month of July, you and Wooyoung binged the show from start to finish, right here in this lobby.

All ten seasons, arm in arm, or with your legs slung over his lap, your head on his shoulder.

Peeking at him, he had his head resting on the wall, his neck stretched.

You did not want to sink your teeth into it. You did not. You really didn’t.

Clasping your arms across your chest to keep from reaching for him, you bit down on your lip and bounced your knee. Taking a short breath, you looked up at the show, the three sisters on the screen bickering over stuffed animals, and you took another short breath.

Hongjoong could totally be doing something. He has the money, he has the power, and if he has Seonghwa wrapped around his finger like you know he does, he can get that boy to do anything.

He’d need a motive though, and as far as you can see, there’s no reason for Hongjoong to want to pull you out of your spot or spread a video of you, aside from ITZ needing a legitimate actual president who pays attention and doesn’t fall into spirals speculating that everyone around her is trying to steal things from her and humiliate her at every given moment of the day.

Wooyoung grabbed onto your knee, ceasing your anxious bounce.

You froze, turning only your chin. 

“You are going to fly away,” he mumbled.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, and he frowned.

“Don’t be,” he shook his head, then slid an arm around your shoulders, “C’mere.” Melting into him, your head laying on his shoulder and your arm sneaking into his lap, into the pocket on his hoodie to hold his other hand, you sucked down a deep breath of pure Wooyoung. Comfort. “Have you been hearing from your mom?”

“I told her to lose my number today,” you muttered, and he perked a brow.

“You spoke to her?”

“Yeah,” you rolled your eyes, “And then I made Tori president.”

“I wonder if we could get the police involved,” he whispered, like he meant to keep the thought to himself.

“Uh,” you stammered, then laughed sarcastically, “Very bad idea.”

“I know,” he sneered through his teeth, “But, like, regarding her, yanno?”

You looked up at him from where you laid. “And have them trace everything back to my dad? I love him, but he’s not a fucking saint. With everything… They wouldn’t listen to us. We’ve started anew. No cops.” 

He sighed, his eyes focused on the TV. The episode was at the cry your eyes out part, toward the end, where everyone kisses and makes up and the dad drags on and on about the life lessons learned…

“Neither of you know what she wants?” he asked.

“Nope,” you said. “We have absolutely no money, so it’s not that. I still have to pay you back for vacation by the way, I didn’t forget.”

He grimaced. “Please forget.”

“No, I owe you.”

“Ro, you don’t.”

Sitting up, you pulled your hands to yourself and faced him. “Yes, I do, you gave me-”

He looked at you directly. “Tori never cashed the check.”

The check he wrote you to give to her to pay for the vacation her father paid for because you felt bad for ruining her time in Haos. You never owed her money, you wanted to make it up to her. It being your guilt and assumption that you ruined her vacation. She’d done so much for you, too much, you owed her more than paying for half of the time you spent there.

“You’re kidding me?”

He smacked his lips against his teeth. “Serious.”

Just serious. Not dead serious. Not in this building. In this building where the walls listened and that lingered amongst the halls. Just serious.

Whipping out your phone you pulled open her thread.

[you]: you never took the Haos money???

[honey sweetie light of my life (no she didn’t make this her own name in your phone)]: what haos money?

You clenched your jaw.

[you]: hysterical. why didn’t you take it?

It took her two minutes to answer.

[honey sweetie light of my life (no she didn’t make this her own name in your phone)]: Ror literally what are you talking about

Gulping, you slid down the top panel and tapped on Do Not Disturb, putting your phone into your back pocket. Slouching, you dead weighted onto Wooyoung's side and sighed.

“What’d she say?” he asked quietly.

Blinking at the TV, a new episode began, you said, “She didn’t take it.”

“I told her to,” he whispered. “Trust me.”

You took a deep breath. “I do.”

Locking in to the TV, the new school episode that had you and Wooyoung doubled over in laughter before tearing up, you relaxed into him, hoping to turn your brain off, to shut everything out for a little bit. That worked last year when you came home, when you stayed with your dad, when you had a weekend with him and Keeho. Away from Nasara life felt lighter. Easier. Better. Happier.

To your right, the door to the office opened, professional voices giving their thanks, saying that they’ll see you next time, and take it easy… And then, your dad spoke.

Yeonjun said goodbye to his doctor, and your heart shot out of your chest, and you leap to your feet. Without a word, you rushed his way and threw your arms around him, sending him stumbling backward into Yoongi who carried papers from the doctor.

“Aura,” he released a breath and grabbed onto you, his cheek pressing to the top of your head. “I missed you,” he whispered, meeting eyes with Wooyoung who stood up to give him a wave.

Gripping fistfuls of his shirt, you swallowed away the lump in your throat, his presence enough to rid of the shadows you brought home with you. 

You had to tell him.

“I missed you too.”

NU home ✧ speechless masterlist ✧ talk to me ✧ ao3

you do not have permission to copy or translate my works without my consent.

[wyngigi]

Got my eyes on u kaz. Dont think ur slick. Do ik what ur up to no. But i know ur up to smth.

‘after all the boys and girls that we’ve been through, could you give it all up if i promise to you, that i’ll never talk again, and i’ll never love again’

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➳ college!teez x fem!reader (oc) - nice for what cast ➳ 7.6k (part five of ???) ➳ 18+, sexual content, drugs/alcohol, college life, all the drama, angst, mentions of anxiety/depression… IF I MISSED ANYTHING PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

september 21st ~ sunday ~ 10:30 am  

“Aurora, can we talk this out?”

The room had cleared. You sat before Seonghwa, Hongjoong, and Tori, who paced behind the leather sofa the boys sat on with her arms folded over her chest. Nibbling on her lip, she spared you a glance, pleading with you to speak to him, to unpack everything you had told her and lay it at his feet for him to take, for him to handle.

“I don’t think we can,” you whispered, pulling your legs up onto the chair, wrapping your arms around your knees. Cringing within, you swallowed the deja vu and shook your head as he opened his mouth.

“Yes, we can,” Seonghwa said, his deep voice low, and soft, keeping the peace. You could see right through him, he was trying to not set you off. “It’s overwhelming, I get that, trust me,” he looked at Hongjoong beside him, “That’s why we have these two,” he threw a hand back toward Tori, “They’re supposed to help us, they’ve been helping us. I know there’s a lot going on, but you can do this.”

“How do you know that?” Perking a brow you lowered your chin. “I can’t keep anything straight, I haven’t even looked at a damn sheet of paper for weeks, everything I do now is because of Tori, everything gets done because of Tori.”

She paused and faced you, dropping her hands to her side, pressing them into her thighs. 

“If you want a legitimate president, you want a responsible leader, someone to be efficient, to be reliable… Take her. Pick her. Choose her. Make her the president. She’s been doing my job since last semester anyway, it’s only fair she gets the title too. She deserves it.”

Hongjoong took a deep breath, swept his gaze over your being, then turned to Seonghwa, flashing him a knowing look. He returned it for a millisecond, and you choked out a mouthful of laughter.

“You’ve already discussed it, wonderful,” you said. Exchanging silent pleads of please speak with Tori, she sighed and stepped forward.

“It hasn’t been discussed, it’s been… mentioned,” she said just above a whisper, her careful watch over you somewhat as belittling as it was protecting you. 

Your stomach took a tumble. “And no one said anything?” From Seonghwa, to Hongjoong, to Tori, you shot glares. “I’ve been drowning in this feeling for how long? You’ve been trying to get me to do my job, for how long?” 

Even on vacation this past summer Seonghwa pestered you with your duties without meaning to. He glanced to his lap and took a breath. You focused on Tori.

“This past week,” you said, and she looked to the floor. “You killed it last night. Yesterday. You really did, Tor, and I mean that. I could not have done what you did.” She peered up at you with only her bright brown eyes. “But, you knew. You knew, you all did,” you jutted your chin toward the boys who bobbed their heads, “I just…”

Pausing, you took a second to breathe, trying to soothe the twist of your lungs. 

Your phone lit up on the desk. An unknown number. Everyone in the room, their eyes darted toward where it vibrated. Gulping, blood running cold, you reached for it at the same time Tori flew around the couch, hurrying to your side.

You answered the phone.

You put it on speaker.

You sat it down on the wood.

And you waited.

Tori, frozen in place with her hands out at her sides, half reaching for you, half reaching for the phone, her wide eyes stared at you. Both Seonghwa and Hongjoong, confused, they eyed Tori, then shifted their attention between the two of you, their lips sealed shut.

Her voice came through from the other line.

“Aurora?” Desperate, like her voicemails. 

There was little to no commotion going on in the background, all to be heard was that of a breeze. Not a soul in the room moved, except you. Swallowing away the lump in your throat, you sat backward and stared out toward the back wall. Numb.

“Aurora… Are you there?” Silence. “Did you… Shit.” The phone moved on her end, as if she’d pulled it away from her ear to peek at the screen. “Can you hear me? Did you really pick up? I’m sorry I’ve been so, how do I put it, annoying, I don’t know, Aurora, if you’re there, please let me explain, let me tell you what I’ve been…”

Tori slid her hands over her stomach. Eyes pointing at your phone, her expression hardened while she listened to your mother speak. Seonghwa leaned into Hongjoong, whispering something in his ear, possibly some sort of explanation. 

