LOWKEY Lee Minho

LOWKEY — lee minho

pairing: minho x fem!reader genre: smut, angst, fluff, friends with benefits!au word count: 10k warnings: 18+ mdni. fingering (f. rec), semi-public sex, oral (m. rec), kitchen sex lol, unprotected sex, praise kink, overstimulation, this is my attempt at writing smth NOT laced w humor please bear w me ok... its a hard life trying not to be funny </3

summary: catching feelings for lee minho was inevitable from the start. falling for him is as easy as breathing, but how are you supposed to let him know how you feel when you spend more time fucking him than talking to him? OR, the only thing you're more scared of than losing minho is loving him.

"Minho—" you pant. "We're—mmph—we're going to g-get caught."

"Not if you shut up."

He tightens his grip on your hair, gathering it in a makeshift ponytail at the base of your neck.

"That's not fair," you hiss, but the tail end of your sentence breaks off in a moan as his fingers curl upwards inside you. "—Oh, right there."

"Yeah?" Minho mutters, and the rasp of his voice—calm and collected and outlined with just the tiniest bit of ego—is so hot you can't stop yourself from clenching around his fingers.

"And what's not fair, exactly?"

The answer to that question is so easy it is laughable. The words are on the tip of your tongue, ready to spill over: it's not fair that you are so weak for him. That just one look melts you into a puddle, that just one touch sets you alight.

It's not fair that you can't resist him no matter how hard you try (and oh, have you tried.)

Instead, your response is only one word.

"You."

The single syllable slips from your lips right as Minho lays an open mouthed kiss on your pulse point, tugging your hair to the side and baring your neck to him for better access.

His mouth is wet and hot and he flicks his tongue out against your neck. You bite your lip and inhale but remain silent otherwise.

A moment later, he licks a long stripe down your feverish skin in retaliation.

"Really?" Minho raises a brow, his words vibrating against the curve of your throat. "Should I stop, then?"

Inside of you, his fingers come to a painful halt. The loss of movement is visceral, but you are determined to make sure he doesn't know just how frustrated you are, and so you bite your lip hard to remain silent.

"Doesn't matter to me," you say breathlessly.

If this had been a few weeks ago, you probably would have already been begging him to fuck you however he wanted to. If this had been a few weeks ago, your mind would have been blank and your senses would have been overloaded.

But it's not. By now, you've hooked up with Minho countless times—by now, you are in so deep that you aren't willing to (can't) let him know just how much of an effect he has on you.

And so, resolutely, you remain silent.

Still...

You can just imagine how the two of you look right now. Minho, pressing you against the wall in this dark corridor, his body flush against you, his fingers inside you, his mouth against your neck.

Your hands are clinging to his shoulders, your skirt is flipped up, and your skin is so flushed from pleasure and pain both that you think you might pass out soon if he doesn't hurry up.

It's lewd, the way that the image only makes the whole thing hotter. Especially when you weren't supposed to end up like this in the first place.

Downstairs, you can hear the muffled thump of some awful EDM music from the party below. You are supposed to be down there. Today was supposed to be the day when you—finally—were able to think with your head instead of your pussy and actually, truly, be strong enough to resist Lee Minho.

But then he walked into the party with his mischievous smirk and those sinfully tight vinyl pants that he knows you love, and, well... You were a goner.

You didn't even try to resist when, a few hours later, he grabbed you by the wrist and dragged you up the stairs. Not when he pushed you up against the wall and pressed his lips against yours, and definitely not when he hiked your skirt up and slid two fingers inside of you.

It was pathetic, how easily Minho could get you to fold. His hold over you was rapturous, and frankly, rather worrying, considering that the two of you were nothing more than friends that fucked sometimes.

"Doesn't matter?" Minho asks. The look on his face is a familiar one, and the competitive gleam sends a shiver of anticipation down your spine.

The two fingers inside of you remain frozen, but then he lifts his thumb and without warning, presses hard on your clit.

"Oh."

You are unable to stop the breathy moan that slips past your lips, and the satisfied curve of his mouth lets you know that he definitely heard it.

"Hmmm," he muses, and then his fingers are moving once again. His thumb remains on your clit, rubbing tight and precise circles until you see you stars.

Despite your best efforts, your breathing stutters, coming out faster and deeper as pleasure branches outwards through your body.

"I think it does," Minho breathes in your ear.

"No-oh," you shake your head.

His smirk widens as your eyes begin to droop. You don't even have to know what you look like to know you look absolutely fucked out right now—but the longer he continues his skillful ministrations, the less you find yourself caring about standing your ground.

He is just so good with his hands. He smells perfect and feels perfect and is perfect, and the closer he brings you to your orgasm, the less it seems to matter that you have feelings for the man knuckles deep inside of you.

"Are you gonna cum for me, baby?" He asks, and the goading curve of his voice makes the words sound like a taunt, like a challenge.

Stubbornly, you refuse to submit.

"M-maybe," you breathe out.

By now, you are gripping his forearms for support, and his hand in your hair drops to your waist, pulling you even closer to you while simultaneously supporting some of your weight. Underneath you, his fingers continue to work you open with precision that has your thighs quavering.

"And what if I don't want you to cum?" Minho meets your unwavering gaze with his own, moving his thumb quicker against your clit still.

The words are a cruel suggestion, and yet accompanied with the heated look in his eyes, they send a shot of arousal straight to your core. You clench around his fingers once more, and he inhales sharply.

"I-I'll find someone else t-to help, then," you say, but the words hold no real threat. You and Minho both know that you would never, and yet his gaze still narrows at the thought.

"I don't think so," he coos, his dark eyes an unmistakable juxtaposition to his sweet tone.

And then his lips are on yours, devouring you in a messy kiss that is mostly tongue, but some teeth too. The passion in the kiss takes your breath away, and your brain short circuits as his fingers speed up, hooking upwards just right to brush against your spongy g-spot.

Simultaneously, his mouth trails down from the corner of your lips to the column of your neck, and the sensation overload is too much for you. This time, despite your best efforts, you can't stop the moan that slips past your lips.

"Who else can make you feel this good, hmm?" Minho asks, punctuating his words with a particularly vicious thrust of his fingers.

You can tell your high is cresting closer and closer, and the sheer pleasure makes it hard for you to find your words.

His teeth nip at your neck, sucking a deep purple bruise into your skin as the pad of his thumb continues to rub hard and fast against your clit.

"Answer me," Minho says lowly.

You shake your head instead, your teeth digging into your bottom lip as a whine builds in the back of your throat.

"I asked you a question, Y/N." His voice is dangerous, the threat clear when he digs his thumb unforgivingly against you.

"N-No one," you choke out, clenching around his fingers once more. "Only... O-only you."

"That's what I thought."

He is satisfied by your answer, if the movement of his fingers are anything to go off of.

"M-Minho," you pant, your eyelids sliding fully shut. "I-I—"

"Fuck," he groans under his breath, the wet sound of his fingers getting louder and louder.

"I'm s-so close," you whimper.

"I know, baby." His voice sounds strangled, and the thought of how hot he must look right now is the only thing that gives you the strength to open your eyes.

Minho's brow is furrowed in concentration, his face drawn taut as he continues to work his fingers in and out of you. The determination inscribed on his face is even hotter than you imagined it would be. Even outside of the bedroom, it is one of your favorite things about him.

The reminder of it now, however, makes this—a simple quickie at some random party—somehow feel that much more intimate, and it sends a weird pang through your chest.

"Come for me," he whispers then, his voice uncharacteristically soft as he looks up at you with his wide, blown-out brown eyes.

And that—that is what finally sends you over the edge.

"Mmph!" With a muffled whimper, your orgasm hits you, and Minho groans unabashedly at the clenching of your walls around him.

His fingers fuck you through your high, and the entire time, his eyes remain firmly on yours. The desire in his gaze is evident even through the haze of bliss, but there is an undercurrent of something more there, too—something that you don't quite pick up until the after effects of the orgasm have worn off and he is sliding his fingers out of you.

There is something tender about the way he sets you down gently, smoothing your skirt down and patting your hair until it looks less like he finger-fucked you in a dark hallway and more like he was trying to show you where the bathroom is.

But when you look up at him, his face is blank, and you are reminded once again that this isn't special, that he has probably done this countless times before. After all, Minho could have anyone he wanted—in fact, he probably has at some point.

The arrangement between the two of you is just convenient, and there isn't anything more to it. Not for him, anyways. In this equation, you are the sole outlier, the only actual problem.

"Can I..." Your voice trails off, hoarse and slightly awkward in the muffled silence of the hallway.

Your eyes are glued to Minho, watching as he adjusts himself in his pants.

"Can I help you with that?"

You already know the answer before he says it.

"Nah, 'm good," he says easily, a loose smirk on his lips as he runs a hand through his hair. If it wasn't for his blown-out pupils, you would have thought that you didn't affect him at all.

Still, your heart drops to the bottom of your stomach anyways.

His words echo inside your head, and you're sure that he must have figured out the way you feel about him. When you first started sleeping together, Minho had been obsessed with your mouth. Nothing quite got him off the way that you, on your knees in front of him did.

But recently, he has been staunchly rejecting your advances, and you can't think of an answer for why, except one: that he must know that you are in love with him, and he doesn't quite know how to let you down easy.

And, despite how much the thought hurts, you can't quite blame him for it. After all, when you both started this whole thing months ago—on a night with a few too many shots and a scandalously tight dress—the terms had been clear: that this was just sex, nothing more.

You and Minho had never been particularly close; in fact, before you started fucking, you were barely friends. You just happened to run in the same circles, and your best friends somehow ended up also being his best friends.

That is exactly why, after the first time you slept together, the first thing you agreed on was that things would end the moment feelings got involved. Anything that compromised your mutual friendships wasn't worth it, you both concluded.

Except, somehow, feelings got involved for you anyways, and you didn't do anything to stop it.

Which is why, after all this time of shoving down how you feel about Minho, you are left with only one choice.

"Minho," you say quietly after a moment. "I think we should stop doing this."

He pauses where he is straightening out his shirt, his hands frozen in place on the hem of his top. A moment passes. Two.

Then he looks up at you, his expression painfully devoid of any emotion.

Here is the thing: Lee Minho has always been a mystery to you, impossible to read in most circumstances, and difficult to unravel in the rest. But throughout the past few months, you thought you were slowly worming your way past his hard exterior, maybe even learning the puzzle pieces that consist of the real him.

The impassive look on his face, however, tells you otherwise.

And then, finally, he opens his mouth and simply says, "okay."

It is just a single word. One straightforward, lonely word.

And yet, it feels like an arrow through your chest. Your reaction is physical, visceral, as goosebumps trail down your arms and the blood thrums viciously through your ears.

This is what you wanted. This is what you needed—to end things right here, before you could fall any deeper, and for Minho to accept it with no questions at all.

This is what you wanted... So why does it feel like your heart has been cracked in two?

Maybe the third bottle of soju wasn't the brightest idea.

Maybe letting Jisung bully you into coming out tonight, after endless days spent moping alone, wasn't the brightest idea.

Maybe, in fact, fucking Lee Minho and then promptly falling in love with him wasn't the brightest idea.

Then again, you never were one for bright ideas. That is why it is no surprise that, two weeks after you end things with Minho, you find yourself shoved between Felix and Jisung at your favorite barbecue place as you down yet another shot.

The alcohol-induced haze of the night blurs the edges of your vision and your face sports a healthy, fuzzy flush, but no amount of alcohol is enough for you to ignore the elephant in the room with you.

The elephant being, of course, Lee Minho himself.

You had been proud of how diligently you managed to avoid him over the past week. Sure, it is kind of hard to run into a person when you hardly leave your bedroom, but still, the fact stood: you hadn't seen Minho since the party. It had been wishful thinking, hoping that you would be able to avoid him forever.

And yet, you still didn't think it would happen this soon. You hoped beyond all hope that you would be able to avoid seeing him for at least however long it would take for you to sort out your stupid little feelings for him. Then, things could go back to normal. Or, at least as normal as things could be.

The scheme was perfect, too—you and Minho had never been friends anyways, so it wouldn't be suspicious if you two suddenly weren't on speaking terms anymore. And none of your friends knew about the arrangement (aka fucking each others brains out) so it wouldn't make much of a difference to them now that it was over.

Except, in your endless consideration of how to navigate the aftermath, you forgot to take into account one very important factor: Han Jisung.

And perhaps it was stupid of you to think that Minho wouldn't be here tonight. But when Jisung basically dragged you out of your apartment, telling you that the guys were already at the restaurant waiting—well, you missed actual human interaction just enough to forget that wherever Jisung goes, so does Minho.

Which is how you ended up here—sat as far away from Minho as humanly possible, absorbed in some conversation with Felix about his most recent gaming obsession.

"Okay, that's enough of that," Jisung declares drunkenly, his eyes narrowed in on you.

His cheeks sport a warm flush, and his jacket has been abandoned on the back of his chair. The exposed biceps tell you one thing: he's well on his way to full-on drunk mode. If you were a little less absorbed in your own despair, you would have been worried about where he was going to end the night; but you aren't, and so all you can do is raise an eyebrow at him.

"When are you going to tell me what's been going on with you?"

"What do you mean?" You ask, your voice sounding much more level than you feel.

"Something's been off lately," Jisung frowns, "and I was trying to be a good friend, y'know, waiting for you to come to me first and tell me what it is, but it's been weeks!"

"Off?" You laugh awkwardly.

"Off?" Jisung mocks, his face scrunching up as he glares at you. "Yes, off! What the fuck is going on with you?"

"Nothing, Ji," you roll your eyes.

And then, because you can't help it, your eyes drift over to Minho. It is only for a split second, but his attention is focused completely on his food and he doesn't notice.

Not for the first time tonight, your heart clenches.

"I don't believe you," Jisung declares.

"Work's just been a bitch," you sigh. "But seriously, I'm fine. A little tired, but that's all..."

His expression twists in distrust, but there must be something written on your face that even he recognizes, because he decides not to push it any further.

That, or he's reached the point of the night where he starts to lose object permanence and he simply can't see your face anymore.

"Lee Minho, I didn't know you still remembered us," A boisterous voice drags the attention away from you.

Hyunjin, another one of your mutual friends, stumbles over to where Minho is, a bottle in his hands and a playful pout plastered across his face.

"Sorry, who are you?" Minho grins at him, and it is both the first time you have heard him speak and the first time you have seen him smile in two weeks.

It should be criminal, the way your heart flutters at such a simple act.

"Shut up," Hyunjin flops down in the empty chair next to him. "Feels like I haven't seen you in forever."

You want to look away, but it's the first time that Minho has glanced up all night, and now that Jisung's attention has been captured by Changbin, you find that you simply cannot.

"It's been, like, a week," Minho points out.

"It's been two, actually," Hyunjin complains. "You cancelled dinner with me last Friday, so we haven't seen each other since Chan's party."

Minho is silent for a moment. You wonder if he's thinking about what happened at that party—if he's thinking about the dark hallway, his fingers inside of you. If he's thinking about you at all.

He barely even takes a breath, and you think for a moment that he might finally turn and look at you.

But then, the corner of his mouth turns upwards in a smirk.

"I didn't know you were this obsessed with me, Hwang," he teases. "If you want my attention, all you have to do is ask."

"Shut up," Hyunjin says again. "Stop it, I'm mad at you! You barely even said hi to me that night before you disappeared to God knows where. Where's the love and appreciation for your friends, huh? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"When has Minho ever apologized for ditching you for a girl?" Seungmin interrupts from a few chairs down.

A scandalized gasp escapes Hyunjin's lips and your eyes shoot down to the table immediately, embarrassment searing through you.

Nobody knows that you are the girl Seungmin is talking about, and yet you can't help but feel like he has just turned on a glaring spotlight and shined it directly onto you.

Before you can think twice, you pour yourself another shot and throw it back.

"You abandoned me for sex?" Hyunjin screeches, smacking his arm.

"I did not," Minho denies.

And, well, technically it's true. After all, it wasn't anything more than a little fingering in a dark hallway.

"Yeah," Seungmin snorts. "That's why he didn't come home until the next morning."

Or... is it true?

Just because he didn't have sex with you doesn't mean that he didn't have sex at all...

Maybe, in fact, after you left him high and dry, he decided to try his luck with someone else. It wouldn't have been hard to find someone willing—not when he's Lee fucking Minho.

The thought of him caring so little about you makes your stomach turn violently. You were never exclusive, so he was never obligated to only hook up with you, and yet you find that you can't stomach the idea that he chose someone else anyways. That he didn't even hesitate after you ended things pierces you like a bullet, and your next few breaths come out shallow.

This time, you can't stop yourself from staring at him. You're waiting for him to deny it—waiting for him to tell Seungmin to stop fucking around, for him to say something, anything.

Instead, he remains painfully silent, which is all the answer you need.

"You bitch," Hyunjin says, but his voice fades into the background as you try to process the slew of emotions this revelation brings.

And then, for the first time all night, Minho looks up at you.

It's just for a second, if even that, but it is enough to push you over the edge. His buttery gaze is just as it always is—wide and curious, and you feel like you can't breathe.

Abruptly, you push your chair back and stand up.

"What...?" Jisung slurs through his drunken haze, a confused sort of concern on his face.

"I need some air," you tell him. "Feeling a little stuffy in here."

"Want me to come with?" He offers immediately, but the way he sways in his seat makes you wonder if he's even capable of standing, let alone walking.

"I'm fine," you assure him. "I'll be back in a few."

And then, before someone can stop you, or worse, before you implode, you stride towards the exit of the restaurant.

Despite being the middle of summer, the outside air is surprisingly cool. The low buzz of the city at night normally calms you, yet you find yourself feeling only slightly less suffocated than you had only moments before.

Your mind is as it has been for the past few months: occupied by thoughts of the one person you've been trying so desperately to forget.

God, you wish someone would knock some sense into you.

What's so special about Lee Minho, anyways? It's not fair that just one look at him sends your heart racing and your mind spiraling, that just one look from him makes you wish the ground would swallow you whole...

With a sigh you slide down into a squat, gripping the strap of your purse tightly as you take a deep breath.

You didn't think that you had drank that much, but the sudden movement has your head spinning. Your brain feels squeezed tight, your skull feels stuffed with cotton balls, and when you blink slowly, the world looks a degree warmer than it had before.

"You okay there?"