“Aurora, I just want to talk,” Seori continued. Her tone grew progressively desperate, near begging for you to say anything back to her.

You wondered if this is what she sounded like before she’d cry. The words getting all jumbled in her throat, coming out almost as one while her chest tightened and the pressure within became too much to handle. You wondered if that’s what you sounded like before you’d cry, if your breath picked up the same, if you struggled to speak. 

You wondered if you resembled her at all.

That very thought filled you with raging fury, an anger too hot to hold onto, too heavy to carry.

You weren’t a coward. You weren’t a flake. Your father didn’t raise to give up and roll over when things got tough, you weren’t one to hand your problems over to someone else on their front porch, he taught you how to power through, how to make the most of what your given, taking everyone else's idea of you and proving them damn wrong.

You weren’t her. You weren’t your mother.

You were your father.

Junie raised.

Snatching your phone from the desk, you cut her off mid beg. 

The first time she’s ever heard your voice.

“Lose my fucking number.”

Tossing the phone down, Tori scrambled for it and hung up. Then, she took it and tapped at the screen.

No one spoke. They watched you instead.

Dropping your feet to the floor, you sat forward and slid your hands onto the wood in front of you. Pressing your nails into the delicate sealant, leaving your mark behind, you breathed through a laugh, triggering them all to sit back some and relax their shoulders. Shaking your head, you looked up at Tori’s stern brows, Seonghwa’s expectancy, and Hongjoongs curiosity. 

Holding out a hand, you pointed at your cell phone. “Do I sound like that?” They shook their heads. “A whiny loser?” They shook their heads again. Grabbing your phone, you pulled it to your face and shouted, “A fucking coward!?” Tori moved to your side when you threw it back against the desk.

“Ror,” she whispered, putting a hand over your shoulder.

Blinking, you pressed your lips together and snickered. “What the fuck am I thinking, what the fuck am I doing?” Seonghwa opened his mouth, but you spoke first. “Giving up, like her? Because, what, I’m overwhelmed?” 

“Ror, this isn’t as dire as what she did,” Tori said quietly, and you whipped your head to look up at her. “You know what I mean,” she breathed. “You said it yourself, we can swap spots, and you’ll still be up here, you’ll still be with me, you’ll still sit here.”

She’d been honest with you over lunch on Friday as you’d been with her. You never wanted this position, but she’s always had her eye on it, whether or not it’d be a possibility.

And, now that it was, now that you’ve spoken your truth, now that you’ve dropped a bomb on the three of them… You had to make a decision. One, it seems they’ve already decided. 

“You don’t want this,” Tori said, dragging her hand down your arm, crouching beside you. “I can see it written on your face, I know what that just did to you, Ror, I know what it’s been doing, and I know you’re gonna want to do something you truly don’t want to do. Don’t let her do that to you. You keeping this role, as the president, simply because you want to prove her wrong, or not be her, it’s worse than you doing something for yourself, because you need to, for your own sanity.” She squeezed your wrist, smiling at you. “She’s not winning. You are.”

Vice President status held almost as much value as the President.

Theo crossed your mind.

Hermione Granger.

“I’m still going to want you here by my side, Aurora,” she said. “I cannot do something like this alone. I need you. It’s just… not fair for me to do your job and not wear the crown.”

Padme Amidala.

Taking a breath, you sighed. “You’re right. It’s not. I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, I was happy to do it,” she smiled.

Black Widow.

“We make the switch, I take over everything sitting on your plate, the emails, the paperwork, the questions, the meetings… And, you get time to do what you really want to do,” she whispered, and you gave her a look. 

Tipping her head back, she gestured toward the double doors open just a crack. Peering over her head and through the glass, at the same time Mingi peeked into the room, met your eyes and jumped backward, back into hiding.

“Why is Mingi out there?” you asked, and she whirled around.

“What?” she sneered. “He said he was- You know what, no.” She turned back to face you, wiping the scowl off her face. “Aurora,” she reached for your hands, lacing her fingers within yours, “We can’t let this go any longer than today.” You peeked over your shoulder at Seonghwa and Hongjoong, patience becoming them. “Tell me what we’re doing. Are we making a switch, or are we not?”

She wouldn’t control you. Her decisions would not affect your own, you were entirely separate from your mother, you were not her. Everything you did, every move you made, you made for yourself… And the ones you loved.

With a gulp, you released a shaking breath and closed your eyes, giving her hands a squeeze, missing how she threw a beaming glance to Seonghwa. By the time you opened your eyes, she was smiling at you.

“You would be better,” you said. “It should be yours. It always should’ve been yours, I don’t know what any of them saw in me, why they’d think I’m fit for this, or-”

“Stop that,” Tori huffed, shaking your hands. “Don’t put yourself down, you earned this spot, you know that. They saw something within you, just because you’re stepping down does not mean you are worth any less.” You gave her the smallest of smiles, and she returned it. Then, she nodded. “Are you, Ror? Are you stepping down?”

You had no other choice. If you wanted to graduate with the rest of them in May, you had to do this.

“Yes,” you whispered, dropping your chin. Tori sucked in a gasp and stood to her feet. She pulled you into her chest and hugged you tight, one of her hands sliding up into your hair. “Tell me what you need me to do, I’ll…”

“Nothing,” she said, pulling away, grabbing onto your cheeks, puffing them up. “I’ll take care of it all. It’ll be as if nothing ever happened, and it’s been this way all along.”

Your throat tightened. The words came out jumbled. Almost as one. “Whadda we tell the girls?”

Tori reassured you with a calm smile. “I’ll take care of it. Trust me.”

“I do,” you whispered, silently praying the tears welling in your eyes wouldn’t fall. Twisting in her hands, her grip on you relaxing some, you tried to give the boys a smile. They curved their lips and bowed their heads. “Okay,” you sighed, facing Tori, moving her hands off of you, “Let me… Let me go do anything else, please.”

“Of course,” she said, stepping back as you rose from the chair. Her chair. At her desk.

Surely there should’ve been a weight, or something, that should’ve been released, that should’ve been lifted from you. You’d been knocked down a peg. You didn’t have to fill such big shoes any longer. Shoes you didn’t even wear for an entire year after almost having everything you held in your hands a minute ago ripped away from you. Handing it over to Tori seemed the smartest thing to do.

She’d do it right.

She’d take care of them all.

Wiping your cheeks with the back of your hand you don’t dare look back as you step through the double doors into the hall, pushing them closed behind you. Your body longed for your bed, and your head longed for your pillows and the back of your eyelids. You were no longer burdened with glorious purpose, you could sleep for several hours and not get shit for it. You could let your emails pile up for a few days and not miss anything of importance. You could…

“What did you do?”

Stopping dead in your tracks as you turned down the hall, you could’ve been sick. Everywhere. Blinking up at him, held back in Mingi’s arms, you’re certain your skin flushed of all color. Yunho, in his hoodie, his sweatpants, with his morning eyes and tousled hair, he stood chest to chest with his best friend, Mingi’s hands on his biceps, like he’d been holding him back.

He spoke to you.

He said actual words to you.

“What did you do?”

His expression, one you’ve seen before. A bit of craze in his sparkling eyes, confusion and intrigued married on his brow, and his lips, parted, exasperated. 

Mingi, jaw clenched shut, looked between you both. “Yunho, don’t-”

He closed the space between their noses and grit his teeth. “Shut up.” He turned to you and tried to push Mingi out of the way. “Did you just do what I think you did?”

You couldn’t form words. Apparently your silence was answer enough.

Yunho scoffed, his eyes rolling as he pushed away from Mingi. “Did you even think about this?” He walked himself in a circle, moving further down the hall. Mingi followed him, and so did you.

Your heart squeezed.

“You only just said this last night, you said it to me, I heard you say it, and you go and do this before you even have time to think about what you’re doing,” he drug his hands through his hair, shaking his head, “But, I know I said… Fuck.” In the middle of the hall now, almost at the bottom of the stairs, he faced you and tossed his arms out to the side.

You stepped closer to him. Mingi fell behind, disappearing into the room you’ve just come out of.

“Why, Rory.” His voice broke. “You’re just gonna let them take it from you? Gonna let them remove you from a seat you deserve to sit in, I don’t get it.”

You gulped, stepping in front of him, forcing him to look down at you. Craning your chin to gaze up at him, a tear slipped down your cheek and he pouted.

“If it’s ‘cause of me, you go back in there right now and tell them you want it, ‘cause I’m done playing fucking games, I’m over it. Tell them you want it back, you thought about it wrong, I’ll do whatever you need me to do if it’s gonna get you back in there, you can do whatever you want to me, you can say whatever you wanna say-”

Grabbing onto the collar of his hoodie, you yanked him down to your level and threw your arms around his shoulders, burying your hands in his hair. Pressing yourself against him, cutting his words clean off, swallowing them as you latched your lips to his own, you released a breath and sunk into him. 

He didn’t know what to do with himself. Hands grabbing your shoulders, they took their time sliding down your back before they decided to wrap around your waist, holding you up as you nearly fell into him, a surrender of sorts. He kissed you back. He kissed you like he kissed you last night, like he’d been craving it, waiting for it, yearning for it, and he’d finally gotten it.

You wanted to tell him everything, he deserved to know everything, he’d always been the one person aside from Tori who did know everything. 

And he’d know what to say. God, he’d know what to do, he’d know how to talk to you, he’d know when you needed to get fired up, or when he needed to calm you down. In one look he could figure you out, he knew you up and down, inside and out, upside down and backwards. 

Sometimes sideways. 

Sometimes on top. 

Sometimes on the bottom. 

Most times face to face.

Too heated, too much too fast.

Pulling away from him, your hands the last thing to leave each other, you sucked down a deep breath and ran your tongue over your lips. He did the same, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. His big, puppylike brown eyes had calmed. He watched you, waiting for the next move, unsure of who’d be the one to make it.

Girls stirred upstairs. Doors opened and shut, footsteps sounded on the hardwood, voices echoed down the steps- this wasn’t the time or place.

Yunho, after a breath, took it upon himself to grab onto your wrist, pulling you towards the front door. His touch pacified you. You couldn’t do anything but trail behind him, following his lead, letting him take you out of your house, down the front stairs, and onto the sidewalk. 

Not a singular word was spoken.

Not when he walked you over to ATZ, sliding his hand into yours properly. Not when he brought you up the porch and into the house, pushing through boys who snickered your way and whispered to their brother beside them. Not even when he fished his car keys from the glass fish bowl on a shelf in the kitchen, taking you from the house by the backdoor, somehow avoiding any faces that could’ve potentially stopped you from sliding into the passenger seat of his silver Audi.

The world moved by you. It kept going while you processed nothing.

It took him a second to get in the car, but when he did, after pulling his door shut, he started it and slumped backward with a heavy sigh.

Exhausted, hungover, reminded of what you’d done last night, what you did after you kissed him, slowly processing what you had just done, the decision you made, what you gave up, what you were going to have to tell your dad you gave up…

You burst into tears.

He scrambled for your hand.

“I think I just made a mistake,” you gasped between sobs, “But, I don’t know if it was even a mistake. I didn’t wa-wanna do that job, I really didn’t, I promise you I did not want to do it.” He nodded when you glanced at him, eyes soft yet on alert. “And I know why it feels shitty to walk away from it, to run from it, to not give it a chance, to not even get past recruitment and call it quits.” He faced you entirely, leaning over the center console, his thumb dragging over the back of your hand that clung to his. “My parents, they ran from shit all the time, that was the life they lived, and the only big one I can remember from my mom, is her leaving me with my dad, and running.”

Yunho lowered his eyes, focusing on your hands, the grip you had on him.

“She’s a pussy,” you whispered, and he swallowed a laugh. Giving him a look between sniffles, he met your eyes, and the way the corners of his lips perked up made you laugh. A small one, enough for him to admire the crinkle of your nose.

“You’re not a pussy, Rory,” he said quietly, reaching a hand over to push your hair from your face. “You’re far from it, actually. I think a lot of people would agree with me.”

Your cry got caught in your throat. “Then, why do I feel like one?”

His lips mushed into a pout. Taking his other hand over yours he held onto you tight. “You were underestimated. Last year, they didn’t see you coming. That little grandiose band of thieves that thought they had something over you…”

“What does grandiose mean,” you whispered, and he smiled.

“In this case, it means obnoxious,” he nodded, and you copied him. “You were bigger than them, you still are bigger than them.”

“They’re not here anymore.”

Yunho gave his head a single shake. “I still don’t trust Hongjoong.”

“I trust Seonghwa,” you whispered, narrowing your eyes. “He keeps him on a tight leash.”

“Yeah, what’s that about, you’ve had the in all summer, are they together?” he asked.

You shrugged your shoulders. “No one knows. They’re connected at the hip though, and it’s obvious they hook up, but I can’t figure out if Hwa is doing it on purpose, if he actually likes him, or if he’s doing it to keep him close.”

“Like, playing him.” He squinted, and you nodded. “And that makes you still trust him, even though there’s a heavy possibility that he’s using Hongjoong to make sure he gets what he wants.”

“Not to get what Hwa wants,” your eyes widened for emphasis, “To make sure Hongjoong doesn’t do anymore shady shit.”

Yunho glanced out the windshield, whispering, “Interesting.”

The subtle slope of his nose warmed your heart. His undone hair, his sleepy eyes that now bordered on chronic, the gentle purse of his lips and curve of his jaw, you could reach for him now, climb on top of him, straddle his waist, wrap yourself around him. In such close proximity, the closest you’ve been in a few months aside from last night, you took a moment to listen to your body, your mind, your breath. How your heart beat heavily and seemed to swell the longer you spent taking him in, but the racing had settled. Each intake of air, steady, thorough, deep, tears having ceased the moment he touched you.

“I still don’t think…” He turned back to you, catching your stare and the unsure comfort overtaking every fiber of your being. Rubbing his lips together, he popped his tongue between them and glanced to your hands. “Can I be honest with you?”

“All I ask for,” you whispered, and his eyes closed for but a second.

Looking at you, he took in a breath before he said, “If you aren’t president… If you aren’t in the highest spot possible over there, in charge of everyone else…”

“Just say it, Yo.”

He dropped your hands with a heavy sigh, sitting back in his seat. Shaking his head, he shrugged and let out a half assed laugh. “I don’t want you there at all.”

“What?”

Sickness struck you until he opened up his mouth.

“Came out wrong,” he grumbled, turning to face you, the fidgety bastard, “I meant, if you aren’t the one giving the orders, it doesn’t feel safe to me. For you.” Forcing air out through his teeth, he sucked it back in and groaned. “Still doesn’t sound right.”

Taking a hand over the console, you slid it over his knee and he froze.

“It sounds right,” you mumbled. His body tensed under your touch, your fingers drawing up his thigh over his sweatpants. “Yeji fucked us all up. If I’m the president then I know everything, right?” With his eyes glued to your fingers, he nodded with his jaw clenched. “You’re so cute,” you whispered, sitting backward in your seat, pulling your hand back to yourself. “You know I missed you, right?”

Yunho gasped, then tried to disguise it as a deep breath. Hitting him with a side eye and a smirk, he groaned and kicked his feet out in front of him as much as he could with the room he was given and the legs he’d been blessed with. Rubbing his hands over his face, he dropped them into his lap and leaned his head backward against the leather seat. 

“Are we done? Is this it? Is it over?” He spoke to the windshield, then shot you a glare. 

Your stupid fucking rule.

Your words threatened to send him into cardiac arrest. “I suppose so.”

Clutching his hands to his chest, he let out another groan, then moaned aloud and bounced in his seat, tipping his chin backward, eyes screwed shut. Giggling, you reached a hand over and swatted at his hands over his heart.

“Stop it!”

“No,” he said within some sort of growl. Twisting in his seat, he leaned over toward you. “You can’t talk to me until I talk to you? You made me wait until you spoke to me first, for me to speak to you? Cruel!” He really should’ve majored in theatre instead, with how his head shook about and his choice of silly tone bounced off the windows. 

“Yunho!” you shouted over him.

“You sit here and tell me you miss me, but you know what I had to do all summer?!” He looked at you with wide eyes and a frown.

“What?” you asked within a giggle. He swallowed his away.

“Myself,” he whispered, then his whole body went lax. Laughing even harder, leaning over him further as he sunk down on the leather, he startled you when he grabbed onto your arms. “Cruel, Rory, cruel!”

“You didn’t hook up with anybody?” you asked, tilting your head to the side.

Copying you, blinking sarcastic, wide, shiny eyes your way, he said, “Nada.”

“How come?”

He sat up and situated himself in his seat. Lacing his fingers with yours, he said, “Didn’t want to.”

“Liar,” you grilled with a squint of your eyes.

“Fine, I couldn’t get it up,” he mumbled, looking over at you. 

A fire burst within you. “You could get it up for yourself.”

He answered without missing a beat. “‘Cause I was thinking about you.” He’d done it. He was thinking it, you were thinking it, it would’ve happened if Tori and San didn’t open the door.

“So, last night,” you started, leaving it open for discussion.

He replied with a quiet, “Yep,” and you huffed.

“I knew it.”

“You had San instead,” he offered.

Hitting him with a deadpan, you muttered, “We didn’t fuck.”

Yunho raised a brow. “Is that the truth?”

“Completely,” you bobbed your head. “You want the deets? He stuck his fingers in me and I sucked his dick.” 

“Oh, god, okay,” he snorted and shook his head, “Thanks for that.”

The air hit you different, everything going a bit cold as you leaned into him. “Need I remind you of Mina? You can’t be mad.”

He tightened his grip on your hands and sat forward, toward you. “How long until that’s not thrown in my face anymore?” The tightening of his jaw and the cinch of his brow had you squeezing your thighs together. “You think I don’t know what I did? You think I don’t know what I lost?” After a hard swallow and a beat, waiting to see if you’d say anything else, he whispered through a trembling breath, “You. I don’t wanna live like that again, I felt…”

“Lost,” you finished for him, and he sighed. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, stars alight in his eyes. “Aurora, truly, deeply, I am sorry. If you want the deets, I’ll give you the timeline, she and I didn’t do anything after that last night of us-”

You screwed your eyes shut. “Not yet,” you breathed, and he squeezed your hand. “I don’t wanna know yet. But, I do wanna know. ‘Cause unfortunately I do trust you. I just don’t think I want to just yet.”

“Fair,” he whispered, brushing his lips over your knuckles. “When you’re ready.” 