And of course, you have reached the point of drunkness where the familiar timbre of his voice that has haunted your dreams for the past few weeks is now haunting your every waking moment.

Two and a half soju bottles must be just the correct amount for your brain to conjure up an image of Lee Minho for you.

"Go away," you mutter, annoyed that even your subconscious was unable to let go of him.

"No thank you."

"You're talking too much," you pout. "I don't like it."

"Sorry," fake-Minho responds with a laugh, and you pout even more thinking about how real-Minho would have laughed at you if he could see you too.

"You should be," you say.

You sway where you are squatting, caught off guard by how light you feel. Alcohol has always had a tendency to exacerbate your clumsiness, and, well—let's just say your sense of balance isn't that good to begin with.

"Woah," fake-Minho says, and then a hand is on your back, steadying you.

"Seriously, are you okay? Should I get you water or something?"

"What...?"

It takes a moment for the warmth of his skin to register. Almost belatedly, your gaze snaps upwards to the man towering over you.

Because right there, looking as perfect as he always has, the real Minho stares down at you, concern furrowed between the ridges of his brow.

"O-Oh my god," you scramble backwards.

Embarrassment colors your cheeks even as Minho bends down to your level. He reaches for you, as if to offer assistance, but at the last moment pulls away.

"Y/N," hesitancy drips from his voice, and it kills you just how delicious your name sounds falling from his lips.

"I-I'm fine!" You insist, suddenly feeling more sober than you had only moments ago.

Somehow, in your rush to get away from him, you manage to push yourself up from the ground without his help. Your back feels exceptionally cold and you try to ignore the absence of his touch as you stand up straight.

"Okay," Minho says, his voice level as he pushes himself up too.

A moment of silence passes as you try to calm your racing heart. What, exactly, is the correct way to act when interacting with a former fuck buddy who you just so happen to be hopelessly in love with? You would love to know the answer to that.

"S-So," your voice comes out shrill and you wince. "How have you been?"

"Good," Minho nods. "What about you?"

"Yeah, me too."

A crisp breeze ripples through the night air and your grip on your purse tightens.

You can't look at Minho—even the thought of it is overwhelming, and so your gaze focuses on the street as cars pass by. Inside the restaurant, a round of laughter trickles out to you. You wish you were there with them.

"I—" You begin, your brain desperately scheming for ways to get as far away from Minho as quickly as possible.

"That night," he clears his throat, interrupting you. "After you—left. I didn't... I didn't hook up with anyone else."

Far away, the angry sound of a car horn reaches your ears.

"Right," you nod, not really understanding the words coming out of his mouth. "Um. You don't need to, like, justify yourself."

It's a herculean effort to keep your tone steady, to try and sound uninterested even as your stomach turns violently.

"I just wanted you to know that," Minho says, his dark eyes focused on you.

"Okay."

Why is he telling you this? You want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. You want to yell at him until he leaves you alone. You want to pull him close and beg him to kiss you.

Instead, you roll your shoulders back and purse your lips.

"Well," you try to make yourself sound more cheery than you feel. "It was nice seeing you. I think I'm going to go home now—woah!"

Your efforts to seem cool and collected are ruined when you take a step forward on wobbly knees that decide now is the perfect time to give out. And of course, in a horrible stroke of luck, Minho somehow manages to anticipate your stumble before it happens.

In only a split second, he's right in front of you, wrapping an arm around your waist to steady you.

"Are you okay?" He asks, concern shining in his eyes.

You waste no time in shoving him off of you, brushing his question off.

"Well, let me take you home at least," Minho says finally.

"No!" You exclaim sharply. "I'll be fine on my own!"

He raises a brow. "Really?"

"Yes," you insist. "Jisung can take me home. You don't have to worry."

"Don't be silly," Minho rolls his eyes. "Jisung is so drunk he can't even stand."

One glance into the restaurant is all the confirmation you need to know he is telling the truth. At the table, Jisung is slumped over and can barely lift his head, even as Changbin continues to badger him.

"Just let me walk you home. Please? If not for your sake, then for mine," Minho implores.

His earnestness is clear, and it is like he knows that you have never been able to say no to him—that, likely, you never will.

"...Fine," you say finally.

Minho's shoulders sag in relief, and the tentative half smile that forms on his face is enough to take your breath away.

You turn quickly, determined not to let yourself spiral any deeper.

The only saving grace of the night is that Jisung, in all his glorious idiocy, actually chose a restaurant close to your apartment. Minho remains quiet the entire seven minute walk back, maintaining a precise pace exactly half a step behind you.

Every time you stumble (more than you care to admit), his hand hovers over your back, ready to catch you, but other than that, it is like he isn't even there.

The alcohol running through your veins makes the journey simultaneously quick and also horribly, painfully long. You can't tell if you have been walking for ten minutes or for ten hours by the time you finally arrive in the lobby of your apartment building.

"Well," you say awkwardly. "Thanks... for walking me home."

"Of course," Minho nods. "Text me when you get up?"

"Right."

That's not going to happen because the first thing you did after you ended things with him was block his number, but you don't tell him that.

The walk towards the elevator is excruciating because of the way his eyes bore holes into your back. All you want to do is turn around, just for one last look at him.

A deep breath leaves you when you remain resolute, and you press the button for the elevator. Except, where it would usually light up, it remains dark.

You press again, and then one more time. Dread rises in your stomach, and when you look up, a big red-lettered "out of service" sign greets you.

"Fuck."

"What's wrong?" Minho asks.

"Elevator's broken," you squeeze out, pinching the bridge of your nose.

A sense of panic swells inside of you—how are you supposed to get home now? You could barely walk here. Climbing the four flights of stairs to your apartment seems the wrong side of possible.

Minho reaches the same conclusion at the same time. His gaze lingers on the elevator and then to you as you chew on your lip, contemplating how long it would take you to sober up like this.

Then he crouches down next to you.

"What—?" You begin, noticing the way he hunches over.

"Get on."

Your jaw drops.

"N-No—"

"Are you going to be difficult again," he sighs, craning his neck to look at you. "Or are you going to listen to me and get on?"

If you were a little less drunk, or if his gaze had been a little less piercing, maybe you would have been able to refuse.

Instead, you purse your lips tightly and you do as he says, wrapping your arms around his neck.

"Good," he says, his tone soft and satisfied.

Even in your drunk haze, the single word sends electricity through your entire being. Trying to ignore it, you rest your cheek against his back and relish the feeling of his warmth.

Minho adjusts his grip on your legs, pulling them closer so they wrap around his hips, and the reminder of just how strong he is doesn't do anything to help your situation.

While keeping your distance from him, you were able to deny the visceral effect Lee Minho has on you. In your lowest moments, you were even able to fool yourself into thinking you never cared about him in the first place.

But with him this close, with the scent of him in your knows and the heat of him underneath you, it's undeniable. The soju in your brain and the man carrying you up the stairs to your apartment are confusing enough to cross the wires in your brain.

The only thing you know clearly enough is that you want to hold on tightly and never let go. Your eyelids slide shut, and you decide to savor this moment—no matter how short it is.

"Y/N," Minho murmurs, coming to a stop. "Where are your keys?"

"Purse..." You mumble, not making any move to grab them.

You feel the sensation of him reaching behind, rummaging through your bag, and then the click of a lock echoes.

Beneath your cheek, the soft sound of his breath is like a lullaby. In, out, in, out.

A door opens and then closes, and the familiar scent of your apartment invades your senses. You burrow further into Minho's neck, clinging onto the fading scent of him.

His breath stutters, but you hardly notice as a hum of contentment bubbles up in your chest.

Another door opens and the sound of bare feet padding across carpet fills the room. Then the soft cushion of your mattress appears beneath your legs as he lowers you onto your bed.

"You've got to let go of me," Minho whispers when you cling onto him.

You shake your head, squinting into the darkness of the room. Only a small lamp illuminates the space, casting a warm glow across his face as he looks down at you.

"C'mon," he coaxes, gently prying your fingers apart.

Too hypnotized by the tenderness of his expression, you let him unwrap your arms from around him and lay you down. Your eyes remain on him as he fluffs your pillow and pushes it under your head, before pulling your blanket over you.

Your hand wraps around the edge of the duvet as he trails out of your room. The sound of him rummaging around in the kitchen echoes, then the sound of the tap, and finally Minho appears again.

Your heartbeat kickstarts again at the sight of him, and you want to kick yourself. You feel light and floaty as exhaustion sets in and your eyelids grow heavier. Still, you keep them open, if only to stare at him for a little bit longer.

"I'm going to leave some water here for you," Minho says. "Make sure to drink it."

"Uh huh."

He looks like an angel as he speaks to you, his voice soft.

"Text me or call me if you need anything."

"Yup." The words go in one ear and out the other as you find yourself enraptured by the curve of his jaw, the swoop of his hair, the swell of his lips.

He lifts his hand, as if reaching towards you, but freezes. The cogs in his brain whir almost loud enough for you to hear, even as he slowly lowers his hand again.

"Well..." Minho says, taking half a step back. "Good night."

He turns around and your heart stops. You hardly think as you reach out, your hand wrapping around his wrist.

"Don't go."

He seizes, as if your word have struck every crevice of his body.

"What?"

"Can't you..." you mumble as a strange ache hollows out your chest. "Can you stay with me?"

"Y/N..."

"I know I'm the one who said we should stop..." You whisper. "But... Just this once."

"You're drunk," he says softly, his back still towards you.

"Please?"

He inhales a deep, shuddering breath that wracks his entire frame.

"I'm not going to fuck you while you're drunk," he says tightly.

The words pierce your heart, send a cold chill through your veins as you process them.

"I—no," your voice cracks. "That's not what I meant."

"What did you mean, then?"

"I'm cold," you whisper instead.

"I'll bring you a blanket."

"Minho..." His name falls from your lips like a plea.

The room freezes for a moment and you can hear his breaths as clearly as if your cheek was still pressed against his back.

Blood thrums through your ears—you shouldn't have asked him that. You shouldn't have said anything, really, but the alcohol...

Well, now you aren't even sure you can blame your actions on that.

The silence swells, a tidal wave just waiting to break, and right as you are about to take your words back, Minho turns around to face you. His face is a watercolor mural of uncertainty and something else you can't quite place.

Still, he takes a deep breath and slowly walks towards the other side of the bed. When he sits down and stretches his legs out, his movements are almost robotic. His body remains stiff and on top of the duvet.

Your breath hitches a moment later when he lays his arm hesitantly over your waist. It barely touches you, as if he is making a conscious effort to hold it up.

"Better?"

You nod.

The duvet is thick enough that if you try hard, you can pretend like this isn't as intimate as it seems. You can pretend that you can't feel his body heat radiating onto your skin, you can pretend that you don't notice the irregular staccato of his breathing, you can pretend that you didn't just ask him to stay with you. You can pretend that he didn't listen.

But as you hear to the light hum of your heater in the corner, you know that you can't pretend that this isn't the most alive you have felt in weeks.

"I missed you," you breathe out.

"You can't say things like that," Minho says, voice barely there.

"I—"

"You're going to get my hopes up," he murmurs. "And that's mean."

"What?"

He sighs.

"Go to sleep."

"Minho..."

He doesn't respond. You wait, your heart stuck in your throat, to see if he will say anything else. But as the minutes pass and his breathing evens out, the room remains quiet. And even though you don't want to listen to him, even though his words play over and over in your head, eventually you can't deny the pull of sleep that drags you under, too.

A pounding headache snatches you from the deep throes of sleep. When you open your eyes, bright rays of sunlight burn the back of your eyelids and you can't quite remember what you did last night to put you in such an abysmal state.

A glance down at your clothes confirms that when you arrived home, you must have been too drunk to change. Which, now that you think about it... How exactly did you get home last night?

Your head swims when you push yourself up, eyes barely open as you shuck off your current attire in favor of your comfy clothes—aka an oversized shirt that you might have stolen from Minho a few weeks ago and your favorite fuzzy socks.

All you can think about is the Tylenol calling your name from the medicine cabinet as you walk out of your room. The only plus side to your current state is that your roommate isn't here to see how horrible you look.

The pounding in your ears is loud enough to drown out the sizzling coming from the kitchen, strong enough for you to not notice the smell of eggs wafting from the stove.

Unfortunately, it is not potent enough to erase the man standing with your favorite apron wrapped around his waist as he points a spatula at you.

"Good morning."

A surprised yelp leaves your lips as you make eye contact with Minho.

“W-What?”

“I made breakfast.” He says it like its the most normal thing for him to be standing in your apartment, cooking for you.

“…Why are you here?”

He stares at you. “Do you not remember last night?”

Your brow furrows as you think back on the night before. The last thing you remember was taking a step outside of the restaurant to get a breath of fresh air, and then—

Your mouth falls open as the memories flood back—of Minho walking you home, putting you to bed, and…

“You stayed?”

The words come out small and he shrugs.

“You asked me to.”

Your mouth gapes and your stomach turns as you struggle (and fail) to process his words. “But…”

“Sit.” 

Minho takes you by the shoulders and steers you towards the barstool, pushing you down into a seat. You are just disoriented enough to not protest, taking the food of plate he puts in front of you without words.

Your heart flutters when you look down to see he has cooked your eggs just the way you liked them, without even having to ask you. 

“What is this?” You ask faintly.

“Breakfast,” Minho says. “Obviously.”

“No, I mean—” you stutter, but he shushes you.

“Eat first,” he tells you firmly. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m not the one who told you drink so much last night,” he tuts. 

Your lips press together. The reason you were drinking was because of him, but you aren’t sure that’s the best thing to say right now. 

“Eat,” he stresses again. “We’ll talk after.”

“Fine.”

You pick up the fork, torn between threatening him with it or digging into the food he made. In the end, your stomach makes the decision for you when it rumbles loudly. It is slightly uncomfortable the way that he watches you as you eat, but you are so hungry and hungover that the attention eventually fades to the periphery of your awareness as you scarf down the food faster than you probably should.

“Happy?” You ask, setting the fork down.

He nods, taking your plate and putting it in the sink.

“Great. So, about that talk?”

Minho shrugs his shoulder noncommittally, his back facing you as he turns the faucet on and reaches for the dish sponge. He looks so domestic washing your dishes that your stomach clenches.

“Minho,” you push yourself up, walking around the counter to close the distance between you and him.

“Yes?”

“Why are you still here?”

“Is that how you thank someone who just made you breakfast?”

“Stop deflecting,” you say.

“I’m not.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“I already told you.”

You are barely a few feet away from him and he still won’t look at you.

“We aren’t…” you hesitate. “We’re not anything.”

“Believe me, I know,” he mutters.

“Stop acting like this,” you sigh. “Can you answer my question?”

Minho turns off the tap and places the plate on your drying rack.

“What do you want me to say?” He asks finally. 

“The truth, maybe?” You let out, annoyed.

“Really?”

“Yes, really!”

“You want me to tell you that even though it’s only been two weeks since I last saw you, it feels like it’s been forever?”

His words hit you like a punch in the stomach.

“W-What?”

Minho turns around, running a hand through his hair. He still refuses to look at you, but now that you can see his face, you can see the way his expression pinches as he continues on.

“Or that waking up next to you this morning was like a breath of fresh air? That I want to cook you breakfast every day and take you on dates all the time, and tell all our friends about us, and even do cringey things like take those stupid overpriced photobooth pictures because I know how much you like them? That I want to be embarrassing and irritating and overly affectionate with you because I really like you and it kills me that you don’t feel the same way?”

Your jaw drops. Blood thrums through your ears, your head pounds for a reason entirely different than your hangover from last night, and you think your heart might jump out of your throat.

Over the course of the past few months, you have seen Minho in countless compromising positions, but never has he looked more vulnerable than he does now. The rawness of his expression floors you.

And then he takes a deep breath, and the look is gone, his face oddly blank.

“Sorry,” he says, his voice level and controlled. “I didn’t mean to…”

He purses his lips, and you notice his fingers turning white as his digs his nails into his palms. When he notices you looking, he quickly hides his hands behind his back.

“I’m sorry,” Minho repeats. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, I meant to keep that to myself—”

“Do you mean it?” You interrupt.

“—What?”

Your words catch him off guard, and for the first time, he turns to look at you. His eyes are wide and confused as they snag on your face.

“Do you mean all that?” You whisper.

He looks at you—really looks at you—and then, candidly, he says, “yes.”

A moment of silence lapses, and then you burst into laughter.

“Oh my god,” you huff. “We’re both so fucking stupid.”

And then, you take a step towards him, wrap your arms around his neck, and pull his lips down to yours.

He doesn’t move, frozen as you press your mouth against him, his hands frozen at his side. And then, a small noise escapes him and he melts into the kiss, his lips working deliciously against yours. His hands press into your waist, pulling you closer to him.

“W-Wait,” he pants, breaking the kiss.

“I—I can’t do this,” Minho says, taking a step away from you. “You said you wanted to end it, I-I don’t want to feel pressured—”

“Minho,” you sigh. “The only reason I ended things is because I liked you too much. I was literally on the verge of confessing any time you even looked at me.”

This time, it’s his turn to look at you with surprise on his face.

“Seriously?”

“Why do you think I was drinking so much last night?” You ask sarcastically.

“…We really are stupid,” he sighs, and then his mouth is on you again. 

This time, he kisses you gently, tenderly. His hands lift to cup your jaw and his lips move slowly against you, sensual in the way they suck and lick against your mouth. Underneath you, your legs turn to jelly and a small moan slips through as his tongue works its way into your mouth. 

“M-Minho—” you gasp when he nips at your tongue, his teeth grazing your bottom lip in a way that sends arousal flooding your core.

“I missed you,” his words come out muffled against your mouth. 

“Mmm,” you hum in agreement against his lips. He presses further into you, crowding you back until the countertop presses against your spine.

The two of you are chest to chest, bodies flush against each other as he devours you, the kiss going from sensual to downright carnal as Minho kisses you as if he needs it to breathe. A moan worms its way out of you when you feel the way his dick, hard through his pants, rubs against your stomach.

“Y-You’re so—” you gasp, pulling back from his mouth. “Already worked up, just from a kiss?”

“I’ve been hard since you walked out here in nothing but my shirt,” he says as you catch your breath.

“Well,” you bat your eyelashes, your fingers playing with the zipper of his pants. “Why don’t you let me help with that?”

“Fuck,” he hisses through his teeth as you slide down to your knees.

His pupils dilate at the visual of you below him, and a positively delicious groan escapes his lips when you nuzzle your face against his bulge.