Glancing away from him, digging your nails gently into his hands, you asked, “What do you know?”

He dropped his chin to try to catch your eye, and he did. With the smallest smile, he said, “What everybody else knows.”

“Damn.” A heaviness washed over you, one nearly distorting reality for a moment. A feeling you couldn’t decipher. A form of guilt, or shame, or regret…

“Don’t,” he said with a curl of his lip and a shake of his head. “You tell me about it when you want, if you want. I don’t need to know.” 

You smiled. “Don’t you want to know?”

Rolling his head back a bit, he cracked a smile. “Kinda.”

“Ew,” you giggled, “You perv.”

He dropped his chin toward you. “Just wanna know what standards I have to live up to now.”

You closed the inches between you, your noses almost brushing. “None. You’re the best I ever had, I thought of you nearly every time.”

Shifting in his seat he glanced at the clock on his dash and took a deep breath. “Okay, we shouldn’t talk about this, it's not even noon.”

The back door of the house swung open and slammed shut. Intak, Jiung and a couple other freshman or sophomore groupies poured out onto the porch, shoving either a cigarette or a joint between their lips. 

“Wonderful,” you whispered, sitting back in your seat. 

Yunho glared toward them. Intak gave him a sly smirk. The sophomore tapped on the shoulder of the boy beside him and pointed at you. The boy, who you’ve never seen before a day in your life, his eyes lit up. Throwing himself against the bannister he motioned for you to roll your window down, and you did, a crack, which you regretted immediately.

“When he’s done, I’m next!”

“Oh my god,” you mumbled, sinking in your seat.

Yunho leaned over you to shout out the window, “I know a guy who’s not afraid to fuck each and everyone of you up.” 

Intak took a drag of the joint before passing it over to Jiung. Blowing out the smoke with a shake of his head, he said, “And then he’ll get his ass kicked outta the frat!”

Yunho narrowed his eyes. “He’s not in the frat, but he used to be.”

Summer flashed before Intak’s eyes, you watched it happen in real time, the fight between him and Wooyoung, he relived it in these few seconds before Yunho backed the car out of his spot.

“You know, Aurora,” he shouted, pointing a finger directly at you, “Your video’s giving you quite the roster.” Now your blood ran ice fucking cold. “Don’t forget about us little guys, we matter too!”

The porch laughed. Every boy beside him, they stared at you, and they laughed.

“Roll the fucking widow up,” Yunho grumbled, pulling out onto the street. You listened to him, fingers shaking, you clicked the button. “What the hell is he talking about?” Glancing at you, then the road, then at you, then the road, Yunho wasn’t going to get a word out of you.

Utterly frozen, paralyzed over leather, you reached for one of his hands and clung to it. Taking in calculated breaths, you couldn’t piece together anything in your mind to figure anything out.

Through a rushed, worried whisper, you breathed, “What the hell is he talking about?”

september 21st ~ sunday ~ 1:56 pm

Yunho twisted his empty cup around on the table with two of his fingers. Elbow propped up on the table, he sat slouched over it, his cheek squished and pulled by his knuckle. His eyes, always on the move, every now and then they’d scan the room around the booth you sat in before they’d rest over you and where you sat completely laid out on the table, head laying in the nook of your arms.

“I didn’t want it even before my dad got sick,” you mumbled. “After last year ended and the hype wore off,” you sat up and pushed back against the cushions, “I realized it’s not where I wanted to be.” Holding up a hand, you gave him a look, “Wooyoung and I were having fun and I started to feel better about myself.”

Yunho, withholding a cringe for the sake of conversation, he bobbed his head in his hand. “Better after you left school,” he said for clarification.

“Yeah,” you breathed. “Better after I left school. When I was… away from the pressure. But, then summer happened, this semester had to be prepped for, we went on vacation and I created a mess with Tori, my dad got sick, Hwa wouldn’t leave me alone about anything…”

“I get it,” Yunho said.

Softening your eyes, you tilted your head ever so slightly. “I was actively avoiding you. Thought that us being separated would be a good thing… but, it sucked. It made me nervous, I guess, that I would run into you, or see you, or be put in a situation involving you.”

“And, uh, Tori made that happen anyways.” His small smile brought you comfort, as it always had. 

Rolling your eyes, you breathed through a laugh. “She did, but I thank her for it.” 

“Me too,” he whispered. He fell quiet for a moment, eyes drifting toward his lap before they fell upon you and his hands slid across the table. “I made you nervous?”

“Not nervous,” you said. His lips twisted into half of a frown. “Yunho,” you whispered, leaning forward against the edge of the table, “I wanted you, but I was hurt, a lot, by more people than just you. And then, that hurt made me hurt my favorite people, the people I wanted by my side, but I pushed them all away ‘cause I feel… I feel like a bother.”

“You’re not,” he whispered without missing a beat. “You know you put up a really good front. From where a lot of us are sitting you seem fine.”

“But I’m not.” You brought your hands to the table, placing them over his. His fingers tensed, his body seeming to freeze slightly.

“Yeah,” he pushed through his lips. Wiggling his fingers he slipped them through yours. Taking a deep breath, he rolled his shoulders back and blew the air out with purpose. “I apologize for saying what I said before. For freaking out the way I did, I didn’t understand.”

You smiled. “Course you don’t, we haven’t spoken in months.”

Toying with your fingers his head tipped to the side, the hood around his neck brushed his cheek. Eyes dropping to where he held you, he asked, “It’s really done? You’re mine?” He looked up at you, pure, wide eyes.

You nearly choked on your breath, your hands gripped onto his. Sitting up straight, your attempt to calm the surprise in your eyes failed. He started to smile while you coughed on a gasp. Shaking your head, twisting up your brows, you buried your face in your elbow for a second to compose yourself.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Theo said with the faintest of laughs. The sound of him putting two new cups on the table in front of you both made you pop back up. Giving him a look, he shot you one right back. Yunho pulled his hands away and felt up his pockets. “Don’t worry about it,” Theo smiled at him and nodded toward you, “She’s got privileges.”

“Privileges?” Yunho raised a brow.

The door to the kitchen opened and shut, the whoosh of air as it swung back and forth before coming to a stop filling the quiet. Soul, with headphones in his ears plugged into his phone sticking out of his pocket, moved aimlessly behind the counter, not giving anyone else the time of day. In one look Yunho thinned his lips and bobbed his head, focusing on the cup Theo slid his way. Grabbing it, he tipped it toward him and took a sip.

“If I worked here and had a crush on you I’d give you free coffee too,” he mumbled.

Theo perched a hand on his hip and scoffed, eyeing the six foot giant before shooting a glance your way. “He’s got a lot to make up for, there’s no crush.”

Yunho spun the cup in his hands and smirked. “But, there was.”

“Okay, let’s drop it,” you muttered, and both boys straightened out. “I haven’t talked to him yet,” you said to Theo and reached for your cup. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” he said softly with a tight lipped smile, addressing the elephant in the room in the form of the massive twenty something year old.

Taking a quick deep breath, you shook your head. “You say nothing,” you whispered. Yunho’s curious eyes darted between the both of you, the rim of his cup pressed to his lips.

Theo bit his bottom lip and grinned. “I say all the things,” he whispered, whirling around, taking himself back behind the counter.

“What’s that mean?” Yunho watched him until he disappeared into the kitchen, paying no mind to his brother cleaning things he’s already cleaned twice. 

After a sigh, you said, “He’s gonna tell them we’re here. Together.”

He leaned forward, eyebrows lowering the tiniest bit. “Together?”

Nodding, you let out a giggle and he blushed. Sliding a hand over the table he weasled a finger into your palm where you held onto your coffee. 

“Who’s… Who’s we?” he asked with a narrow of his eyes. He wanted to hear the words. He wanted to hear you say it.

“Don’t you already know who?”

He nearly cut you off with how fast he asked, “Wooyoung?” Answering with a nod, he forced his cup to the table with a smack and sat backward with a sigh of relief, stretching his arms and his legs outward, holding the edges of the table. “What am I dealing with? What’s left?”

The thought of the night in your bedroom made you smile. “Nothing,” you said, looking at him in complete honesty. He squinted, shooting subtle daggers toward you. “I’m serious!”

“It’s Wooyoung, I don’t believe you,” he whispered, nudging your foot with his.

“We ended whatever we had in July, when we came home from Haos,” you shrugged. “There isn’t anything there anymore, trust me.”

“And this thing with San?”

“Pointless,” you breathed, dropping your chin. He sat forward, his lips forming the smallest pout. Lifting your eyes, you huffed. “A distraction. I don’t even want him, it was just sex. Wooyoung cut me off, so I went to the next available. He’d never turn me down.”

Scoffing, he threw his hands out beside him, brows screwing into oblivion. Laughing aloud, you threw a hand toward him.

“Don’t you dare,” you snapped. “Remember that night in Haos?” He dropped his hands and his lips scrunched. “Can’t remember it totally straight ‘cause I was drunk and a slut-“

“Stop?” he slapped a hand to the table and you jumped. In his eyes flashed something you’ve never seen before, except once, in Wooyoung, seconds before he gave Intak a fat lip. Lifting his hand, he pointed a finger at you and leaned closer. “Don’t ever talk about yourself like that again.”

“But, I know what they-”

“Nuh-uh,” he shook his head, scooting closer to the edge of the booth. “Aurora,” he said, tone steady, “Don’t. This is what they do, they get in your head, they say awful shit that doesn’t mean anything, shit that isn’t true, and it’s all to fuck with you, and for what?”

All you could do was shrug.

Yunho took a silent breath, his jaw setting into place. His gaze, angry at someone that wasn’t you. “I don’t care what you’ve done. It doesn’t make you any less of a person.”

“Wooyoung said-”

He dipped his chin and cut you off. “What does Aurora say?” Without a response, he continues. “I want you to know that I see all he’s done for you. I get it. My feelings aside, he was good for you. Tori said it often.”

You laughed. Loud. Head tipping back, you reached for his hands. “You’re hilarious, she did not say that!”

He didn’t move. Stone cold, he nodded and let you toy with his fingers. “She did. And I didn’t want to believe her. I know he’s a good guy, I know what he did for you, hell, he got himself kicked out of the frat for you… And I knew him before any of this mess happened, so, I get it.” You looked at him and he wore a soft smile. “It’s time for you to define who you are.” 

Crinkling your brow, you held onto his hand. “What happened to you?” He laughed. “I’m serious, you’re like… different, I don’t know.” You took in his heavy eyes and his tousled hair, the exhaustion living upon him tugged at your heart. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

He clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes. “Do I ever?”

“It’s been worse,” you said quietly. “Tori said something about internships?”

“Damn,” he let out a laugh, “Tori this, Tori that.”

“Yunho,” you shook his hand around, “I’m worried about you.”

He clenched his jaw. “Yeah, and I’m worried about you. You just gave up a really good position, Rory, that could’ve done so much for you after graduation, you know that?”

Your phone buzzed from your pocket.

“Tori is better.” Tone soft, you maintained your cool. “I’m the vice president, it’ll be fine, it’s still a good position.”

“You promise me they didn’t talk you out of it?” 

The despair he spoke with spooked you. “Yunho,” you whispered, “I didn’t want it. I’m telling you the truth, they didn’t talk me out of-“

Your phone hadn’t stopped buzzing.

“God fucking damn it,” you sneered, ripping your hands from his. Pulling it out, you tossed it on the table top. “This is the third one.”

Yunho didn’t know what to do. Glancing from your vibrating phone, to you, to around the cafe, he sat up straight and awaited instruction. 

Or explanation.

“I answered it earlier and told her to lose my number,” you said.

Yunho muttered, “And she said?”

“I didn’t let her,” you shrugged, “I don’t wanna hear it. I don’t want anything from her.”

He gulped. His lips pouted in question, like they hid one he didn’t want to ask. But, this was Yunho. He always asked.

“Why do you think she’s doing this?” he asked within a whisper, and before you could answer him, he asked again, “How did she get your phone number?”

“I really don’t know.”

Yunho snatched your phone and declined the call. “Bitch.”

Tossing your hands up, you laughed. “Thank you!”

The door to Blend pushed open, a few of your sisters wandering inside dressed in their Nasara sweats, or their ITZ crewnecks. Hanging off of one another, hungover and giggly, they mosied up to the counter, but one lingered behind, her arms folded across her chest as she tiptoed a step back.

“Hey Kaz,” you called to her, and the freshmen whirled around with eyes wider than you’ve ever seen them. One of the girls in the group glanced over her shoulder toward you, Eunchae, but her eyes didn’t linger long.

“Hey,” Kazuha sighed, holding up a hand in greeting, her gaze flickering between you and Yunho. 

You’d just run into her a few hours ago, before hustling off to your meeting, where moments after you handed your position over to Tori. She’d been bubbly then, a smile on her face. She seemed to have done a complete one eighty.

“Enjoy,” you said, nodding toward the girls leaning over the counter flashing flirty smiles at Theo. Kaz looked at them, then tried to smile at you before she took to Eunchae’s side.

“That was weird,” Yunho mumbled.

“She’s hungover,” you excused her and watched her latch herself to her friend's arm. Yunho watched you instead, the corners of his lips giving away every thought in his head. “I think you’d like her.”

“She was swapping spit with…” The door to the kitchen swung open and every girl standing at the counter almost squealed. Kaz barely moved. It felt as though she tried to hide behind Eunchae. “Yep, him,” Yunho finished, jutting his chin toward Soul who glared toward the girls.

His eyes pointed past them, and they found you, like he didn’t know you were here until now. Theo must’ve kept you a secret, though Soul would’ve seen you first if he didn’t keep himself in headphone lockdown. He ignored them, the girls' waves and their smitten smiles. He stared at you, and you didn’t like how it felt.

A chill ran down your spine, a sort of cold you’ve not felt since Soul told you about Yunho and Mina.

Kaz whipped her head around, a frown on her lips and some sort of unease bleeding onto her face. An eternity passed, one Yunho lived in three seconds before Kaz faced the counter again, her and Soul’s glares meeting with a fury you could feel from where you sat.

“I know most of this is new to me,” he mumbled, narrowing his eyes, “But this is weird, Rory.”

“Yeah, no, you’re right,” you whispered, reaching for one of his hands. “This is weird.”

NU home ✧ speechless masterlist ✧ talk to me ✧ ao3

you do not have permission to copy or translate my works without my consent.

[wyngigi]

hi guys.. it is no longer wednesday where i am but posting this for wip wednesday to make sure i actually keep writing it😸 heres two diff scenes for u all

[wyngigi]

Off limits😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

‘after all the boys and girls that we’ve been through, could you give it all up if i promise to you, that i’ll never talk again, and i’ll never love again’

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➳ college!teez x fem!reader (oc) - nice for what cast ➳ 6.2 (part four of ???) ➳ 18+, sexual content, drugs/alcohol, college life, all the drama, angst, mentions of anxiety/depression… IF I MISSED ANYTHING PLEASE LET ME KNOW! *pay attention to time stamps <3 *

thursday ~ september 18th ~ 1:05 am

You dropped your phone to your chest. Staring up at the dark ceiling, watching the lights and shadows flicker through the curtains pulled over the windows on the living room wall, a body scooted closer to you and pushed their nose into your shoulder. Turning your chin, you met his curious brown eyes and breathed through a laugh, dancing your gaze back up toward the ceiling.

“It was your brother,” you whispered.

Theo hummed. “Finally, right?” He kept his voice quiet.

Keeho slept on the couch behind the two of you. He’d been half passed out there by the time you returned back to them after crying to Wooyoung in the car, begging him to wait there for you, that you’d be done so fast, he can bring you back. Your stomach had been squeezed, pushed, pulled, flipped upside down and thrown to the ground.

You didn’t want to walk inside ITZ, not after that kind of phone call.

You didn’t want to face the girls. Tori made it known more than once that she’s got this. The dinner, she can handle it, she wants to handle it, it was her playground, her dream to have utmost control over an event she’d be known for. For years to come. 

Song Tori. 

Tori Song.

ITZ Legend.

Remembered for her excellence, her promptness, her style, her poise, her attention and love and care for her sisters. Her love for parties and nights out never once cramped her exquisitely high GPA, her work life balance, one to envy. A networking queen, Ms. Song over the years set her sorority, her sisters up for success and endless notoriety.

You could see it now.

And as much as it made you smile, her own happiness would be yours as well, you could vomit.

Lurching forward, veins buzzing with an electricity you’ve felt only a few times in your life, you slid a hand over your chest and reached for your shoulder. Moving it back and forth, soothing the pounding trapped between your lungs, Theo scooched himself closer to you, sitting up beside you. Placing a hand between your shoulder blades he only applied a pressure, his fingers scrunching before they stretched out again. He followed your breaths, taking deeper ones to encourage you to do the same.

He asked, after a few minutes, “Want me to wake him?”

Your eyes darted to the short hallway Wooyoung’s room lived at the end of. “No,” you pushed from your lips. 

Wooyoung would come out here and talk you through it. He’d ask questions, he’d pick it apart, he’d get you to unravel so he could wind you back up. Countless times he’d cause the weight to grow, and grow, and grow- until it went away. Necessary. Something you appreciated. 

This time you knew what you were feeling. You knew where it lived in your body. You knew what you needed to do to get it to stop. Balls were necessary, and right now you had none. They were impossible to grow while your insides were made of vibrating goo and your ass couldn’t feel the floor anymore.

Lectures weren’t needed.

You wanted to be buried in the arms of someone else. Someone who didn’t need you to ramble about everything racing through your head to understand what was happening. Someone who wouldn’t ask questions until the feeling passed, until you could feel your fingers again. 

“What did Soul say?” Theo asked, and you whipped your head to look at him, your eyes wide. He scrunched up his fingers over your back, then took his time stretching them back out. He smiled. “What’d he want? Guess I’m not surprised he’s up, are they having a party?”

“I- I don’t… I dunno,” you breathed, “He said he wanted to talk, he didn’t say anything about a party.”

Theo bobbed his head. “Okay,” he whispered. “I’m glad he said something,” he met your eyes at the same time the smallest frown tugged at his lips, “He was happier when he was your friend.”

“We drove him crazy, Tae.”