“Yes, please,” he breathes. 

You unzip his pants dangerously slowly, relishing the way that he watches you with such intensity. Your mouth waters at the thought of his cock, and you swear just the visual of it when you pull him out of his pants is enough to soak your panties.

A finger runs against his slit, light touches collecting his precum on your finger, and he hisses at the feeling. Your eyes stay glued to his when you push the finger into your mouth, swirling your tongue around it. The taste of him is familiar and has you moaning against your finger.

“Don’t be such a tease,” he grits out. “Your mouth…”

“You’re the one who has spent the last month rejecting my mouth,” you pout. “And now you want it?”

“God,” he groans. “Because I knew if I had my cock in your mouth, I would have told you in three seconds flat how I feel about you.”

“Hmm…” You feign disinterest, even as your thighs clench together.

His jaw tenses, the muscle tightening, and you decide to put him out of his misery. 

You lean forward, placing a kittenish kiss on the head of his cock, and then you suckle him in your mouth, taking inch by torturous inch down your throat until you have him firmly to the hilt. The press of him against the back of your throat is painful and pleasurable in one, and you moan around him just to tease him.

“Fuck.”

His hand laces through your hair, tugging lightly at your scalp.

When you look up at him through hooded eyes, his tight expression has you pulling back off, your tongue running on the underside of his cock as you go.

“So good,” Minho tells you, and you push yourself further down his length.

He gathers your hair in a ponytail, holding it out of your face for you as you build a slow pace, sucking on the head of his cock every time you pull yourself off. Your eyes remain trained on his face, and you take delight in every minute change of his expression—the furrow of his brow, the bite of his lip, the parting of his mouth.

Curiously, you graze your teeth against him lightly. He groans at the feeling, his hips unintentionally jerking forward, and you smile around his cock.

Your hands rise to grip his thighs, and then you speed up, bobbing your head up and down fast and hard, ignoring the burn in your throat when the head of his cock hits the back.

“Fuck, oh my god,” he moans, his hand tightening in your hair. 

And then, he pulls you off completely, panting as you wipe the spit from the side of your mouth.

“Why’d you do that?” You ask, your voice hoarse.

“You were having a little too much fun,” he says, the words coming out more breathy than he probably intends them to.

“I was,” you agree.

“Well, it’s my turn,” Minho says, and then he pulls you up from the ground, lifting you to place you on the countertop behind you.

“Gotta take care of you too, baby, hmm?” 

Your legs part so that he has enough room to stand in between them, and you nod slowly.

“Yeah…”

“Are you gonna let me?” He asks. “Or are you going to stubborn, like last time?”

Your mind flashes back to the party, to the hallway, to his fingers, to the way that you were trying so hard not to slip up and let him know how obsessed you are with him.

“Take care of me,” you mumble, tugging on the hem of his shirt.

“Of course, baby,” he smiles sweetly at you, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head.

It is a stark juxtaposition to the way that he hooks both of your legs onto his elbows, spreading you further so that your covered cunt is visible to him.

“Hmmm, so wet already?” He teases, running a finger over your soaked panties. You whimper at the feeling of his feather-like touch, leaning back on your elbows to support your weight. 

“I missed you,” you whisper as he continues to feel you over your underwear. 

“I couldn’t tell,” Minho smirks, his thumb rubbing your clothed clit in a way that has you squirming underneath him. 

Your hips lift off of the counter in an attempt to get closer to him, and Minho takes the opportunity to pull your panties off completely. The air against your exposed cunt is cool and sets you on edge, making you starkly aware of how turned on you are.

His thumb comes down on your clit once again, and the feeling is ten times more intense than before. Your hips cant towards him and you moan as he rubs slowly, leisurely, drinking up your reactions.

“I love when you make those noises for me,” Minho says. “Knew you could do it, hmm? Why’d you hide them from me before?”

“C-Couldn’t,” you pant. “Couldn’t let y-you know how much I like you.”

He clicks his tongue.

“You better not hold back right now, baby,” he says, and then his fingers leave you, wrapping around the base of his cock.

You whine when he rubs it against you, his length hot and hard against your wet folds. 

“Ready?”

You nod quickly, a content sigh leaving your lips at the familiar stretch when he pushes into you.

His pace is torturously slow and has you gasping before he even bottoms out. When his length is fully sheathed inside of you, he remains there, staring at your face with wide eyes that have cheeks warming.

“What?” You ask, self-conscious.

“You look so pretty like this,” Minho murmurs, a hand lifting up to smooth down your hair before trailing down to cup your jaw.

The praise has you clenching down on his cock, which in turn has him inhaling sharply.

“You like it when I say nice things to you?” He asks.

You bite your lip and look up at him but don’t answer.

“You’re always so pretty, baby,” he coos, pulling out slightly only to push back in.

Your mouth falls open at the feeling of him inside of you, every line and ridge so easily identifiable because of how slow he moves.

“I like everything about you, hmm,” Minho says, his breathing getting heavier as he repeats the motion until he is rocking into you, his dick brushing against the sensitive bundle of nerves inside of you. “Your voice, your personality, your pussy, you…”

You whine as he presses closer to you so that his face is only inches away from yours. His eyes bore into you as he reaches down and crooks your right leg over his shoulder, spreading you wider. The angle has him hitting deeper than before, and your insides burn with arousal. The slick sound of him inside of you in combination with your whines and his heavy breathing only make it all the more erotic.

“After this,” he pants, his breath fanning out against your face, “will you let me take you out?”

You nod quickly. “Yes, yes, oh.”

His hips snap against you, moving faster in a way that has your eyes rolling back in your head.

“You feel so hot, so good, yeah?” Minho grunts. “Silly girl, thinking that I don’t like you.”

You whimper at his words, rolling your hip upwards to meet his precise thrusts.

“I’m obsessed with you,” he says, kissing your neck. “It’s kind of a problem, actually, fuck.”

You clench down again, a string of breathy moans accompanying the visceral reaction his words have on you.

“You really like that, huh?” He groans, his hips stuttering at the feeling.

“Mhm, I-I really like you,” you whimper. 

“Look at me like that,” he grits out, “and you’re going to make me come.”

“Please,” your eyes glaze over at the idea of the feeling of his cum, warm and wet inside of you, and you roll your hips against him again.

“Fuck, forgot what a cumslut my baby is,” Minho gasps. 

“Min, please,” you whine. 

“Only been a few weeks and you’re still so desperate,” he taunts. “Is this not enough for you?”

“A-Almost—” you moan. “Almost there.”

“Yeah?” He asks. “Gonna come for me?”

You nod. 

“You’re so pretty when you come, god, I love when you come on my cock,” he groans.

Your orgasm is so close you can taste it, and the way that Minho continues to thrust into you hard and deep only eggs it further along. Your toes are tingling, you can barely keep your eyes open, and your core is clenching down so hard on him that you can see stars.

“Come for me baby, hmm?” He coos. “Show me how much you like me.”

All it takes is him leaning down to capture your lips in a searing kiss to push you over the edge. His mouth muffles the drawn out whine that you let out as your walls spasm around him. You aren’t sure how long your orgasm lasts—it feels like it could be minutes or hours, but he continues to fuck you through it, his mouth moving to your ear to mumble praises of how good you’re doing and how amazing you feel until you all but collapse on the counter beneath you, feeling boneless.

“You did so well, baby,” Minho murmurs, his hands gripping your hips as he continues to rock in and out of you slowly.

He is still hard, painfully so, and you can feel him throbbing in your oversensitive cunt.

“M-Min—” you cringe away from him, but his hold on you is firm.

“Think you can take a little bit more, hmm?” He pants.

You whine at the feeling of him inside of you.

“Thought you wanted my cum, baby,” Minho says. You nod your head deliriously, still basking in the afterglow of your orgasm.

“You can give me one more,” he tells you, “it’ll feel good, hm? Being good for me?”

His thumb drifts down to your swollen clit, and your back arches at the pain and pleasure of the direct contact.

“Minho,” you moan, “Oh, please—”

You aren’t sure if you are begging for him to stop or for him to keep going, and the smirk on his face tells you that he knows that. His thumb rubs tight circles on your clit, and you clench down hard on him, feeling another orgasm cresting dangerously close.

“So good,” he sighs, his hips stuttering. “Doing so good for me, baby.”

“Come, please,” you gasp. “Please, please, please.”

Minho’s thrust become sloppier the harder you clench down on him, his breaths coming out in rough pants—yet his thumb remains firmly where it is, rubbing and rubbing until he, dangerously quickly, brings you to your second orgasm.

You cry out as you come again, your hands gripping his wrists tightly as you writhe underneath him.

“Fuck,” he groans, thrusting jerkily into you twice more before pulling out, warm ropes of cum landing on your thighs. 

You watch in blissful satisfaction as he jerks himself off through his orgasm, the veins in his forearm very visible. 

He slumps against you, his forehead pressing against yours, and you smirk at him.

“You missed me that much, huh?”

“Yes,” he sighs. 

“Well, lucky for you, I also missed you a lot.” You press a kiss against his cheek, giggling at the feeling of his hair tickling your face.

“So about that date…” Minho begins. “How long do you think it will take you to get ready?”

You jaw drops. “You wanted to go now?”

He grins. “No time like the present, right?”

if you enjoyed, please don't forget to reblog and leave your feedback/opinions <3 tysm for reading!!!

Help. This is so funny.

There is so much fanfiction material in this song

"I Like It"

LDWL masterlist!!

Summary: Fei Kai moved to South Korea to get a fresh start. The fresh start included a man with curly hair and glasses.

Story warnings: Single mother! Kai x Ex military! Changbin. Strangers to lovers. Enemies to lovers. 3rd person. Disabled! Changbin. Kai flirts with people as always. Kai has a toddler. Suggestive in many chapters. Themes of PTSD.

Chapter 1

1.4k word count. Written on mobile. Chapter warnings: themes of imposter syndrome. Kai has a bad relationship with her parents. Han being a douchebag.

Chapter 2

2.2k word count. Chapter warnings: a wee bit of violence

Chapter 3

2.7k Word Count. Chapter Warnings: Time skip, Angst towards the end, suggestive teasing(in like, one line), Kai getting hurt(Signs of a concussion), Changbin being slightly violent(he pushes Kai away from him), graphic depictions of traumatic scarring, self image issues(Changbin), a bit of fear of abandonment/fear of being replaced(Changbin again. Mans going through it)

Chapter 4

1.9k Word Count. Chapter Warnings: Concussion symptoms(No treatment), Alcohol, Drunk Han and Felix, Changbin not knowing how to be a big boy and handle his emotions, emotionally constipated Changbin

Chapter 5

2.6k word count. Chapter Warnings: Fleeting mentions of Night Terrors, Blood, Graphic depictions of bodily harm and death, How Chanbin lost his leg, Both Kai and Changbin being emotionally immature, both Kai and Changbin need to touch grass, one suggestive scene(Kai is naked, Changbin needs to stop being curious), angsty

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Extra: Memes, Playlist, incorrect quotes

Tags!: @mynameisnotlaura, @palindrome969

comment if you want to be on the taglist

---

Can You Hold Me?

✶ Pairing: tennis player! Kim Hongjoong x therapist female reader ✶ Word count: 10,8 k ✶ Warnings: cursing, traumatic past, mentions of death, mentions of alcohol use, a lot of angst, a little suggestive at the end

✶ Summary: You had chosen to become a therapist, but why? So that you could help others, and at the same time escape your dark and traumatic past. One day, the problematic tennis player Kim Hongjoong comes in for a session, and everything changes from then on as you find solace and understanding in your traumatic pasts.

✶ A/N: Yoo, I'm back omg, I officially graduated and now I'm an unemployed nobody yaayy. So about this story...I'm not quite satisfied with my writing in it and I don't expect much from this, I just needed to write it because it kind of helped me through tough times. And I just realized writing angst helps me get through my anxiety lmao. Oh and just to add, I have no idea about psychology I kind of improvised the whole process so sorry if it’s not how it is going.

So buckle up ig, I wanted to make this very angsty but ended up making it rather fluffy lmao, so enjoy! Okay byee! (divider)

(p.s. This song inspired the title and it perfectly describes Hongjoong's feelings, I recommend listening to it hehet.)

Human's minds are pure chaos. Within each person lies a world as complex as our physical reality. There exists pure happiness alongside deep darkness that can both consume and strengthen. It's hard to escape the maze of rusty, huge walls that separates us from our sanity. Sometimes people desperately need a guiding hand that belongs to a person and runs along the dark maze, pulling them out of the dark labyrinth of thoughts that slowly destroy them.

I was a helping hand in hundreds of people's lives. People came to me shouting for help desperately or sometimes they were too stubborn to ask for help so I needed to convince them first to trust me, so they could let me lead them out of the dark.

I was a clinical psychologist, I fixed people's minds. It is a hard task, everyone has their unique story, and their own problems that can drive people crazy. And I needed to prevent that. All the process looked like a brain surgery, it just didn't need steel tools and extravagant knowledge of the different kinds of nerves and muscles. I couldn't just cut out people's brains like the doctors and fix things like that. A brain surgery could take up to 7 hours, but if I needed to save someone from the dark, dirty maze...that is impossible for them and for me to help in that short of time. It needed years. Years of trying to show the way out into the light that sometimes comes with the biggest hardships. To put together the lost pieces so they can be their old selves. But the thing is, they could never be their old selves again, just little pieces of it. Sometimes they can overcome it alone, sometimes they accept my helping hand and sometimes...they don't make it out of the dark ever. Those are the hardest journeys of my bumpy road.

I always felt like my life's purpose was to help people overcome their fears. I liked to dive deep into people's minds and play with the strings of their nerves, to find out their deepest, darkest secrets that they only told me. All the time someone confessed their feelings, when they opened up to me, I felt like a Goddess to whom people whispered their biggest sins. It was like they told me their Sea of Confession.

And why did I like it? Hearing people's dark thoughts made my mind concentrate on their problems, so I could run away from my own problems, from my own dark thoughts that hunted me in my nightmares, until my mind was tired enough so it could finally go blind.

I could fix people, but who fixed me?

I was in a hurry as I sipped from my morning coffee next to a quick breakfast that I made in a hurry because of course I overslept and now I was late for work. As I was sitting in my small one-room flat, I drank the last drops of coffee from my mug, quickly grabbed my keys, and turned off the TV that was a white noise on my chaotic morning.

Before I turned the TV off, I saw that the news was about some 26-year-old professional tennis player who got into a scandal, that was speeding through the highway drunk and nearly causing an accident. I heard about this player a few times on the news, he was always in some kind of trouble, like being drunk during an interview or shouting at a reporter after he lost a game, these attitudes of his made his fame slowly fade through the years as people started to judge him, because of his behavior.

I saw a few of his interviews, where he just seemed as bored as a prisoner in a cell, he spoke with people like they were some kinds of slaves. Something was up with him, I knew it—I was a therapist—he had a reason because people don't go insane just because they want to. I was sure it was deeper than the effects of being a professional tennis player dealing with fame.

He fought with some demons just like all of us.

The news also said that they just took his driver's license and the problem was solved, just because he was an athlete and had money. Our world was very fair. I scoffed at that after I quickly turned off the TV and glanced one last time at the full-body mirror, checking if my white shirt was perfectly ironed, which I paired with a grey, tight skirt that barely reached my knees with black heels, I pulled on my grey blazer that fitted with my skirt and left my cozy flat to step out into the air full of the breeze of spring. 

As soon as I parked my car I hurried straight to my office, my first client was already there waiting for me in front of my door that held my name 'Dr. Kwon Y/N'.

"Ah, sorry for being late, but the traffic was horrible, my apologies." I quickly took out my keys from my purse and opened the door.

"It's okay, I know it can be the worst." My client smiled at me, his blonde hair fluffy from the morning hours, black framed glasses sitting on his tall nose, his dimples showing from the curve of his lips. His name is Song Mingi and he has been going to therapy for over a year now, he experienced a horrible trauma and it takes time to get over it, step by step but he is going to fight his demons.

"C'mon in." I smiled at him genuinely.

I stepped into my office, which looked comforting, and full of warm colors, that being orange, brown, and all shades of red. I wanted to make this room look like a place where people who are coming to my office, feel safe, to feel that whatever they tell me, stays there. The walls were painted warm orange. The furniture was brown, in the middle of the room there was a brown armchair with some orange stripes and in front of that, there was a sofa with the same colors, where my clients could lay down or just sit comfortably. On my left side, there's a big window and on the ledge, there are some green indoor plants. My main purpose was to give them a place where they can feel comfortable.

I sat on my armchair as I waited for Mingi to get comfortable.

"So how are you feeling today, Mingi?" I crossed my legs and all my attention was on the man in front of me, trying to listen to his thoughts and feelings that confused him.

Noon went by quickly and I had a little break before my next client came, so I went to the nearby bakery to buy some fresh baked bread. As I was walking back to my office, finishing the bread I bought, I got a text from my assistant, saying my next client was already here so, I needed to hurry back. Today was not my day that is sure. I kind of started to speedwalk, and that turned into running. I just hated it when my clients needed to wait for me because that didn’t seem professional.

As soon as I stepped into the building trying to catch my breath because of the running. I spotted a man who leaned against the wall in a black hoodie the hood was over his head, where a few blonde strings of his hair fell onto his forehead and his hoodie was paired with ripped black jeans.

"Good afternoon, sorry for being late!" I approached the strange man; it was his first time being here.

He quickly snapped his head up and looked at me with a bored and quite sharp expression. "Finally, I've been waiting for ten minutes already." He sighed staring at me with deadly eyes.

It didn't surprise me when my clients offended me and made me the wrong person. It was common when people didn't want to say anything at all to me or to be everywhere but here. Throughout the years I learned how to handle these kinds of people.

As our eyes met, that was the moment when I recognized this man, pictures from all over the media and the news appeared in my mind of the professional tennis player Kim Hongjoong.

I bowed my head a little as a sign of my apology. "My apologies, come in!" I opened the door with that and went in, to sit down in my armchair. He followed me with a disgusted expression as he looked around the room, and plopped down to the sofa. He was laying on his back with his legs pulled up, shoes still on, hands interlaced over his stomach, and closed his eyes, with his hood still on. I analyzed every little movement of his because it told me hundreds of things about him. I knew he wouldn't talk to me much, so my job was to read his moves. It was the kind of situation where we won't talk a lot because he just doesn't want to be here, it could be even that someone forced him to come here, or he just opens up with difficulty.