He shook his head. “He loved you guys. Don’t listen to his little dipshit, asshole friends he thinks are good for him. You were good for him, you all were.” Glancing down to his lap, he leaned against you. “I’m worried about what happens when this year is over. When you guys leave, when I move… He’ll be here,” he looked at you with some sort of fear in his eyes, “With them.” Taking your hand from your chest, you slid it over his knee. “When you guys had him, it was… It was the first time I felt hope for him. Like, he would be okay, he could make something of himself.” 

“He still can,” you whispered.

He tried to smile. Taking your hand in his, he squeezed it and took a deep breath. “You helped him a lot.” Lacing your fingers together, he nudged you with his shoulder. “I know this president shit is tough. I know you’re having a hard time with it. But, you are a leader, Ror.”

The buzzing in your veins had since ceased. He’d successfully distracted you enough to loop back around and pull you back into conversation about it.

Through a breath, you whispered, “I don’t wanna do it.”

Theo drew his thumb over your palm. “Hermione Granger,” he whispered.

You both froze, then broke into giggles.

“What?” your whisper was harsh, stuck in your laugh.

Theo, who rocked forward, tipped his head back and said it again. “Hermione Granger,” he raised his voice slightly, “Padme Amidala, Black Widow-” “What are you-”

“Women that are leaders, that the story isn’t about, but without them, the story wouldn’t exist.”

“Black Widow got her own movie,” you huffed, and he narrowed his eyes.

“After how many years,” he countered.

Keeho stirred on the couch. “You are so gay!”

Scoffing, Theo leapt to his feet. “This is bi erasure, Keeho,” he nearly shouted, taking two steps toward the couch before leaping on top of his boyfriend. Giggles erupted from the two, your best friend throwing his arms around Theo, pulling him in. Through the laughter and short spouts of bickering, Keeho quieted him with a kiss.

Your cue to leave.

Quietly, you grabbed the pillow from the floor and tiptoed down the hall, pushing Wooyoung's door open. He stirred in his bed, the room too dark you couldn’t even see if his eyes opened. Turning the handle to close the door in silence, you padded around to the side he wasn’t strewn across and slipped under the covers, tossing the pillow against the headboard.

“What were they yelling about?” he mumbled, sliding his legs together to free up some space. 

Releasing a breath, you kept some distance between you. “Something about bi erasure.”

Wooyoung rolled over to face you, his eyes closed and his hair rumpled. “Sounds like Kee.”

“Was Tae, actually,” you whispered, and he smirked.

“The man fights back,” he muttered.

Silence fell. You prayed to anything that the two in the living room would remember they were in an apartment, with very thin walls. Though if you or Wooyoung said anything they’d have plenty about the two of you to argue back with.

Not anymore.

Blinking, eyes adjusting to the darkness of his bedroom, you made out the curve of his nose. His natural, messy waves brushing over his long lashes splayed over his cheekbones. His lips that pursed as he slept. His cheek squished into his pillow.

Two weeks ago you’d have been able to reach over and run your fingers through his hair, over his cheek, dancing finger down his nose, pressing a kiss to the tip. Depending on his mood, he’d nip at your finger, catching it between his teeth before he wrapped his lips around it, spitting it free to shove his tongue into your cheek. He’d roll on top of you, slide his hands up your arms and trap your wrists in his hold above your head. Taking his time he’d trail his lips down your neck, your chest, over every curve until his waves and wicked smile made their home between your thighs…

“Aurora,” he whispered.

Opening your eyes, you sighed. The space you put between you didn’t exist, you had moved closer, against him.

“Off limits,” he whispered. 

Letting out the tiniest groan, you flipped onto your back and clasped your hands over your belly. “I can’t sleep.”

You could hear the smile pulling at his lips. “Do it yourself.”

Clicking your tongue, you shot him a harsh, “Pervert,” and tried to swallow your grin as he snickered.

He rolled over to his other side, back facing you, and said, “I’m not kidding though. It’ll help.”

With a sigh, you made sure to grumble once more just to make him laugh again.

He was serious that night. Off limits. He’d implemented San rules, as if you were some sort of animal.

San rules.

San.

Peeking to the side, at his bare back you ached to press your lips to, you reached for your phone and swiped open to your messages. San was already pinned to the top, right beside Tori who was pinned right beside… Yunho.

The buzzing in your veins came back. The air began to thin. 

Fuck it.

[you]: i’m coming tomorrow

He responded immediately, exactly on your wavelength, giving you the response you expected.

[sannie]: three times. i promise.

thursday ~ september 18th ~ 11:59 pm

Spinning around in San’s arms, falling backward onto his chest clad with a t-shirt that stuck to him, one you’re shocked he could breathe in, his hands slid down your hips, his own body swaying with you as you moved to the music. In the middle of the crowd in ATZ’s dark living room you were both several drinks deep, ignoring looks and dodging advances, which came as a surprise to most of San’s suitors, but not to San.

Grinding against your ass, he pressed you into him and latched his lips to your neck after pulling your hair back, letting his warm breath fan over your skin before he pressed his open mouth on you.

When San had you, he only had you.

He’d usually be on the hunt for seconds at this point without even devouring his first quite yet. Each night he had them stacked, had them waiting, and with how many dirty looks you were on the receiving end of tonight, it’s very clear he’d been booked and busy, but he’s blowing them all off for you.

Half hard, gyrating into you, both of his hands, his fingers digging into the curve of your hip covered by a minidress, he almost missed the junior that came up behind him, shouting for his attention. It took her grabbing him by the shoulder and yanking him backward for him to break his gaze off of you. Turning toward her, bringing you with him, the two of you stumbling as you moved, the junior took one look at you and her face went sour.

“Course,” she huffed, rolling her eyes. 

Dropping your hands to your side, resting them over his, you smiled at her. She was pretty. Short dark hair curved beneath her chin, pearl earrings accented her ears, a dainty necklace hung around her neck, she wore… a pink sweater and a denim skirt.

Your stomach flipped. You struggled to stand up straight, trying to push off of San to get a better look at her.

“Sorry, baby,” San cooed, giving her a pursed lip smile before she stormed off, pushing through bodies that shouted after her. He swung you around, twisted you around, and slid his arm back around your waist, letting his hands slip a little lower. Pressing his forehead to yours, he was a second away from kissing you, but the vacant look on your face made him frown. “Ror?”

The floor rocked beneath you. A sort of dread settled in your gut.

San took his hands to your cheeks and tilted your chin up. Meeting his eyes, you pressed your hands to his rock hard chest and pushed at him with as much strength as you could conjure up.

“Go be with her,” you said. The words came out slower than you thought they would.

San grabbed onto your wrists and tugged you into him, wrapping his arms around your back. “No, no,” he breathed. “You’re mine tonight, pretty girl.” Nudging your nose with his own, he beckoned you to look at him, and when you did, he smiled something soft. “Did that upset you?”

Shaking your head, lowering your eyes, you made him laugh.

He pressed a finger into your chin, bringing your eyes back to his. His brow softened, and his eyes grew a bit wider. “Use your words, babe. What’d that just do to you?”

Her image popped back into your head. A vision of perfection, and grace, and power, and betrayal, and vain. Her always styled hair, and the way she dressed, how it was exactly Yunho’s type.

Your stomach flipped again. You tightened the grip you had on San and shook your head.

“Mina,” you whispered, flickering your gaze upward, finding comfort in how his lips pouted.

He sighed. “Oh, babe.” His hands caressed your hips, then took their time sliding up your side, palming your shoulders with a gentleness before he cupped below your jaw, and he offered you a smize. “We can’t have that, can we?”

His lips were on yours with a kiss so deep it rendered you thoughtless. Tongue pushing past your lips already, you grew limp in his arms, and you allowed him to take you. San cast a spell impossible to ignore, something you didn’t believe until you experienced him this summer for yourself, finally giving in to him and his advances- on your own accord. Just once you had to see what all the fuss was about, you had to have him at least once.

And once turned into a lot. More often than you would have ever expected.

You and Wooyoung both.

You literally could not help yourselves.

Everything everyone spoke of… was the complete and honest truth.

Keeping you on his hip he snaked an arm around your shoulders and pulled you through the living room, the crowd parting for the two of you. Popping occasional kisses to your temple, your forehead, your lips if he reached over to squish your cheeks, he got you to the stairs until you were stopped halfway.

You weren’t quite sure how you moved this fast, but your journey came to an end too quickly, you needed him, and at this point you didn’t care where you were. The ache between your legs fueled a frustration within you, one San had mastered himself. He simply smiled at his president while you whined and tugged at his arm to keep moving.

Seonghwa’s eyes flickered between you both as he drug a hand through his long black hair, his own skin dewy and glowy. “Where we going?” Hongjoong leaned against the wall with a smirk, one step above Seonghwa.

San eyed them both, his gaze dropping to Hongjoong’s shirt put back together one button off. Smiling, he shot them a wink and pushed through them, pulling you along. “Is it your room tonight?”

Hongjoong laughed, Seonghwa groaned, but a smile played at his full pink lips.

You weren’t staring, but he looked really good in his tighter black pants that were real snug around his waist, his crotch, and his white tee, he wore it like San’s, tighter than ever. A silver chain hung around his neck, one you’re well acquainted with.

“Yours,” he shouted up the stairs, then shot you a smug look. “Hi, Ror,” he crooned, and Hongjoong chuckled. 

San wasn’t the only siren in the house. 

You peeked at Hongjoong who couldn’t take his eyes off his man either.

Nor were you the only sucker who succumbed to them.