I was a tolerant woman and I knew, I needed to make him trust me.

"My name is Dr. Kwon Y/N, nice to meet you. Kim Hongjoong, right?" I asked with a warm voice as I crossed my legs and opened his files on my laptop that was on my legs. As I quickly glanced through his file, I immediately understood the reasons behind his behavior.  

"Yeah. Can you stay quiet, I want to sleep." He said with a low voice, his eyes still closed.

I was in plenty of situations like this, sometimes people don’t know what is respect towards the other. You just needed to make them respect you.

"Well, you are not here to sleep right now, Hongjoong." I just looked at him with a knowing smile, because the next thing was that he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at me.

"Well, I don't want to talk." He turned his head back to stare at the ceiling.

"We don't have to talk about your problems or feelings, only if you want. But firstly, we are here to feel comfortable and to trust each other." I said, closing my laptop and leaning forward to place it on the small table that separated us.

Hongjoong just scoffed at that. "Yeah, right."

I leaned backward folding my arms. "What is your favorite color?"

He looked at me again with a confused expression. "Are you kidding me? Are we in kindergarten or what?"

"We have to start somewhere, aren't we?" I raised my eyebrows at him with a smile. I needed his attention and this was the best solution.

"It's black I guess." He said with a bored expression.

"Favorite animal?"

"Squirrel"

"Oh, that's an unusual one." I smiled. He just shrugged.

"Favorite place to go on a vacation?"

"I don't really have time for those things."

"But if you had time?"

He rolled his eyes. "Probably Greece."

"Greece is beautiful, I agree."

"Why did you choose tennis?" And here we are, the real-deal questions started now. I hoped he fell into my trap with the previous questions.

The question surprised him, but he just shrugged. "My dad showed it to me when I was younger and I immediately felt a connection with it." It was a short answer but told me a lot of things. Passion from childhood—noted.

"Something you like doing, other than tennis?"

"Nothing." I stood silent because I saw on his face he was thinking. "Probably driving. But I fucked that up too." His features changed to anger. It seemed like he was mad at himself. It was good. At least he knew something was up with him.

"You can get it back, it's not permanent," I said to him, trying to calm him with my soft voice.

"Well," he suddenly got up in a sitting pose and stared at me like it was my fault. "That was the only thing that could clear my head and I lost that too because I fucked up." He raised his voice, his expressions mirroring pure anger, that was pointed at me, but at the same time I knew he just couldn't face the mirror and to fully blame himself. At least he showed emotion, that was always a good sign, even if it were bad emotions. 

"Sometimes people need to lose something that brings them joy, so they'll learn to live without it and find other things that bring them joy," I said seriously, looking deep into his eyes, trying to find a little light in them.

"Stop this bullshit, cliché speech. It's not true. When you lose something important to you, that will never come back." He was leaning over his knees with his elbows, his hands interlaced. He seemed vulnerable for a second, I saw a really broken part of him, that was going to be tough to put together, but there was no impossible task for me.

We weren't talking about driving I knew it; it was just easier to speak in metaphoric sentences.

"Yes, there are situations when that something won't ever come back, but that doesn't mean we have to destroy ourselves and live in self-pity for the rest of our lives." I just needed to stay calm and only beam positivity, even when people shouted at me, blaming me for everything.

"No, you don't understand." He stood up and buried his face into his hands in frustration. "I can't do this." He said and went to the door without looking at me.

"Thank you for coming today, Hongjoong! See you next time!" I told him quickly before he angrily slammed the door.

I sighed as the silence swallowed me. Being a therapist is one of the hardest jobs on earth. It is physically but especially mentally stressful and it can eat you alive if you let it. It not only affects your feelings, that you kind of have to close out every time you have a client, but you also have to transform into them and imagine yourself in their situations and their feelings. And these different types of feelings can really overwhelm you, it's cruel.

But in the end, when I see in people's eyes, after some sessions, that they changed and are trying to be better, it fulfills my heart, that is when I say, it is worth the ups and downs that come with it.

Hongjoong wasn't my first client to act like this; they were difficult to handle and required patience. However, I knew he would calm down one day, and we could have a sincere conversation.

That night I dreamt about a little boy's face, eyes full of passion, that looked so familiar but I still couldn't recognize it. 

Hongjoong came back the next day and after. He was calmer than the first time. He slowly opened up to me, as we talked through the hours of the sessions, sometimes it went well, sometimes it was rather quiet, but we made progress.

"What does tennis mean to you?"

"It's my everything, that is what is left for me in this world. But I feel like it's slowly not enough to keep me here."

"Maybe you should try something new out."

"I'm only good at tennis, I tried to do sports like football, but I wasn't that passionate as for tennis."

"Do you want to give up on tennis?"

"I don't want to, but... I'm getting so bad at it because my feelings are eating me alive. I'm not the old unstoppable Kim Hongjoong who beat everyone who came his way."

"Fighting against your feelings won’t solve your problem. This is why you should speak about them."

"What if I don’t want to?"

"How does the media affect your feelings?"

"I don't give a fuck about the media, those are some fucked up people whose lives are so boring they need to bump their noses into other's life."

"It's a really good point of view, I agree they don't know the real reasons for people's actions, only what they see. But you can't say it never affected you."

He stood quiet for a second, thinking. "It affected me when they talked shit about my close ones."

"Do your friends support you?"

"Yes, I have only a few friends, but they support me in everything. Especially Wooyoung, who is like my brother."

I nodded. "Does Wooyoung live here?" Before he could say anything, I added. "Just if he's close enough so you can talk or hang out if needed."

"He lives in the city, we play football a lot of times together and hang out after for some drinks."

"Do you like to drink?"

"Who doesn't?"

"Replying to a question with a question. I see. You are learning from me." I smiled at him just to elevate the mood.

I saw a very little curve appear on his lips. We were heading in the right way.

"But back to my question. You know you did a lot of things while being drunk."

"Well, that is my only escape from this fucked-up world."

"But you know it affects other people as well, for example when you nearly caused an accident driving while being drunk."

"Do we really need to talk about this? I know I messed up, okay? You don’t have to shout at me for being stupid." His mood swings were like a child's—one moment he was cooperative, and the next he was angry for no apparent reason.

"Why did you become a therapist?" He asked, looking sincerely curious. It occurred a lot of times when my clients tried to ask things about my personal life and I only thought it was fair to reply to them but keep the boundaries in their place.

"It wasn't even my dream until 5 years now, the idea came suddenly and I realized I always liked to talk to people about feelings and give them advice," I said keeping eye contact with him as he was sitting in front of me.

"Did you always live here?" He asked, leaning back on the sofa.

"Yes." I smiled at him.

"Do you like it here?" I wasn't surprised by his questions, there was always a moment when people realized they didn't know anything about the person sitting in front of them, to whom they confessed their deepest feelings.

I looked out the window on my right and thought about the question. "I think, I do. Do you?"

"I hate it." He looked down at his hands when I turned my head back to look at him.

"Why?"

"Because a lot of shit things happened here."

"So why are you still here?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, I have nowhere to go."

"Maybe, you could go to Greece." I smiled at him.

"Yeah, maybe." He lifted his head to look at me a visible smile appearing on his lips.

"The night they caught you drunk in your car, what did you feel before?" I brought back that case because we needed to talk about that so I could understand what went through his head that night.

"Anger, heartbroken?" To my surprise, he answered, without getting angry at me. Maybe it was one of those good days of his.   

"So you thought drinking and speeding through the highway would solve them?"

"I didn't think anything at all. I just needed to clear my head and that seemed the best solution."

I nodded. "Do you regret doing it?"

"Of course, I do…"

"That is a good sign. Sometimes we consciously won't admit our mistakes. But you did Hongjoong and that is a very big progress."

It was a dark, rainy day, with clouds obscuring the sun's feeble attempts to warm the world after a freezing winter. I was at work, having already seen a few clients. Some sessions went smoothly, while others made me wish I could run to the ends of the earth.

And when Kim Hongjoong came in, it continued. We made a lot of progress throughout the weeks. It went well. But something happened again because when I saw Hongjoong I felt like it was like the first time he came in. No emotions, just the bored face, and the I-don't-give-a-fuck-attitude. It felt like we started everything from the beginning like we didn't even speak the past few weeks.

"What's on your mind?" I started, hoping I wouldn't play with the string of his nerves.

He sighed. "I don't want to talk today." He leaned back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling.

I nodded. "Alright, we don't have to."

I just opened my laptop and started to reply my emails that I haven't had the time to reply to. But it was also a tactical move, I knew he would feel bothered because I didn’t pay attention to him.

I felt his gaze on me after a while. I looked up from my laptop, adjusting my glass as my eyes met with his. His expressions were confused rather than angry.

I lifted my eyebrows. "Yes?"

He looked away, seeming a little shy after being caught staring. "So, we won't talk?"

"You just said you don't want to talk."

"I know but it's strange sitting here and not talking."

"We can talk."

He just nodded, his lips forming a thin line. He was dressed in all black again—black jeans and a black T-shirt, along with a black cap that hid his eyes. With his tattoo ‘No1likeme’ on the inside of his upper arm peeking out.

I observed that when he was in higher spirits, he tended to wear brighter colors such as orange and beige. Conversely, when he dressed in all black, it signaled that he might not be feeling his best.

"What do you want to talk about?" I asked with my full attention on him.

He shrugged. "I don't know. What's your favorite color?" He looked genuinely interested, his eyes slightly hidden beneath his cap, making his gaze darker.

"Look around and try to figure it out." I smiled at him.

He slowly lifted his head and hummed his eyes scanning the whole room, taking it in, analyzing. I was watching him the whole time, his sharp jawline and characteristic nose on the sight.

"Is it orange?" He asked, his attention back on me.

I chuckled. "It is, it wasn’t impossible to guess."

He smiled at that too. Whenever he smiled, it was like witnessing the world's eighth wonder—a unique and rare occurrence that could rival any God’s smile. 

"What is one word you don't like?" I asked.

"Love. It's just so overrated." Again, his expression changed as he was staring down at his hands thinking.

"Don't you love someone?"

"It's not that I don't love. It's just…" He adjusted himself on the sofa straightening up a little. "It's just doesn't embrace truthfully how I feel."

"How would you express it then?"

He paused, carefully choosing his words. "I treasure the people I feel close to. Everything they give me, whether it's gestures or words, they're little treasures that I keep deep in my heart, like in a small chest. And from that chest, I give to others. It might sound silly, but that's just how I feel." His voice sounded uncertain as if this were the most vulnerable moment of his life. 

My heart started racing, and I began to feel what he felt, causing my heart to ache.

"It is a very unique and beautiful way to think of love, it’s not stupid at all," I said understandingly.

"But sometimes no matter how much you treasure the people you love, life takes them away anyway." He slowly stood up and walked to the window as his voice came out unsure.

I stood quiet because I knew he wanted to keep going. He ran his fingers through his blonde hair. "What did I do to deserve this?" The fingers in his hair grabbed his hair and pulled it as I saw his back only. "I fucked up." He raised his voice.

I stood up but refrained from approaching him, knowing he could explode at any moment.

"What happened Hongjoong?" I asked with a calm voice.

"I couldn't say goodbye to her." His voice sounded weak like he was crying.

"To whom?" Tears appeared in my eyes as well, this was the most difficult topic of my life I could never speak easier about this even if it was the hundredth time.

"My little sister." He whispered his shoulders moving up and down as he was breathing heavier. "I couldn't keep her safe." He yelled and in a fit of rage, he swept the plants off the windowsill, sending them crashing to the floor. The pots shattered, and soil scattered across the room.

I trembled from the sudden sounds of the shattered pots my heart pounding in fear. I saw a lot of situations throughout my career, but this—never.

"I couldn't keep her safe and now she is gone." He calmed down a little as his knees got weak and he fell on the ground his face in his palms.

My breathing grew heavier. There were strict boundaries between therapists and clients—any personal connection was strictly prohibited. But... how could I stand by while he was broken on the floor with shattered pots and dirty soil around him?

I approached him slowly and knelt beside him, extending my hand toward him as he stared down at his hands, lost in his own thoughts. I hesitated, afraid to touch him, but I knew I had to take the risk. When my hand gently landed on his shoulder, he lifted his head to look at me with wide eyes.

"It's okay it's not your fault, Hongjoong. Life can be cruel and make us believe it is our fault but sometimes we can't do anything to stop what was already written." I carefully lifted my hand towards his face to wipe his tears. As soon as I realized what was I doing I quickly withdrew my hands. But before I could do that, he grabbed my wrist and held it against his face staring into my wide eyes.

"Can you hug me?" He asked with an unsure voice.

"Y-yes." My heart wanted to jump out of my chest because I knew I couldn't do such things, I couldn't bond with my clients emotionally, but it was just too late because we had so much in common with Hongjoong it was impossible not to.

I slowly wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him close. The scent of sweet caramel filled my nostrils, instantly calming me and prompting me to draw him even closer. His hands encircled my waist, gently lifting me as I settled into his lap. And I let him do it without a word, my only intent was to bring him comfort.

"How could I forgive myself?" He whispered into the crook of my neck, wetting it with his tears.

"Time will make you believe it wasn't your fault, trust me. Time heals everything." My hands unconsciously started to caress his back when he nuzzled his nose into my neck.

"I couldn't say her goodbye." He whispered weakly.

Tears welled up in my eyes as memories of my own began to flood my mind. Memories that I dig deep down so I won't ever have to remember. A little boy's face I saw every night in my dreams. A little boy's face, that slowly faded away.

"She's watching you from above," I whispered weekly.

And then someone shut the door outside and reality hit me suddenly making me jump out of Hongjoong's lap.

"My next client is here. You should go. Thank you for coming," I said, avoiding his eyes, and realizing the line I had crossed. I walked over to another door where supplies were kept, kneeling to begin cleaning up the mess he had made.

"Let me help you, please. I'm so sorry, Y/N!" I closed my eyes, hearing my name. He kneeled next to me to gather the shattered pieces but I didn’t let him.

"You don't have to help me. My next client is here, so please leave," I stated flatly, glancing at him without showing any emotion. He stared at me wide-eyed, as if unable to believe what I was saying. Then, he dropped the pieces he was holding, stood up abruptly, and left the room, slamming the door behind him. I trembled at the sound, and tears began to stream down my face uncontrollably. But I couldn't allow myself to break down here when others needed my help. I wiped away my tears, took a deep breath to compose myself, and began cleaning up the mess.

To my next client, I appeared as an always smiling and understanding woman, offering advice that could save their life. But who would save mine? 

After that day, I thought I would never hear from Hongjoong again. Perhaps he felt he had opened up to me only to have his feelings disregarded. I respected his emotions, but they overwhelmed me, and I was hesitant to deepen our connection. It didn't seem fair. Yet, he returned and acted as if nothing had happened on that dark, rainy day. We resumed our therapist-client relationship, asking each other questions as if he hadn't cried on my shoulder just a few days earlier.

It was a Friday evening when my last client left, it was late in the afternoon the sun was slowly disappearing, switching places with the moon. I locked the door of my office and left the building to sit in my car.

When I shut the door, sudden emotions hit me like a train that had no breaks. I needed to grab the steering wheel. All day I needed to put on a mask and smile for the people who needed reassurance and tell them only positive things that made them feel better.

I needed to keep my emotions in, which flooded like water crushing into a dam's cement walls. I needed to keep them back and just make that wall thicker, and stronger so it won't break. But there were already some thin cracks on it.

I breathed in and out slowly. This day was the worst of the year in five years. Today five years ago I lost my little brother in a bus accident that was a fault of a man driving drunk. And that school bus was just there at the wrong time, taking the lives of many little kids who were the most innocent human beings on earth. I broke that day, just like my parents, who still did not process what happened. Life was unfair and I blamed God, destiny, and everything I could just so it could be better. But it didn't, it happened and I just couldn't do anything at all. My little brother was the sweetest thing in this cruel world. He was only 7 years old, but he was so smart and kindhearted compared to his age. He simply did not deserve this fate, just like the other kids who died that day. Since that day, I see his face in my dreams which are sometimes nightmares, as the accident is playing in my head, even though I wasn't even there when it happened. But his face slowly disappears in my dreams, it's starting to get blurry and I was terrified on the fact, slowly I won't even remember his face.

Psychology was the thing that saved me from burying myself in the dark. Studying distracted me and after I finished college, I settled for a job that was being a therapist and hearing other people's problems and dark thoughts—which sometimes scared me to death—but after working in this field for 5 years now, I realized this is just people—people who only need help, a helping hand that guides them towards the light. In the process of guiding them, I slowly helped myself out alongside them, their thoughts and problems being the priority of my life, distracting me from my real problems.

But on that day, I couldn't hold it back any longer. After gathering myself, I drove to the cemetery with a bucket of flowers in hand. The cemetery appeared dark, reminiscent of scenes from horror movies, with only a few faint lights illuminating the path ahead. I knew the way to my little brother's grave as well as I knew the back of my own hand. The weather was chilly, and I hugged myself tightly for warmth, clutching the bucket of white lilies.

When I reached my little brother's grave, I couldn't contain my emotions any longer. Everything I had been holding back broke through like a dam bursting, and I fell to my knees, crying uncontrollably.

"I miss you my little bud." My tears wetted my cheeks, the moon above illuminating my brother’s grave as I whispered into the quiet. My sobbing echoed through the dark and quiet cemetery. I had never truly had friends who could be there as shoulders to cry on. It's one of the reasons being a therapist is challenging. Friends often come to see you as the sole stable point in their lives, where they can vent about their struggles and expect reassurance and advice without offering much in return. The problem was they only saw me as their therapist-friend. Over time, I grew accustomed to it and began to cut ties with those who were only friends with me for this reason.

I was still kneeling on the dirty ground, miles away from the real world as I just stared at my little brother's grave that said 'Rest in peace forever, our brightest star'.

"Y/N?" I heard a voice that seemed strange but a voice I felt like I had known my whole life.

I glanced to my left and saw a man standing there in dark clothes with a hood on. Blonde strands of hair partially hiding his eyes. 

"Hongjoong?" My voice came out weak, almost like a whisper. I quickly wiped my tears away, it was a habit of mine, where no one could see me in any vulnerable state.

"What are you doing here at this hour? You'll get cold." He stepped closer with a confused expression.

"I—I just… visited my little brother." I couldn't take my eyes off him as he slowly kneeled next to me, the universe now turning as the other time it was me kneeling next to a broken Hongjoong. He looked at me with a broken expression and slowly reached his hand to wipe my tears away.

"I'm so sorry for your loss." He whispered, cupping my face into his hands. "It could have been difficult when I spoke about my sister. You are so strong, Y/N." His voice was filled with concern, his eyes watering as I broke again and started to cry again. For myself, but for Hongjoong’s loss as well.

"Come here," he said, pulling my head closer to his neck so I could breathe in his sweet caramel scent, which enveloped us both. "It's okay, let it all out. You deserve to." He gently stroked my hair, then slowly slid his hands behind my thighs and lifted me onto his lap. I settled onto his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my face into the crook of his neck. Throughout, he continued to caress my back and hair, whispering reassuring words that melted my heart. Gradually, his calming caramel scent helped me feel better.

"Let's get out of here, you are shivering." He said putting distance between us to look into my eyes, I just nodded, as he slowly took off his black hoodie, and despite my resistance, he helped me wear it. It made me look small, its sleeves hiding my hands, but it was so warm it made me forget how cold I had felt. He slowly lifted me off his lap and helped me up like I was a porcelain.

"And what are you doing here at this hour?" I asked looking up at him as he held my waist.

"Visited my sister." He gave me an understanding smile.

"Oh, they are in the same cemetery? Then they have company at least." I smiled, imagining his sister and my brother playing around, even though I never saw her.

"Yeah, I am sure they are having fun." He smiled genuinely. "Did you come by car?" He asked as we started to walk towards the exit in the dark and terrifying cemetery, while he was still holding me by my waist, scared I might fall at any moment.

"Ah, yes," I replied, trying to ground myself back in reality. I hated when people saw my vulnerable side and perceived me as fragile as glass.

"Let me drive you home, I won't let you drive in this state." He said looking at me with concerned eyes.

"I'm okay, I can drive. And you don't even have a driver's license Hongjoong." I looked at him and frowned.

"I don't care I won't let you go home alone." He seemed determined and I was too tired to fight against him.

So I let him drive my car, to where I lived even though he had no available license, but he didn't seem to care about that so neither did I. We managed to arrive at my place without the police handcuffing Hongjoong on top of my car and I felt relieved at that.

"Thank you," I looked at him grabbing the handle. I was tired and I just wanted to get a warm shower and collapse into my bed. "You can take yourself home I'll get my car tomorrow." I chuckled as I said to him.

Hongjoong chuckled at that too. "Now you are not scared I'll get arrested?" He smiled sweetly which warmed my cold heart.

"Sounds like a you problem. If you get arrested, I'll just say you stole my car." I lifted my hands with a teasing smile.

"Hah, of course you would," he remarked, reaching his hand quickly to pinch my cheek. "Okay, but only if I can take you somewhere tomorrow," he added, leaning back in the driver's seat. 

I looked at him confused. "You know we can't do that."

"Why?" He asked mirroring my expression.

"Because you are my client?" I asked my brows furrowing further.

"And you think I give a shit about that?" He leaned closer to my face as he whispered it.

"But then I won't be able to hold your sessions anymore," I tried to say, attempting to create some distance, but finding myself frozen in place, the words nearly escaping me.

"I don't care, I just want to be with you." He said leaning even closer, our warm breaths melting together.

"You barely know me," I stated.

"I'm going to change that." He whispered onto my lips and then leaned back looking at my slightly blushed face satisfied.

"I'll text you, sleep well!" He said with a confident smile, winking at me.

"How do you know my number?" I asked him frowning.

"Dear, you are my therapist." He said with a shit-eating grin.

"Well, not anymore," I replied, rolling my eyes with a smile that I couldn't suppress. I stepped out of my car, only to watch it roll away. A sincere smile spread across my face as I saw him drive off.

Might Kim Hongjoong be the person who saves me?

The next day, Hongjoong texted me that he would pick me up at 6 p.m. and told me to wear comfortable clothes. Unsure of what he meant exactly, I opted for sweatpants, a white crop top, and white sneakers. I also brought along my black sweatshirt, as the weather was still cool in the middle of spring.

When I stepped out of my apartment and went down to wait for Hongjoong, I looked up at the sky and it was slightly cloudy, it might rain in the evening and before I could run back to get an umbrella Hongjoong was rolling near the sidewalk so I could jump in.

"Hello there." He smiled at me sweetly taking me in with his gaze.

"Hi," I said, nearly blushing under his sharp gaze. I quickly glanced at him and noticed he was wearing black shorts that reached his knees paired with a white T-shirt. We were unintentionally matching.

"Okay soo," He looked at me unbuckling his seatbelt. "I think you should drive because I don't want to risk it anymore." He chuckled a little embarrassed.

I chuckled at that too. "As you shouldn't, I told you." I opened the passenger seat's door to switch places. When we met at the front of the car, he pinched my waist and quickly sat in the passenger seat smiling.

"Buckle up Mr. Kim, if you want to survive," I said with a teasing voice buckling my seatbelt.

"Yes, my lady!" He saluted as I laughed loudly.

I started to drive as Hongjoong told me the directions where we were going because I had no idea where we were going and he didn't want to tell me so I just drove where he said.

In the meantime, we carpooled a bit, because it's a must, and we both love shouting along to music. I put on Beach Weather's "Chit Chat," and we belted out the lyrics together. 

"So come on, get your fix now, now, now"

"You drive me crazy with that"

"Chit chat do you want that"

"Or wanna take me home tonight?"

"I thought I told you, I really need you sugar"

"I'm going supernova"

When we arrived at a parking lot, I looked around, trying to figure out where we were. My jaw dropped when I realized. 

"Are we going to play tennis?" I looked at him wide-eyed.

He chuckled sweetly. "Yes, if it's okay with you. Do you know how to play it?" His smile never left his lips and I loved it.

"Hmm, let me think…" I looked straight as we were still in the car. "I actually hate tennis." I side glanced at him waiting for his reaction.

He gasped forming an 'o' with his mouth. "Really? How dare you Kwon Y/N?" He seemed like he couldn't believe what I said, but this was the truth, tennis just seemed boring looking at it on the TV.

"Maybe, but just maybe you could change that." I smiled at him as I opened the door and got out of the car.

He got out as well and went to the back of the car to get his equipment and there was also a basket which I assumed was for a picnic.

"Ahw, is that a picnic basket?" I looked at him leaning against my car.

He closed the rear door with the basket and the equipment in hand and he slowly approached me hovering over me.

"Is there any problem with it?" he whispered; his lips so close to mine that I could feel his warm breath. His caramel scent enveloped me, making my knees weak. 

"Not at all, it’s sweet," I whispered eyeing between his eyes and lips as I bit my lips. He looked so hot like this; I didn't know if I could keep it up anymore.

"Then let me teach you how to play tennis," he said, leaning close to my ear as he nuzzled into my neck. "God, I love how you smell," he whispered. At that moment, I needed air, feeling like I might faint. It felt like being a teenager again when my first crush approached me, leaving me uncertain if this was good or not. 

 I would've never thought I was going a date—I guess it was a date—with the professional tennis player Kim Hongjoong, who always seemed like an asshole in the videos I saw of him, and my first impression as a therapist wasn't also the best of him, but the truth is, he is just a lost man in the middle of his twenties who had none left in this world only tennis was the only thing that kept him going, that slowly slipped through his hands as well. But I really hoped he was going to find his way back to the passion that kept him going and I am going to help him find the way back to the light not because this was my job, but because in this short time, I started to care for him, not like I cared for my other clients, it was deeper and something invisible connected us that I couldn't name.

The tennis court was empty, illuminated by streetlights, with Hongjoong heading to the entrance to switch on the five floodlights. The court glowed green and a light shade of orange, divided by a net in the middle. I stepped onto the field, looking around in awe, as I had never been on a tennis court before. To our right were the seats where the crowd would cheer for the players. I was certain that one day I would be sitting there, cheering for Hongjoong with all my heart if everything went the right way.

"So," Hongjoong broke the silence. "Do you like it?" I turned as I saw his sweet smile.

"It's okay, I guess," I teased with a smile. I noticed he had already started unpacking the things he brought from the basket, laying a blanket near the net. He looked so sweet like this. 

"I didn't know you were the romantic type," I said slowly approaching him, kneeling next to him to help him unpack all the food and sweets he brought.

"Well, it depends on the person." He side-glanced at me as he sat down on the blanket.

"Oh, should I feel special?" I sat down next to him, our shoulders slightly touching as I looked at him with serious eyes.

He looked back at me, tilting his head to the side and giving me a sharp glance. At that moment, I realized how close he was. His blonde hair perfectly highlighted his sharp eyes, and his cheekbones had a slight pink tint. My heart started to race, my body felt hotter than ever, and he hadn't even kissed me. I wondered if I could survive a kiss from him. I glanced at his thin lips, curved slightly in a smile. Up close, his face looked even more chiseled. He was so handsome that I finally understood why he was a famous tennis player. It wasn't just his skills; it was also how incredibly good-looking he was.

"Will we eat sometime or you will stare more?" Hongjoong's voice brought me back from my inner thoughts and as I realized I was staring the whole time I felt as my face got a little warm.

"Don't get over yourself, you did the same." I chuckled as I looked at the food and picked up a sandwich with ham and salad.

"How could I have not stared?" His voice came out low as he picked some green grapes and threw them into his mouth.

"Oh, shut up," I said, playfully bumping him with my shoulder as he chuckled.

"Make me." He leaned closer and smiled at me teasingly.

I laughed at that. "Does this work on other girls too?" I asked, hiding my mouth behind my hands as I tried to swallow the sandwich, nearly choking in the process.

He shrugged. "Don't know, haven't tried it."

"So, the bad guy image you created, isn't true?" I said looking at him suspiciously, finishing my sandwich.

"The media created that image, not me." He looked ahead as he supported himself on his hands behind his back, his legs straight.

"It must be hard, like…" I glanced at his side profile. "They follow every step of yours and they are waiting for you when are you going to make a mistake." 

"It was hard at the beginning, there weren't anyone beside me, I was all alone…" He leaned forward and pulled his legs up his elbows on his knees. "But I got used to it with time and didn't give a shit about them."

I did the same, pulling my knees to my chest and hugging them. "Your parents…what happened with them?" I looked at him with soft eyes. "If you don't want to talk about it, it's okay."

"No, no, I want to. It was a long time ago…" He glanced at me briefly before looking down at his hands in front of him.

"They both died in a car accident when I was only 16. Just before the accident, I had started playing tennis. My dad encouraged me to play, and I couldn’t be more grateful for introducing me to this sport. After the accident, my sister and I were sent to an orphanage." His voice faltered slightly. I reached my hand toward his back and gently caressed it. "They even separated us because of the age gap. She was only 5 back then. We didn't have any relatives who could adopt us. So, I waited two years until I could take Byeol with me."

"It must have been difficult, you were only 18 and taking care of her and yourself at that age…" I looked at him as tears welled up in my eyes. This man went through hell and he was still here smiling.

"Yeah, well, she died too, in another accident... How is any of this fair, Y/N?" He rested his head on my shoulder, and I gently brushed my fingers through his hair.

"It's not fair at all. Nothing is fair. But we just can't do anything, we have to keep moving for them right?" I traced my hands from his hair to his cheeks, to his jaw to pull him up so I could look into his eyes.

"Right?" I asked him again caressing his cheeks.

"Right." He smiled genuinely at me.

He sighed and stood up. "Okay, enough of the sad moments. Let me teach you some real tennis," he said, offering his right hand to help me up. I accepted it, and he pulled me to my feet. 

"So, this is your side and the other is mine." He pointed at the other side of the field and went to grab the rackets and the tennis ball.

"What if we play a game?" I asked, observing his reaction.

"What game?" he asked curiously.

"We ask each other questions every time we pass the ball," I suggested.

He looked excited and agreed, saying, "I'm in."

With that, he handed me one of the rackets. "You have to hold the racket like this," he began, explaining the main rules of tennis quickly and enthusiastically. The way he explained it, I almost felt like starting a tennis career (though I won't). 

We started passing the ball to each other, and at first, I wasn't very good at it. But with practice, I improved, and soon we could pass the ball to each other at least five times without it going out or accidentally hitting Hongjoong. We were making progress.

As we played, we asked each other questions, gradually getting to know each other better. I had so much fun the whole time; I couldn't remember the last time I laughed this much. In recent years, my life hadn't been filled with happiness and laughter. It was all about work and making my clients happy.

It was never about me, but I realized I couldn’t have a life were I just serve people, trying to fix them, my happiness was also important and Hongjoong made me realize this, even though he was the same—his worldview was similar to mine. We always saw our little siblings in the back of our minds, even though they would've wanted us to be happy, but we were too stuck in self-pity and how life was unfair, we didn't notice how much we destroyed ourselves. So, we just need to put it behind us, they are always going to live in our hearts, no matter what. We are going to live for them.

As we passed the ball to each other and jogged in place, I started feeling like I might collapse. I wasn't the fittest person on earth, and after half an hour of playing, I was tired. We were so engrossed in the game that we didn't even notice the dark clouds gathering above us. It wasn't until a sudden rainstorm caught us off-guard that we realized, standing there soaked in the middle of the field, looking at each other and laughing.

Instead of caring about the rain, we continued playing. But then I cheated by not hitting the ball back properly, and Hongjoong jumped over the net that separated us, chasing after me. I screamed like a 12-year-old, our inner children coming to life as we ran, our sibling-like spirits taking over. But I didn't stand a chance—he caught my waist from behind and twirled me around. I laughed so hard from the surprise and joy that I couldn't stop. 

"Got you!" He chuckled, as he took me down and hugged me from behind as we both were soaked the rain still pouring.

Then he slowly turned me around to face him. He was smiling so sweetly, his wet blonde hair glued to his forehead just as my hair. He reached his hand towards my face to brush off a string of wet hair behind my ear. His fingers tracing down from my ear to my neck, then to my jaw up to my lips where waterdrops dropped down to my already soaked top. He traced my bottom lips gently wiping the drops away. Our expressions turned serious, every goofiness leaving our soul as we both stared at the other taking in the other as the rain made us more beautiful. He looked so breathtaking with the passion burning in his eyes, his lips parted and the waterdrops that were on his lips made him more attractive. As his hands cupped both sides of my jaw, he slowly started to close the distance between us.

"I wanted to kiss you since the first time I saw you." He whispered onto my lips, his eyes never leaving mine.

"It didn't seem like that." I teased him with a slight smile.

"I'm sorry…" He leaned his forehead against mine.

"Just shut up and kiss me!" I said to him seriously.

He chuckled and finally closed the distance not even thinking a second, his lips crushed into mine like it was destined to each other. Our lips moved in synchrony as I could taste the rain that still soaked us with its full power, but I couldn't mind, because at that moment I didn't feel anything except Hongjoong's lips on mine, that tasted like sweet caramels mixed with the taste of rain. It felt like I was in paradise, as his hands moved from my jaw down my spine to my waist, he grabbed it and pulled me impossibly closer to him, our bodies melting together, closing the rain out. It felt like a relief, kissing him like my soul finally found its peace. When one of Hongjoong's hands dug into my hair at my nape, I unconsciously parted my lips and his tongue immediately found its way into my mouth as I wrapped my hands around his neck deepening the kiss. I felt like I might faint between his arms, as I had no oxygen left and he just simply made me feel weak like I could slip through his hands easily. But his arms held me strongly like a pillar and made me feel safe.

When we separated, he leaned his forehead against mine, out of breath and soaked till bone he leaned again towards my lips and gave little pecks onto my wet lips like he couldn't get enough of me.

"Let's go, we are going to catch a cold even though it might be too late." I smiled up at him, my hands still around his neck.

"Can I take you to my house?" He asked with a sweet smile his voice barely hearable because of the rain as his hands were still on my waist holding me close to his body. "Well technically you are going to take us to my house but you know." He chuckled. 

"Yeah, let's go," I said, pulling away from him, still feeling the effects of the kiss that had made my legs weak. It was strange kissing Hongjoong, yet at the same time, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. I never imagined someone could make me smile the way he did that day.

Since my little brother passed away, I often felt undeserving of happiness. But today, this realization hit me hard. He would have wanted me to be happy, not to dwell in self-destruction. I tried to be happy, but I never felt truly happy, and I wasn't sure if that was even possible. However, right now, with Hongjoong by my side, I felt like I was on the path towards happiness. 

When we arrived at Hongjoong's house, I was utterly fascinated. I already knew he was wealthy, being a professional athlete, but the house I saw surpassed all expectations—truly, I'm not exaggerating. It was colossal, almost like a modern castle. The exterior boasted white walls with expansive windows, sharp architectural features, and a garden adorned with delicate garden lamps. I even caught sight of a pool in the back.

Parking the car in the garage, we entered through a door that led directly into the living room—a space that was larger than my entire apartment. The main colors were black and white, with touches of brown. In the center of the room sat a black couch flanked by armchairs on each side. Opposite the sofa was a massive TV that seemed bigger than me. The walls were adorned with Renaissance paintings of various landscapes, which I admired until Hongjoong brought me some clothes, urging me to shower and change out of my soaked attire that clung uncomfortably to my skin. I hesitated to sit on the luxurious-looking couch, opting instead to explore the expansive space.

Moving slowly towards the fireplace—because of course, there was one—I observed the framed pictures displayed there. I guessed correctly that the photos were of Hongjoong with his little sister, and a picture of his parents when they were younger. Nearby were trophies he had won, along with a photo of a younger Hongjoong on a tennis field, beaming proudly while clutching a trophy larger than himself. His smile in that photo was so joyful and proud it touched my heart deeply. At that moment, I resolved to bring back that carefree Hongjoong—the one who only cared about winning games and making his little sister and parents proud. I wanted to see him smile like that again.

And when my eyes narrowed further it stuck on a framed picture that felt both familiar and strange at the same time. I had this picture at my home, framed but this picture was in Hongjoong’s house. My heart began to race, and I felt light-headed. The picture showed kids smiling happily to the camera with so much happiness, radiating pure joy. But I couldn't smile, because my little brother stared back at me from that picture.

"Here are some clothes that may fit you, I hope they are okay." I heard Hongjoong's voice behind me, but it seemed so far away I could barely hear what he said. I felt like suddenly I couldn't breathe, my lungs were full of air but I couldn't get myself to breathe it out. It stuck, just as my world stopped, at that moment and I couldn't believe what I saw.