Reaching the top of the stairs, brain turned off, all of your inhibitions handed over to San, you grabbed him by his broad, solid shoulders and pressed yourself against him, ready to plant kisses on his neck, but a voice on the first floor stole your attention.

“Hey, Hwa, can we-”

The second he made it to the bottom of the steps, the president pushed him back by the chest and gestured toward the kitchen with a nod of his head. “I need a drink, come with me, ask me after.” 

Yunho.

He was here.

The fuck? Of course he’s here, this is his goddamn house.

Knees going weak, you held onto San and sucked in a breath. “Fuck,” you whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“I’m right here,” San whispered, keeping his hold on you a tight one. “Where are we going next?”

Looking up at him, shifting on your feet, barely feeling any sort of autonomy left, you tipped your chin backward and groaned.

What were you doing?

Yunho is downstairs, in the kitchen in fact, Seonghwa and Hongjoong are taking him that way, and you’re pretty sure it’s because you were up here on the second floor with San. San who watched you with a fire in his eyes, his grip on you saying the same exact thing.

You know he’d stop if you wanted him to. If you wanted to go back downstairs, he’d take you there. 

But Yunho was there.

And Yunho wasn’t talking to you.

San was here.

And San was talking to you.

Glancing back and forth, from stairs, to San, without a coherent deep thought you pulled him closer and kissed him with a force that sent him stepping backward. 

“There she is,” he muttered with a smirk, and slid his hands down your back, gripping just beneath your ass, lifting you onto his front. 

Through fervent messy kisses and the way you moved against him, with you latched to his front he carried you up another flight of stairs to the third floor. You hadn’t been up here in over a year, since you opened up Hongjoongs door and Yeji and Wooyoung tumbled out of it.

San’s bedroom, that he now had to share with a junior, lived across the hall, at the top of the stairs. Releasing you, balancing you on your feet as he pushed the door open, noise behind another plank of wood had both of you acknowledging it. Sliding a hand around the back of your neck, guiding you into his room, he breathed through a laugh.

“Soul and Jongseob’s room,” he said quietly, and your heart sunk. Catching the look on your face, he took the hand around the back of your neck and slid it around to the front, backing you into his chest as he kicked his door shut. “Ignore the shit, Ror,” he grumbled, applying pressure with his hand, your head going way dizzier than it’d been all night. Taking his other hand around your front, he lifted your dress and slipped his fingers in your thong, strumming two fingers over your clit, huffing a laugh at how embarrassingly wet you were for him already. Nipping at your earlobe, voice gravelly, he muttered, “You owe me three orgasms.” 

And with another push on your throat and twist of his fingers he nearly drew the first one out of you in seconds. A low groan from his chest, his soft, gentle lips pressed to the sensitive skin beneath your ear, under your jaw, the way he took calculated breaths, meticulously rolled himself against you- the tiny circles he swirled with his middle finger took you down in a minute. Sixty seconds.

Legs trembling, putty in his arms, heat spiked through you, ripped through your chest, your entire middle. Unable to make a sound, breath restricted, controlled at his hands, his delicious little hum of approval made you smile.

His lips brushed over the shell of your ear. “Good fucking girl,” he growled. Everything within you tensed, every sound he made added fuel to the fire. You tried to turn around, with your feet planted to the floor you tried to face him, but he wouldn’t let you. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

You wriggled around once more and his arms tightened tenfold. Trying to answer him, the words couldn’t come out, you couldn’t form any. Dizzy, brain cloudy, you couldn’t breathe, and the way he laughed at your struggle triggered more of an ache between your thighs. 

His middle finger slid down, then back up, and your body shook. Waves of pleasure, an aftershock of sorts.

“So easy,” he muttered with another slide of his finger, twisting it as he slid it up. Sensitive, your mouth popped open, a silent moan, all a gust of air, whatever you had left within you. In one quick motion San took his hand from your throat and gripped your jaw, smirking as you gulped down a breath just before he took his fingers from between your legs and pressed them to your tongue. “Suck.”

And you listened, and he hummed with pride. Wrapping your lips around his fingers, tasting yourself, your knees shook, and he didn’t have a third hand to hold you up.

He moved quick, San wasted little time in the bedroom, he had you face down on his roommate's bed before you could even swallow. Pushing your dress up, out of the way, the fabric cinching over your middle, he grabbed you by the hips and lifted them up, higher. On his knees, his shirt hitting the floor as he pushed his clothed length against you, he sighed as you moaned, uttering a quiet, “Yes,” as his hands gripped at your bare ass. 

Smoothing his palms over your skin, he admired the view, smiling down at you and how you twisted to look back at him, head pushed down into the grey duvet. His eyes drew lower, at where your bodies met, how his hard cock pressed against your thong, and his smile grew. Pushing his hips forward, arching backward a bit, he glanced down at himself and groaned.

You arched down into the bed and pushed your ass into him, your knees slipping open a little wider.

The sound outside in the hallway grew. Doors were opened and shut, more voices filled the space. Muscles tensing, San felt it. Not worried in the slightest, he slid a hand down your back and leaned over you, pressing kisses to your shoulders.

“Don’t listen,” he whispered between slow kisses, the soft smack of his lips and gentle rutting of his hips into your center grounding you, keeping you in the room with him. “You and me,” he whispered. 

“You and me,” you whispered, but your words twisted with a moan. Hooking a finger in your thong he tugged it aside and had his zipper down in a flash. He wore nothing beneath his pants, because of course he didn’t.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Your body jolted.

Soul shouted in the hall, laughter following.

His dipshit asshole friends.

San, aware of it all, grabbed onto your hips and pulled you back, pushing himself into you, filling you up entirely, and then some. The sounds that left you weren’t enough to quiet the hall, the longer they stayed there the more your attention would be split.

And San couldn’t have that.

It ticked him off.

You knew it did, but there was nothing you could do about it. 

Ignoring how it all made you feel, San pounding into you, your wails bouncing off the walls and into the hall, the boys out there listening to it all go down. He’d know it was you, he’s heard this before, he’s made you sound like this before, there was no mystery. Any college sophomore in their right mind would have their ear pressed to the door, and though every thought that popped into your head was being fucked right out, you couldn’t imagine him exploiting you. Letting his friends listen, as much as they longed to take his place for those many months. Your Soul wouldn’t allow it.

But, if they were… If he did…

The heat took over. Your legs spread, you melted, your nipples pebbled, your toes curled. Pushing off the bed San fucked you into, you arched backward and laid on his chest, reaching backward to tangle your fingers in his hair, giving the strands a harsh pull. He sucked air in through his teeth and punished you with a spank. Yelping at the sting, he drank up the giggles you gave him soon after.

“Yeah, you like that?” Smirking, he wrapped his other hand around your throat and spanked you again. A moaning, babbling mess, you turned your head and blinked up at him. He pressed down on your neck and pouted at how your brows flipped. “Oh, babe,” he cooed, fucking into you harder, admiring how a smile played at your lips, “Only whores make eye contact.” 

You giggled.

San, turning red in the face, took his hands off of you and pushed you back down against the mattress. “You playin’ fucking games?”

Sucking air into your lungs, you grabbed fistfuls of the duvet and blinked back into reality now that his hands weren’t on you. His dick thrust into you, he drew another orgasm closer, but he wasn’t touching you. 

You’ve spent nights face first on a mattress before, this wasn’t anything new. What he did to you, how he spoke to you- all things you’ve asked him to do. Over the months, the year, you couldn’t place why it didn’t satisfy you, why it wasn’t enough, why you were always missing something, always feeling like something wasn’t right when the sex was all you wanted, and sex you received.

It struck you now, blatantly straight across the face.

Whiplash.

Six months of San, Soul, Wooyoung- it didn’t compare to the six months of Yunho.

To the six months of lingering touches, lingering gazes. The six months of taking your time, learning something new about the other each time you stripped each other down to nothing. Six months of pure need, pure bliss, true curiosity, absolute care, a certain gentleness to each move no matter the circumstance.

Six months of it meaning something more than just being pushed into a mattress.

He would touch you. His hands would stay on your body. He’d never let you get so far away. He’d never make you feel so far away.

Here, on a random bed, you’ve never felt further from anyone. 

San grabbed back onto your hips, pulling you right out of the spiral.

“Two more, baby,” he praised. “Come on, pretty girl.”

Pushing up onto your hands, you arched your back and flipped your hair over your shoulder, giving him a look. His devilish smile sparked that feeling within you. 

He’d distract you for the next hour or so, and then, you decided, you’d be done.

friday ~ september 19th ~ 2:13 pm

“Everything's set, the schedule is scheduling, tomorrow will be perfect.”

Yuna smiled at Tori from her 1940s velvet green lounge chair. “Of course it’ll be perfect, look at everything you’ve done. No one’s gone to these extremes before, Tor, you’re already setting new standards.”

Your knees bumped the desk as you twirled your chair around for the third time. Using your hands to peddle about, your feet sat on the cushion, your legs pulled up from the floor. Gripping the wood, you dug your nails into it and brought yourself to a stop. The girls have been speaking to one another for a half hour and you haven’t said a word.