Then I suddenly felt hands on my shoulders that brought me back to Hongjoong's living room, as I was still staring at the framed picture.

"Hey, are you okay?" I heard Hongjoong's worried voice on my left, as he was still holding me, turning me to face him, by my shoulders.

I slowly tilted my head up to meet his gaze, and I didn't even notice tears were falling down my cheeks, Hongjoong's concerned eyes met mine, filled with worry and uncertainty.

"Did something happen Y/N?" He reached his hand towards my cheeks to wipe my tears away.

I could finally breathe out the air that was stuck in my lungs and slowly reached my hands towards the picture bringing it between us. "I-is…w-was this your sister's class?" My voice came out unsure and weak as I felt I couldn't breathe again.

Hongjoong slowly took the picture from my hand, his expression softening into a slight smile. "Yes, she's in the middle. They took this on the day of the accident," he said quietly, pointing at his little sister in the photograph. His smile carried a tinge of sadness.

That was when I couldn't hold back anymore. I broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. Hongjoong looked at me with wide eyes, clearly bewildered by my sudden outburst. But as I gazed at the picture again, I realized something shocking—next to his little sister was a smiling boy who was unmistakably my brother. They were holding hands. It couldn't be true. It couldn't be that we both lost our siblings in the same accident and that they were friends, perhaps even best friends. 

I buried my hands in my face as tears streamed down, my legs giving way beneath me. Before I could collapse completely, Hongjoong caught me and held me in his arms. I felt hollow, like an empty box that once held cherished memories but was now vacant. We both ended up on the floor, with Hongjoong holding me close, whispering comforting words and gently stroking my back and hair as I sobbed into his neck.

After a while, I began to feel a bit calmer. I realized it was best to explain to Hongjoong why I was crying before he thought I was irrational. 

My hands reached towards the framed picture on the floor and my fingers traced through the middle where our siblings were holding hands. "This is my brother next to your sister. They are holding hands." I pointed at my brother on the picture whispering it in a weak voice.

Silence hung heavy between us, and when I didn't hear a response, I lifted my gaze to find Hongjoong's head tilted toward the picture in between us. He was staring at our siblings captured in that moment. Gently, I reached out and touched his jaw, turning his face towards mine. His eyes glistened with tears that rolled down his cheeks, each one precious as it traced a path across his face. With my thumb, I wiped away the tears and then embraced him tightly, climbing onto his lap. His arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me close to him, offering comfort and solace in our shared grief.

"At least they are together up above," I whispered into his ears as tears fell from my eyes again. It was me now, who tried to comfort him, as he did before without any word. I caressed his back then my fingers brushed through his blonde hair from his nape his hair was still a little wet. I put a little distance between us and leaned my forehead against his. "Are you okay?" I whispered it close to his lips.

"At least they are together." He repeated my words. "And we are here for each other too." His hands found their way up to my jaw and cupped it as the barely lit living room lights illuminated his face.

"We are," I whispered as I smiled at him slightly.

Then he pulled me closer to his lips as he cupped my face and I immediately felt at ease as his lips sealed against mine with passion I never felt in my life. Caramel scent embraces us with warmth, our soaked clothes are long forgotten. His lips moved against mine with a burning desire that whispered a promise between us to be there for each other forever.

The next thing I know is me being pushed against the wet wall of the bathroom, the water falling on us from the shower head above us, Hongjoong's lips on mine, our saliva mixing with the water, our hands interlaced above my head as we kissed each other with fire even the water falling on us couldn't stop the burning desire we felt for each other as his lips found their way down my neck, sucking on it, leaving little love marks here and there, as quiet moans escaped my mouth. The bathroom's walls echo the sounds our mouths made. As he whispered words into my ear that promised us a bright future together as we united our faith.

 Two souls destined to meet, to heal from the sorrow their siblings' deaths left in their lives. Two souls that were destined to each other so they could find their way back to life, that is full of vibrant colors again, together.        

A/N: Soo, that happened, lol. I just wanted to tell you I might write a part 2 for this story, only if I feel it tbh, because it is really just the beginning of their story. I have already some ideas of how I could continue it because let's think about it. Hongjoong is famous and lives in the media, and the paparazzi always find out everything so how would the media affect their relationship?

(Ateez masterlist)

---

Oi, @skzdust, read this

｡𖦹°‧ better off as lovers, not the other way around seo changbin x f!reader x hwang hyunjin

summary: Changbin is in love with his two best friends. When he introduces you and Hyunjin to each other and Hyunjin ends up asking you out, Changbin has to finally confront the feelings he's been ignoring for 7 years. it doesn't go so well.

word count: 24.9k words

author's note: ♫ racing through the city, windows down, in the back of yellow checkered caaars ♫ bonus points to whoever notices my song reference hehe anyways HI! I've been really liking writing longer form, more serious stuff, and this is my first foray into the question of "what if they didn't slip so easily into polyamory"? I like how it turned out. It's pretty sad, but I promise, there's a happy ending on the horizon big thank you to @hyunjins-dimples for being my voice of reason and giving me feedback when I was losing my mind kjsadhjsh I adore you

warnings: angst with a happy ending!; unprotected sex; mxm action; friends to lovers; mentions of panic, could be categorised as panic attacks, but aren't written as such; no cheating but kissing someone even though they're casually seeing someone else; implied bottom/switch!changbin; a tiny bit of internalised homophobia

skzms masterlist // ko-fi

Changbin thinks he might be the stupidest motherfucker alive.

He doesn’t usually think that way about himself, no. If you asked him on a normal, he’d probably say he’s pretty smart. A good dancer, good singer, even better rapper. Well-adjusted. Always willing to go the extra mile. A good support system for his members. A decent person.

And in his defence, how should he have known.

How should he have known that the dumbest thing he could ever do is introduce his two best friends to one another?

Chan would tell him to cut it out, to not talk about himself like that, but Chan isn’t here. He isn’t here because this is so bad that he hasn’t even told Chan about it – and he tells Chan everything.

What would he even say? “Chan! You know Y/N, my best friend from when we were trainees? I invited her out to bowling and galbi with me and Hyunjin two weeks ago. Yeah, isn’t that nice? Why am I bringing it up, you ask, did something go wrong, did they hate each other? Ha! No, actually! The fucking opposite! They met and there were sparks fucking flying everywhere! There was blushing and lingering glances, they got along like a house on fire. They even exchanged numbers at the end! Holy fuck!”

No, he couldn’t say that, because then Chan would ask why that’s a problem and Changbin would have to tell him that he’s been in love with his best friend ever since the day you walked out of JYP Entertainment with your head held high to pursue your own, independent music career at a company that actually valued you – and how he never stopped being in stupid, pathetic puppy love with you. He would have to tell Chan that it was because of that stupid, pathetic puppy love that he sometimes dropped everything and abandoned Chan to his own devices. Because he couldn’t resist sinking into the couch in your warm, cozy apartment, far away from the rest of the world, your cute little socked feet pressing into his thighs, and sometimes when he's lucky, your bare, cold feet digging into his thighs seeking warmth, the TV on some random drama, sipping ciders and snacking on things and talking about everything and nothing until the early hours of the night.

If Changbin was lucky, that would be all that was needed to explain it to Chan, but Chan had always known him too well. He would be his usual, annoyingly perceptive self, and ask what else it was, force Changbin to spill his fucking guts until there was nothing left. And then, boy then he would have to look his leader in the face and admit that for all these years, every single time he flirted with Hyunjin ‘for the camera’, it wasn’t for the camera at all. It was actually a chance for him to be really selfish, to vent some of his very much not platonic, probably gay (bisexual?) feelings for his member, feelings that have been haunting him for the better part of two years.

And then, if Chan wasn’t distracted by the fact that Changbin just basically came out to him, would probably ask “both?” and Changbin would nod and Chan would ask something along the lines of “but what if one of them likes you back? Then what about your feelings for the others?” and Changbin would probably either run out or just start crying. Because he doesn’t know.

But ironically, it seems that neither will be an issue because he’s here, sitting across from you in your company’s cafeteria, willing his heart to start beating again.

“You … what?” he asks, dumbly.

“Hyunjin and I have been texting,” you repeat, seemingly nonchalant, but you’re not looking at him. He knows you well enough to know that this is you being nervous.

“Okay …” Changbin hears himself say, but even he can hear the trepidation in his voice.

“At first it was just about that portable watercolour set he talked about, and then we just kinda … kept talking. It’s nothing crazy, I just … thought I’d tell you, you know. Since he’s your friend.”

“Best friend,” Changbin mumbles, and you lift your head from the straw of your Americano that you’ve been jiggling around the ice in the cup with for the last five minutes. If it had been anyone else, Changbin would’ve told you to cut it out within 20 seconds. But you’re you.

You blink at him, laugh awkwardly.

“I thought that was me,” you joke. Changbin doesn’t laugh. You stare back at your coffee. Swirl the straw around the ice.

“He asked me to go to this art exhibit with him this weekend.”

Oh, good. You have common interests.

Changbin tries to will the bitterness away, but it only settles deeper into his chest with every one of your words.

“Apparently it’s this design exhibition, he said it would really match my vibe.”

Stupid fucking suave, charming, fucking PERFECT Hwang Hyunjin.

“Ha, that sounds fun.”

Changbin cringes. The bitterness in his voice is really fucking obvious.

“Does it?” you ask, eyeing him across the table, something unreadable in your face. He feels like you’re staring right into his soul.

“Didn’t think that was your kinda thing.”

Anything would be my thing if I was with you. Or if he asked me to go. Goddammit.

He shrugs.

“Maybe not, but it sounds like something you two would enjoy.”

Why the fuck would you say that, Seo Changbin.

You eye him suspiciously before you pick up your iced coffee again.

“I think so, too. And to be honest, I’d love to spend some more time with him, we really hit it off the other day.”

Changbin forces a smile onto his face.

“You did.”

It’s not a question, just a … confirmation? Changbin has long lost any idea of what he’s trying to do.

You swirl the ice around in your cup in silence for so long, Changbin nearly reaches out and rips the cup out of your hand, but then you say something that pulls the floor right out from under his feet.

“And I mean he’s obviously stupidly attractive …”

Changbin swears his eye twitches.

“He’s alright.”

Your head snaps up, eyebrows shooting up to your hairline. There’s an obnoxiously smug grin on your face.

“Sorry? You’re literally always gushing about him. Flirting with him for the fans. You’re like his biggest fan. President of the Hwang Hyunjin fan club. Ready to drop to your knees to ask for his hand in–“

“Alright, I get it!” Changbin interrupts you, too fast, too loud. Some people in the cafeteria turn to look his way, disapproval written all over their faces.

You don’t care about them. You’re just sitting opposite him, giggling. “So, do you think that’s what this is? That he’s asking you on a date?” Changbin asks, tries his best to keep his voice down.

You shrug, seemingly nonchalantly, but there is a dusting of a blush on your cheeks. It suits you so well. The fact that it’s for Hwang Hyunjin makes Changbin want to do something drastic.

“I don’t know. I’ll just see how it goes. Go in with no expectations. But if it ends up being one … I wouldn’t complain.”

Changbin swallows down a hysterical scream.

A few beats of awkward silence stretch between you before you get up, and nearly knock your coffee over in the process. Changbin’s hand shoots out on instinct, but you manage to catch it just in time, your hands meeting on the cold, wet plastic. You stay suspended, in that moment, for a second before you shake it off.

“I gotta go back to work, they’re probably waiting for me in the studio.”

Changbin rises. His body feels two sizes too large, his brain a foggy mess.

“We still on for tonight?” he asks. Movie night. At his dorm. He doesn’t know if he wants you to say yes, so he can see you again because, god, it’s the highlight of his fucking week, or no, because he doesn’t know how he can sit next two you for several hours while Hyunjin’s contact is in your phone, and you’re probably flirting with him and sending him winky faces and hearts and those witty little innuendos you’re so good at and–

“Yeah, for sure. I really wanna see that movie, and I really wanna see if it works, to point your projector at the ceiling. It sounds magical.”

Changbin smiles, somehow. Walks with you to the exit of the cafeteria. Folds you into a hug that makes his heart sing in his chest, breathing in your smell from your hair, feeling your fingers dig into the meat of his shoulders. The phantom of it accompanies him past the front desk, all the way out into the street and down the few blocks he has to walk back to JYPE.

When he walks into the studio, Jisung is asleep on the couch, wrapped in his big puffer jacket, snoring quietly. Chan swivels around to him, takes one look at him and furrows his brows.

“How’s Y/N? Is everything okay?”

I love her, Chan. I love her, and she’s going on a date with Hyunjin.

“She’s fine. Going to the museum with Hyunjin this weekend.”

Chan freezes, blinks at him once, twice.

“Uhh … she is?”

Changbin drops into the chair next to Chan, busies himself studying the waveforms of the song Chan has pulled up. He makes a casual sound.

“Like … like a date?”

Changbin wants to scream. He swallows it. Shrugs. Pretends he doesn’t care.

But Chan’s confused, concerned gaze keeps returning to him, boring into the side of Changbin’s head until Changbin can’t stand it any more.

“So, did you figure out the pre-chorus?” he asks, a little more forcefully than he has to, but Chan gets the memo. He only sighs before he turns to the computer and shows him what he worked on. But his brain doesn’t allow him any such mercy. Every time he gets distracted for a few minutes, gets lost in figuring out how to make a line of his rap flow better, or finds the perfect little percussion to add to a track, it only takes a few minutes, like clockwork, before the thoughts come back.

Falling in love with you had been as easy as breathing.

He didn’t plan on it, god no, if anything, he didn’t want to fall in love with you. Or anyone for that matter. He just joined the company, too young, ripped from anything and anyone he’s ever known on a mad chase for some bigger dream that he didn’t know if he would ever achieve. He met you a week in, and you immediately clicked. Not in a way that made sparks fly or his heart race, no, quite the opposite. You just slotted yourself into his life like you were always meant to be there. Like there had always been a hole where you belonged until you filled it.

He didn’t know anyone, and you weren’t the most outgoing, so it was easy for you to seek each other out during breaks, during mixed dance practice, after gruelling days of evaluations to eat chicken in secret and cry about how fucking cruel everything was until you somehow managed to laugh again.

And even as the months went on and you both settled in, found your footing in this new world you were dropped into, and found more friends among the other trainees, nobody ever could come between you. Like you found each other and mutually decided to never let go again.

He didn’t fall in love with you right then, neither could he blame anything on the hormones because the two of you never went there. And it’s not like you were the only girl around, far from it. And trainees were hooking up left and right. Even he got roped into a one-night stand here and there and one very messy love triangle situation at some point, but you never went there with each other. When you hooked up with Chan at the company party one year, right after the latter joined, Changbin chalked up his discomfort to the fact that he and Chan and Jisung were starting to make music together, and he didn’t want any potential drama between you and Chan to get in the way of that.

As things for Changbin started going better and better, as him, Chan and Jisung really found their footing as 3Racha, making music and gaining so much respect from the other trainees and from all the managers and teachers, everything started falling apart for you. You were overlooked for several groups, dismissed for your talents. And Changbin tried to be there for you, but you must’ve felt it, too. The distance between where you were and where he was, where you wanted to be, grew too big. So before long, you stopped confiding in him. Stopped letting him see your tears, only the remnants of them in your bloodshot eyes the next morning. And he felt awful about it.

But then you did the unthinkable. Something he’d never seen anyone do. You walked out.

And it wasn’t just that you quit, no, you went out with a bang. A screaming match in a meeting room right down the hall from the dance practice room where everyone was gathered for evaluations, then a slam of the door and you, stalking down the hallway, with your head held high.

Changbin followed you, watched stupidly as you raged, emptied your locker, stuffed everything into a big plastic bag. He didn’t even say goodbye, frozen in place, suddenly hyper aware of two things.

One, his best friend was leaving, leaving him behind in the lion’s den, and he had no idea how he would manage it all on his own. The thought of not being with you made him sick to his stomach. He wanted to be with you, always, in every single way.

Because, and that was the second thing he realised as he watched you walk away from him, he was in love with you.

He didn’t hear from you for three weeks, three weeks he spent distracted and irritable and so, so sad and experiencing what Chan had to tell him was a broken heart. How should he have known?! He had never been in love before.

He was still reeling when he met Hyunjin. Gorgeous, tall, ethereal Hyunjin, who danced like his body was made for it, who had the cutest, dimpled smile that lit up Changbin’s whole body with fireworks when he aimed it at him.

And Changbin suddenly had to deal with the knowledge that he might be bisexual.

You texted him for the first time a month and a half after you walked out. You apologised for disappearing on him, citing your own bitterness, how you couldn’t face him while his life was so clearly headed for the stars and yours was so uncertain. But there was something else in your voice, too. You told him you were with a new company now, and if he wanted to hang out. Like old times. You phrased it like a question.

You met at your favourite sushi restaurant, not far from JYPE. You told him about your new company, about their plans for your solo career. And Changbin told you about Hyunjin. He didn’t say that he was in love with him in so many words, but in retrospect, he always knew that you knew. And, of course, you accepted him. And just like that, you were friends again.

Changbin figured he would grow out of his crush on Hyunjin, out of his unrequited love for his best friend, but that day never came. And slowly, Changbin accepted that this was just how things were going to be. At least until his worlds collided, and he introduced you to each other.

He carries his bitter thoughts around with him, hiding them, as best as he can, all day. Through work, dinner with Chan and Jisung in the studio. Through a quick gym session and into the shower, where he stays for way too long, letting the boiling water scorch his skin until it’s red.

Maybe it’s not a date! With the way you were stealing glances at Hyunjin? The way Hyunjin always served you first? Asked you so many questions about your career? Got excited when you said you liked art?? Two beautiful, single people with common interests don’t meet and stay friends. Not when they’re Y/N Y/L/N and Hwang Hyunjin.

Maybe it’s not so bad! But it is. What is he going to do? Will he have to go to your wedding? Organise your stag do? Can he be trusted not to turn into the worst kind of person and get horrendously drunk and try to kiss you before it’s too late? Will he even be friends with you still when your wedding day comes? Maybe he manages to fuck it all up way before then.

Maybe it won’t work out between them! That’s not any better. The thought of his two best friends heartbroken about each other, avoiding each other when they inevitably have to meet again … Having a lapful of either of them, upset about someone else? God, no. And it’s not like it changes anything about the fact that Changbin is hopelessly in love with you both. Though the status quo, him, pining secretly, quietly, seems likely to be the best thing he’s ever going to get.

No, it won’t do. He’s stuck. He’s stuck and doomed to sit here, with his hands tied, to watch whatever it is that’s happening between you and Hyunjin unfold, from the sidelines. It makes his skin itch.

By the time you text him that you’re outside, asking him to buzz you in, he actually considers making something up about not feeling well, about being held back at the company, anything … But he’s always been weak for you. So he lets you in.

The moment you turn the corner of the hall and see him, a wide smile lights up your face and Changbin can’t help it, his whole body relaxes a little, the warmth of your presence melting some of the pressure of his shoulders. And then you skip the last few steps to make it to him and fling yourself into his hug, and he holds you tight and thinks that maybe this is enough. Maybe he’ll be alright as long as he can have this.

It’s casual, familiar, the way he invites you in without a word, the way you know where to put your shoes, where to pull out the guest house slippers, and immediately pick the pink ones you always use. For a brief moment, Changbin wonders if a few months down the line you will be doing all of this when you visit Hyunjin. If it will be him, then, watching you go through these motions, before he gets to lead you to his room and kiss you and touch you however he wants to and know he can have you for the rest of his life.

“Where is everyone?” you ask as you walk into the kitchen, set down the convenience store bag Changbin hadn’t even noticed was dangling off your wrist.

Changbin shrugs.

“Chan and Jisung are still at the studio, and probably will be for a while. They looked like they were getting into one of their zones when I left.”

You give him an adorable, playful smile.

“Aw, you skipped out on one of your intense 3racha studio nights for me? Why do I actually feel flattered?”

Changbin forces a smile. Silly you, I would do anything for you. He shrugs.

“Wasn’t feeling it today. Plus, I wanted to hit the gym.”

You nod absentmindedly, stare at the convenience store bag for a second, before you speak again.

“… and Hyunjin?” you ask without looking at him. Daggers. A hundred daggers to his chest. He clears his throat, tries to sound as casual as he possibly can.

“Honestly, no idea where he is, I haven’t seen him since I got home, so I guess he’s out somewhere.”

You hum, nod, then busy yourself with rooting around the bag.

“So I got us a bunch of savoury snacks, since I know you like those better,” you say, your voice back to being upbeat. Changbin does his best to catch up with his heart still aching. “But I also got some sweet ones.”

You lift up some Chocosongi with a smile and Changbin forces a smile back.

It hurts, how simple it all is. How easily you slip into habit. How normal it feels for him to hand you a pair of his sweatpants to change into in the bathroom, to unpack the snacks while you’re changing, dig up the projector from the bottom of his backpack, pile up the pillows on his bed until they are at the perfect fluffiness. How sweet you look when you skip back into the room and collapse on his bed, on your dedicated side, curling up on your side, pretending to go to sleep, with a devastating little fake snore, because “your bed is way too cozy, Bin.”

It hurts, but he smiles, because how could he not. He plays along, exclaims a soft “Yah! you wanted to see this movie!” and turns off some of the lights until the whole room is bathed only in the soft warm glow of the lamp on his bedside table, ignores the ache and settles in next to you.

He remains on his back as he fiddles with the projector, and once he’s got it on and connected to his phone, he sets it on the sheets between you, and you squeal with pure delight. It looks great, even he has to admit, the size of the movie just right, the colours vivid but soft against the white of his ceiling, the warm glow of light in his room making it look nothing short of magical.

Changbin wishes he could turn and see it reflected in your face, your eyes probably sparkling with it, but he doesn’t trust himself not to break down crying or say something he might regret. So instead, he just clicks up the volume another notch, takes the opened bag of chips you offer him, and settles back.

He hadn’t realised just how exhausted he was, but lying here, the pillows, the duvet, so soft and inviting underneath him, your warm body next to him, calmly rising and falling with every breath, not really touching much, but still comfortingly there, your socked foot pressed against his calf, the back of your hand resting against his shoulder where it’s curled under your cheek, brushing against him every time you reach for one of the little chocolate mushrooms … the exhaustion sinks into his bones and makes him melt into it. The movie, its music and dialogue coming through the speaker of his phone between you, the taste of the salty snacks on his tongue, your soft voice when you give your commentary on something that’s happening. How the sheets rustle when you move to reach for another little chocolate mushroom. He can smell you, your perfume like a soothing balm on his nerves, and he wishes he could freeze time and just stay here, with you, like this, forever.

He’s almost dozing off when you mumble something and Changbin turns his head to you without thinking and suddenly, you’re face to face on his pillow, your nose only a bare few centimetres from his. Changbin is suddenly wide awake and he holds his breath.

And you … do, too. You suck in a breath, eyes wide, blinking rapidly, gaze dipping down to his lips. There’s so much softness in it, softness that Changbin never thought he would get to see directed at him. That and … fear?

“Bin,” you mumble, absentminded, like you’re just saying his name to see what it will taste like. Your warm breath, sweet and chocolatey, fans against his lips, and he watches, frozen, entirely helpless, as you carefully tip your face forwards and press your lips to his.

Any thought he could’ve had evaporates the moment you kiss him. His eyes flutter shut readily, and he gasps into your lips in a way he’s sure he would be embarrassed by, if he had his wits about him. It’s a soft kiss, just a touch of your lips to his, then another even lighter one. Only when you hesitate, make as if to pull back, he realises he didn’t kiss you back. His hand shoots out, cradles around the soft expanse of your cheek, your jaw, and he pulls you back in because if this is all he’s ever allowed to have, he needs you to at least feel how much he wants you.

And he kisses you now. Properly. Presses his lips against yours firmly, but gently, tasting every ridge of them, greedily breathing in the dizzying scent of your skin where his nose is pressed into the soft skin of your cheek.

It’s like every single one of his daydreams, but better. Because when your lips open up for him, you taste real, the chocolate on yours mixing with the salt on his own tongue to create an intoxicating balance and underneath it all, he can taste something he knows, is undeniably the taste of you.

This time, neither of you pull back. It’s like the floodgates have opened and Changbin’s desire has finally been unleashed and there’s no stopping it now. Pandora’s box is open, and it’s all right there. Halfheartedly, he tries to keep his hope locked away, but his desire is free, trembles through him with every swipe of your tongue until you’re panting, gasping into each other’s lips with every wet slide of your mouths.

Changbin’s tongue is hungry, but his shaking hands hover helplessly, one still cradled around the side of your face, the other resting on his own stomach, itching to reach out but … he’s not sure how much he’s allowed. He doesn’t want to overstep, to make you uncomfortable, but then, as if you can read his mind, you scoot closer, so eagerly you knock over the projectors, fist your hand into the material of his t-shirt at his waist to pull him closer and Changbin’s entire brain short-circuits. He needs more.

Parting his lips from yours is a superhuman feat, but he does so, only enough to be able to blearily reach between you and get the damn projector and his phone out of the way, locking his phone, shutting off the movie in the process, and blindly shoving both it and the projector onto his nightstand. His phone thuds onto the carpet, but he doesn’t care, because you’re pouncing on him again as soon he turns back, pulling him against you with greedy hands until he can feel every inch of your warm body pressed against his, every arch of your back, slide of your foot against his calf.

In the silence of the room, without the movie playing in the background, Changbin can hear the slick slide of your tongues, every single hitch of your breath and all of it is so much, entirely too much almost in a way that is addicting.

And he doesn’t know if he’s crazy, but somehow, you’re still here, kissing him, trying to press even closer, as if it was possible, making the prettiest sound into Changbin’s mouth, until you throw your leg over his hips and grind forward and Changbin moans, pathetically. He’s hard. Embarrassingly so. Pulsing and aching, probably leaking into his underwear, and you seem to like it, because you grind (what Changbin can hardly think about without losing his damn mind) your clothed pussy down harder and moan right back.

You want this.

The thought drowns him, and he finally stops resisting, flips himself until he’s almost on top of you, dragging his palm down until he can grab your ass and grind you over his cock and oh, fuck.

You whimper, your mouth momentarily going slack against his, allowing him to suck your bottom lip between his own, drawing another perfect little mewl from you. Your hips twitch, make an aborted little move, chasing the friction of Changbin’s body, and he doesn’t have to be told twice. He ruts forward, uses his strength to grind you to meet him over and over again, and it feels so good, makes pleasure pool in Changbin’s abdomen at an alarming rate, his mind going fuzzy with the chase of his orgasm.

But before he loses himself, in a moment of lucidity, that he has no idea where it came from, he pulls back.

Which he almost immediately regrets, because you’re staring up at him, chest heaving, face flushed and dewy, lips shiny and swollen, your gaze so glassy and filled with so much trust, it makes reality crash over him.

“Y/Nie … baby …” he mumbles, and you must’ve heard something in his voice because panic flashes over your face, and you shake your head.

“N-no, Binnie, please,” you whisper, shaky hands reaching out, trying to pull him in again, “I need you.”

Changbin doesn’t know how he resists the gentle demands of your fingertips, how he pulls away another few inches before you make a sound that is so heartbreaking it keeps him frozen in place.

“Y/Nie I can’t …” he starts, but words fail him. What was he going to say? Tell you not to go out with Hyunjin? Tell you he loved him? That he loved you? Tell you, right here, right now? You deserved better than that.

You blink, blink again, and suddenly water is gathering at your lash line.

“It’s okay, Binnie, it doesn’t have to mean anything,” you beg, and the words feel like a slap in the face. “Just … just please, kiss me, touch me, fuck me. I need you. Please. Just … just this once, we can never talk about it again.”

Changbin should walk away. He knows it. He should get up, put some distance between you, save himself a lot of heartache and you the embarrassment of having to break your best friend’s heart.

But …

But this might be your last chance a selfish, petty part of him pipes up.

He doesn’t know how he is going to live with just this one time. How he’ll go for the rest of his days knowing what your body tastes like without ever getting to have it again, but he’ll learn. It can’t be worse than the heartache of never knowing.

When he dips back down, presses his lips against yours, you sigh in relief.

Your hands are everywhere – buried in his hair, running down his arms, tugging at the waistband of his sweats, slipping under his hoodie, colder fingers against heated skin, eagerly trying to feel more and more of him until you seemingly have enough. Your fingers tighten in his hair, and you pull, and the sting of it sends a shiver down his spine.

With a surprising amount of strength (though not enough to move him, was he not so ridiculously down bad and pliant for you) you push at him until his back hits the mattress. You swing your leg over his hips and, with a single-minded determination in your eyes, sit yourself right on his cock, making him gasp out your name, before you shove your fingers back under his shirt, rucking it up until he half sits up and lets you pull it off him.

And yeah, he feels exposed like this. Shirtless, underneath you, at your mercy, pressed against the sheets, his belly probably a little softer than usual because he’s been bulking.

But the way you stare at him, rake your eyes over his torso, the way your fingertips trace his skin, the way you bite your lip when goosebumps follow in their wake – he forgets to be self-conscious. Because, yes, you want him, and you’re not holding back an ounce of your admiration, but also, it’s you. He’s never felt as safe with anyone as he has felt with you.

You lean down and kiss him, a lot sweeter now, though still demanding, your palms smoothing over his pecs, up to his shoulder, over his bare arms, like you’re trying to feel every inch of his exposed skin. It makes him feel dizzy.

You pull back and stare at him, breathing heavily, your sparkling eyes so close to his that the barely contained I love you nearly slips past his lips.

“C-can I suck you off?” you whisper, and Changbin briefly wonders if he’s going to survive this.

He lets a tentative hand travel up your arm until he can smooth your hair out of your face. You blink, lean into his touch, and your breath hitches. He burns.

You’re still staring at him, waiting for the answer to your question, and he breathes out a shaky laugh. Instead of answering, he, as carefully as he can, flips you back underneath him. But now the way you’re staring up at him is even worse for his heart.

“I’m going to bust so fast if you do that,” he confesses and watches you giggle, “maybe next time.”

Next time?

He wants to slap himself.

You blink at him, something unreadable in your eyes, and then you nod.

“Next time,” you whisper, sadly, wrap your hand around his neck and pull him down. It’s the sweetest kiss yet, something in it that Changbin can’t place, that makes his heart thud heavily in his chest.

One of your legs wraps around his waist and pulls him down, his cock grinding down right where you need it, and it makes a heavy moan rumble out from deep in your chest. The kiss turns heavier and wetter until Changbin has to come up for air. He keeps his eyes closed, presses wet kisses down your cheek, your jaw, until he hits the neckline of your shirt.

He pulls back, forces himself to breathe, to slow down, to look into your eyes even though it hurts.

“Do you want this? We can stop …” he mumbles. He’s ready — ready to accept this is all he gets, ready to ignore his heart burning a hole in his chest with the inhuman need to slip you out of these clothes and worship every inch of your body. But one word from you, a single shred of doubt in your eyes, and he would stop.

But you shake your head, your face so vulnerable it makes him want to wrap you up in his arms and keep you safe, here, for the rest of your life.

“I want this, I really do,” you whisper, and then, brokenly, you make Changbin’s world spin out of control. “I’ve wanted you for a long time.”

The words hurt like a knife, because he knows you don’t mean them the way he does.

He doesn’t respond, instead kisses you again, tries to drown everything he can’t say in the rapture that is your lips. He lets his hand wander over the legs he’s been dreaming about, legs wrapped in his sweatpants, wrapped around his hips. He slides his palms up, until he can slip it underneath your shirt and ruck it up and off and tries his best not to lose his head when you’re bared to him and then again when he unclips your bra, mercifully with little to no fumbling, and your nipples and soft skin of your tits and your belly are pressed against his own.

You sigh into him, fingernails digging into his bicep so hard he shudders. He hopes it will leave a mark.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” he whispers. He keeps his eyes closed, unable to face the effect his words may have.

“Touch me, Binnie,” you whisper back, and he shudders again. The way you say his name makes his body thrum with need.

“I will,” he finds himself mumbling, pressing a wet kiss to your jaw, “I will, angel, I’ll make you feel good.”

And with no further hesitation he sits up, places his shaking hands on your hips, thumbs smoothing over the skin right over your waistband.

He’s thought about this a lot, he’s ashamed to admit, but nothing comes close to you right in front of him because — you’re perfect. More perfect than he could have ever imagined, because now he can see all the little birthmarks, all the tiny scars and the light lines of stretch marks, and he tries to drink it all in, tries to catalogue every single thing so he can conjure them up in all his worst fantasies for the rest of his life.

But maybe he took a little bit too long because you’re saying his name again, in that small, vulnerable voice and every single inch of his body is consumed with the need to please you.

So he pulls at your waistband, slowly pulls it down, leaning in until he can press his lips against the skin of your tits, swirl his tongue over your gorgeous, hard nipples, before he goes down, down, over the softness of your belly, your hips, then down your thighs as he tries not to lose his goddamn mind.

Because he can smell you now. You, the smell of your skin, remnants of your shower gel and the lotion you rub in after, but also your arousal, the sweet tang of it coating his tastebuds already before he has even gotten the chance to get his mouth on you.

He slides one leg, then the other out of his sweats, and you let him, one arm slung over your face in overwhelm, making a pretty little noise when they’re all the way off, and you’re naked in front of him.

Changbin can’t resist it. He lets his eyes roam over you as he tentatively palms his rock-hard cock over his own sweats, and pleasure rolls heavy through his whole body.

“Oh, pretty,” he sighs. It just slips out. You whimper, breathe out his name. One of his palms slides up your calf.

“Can I, pretty? Can I touch you?”

You breathe out an airy chuckle that Changbin thinks for a moment feels almost a little sad, before you nod.

“Of course, Binnie, of course you can. Please touch me.”

It’s all he needs.

He lets his palm slide further up your leg, up to your thigh, you part your legs for him effortlessly, offer yourself to him. He lowers himself onto the mattress slowly, eyes glued to where you’re glistening and quivering and smelling so divine his mouth is watering, before he leans in and laves his tongue gently over your clit a couple times, easing you into it.

Your taste sears itself into his taste buds, sweet, tangy, intoxicating, and he wants more, wants to fucking drown in it, in you, and he leans in and attaches his lips to your core, darts his tongue out, laves at your pretty little hole, dips into the wet heat of it, before travelling back up, slick smearing all over his chin as he sucks your clit between his lips.

He’s being messy, and he knows it, his fingers digging into your skin probably a little too deep for comfort, but you’re not complaining, no, of course not, you’re perfect, one of your hands cards through his hair, the other arm thrown over your face as you make the sexiest breathless little noises that almost sound like sobs, and you take it all, every single thing Changbin has to give you.

Your thighs tremble in his hands, your hips stuttering upwards in aborted little movements, your little moans growing in volume, one of your ankles digging into his back and, nonetheless, when you come, whole body shivering, chanting his name, spurting the sweetest sweetness he has ever tasted right into his mouth, it takes him by surprise. He didn’t expect you to come for him so easily, so effortlessly, but you don’t seem to be holding back.

Changbin laps at your release, licks it up and swallows it down while he can before you gently push him away, trembling with the oversensitivity. Your eyes are lidded, your hair a mess and there’s a wet stain on his sheets right underneath your hips, and Changbin can’t believe he gets to see you like this, let alone the fact that he did this to you.

You sit up, gloriously naked and unbelievably beautiful, and reach for him, soft fingers curling around the back of his neck, pulling him forwards until your lips are on his again, and it feels like coming home, sends warm shivers down his spine. He sighs into your lips, and you sigh back, dragging him back down to the mattress with you, skin against skin again, his chest moulding against yours like they were made for each other. He could stay here forever just kissing you, but there’s a fire in his abdomen, a hard, insistent pressure against your body, and your fingers slip under his waistband.

You tuck his sweats and underwear down quickly, one hand still curled around his neck and slipping into his hair, the other shoving at the offending fabric until you can’t reach any more and use your feet to shuck them the rest of the way off — something Changbin shouldn’t find as hot as he does, though he is mightily distracted by the way your tongue is licking against his, the way you’re tugging at his hair, dragging him this way and that into the kiss, making his brain go fuzzy.

When your hand curls around his cock, he physically jolts, his body more sensitive than it’s ever been. He wants to say something, anything, self-consciousness curling in his belly, something about how he knows he isn’t too big, but you don’t give him the chance.