Leaning against the desk, standing in front of it, Tori, in a white bodysuit that showed off her tattoos and a denim mini skirt that hugged her hips just right, led the girls just right. Without looking at her notes once she ran over the itinerary for tomorrow, not leaving out one measly detail. With her chin high, she gave orders, she assigned duties, she ensured her day would run smoothly, that her dinner would go to plan. Chaewon and Yunjin, with stars in their eyes, listened to her, watched her, studied her, embodied her in their posture, in how they carried themselves. Yuna, with all the trust in the world, beamed at her friend, sharing some of that pride with you, a few glances here and there, but ultimately, Tori received it all.

As she should.

You listened, you paid attention, you held just as much pride for Tori as the rest of them, if not more, whether or not you were able to properly show it amongst what hung over your head. The guilt of not being present didn’t even have time to set in, your mothers several voicemails filled every void with an even bigger void, a deeper void. A void you didn’t even know was a void until Wooyoung described it that way. 

He’s invited to the ATZ parties now, but unfortunately he wasn’t able to be in attendance last night to witness you self medicating, but your poison has a big mouth and he found out anyway. Waking up, in your own bed, alone, with Tori in hers, to one disappointed text message from him had been enough to set you off for the day.

You’ve been on autopilot since eight o’clock this morning, after you made yourself sick to get rid of awfulness within you, not realizing it was going to take a lot more than vomiting to clear out the shit in your head. 

Yunho was at the party last night and your paths didn’t cross once. Either San did an excellent job of keeping you from him, or he’d been actively avoiding you. 

A lump lodged in your throat. Pushing your hands against the desk you spun the chair around two more times, swallowing profusely, withholding your tears from slipping down your cheeks. These girls would not see you cry. 

Exhausted, hungover, and heartbroken, you didn’t have much of a choice. 

The chair came to a stop, your knees hitting the wood before you dropped your head and wrapped your arms around yourself, sobs pouring from you in an instant. Hushed whispers sounded around you, meaningless noise you couldn’t pick apart until there was only one voice left, speaking to you.

“Ror?”

Tori.

Her hand slid over your back, over the Nasara logo down your spine. Crouching down beside you, she pushed your hair aside, persuading you to turn to look at her. When your eyes met, she smiled, a soft one, only her lips perking up beneath her worried gaze.

Sniffling, you lifted your head and wiped your cheeks, giving your head a shake. “I have to talk to him.” Voice broken, you’re shocked she made out your whisper.

She slid her hand over your arm, tracing your fingers with her own. “Please, talk to him.”

Mustering up a deep breath, you sighed, another cry escaping you. “Why hasn’t he said anything? I was there last night, we crossed paths this week so many times, and… nothing.”

Tori nodded, her brown waves dancing over her bare shoulders. “I really don’t wanna be in the middle of this anymore, you know that, but what I told you is true. He does,” she paused, then gestured toward you, “This, over you. He’s just as much of a mess, Ror. You guys are still playing whatever game you set into place last year.”

The game.

Yunho not speaking to you unless you speak to him first.

“I slept with San last night,” you muttered, and her eyes bugged out of her head.

“What the fuck? I thought you were cut off!”

A smile pulled at your lips. “By Wooyoung,” you reached out to poke the tip of her nose with your pinky. She jutted her chin backward and thinned her lips. “Not San. I found a loophole.”

“You shouldn’t be doing anything in regards to loops or holes,” she curled her lips and stood up to her feet. 

“Wait,” you whispered, reaching for both of her wrists. 

Her being tensed. It was as if she was waiting for something, or expecting something. You could take this moment to tell her, that you were ready to give it all up, that you couldn’t stand being in this position, having accidentally become important at work- you didn’t want any of it. Between grades, your mother, Yunho, your father, you’d much rather be doing anything else.

As a member of the sorority your only duty had been to show up for your sisters, support your leaders, attend events, pay your dues, and keep your grades up. Now, you were responsible for your sisters, you had to support the leaders beside you and all of the chapter members, you were responsible for every event, your dues had gone up exponentially, and you haven’t had a lick of time to even once think about your grades, your schoolwork.

You still needed, and were required to have an internship before graduation. It was a requirement. Without one there would be no cap and gown in your future, within the next eight months. 

Tori had plans. Tori knew where she wanted to end up. Tori and Mingi would move to Iloa next summer, together, they’d jump headfirst into full time positions, the both of them interning for the same marketing company her sisters management team uses. The opportunity fell into their laps the night of Sitara’s movie premiere, and without question, they gobbled it up.

As they should.

You were in the same major. You’ve taken all the classes. You’ve seen what you can do after graduation.

Not one bit of it interested you.

In the start, sure, it seemed cool. Social media used to be fun for you, you could build that into something bigger. You were good at editing photos, at editing bodies of words people needed proofread, you could throw together a presentation and sell your ass off. Moving to Iloa, working in a corporate office, sitting in meetings such as these you’ve been subjected to for almost a full four years, listening to people brainstorm and shovel out ideas to be shot down, leaders berating their members, taking away their autonomy…

Shit like that, power in that sense, it all sat at your fingertips now. 

You wanted no part of it.

No one should have all that power.

Whether it was yours, or Tori’s, or Yeji’s…

You couldn’t handle it.

Too many girls looked to you now for answers, for structure, for stability. All your life you’ve never had answers, or structure, or stability. You were clueless as to what any of that felt like, what any of that looked like, how in the hell were you supposed to rule over them for a year if you didn’t have within you the very thing they needed.

Wooyoung says you’re running. Your father would be disappointed. Your friends, they’d think you were a coward. Yunho, what would he say? 

Around this time last year you were handed this position. It should’ve been yours from the start, this was supposed to be your second full year of presidency. You took it without a thought. So much had been taken, stolen from you, you felt as though you had no other choice. 

Maybe you were running.

“Tori,” you whispered, brows flipping over as you stared up at her. She gulped, shaking her head the tiniest bit. “You know how grateful I am for you, right?”

“Course,” she breathed, her eyes narrowing.

“Everything we’ve been through, we did it together,” you said, and she nodded. “This past summer-”

She closed her eyes and shook her head faster. “We don’t have to get into it, I don’t wanna even remember-”

“Tori,” you gave her hands a shake and smiled at her when she opened her eyes, “I…”

She blinked. “You, what?”

Pursing your lips, you glanced about the room and let out some sort of laugh that made her face screw up. “I don’t want to be the president anymore.”

“What?” she spat, pushing your hands away.

Looking back up at her, your smile deepened, and you shrugged your shoulders. “I don’t wanna be it. I don’t wanna do it.” 

“Aurora,” she sighed, dropping down to her knees, nearly eye level with you from the floor. “Do you know what you’re saying? I know you, and I know there’s a shit ton of truth behind this. You don’t wanna be the president anymore?” Through her whispers, her half gasps, her frantic gaze scattered about the room, she sucked in a breath and sighed yet again. “I know things have been… hard.”

Fluttering your eyes shut, you smized, sarcasm dripping from your expression.

“But, you can’t just… This is something you’ve…”

Her voice trailed off. Opening your eyes, you found her in thought, the gears grinding behind her bright eyes. Blinking three times, she parted her lips with a smack, cocked her head aside and gaped at you.

“You… never wanted this,” she whispered.

“It was never a thought,” you said. Reaching out, you placed a finger beneath her chin and closed her mouth for her. She shied away just as she did before. “This wasn’t a goal I wanted to achieve. I didn’t even have time to think about it before I accepted, or�� before I… let it happen.”

Steadying herself with one hand on the desk and the other on the chair, she took a deep breath and stood to her feet, her head bobbing. “Okay,” she said, voice hushed. “Okay, we can… we can talk about this.” Looking at you she held out a hand for you to take, and she pulled you out of the chair. “Let’s go eat.”

“Let’s go eat,” you whispered, and she nodded, shock still living upon her face. 

Taking a hand to your shoulder she guided you from the room. “Yeah, and maybe get a couple drinks, too.”

NU home ✧ speechless masterlist ✧ talk to me ✧ ao3

you do not have permission to copy or translate my works without my consent.

[wyngigi]

reblog if you have skilled writer friends and you're damn proud of them

[wyngigi]

all these wonderful points i will take into consideration as the story progresses.. my heart will lie with rorwoo i fear i cannot stray in this dire time but all viewpoints i attempt to take and empathise with my best foot forwards!!!!!!

Rorwoo for 2025 i say clutching my chest in anguish @minkieater @bananayuyu

just bc @wyngigi has sparked this in me…

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[wyngigi]

I absolutely agree at a first glance that wooyoung only seems like a mere comfort and not what ror wants but when i observed what ror would express wanting from her supposed life parter it never truly aligned with tor or yunho!! But i see the actions she wants in wooyoung😞

Ror wants to not feel insecure when with the other person, something i will wholeheartedly point the finger of shame at yunho bc i think hes so completely to blame for it!! The whole mina situation absolutely wrecked ror and i believe tor’s own desire to feel chosen in her relationship with ror is making her overlook what ror really deserves even if it means her time will be more divided (also adding that tori’s feelings are certainly skewed by her friendship with both yunho and ror!!)

Ror says she doesnt want someone who makes her sit down immediately and talk out her feelings, bc shes stuck in this sense of crossing out woos actions to favour yunhos but later we see its exactly what ror needed when she was stressed n upset😩

just bc @wyngigi has sparked this in me…

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[wyngigi]

Rorwoo discourse on my dashboard as if theres any other plausible option🧐🧐🧐