Your hand tightens on him, and he keens, and you whisper a breathless, appreciative fuck into the tight space between you. Wordlessly, with your heels digging into his lower back, you pull him closer, until his lips are back on yours and his cock is pressed against your entrance, and it doesn’t take any convincing for him to follow where you’re leading him and press inside. His moan collides with yours when he bottoms out, your back arching into his arms, and he holds you closer, noses against your jaw, trying to ground himself.

It’s unreal, the feeling of you. Hot, tight, velvety, wet, you. He’s inside of you. His cock throbs and his breath stutters out of him, and somehow you’re right there with him, your fingers shaking as one of your hands anchors itself back into his hair and drags him close.

He doesn’t know how he manages to start moving but when he does, it’s unlike anything he’s ever felt. He grinds forward, buries himself as far as he will go, and you follow him, open your mouth into a gasp, and when he pulls back you chase him, smear your lips against his. Your bodies moving together, sweat slick skin sliding against sweat slick skin, hot breath mingling until he forgets where he ends and you begin. It’s so intimate it makes him feel insane, utterly out of his mind with how overwhelmingly good it is.

He fucks forward harder, and he is rewarded with a gorgeous moan, punched out of you at the same time as his headboard smacks against the wall, and he says a quiet thanks to whoever’s listening that they’re alone in the dorm, because he can do it again, draw another moan out of you.

“B-binnie,” you mewl, and his arms nearly give out. He vaguely registers himself making a shaky, helpless little noise in response. “So … fuck … good … harder.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice, his body responding as if it’s an entity entirely separate from his reason, only focused on giving you what you need. He plants his palm against the headboard for leverage and fucks you harder, lets himself go, his own moans colliding with yours between your heated lips, deafeningly loud in the previously quiet room, now resounding with the sound of his hips slamming into yours, the wet slide of your pussy as it swallows his cock, the headboard thunking against the wall – it’s filthy, but it’s like music to him. You’re the best he’s ever had.

You whimper into his lips, drag him in for another kiss, scrape your fingernails over his bicep and heat curls dangerously, deep in his guts, a kind of barbed wire pleasure, building and building. And no matter how much he wishes this could last forever, he knows he won’t last much longer.

He drags his hand from the headboard, down your body, shoves it between your bodies, unwilling to part more than he has to. When he reaches between your legs, where his cock is pumping in and out of you, it’s soaked, and he moans out pathetically. With the first touch of his fingers against your clit, you throw your head back, eyebrows knitted together, lips parted in a beautiful little o and Changbin dives down, peppers kisses all over your jaw and down your neck. He can taste your skin, salty from the sweat, bitter from your perfume, sweet in all the other ways.

Your legs wind around his waist, and it changes the angle, makes his cock drag against your walls just right to make him shudder, and you gush around him, and he sinks his teeth into your shoulder, trying to hold on.

“P-please,” you sob out, “d-don’t stop … ‘m so close …”

As if he would, Changbin thinks. His fingers are sliding over your clit, and he pumps his hips forward, lets himself chase his own pleasure, just a little bit, and you’re clenching tighter and tighter and then …

You come with a choked moan of his name, walls locking around him, pulsing and fluttering, and it’s almost too much, the knowledge of it, of you underneath him, letting him take you apart like this, trusting him with your body, your pleasure.

With the last, tattered remnant of his reason, he pulls out, wraps his hand around his slick cock and pumps furiously only for a second before pleasure explodes through his body, and he comes in ropes and ropes, all over your belly, the pleasure zinging through his veins so strong it almost knocks him out, if it weren’t for your grounding fingers carding through his hair.

It’s everything he’s ever wanted. It’s entirely wrong.

He shudders through the last dregs of his orgasm, a bead of sweat rolling down the slope of his nose before it drops onto the pillow next to your head. If he breathes in, he knows he’ll smell the combined smell of you and him in your hair.

He pulls back quickly, but is stopped by the opposing force of your hand on his neck, and he realises a beat too late that you were trying to pull him closer. But the damage is done. Your face falls, your hands dropping to the mattress on either side of you. You turn your head as you wait for Changbin to pull out, to climb off you. And in his stupor, in the turmoil of heartache and confusion in his heart, he does.

You look fragile like that, head pillowed on his sheets, knees knocking together as you try to hide, his cum beaded all over your pretty belly.

“I’ll get you a towel, okay?” he mumbles, trying to be as gentle as he can, but it can’t contend with the awkwardness that’s hanging thickly in the air.

He somehow manages to pull on his boxers, stumbles from the room, into the bathroom; he catches a glance of himself in the mirror, his face pale, his eyes wide and scared, and nearly loses his head. In and out, he tells himself. You can’t lose it now, you’ve got to take care of her. No matter what, you’ve got to take care of her.

Eyes glued to his hands, to the sink, he fishes out one of the hand towels under the sink, wrenches the tap to the hottest setting it will go, willing it to heat up faster. He needs to get back to you. He needs to fix this.

As soon as the water is lukewarm, he drenches the towel, squeezes it out and just about resists the urge to run back to his room. But as soon as he steps in and meets your eyes and dread almost overwhelms him. Everything is so wrong.

He approaches the bed, and he can see his own hesitation mirrored in your face, mirrored in the cold hard hurt shivering across your face. He’s frozen with helplessness, unable to figure out what to do, how to fix this thing he’s broken.

You pull the towel out of his numb fingers where he’s standing next to you without moving and start cleaning yourself up, wiping at the sticky residue of his cum, until you’re clean, hurriedly dropping the towel onto the bed next to you and swinging your legs over the side.

“Uh … I should get going,” you mumble, as you awkwardly step around him where he’s still rooted to the spot next to the bed. Only when you’re dressed, does he dare to turn around.

When your eyes meet, it punches the rest of his confidence out of him. You blink and make to turn around, but Changbin takes a step forward, catches your wrist in his hands, holds you back with a desperation that he’s unable to mask.

“Y/N …” he mumbles, his voice hoarse with emotion. You stop easily, let yourself get pulled back to him, just like that. His heart throbs.

“We’re okay, right?” There’s a beat of silence, then you soften, just a little. You nod, and he lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Yeah,” you breathe, “of course we’re okay.”

What washes through him isn’t relief, but it’s something. Maybe hope that he hasn’t irrevocably fucked everything up. He needs you, needs you with him, in his life, however he is allowed to have you. He can’t do this without you. He never could.

He gives your wrist the smallest, gentlest tug – just a suggestion. You step forward and right into his waiting arms.

He folds you against his bare chest, breathes out a shaky breath. He can feel your breath against his collarbone, the softness of your cheek against his shoulders. The comforting weight of you against him. You’re okay. You’ll be okay. He doesn’t know if it’s true. He has to believe it.

It’s only a few moments before you pull back, barely looking at him.

“I still … I’m gonna go …” you mumble, and he nods.

He follows you to the door, uselessly. Watches as you pull on your shoes, carelessly leave the house slippers out, something you never do. You always put them back.

With one last shaky smile, you pull the door shut behind you and Changbin is left behind in the dead silence of the empty dorm to deal with the aftermath.

He manages to make it back to his room before the first sob racks through him, his chest constricting painfully until he can barely breathe. Through his blurry eyes, he rips the sheets off his bed, a button pinging off the pillow case, but he can’t care. He doesn’t bother putting new sheets on, only crawls into bed. And he cries.

And because he really does seem to be the punchline of some cosmic joke, the first person he sees when he stumbles into the kitchen the next morning, is Hyunjin.

He looks up when Changbin walks in, and he freezes, before he turns sharply.

Changbin didn’t even bother looking in the mirror before stumbling out of his room on a desperate hunt for a cup of coffee that would cure his pounding head. He knows he probably doesn’t look dewy fresh and his eyes are probably swollen, but Hyunjin’s reaction nonetheless makes him falter. He hesitates in the doorway.

Hyunjin doesn’t say anything, only keeps his back to him, hands aimlessly fiddling with the coffee machine, pulling out the drip tray, emptying it into the sink even though it’s barely half full, then shoving it back into the machine. It catches on something and there’s a sickening crunching sound that startles him. He pulls it back out and shoves it back in, a little softer this time, though Changbin can see it now. His hands are shaking.

Hyunjin turns abruptly, makes for the door, but then realises Changbin is right there, blocking it, and stops.

A beat passes where Changbin can finally see Hyunjin’s eyes, and he can’t read them at all. He looks … vaguely annoyed. Confused. Upset? Why?

Chan’s door opens and his voice travels down the hallway.

“Yo, is the coffee machine still on?”

Hyunjin opens his mouth, though his answering yes takes a long moment to come out. It only makes its way past his lips when Chan is already pushing past Changbin and into the kitchen.

When Chan’s eyes fall on Changbin, he hesitates, eyebrows knitting together in worry.

“Woah, Bin, you alright? You look rough.”

Changbin drags his eyes away from Hyunjin’s, forces a smile onto his face.

“Yeah, just didn’t sleep well,” he croaks out, and Chan nods understandingly, gives him a pat on the shoulder.

“Did you and Y/N watch something scary again even though neither of you like horror?” he chuckles, as he makes his way to the coffee machine, past Hyunjin who’s now fiddling with his phone, leaning against the counter next to the sink.

Changbin murmurs something to the negative, his heart aching somewhere deep in his chest at the mention of you. Ah, remember when things were normal, he thinks. How they could’ve remained normal, if he hadn’t been so fucking stupid and ruined everything …

“By the way, Jinnie,” Chan asks, slides his stupidly large to go cup under the spout, and presses the button, “did my package arrive last night?”

The coffee machine screams to life, and it makes Changbin’s ears ring.

“W-what? Package?” Hyunjin asks, when the noise stops, shifting his weight from one foot to the other uneasily.

Chan nods.

“It was meant to come yesterday and I figured, since you and Bin were both home, but he was watching a movie with Y/N, maybe you would hear the door? You were home last night, weren’t you?”

Changbin prays. He prays to whatever deity is out there that Hyunjin doesn’t say yes, tells Chan no, he was out, at the other dorm, hanging out with Jeongin or Seungmin or …

“I was,” Hyunjin says quietly, “but I didn’t … hear the door. I was painting.”

Chan nods and pulls out his phone.

Changbin is frozen in place, staring at Hyunjin, who avoids his eyes. If he was home, then he heard. He must have, right? There was no way …

“Ah, typical,” Chan exclaims, makes both Changbin and Hyunjin jump, “it got delayed. It’ll be delivered this afternoon when we have dance practice. Oh well, I’ll let the doorman know. Thanks though!”

He slides the lid onto his to go cup and makes for the door.

“You ready to go, Bin? We have a meeting with the mixing agent in 40.”

Changbin has never been more grateful for an excuse to get the fuck away from Hyunjin for a few hours.

“Y-yeah, just … need a quick shower,” he mumbles, and Chan nods, already walking down the hallway.

"Make it a quick one, I’ll wake Jisung."

Changbin flees from the kitchen without looking back. He thinks he doesn’t breathe until the bathroom lock clicks shut behind him.

Hyunjin heard. Hyunjin heard. It’s … bad. It’s confusing. Most of all, it’s humiliating.

He strips as quickly as he can, faster still when he drags his shirt over his head, and he catches a whiff of your perfume, and it nearly makes him nauseous. He steps in the shower and turns it all the way to cold.

What’s humiliating is not the sex, no, god, it couldn’t have been the sex. That, itself, was earth-shattering, life-changing, nothing short of magical. But the thought of him hearing you like that? Exposing you, exposing Changbin himself, when you trusted him that you were alone? It makes him feel sick.

Worse, what if he heard the awkwardness after. What if he heard Changbin crying. Fuck.

He scrubs shampoo into his hair, body wash down his body. When he rinses away the suds, they expose faint red lines along his shoulder, down his biceps. They ache with the memory of your nails. Changbin shudders.

There’s a knock on the door.

“We’ve got twenty minutes, Bin, we really need to go.”

“Coming,” Changbin shouts back and turns off the water.

He gets out, towels off and finally takes a glance in the mirror. He looks normal, except for the faint red lines … well, those and the giant bags under his eyes. As he stares himself down, he sees his phone light up, and he picks it up at lightning speed. But it’s just Jeongin. Asking if he was going to hit the gym today.

Changbin sighs, puts his phone back down.

It was going to be a long fucking day.

You don’t text him that day. Or the next.

Changbin’s a fucking mess.

He’s distracted. Takes 20 takes to get one part of his rap right. Snaps at Jisung so hard he actually makes him cry. Forgets a meeting. Steps on Felix’s foot during dance practice.

Not that anyone noticed. They all treat him the same, nobody looking at him twice. He doesn’t know what’s pissing him off more, their ignorance, or his own petty, way too emotional reaction to it.

Between that, and Hyunjin’s severe mood swings, Changbin feels like he’s at sea, being tossed back and forth by the whims of anyone but him. And that pisses him off, too.

Hyunjin … he doesn’t know how Hyunjin feels. Because one second, he’s meeting his eyes staring daggers at him through the mirror in the dance practice rooms, muttering something to Felix that Changbin can’t shake the feeling is about him. The next, he bumps Jisung aside when they get into the car to go home and forces himself into the seat next to Changbin, his thigh falling against his – all while stubbornly refusing to look at him. Changbin doesn’t even dare say his name. What was he going to say anyway? “Hey, Hyune, did you hear me and Y/N fuck? Is that why you’re insert-whatever-adjective-here” because it’s not like Changbin can figure it out.

Because Hyunjin drags his palm over his knee before he gets out, but the next morning he slams the bathroom door into his face so hard it nearly breaks Changbin’s nose. But then he fucking stares again, in the dressing room, big, dark eyes burning into Changbin’s back as he is shooed around by the make-up noonas.

But all of it, it doesn’t make any damn sense. Hyunjin’s upset, clearly, but Changbin can’t figure out what he’s upset about – or what he plans to do about it. Is he upset because Changbin fucked you the week before he was meant to take you out? Is that it? Does he think it was some petty move to keep his best friend to himself? Except that logic doesn’t hold up very well, now, does it, since Changbin’s pretty sure he fucked up your friendship entirely.

Sometime on Thursday afternoon, he has convinced himself that Hyunjin’s mad because you cancelled on him. It took a while to allow himself to think that way, because the delusions – well, he would love to tell himself you probably just cancelled because you hooked up with anyone, and it didn’t feel fair to Hyunjin, but then again he knows you’re not like that, and then his brain starts to feed him hope, hope that you cancelled because you can’t stop fucking thinking about him the way he can’t stop thinking about you, replaying every single moment, both the good and the bad, until he’s sure he will never forget a single one of your noises, a single one of your unbelievably sexy moans of his fucking name …

But Felix skips and jumps over and makes his whole world turn upside down again.

He bounds over to where Hyunjin is sitting on the floor next to where Changbin is lounging on the sofas, Hyunjin’s hand resting on Changbin’s shoes. He’s still refusing to look Changbin in the eye – but his pinky finger is tracing the line of Changbin’s ankle through his sock.

Changbin wonders if this is what the first symptoms of insanity feel like.

“Hyunjinniiiiieee,” Felix sing-songs, plops himself down on the floor next to Hyunjin and slings one arm over his shoulder. “Do you have plans on Saturday and do you want to go shopping with me?”

Hyunjin hums, leans into Felix’s touch, his hand leaving Changbin’s foot in favour of patting Felix’s hand.

“Sorry, Yongbok-ah, I’m busy,” he hums, his voice calm and honeyed, though Changbin doesn’t miss how he starts fidgeting with his ring.

“Ah, right, you’re going out with Y/nie right?” Felix exclaims and gives Changbin a wide smile, before his attention is back on Hyunjin.

From where he’s sitting, Changbin can’t see Hyunjin’s face, only sees him turn to Felix and nod slightly.

“Forgot about that, sorry, Jinnie,” Felix mumbles, brings his hand to Hyunjin’s back and starts kneading the muscles there. Hyunjin’s head falls forward with a little moan that, on any normal day, would send Changbin’s thoughts straight into the gutter. “What are you gonna do? Or where are you taking her? Wait … is this a … you know?”

Hyunjin bumps Felix with his leg, so hard, Felix lets out a little yelp. He blinks at Hyunjin, then Changbin, before he blushes.

“We’re going to see that exhibition I told you about. The one none of you wanted to go to with me,” Hyunjin states, bluntly, both of his hands now busy twirling his ring around his finger in his lap.

“What?! You didn’t ask me! I would’ve said yes!” Felix exclaims, indignant and wide-eyed.

Changbin doesn’t need to see Hyunjin to know he’s glaring at Felix. There’s nothing Hyunjin hates more than when someone forgets something he said to them.

“Yes, I did. Three weeks ago. When we got chicken. I asked everyone, even manager-hyung. And you said you didn’t care for modern art.” Felix falters, freckled face falling into an expression of embarrassment.

“Oh,” he mumbles, “well, I would’ve gone with you if I’d known nobody else wanted to go.”

Hyunjin scoffs, tosses his hair out of his eyes. He brings his hands up to his face, as if he’s inspecting his cuticles.

“Well, she wanted to go. Really wanted to, actually. She asked me to take her.” He says it nonchalantly, his voice the picture of calm confidence, but Changbin can see the muscles tick in his neck.

‘He asked me to go to this art exhibit with him this weekend’ the memory of your voice says. Changbin tries not to let it get to him. He fails spectacularly.

Hyunjin tosses his head again and gets up, his arm brushing sparks against Changbin’s leg as he gets up.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go shower.”

He’s out the door before Changbin or Felix can say another word.

Then Felix looks at Changbin and Changbin is out of his seat at lightning speed.

“Hyung …” Felix sighs, his eyes big and round and full of pity. Changbin shakes his head.

“You don’t like that Hyunjin and Y/N are going on a date?”

Changbin doesn’t answer, focuses instead on shoving his towel, his bottle, his phone’s portable battery, all of it into his backpack.

“It’s okay if you don’t, you know?” Felix tries again, “but then I think you should tell them, instead of keeping it inside.”

“Yongbok-ah …” Changbin says, warningly, and it comes out a lot meaner than he intends to. He watches Felix flinch and sighs.

“Please, drop it.”

Felix deflates and Changbin feels even worse.

“Fine,” he mumbles, “but if you do end up wanting to talk about it, I’m here, okay?”

Changbin nods, pats Felix’s shoulder and gets up.

Changbin knows that he won’t. He can’t even begin to think of confessing all of this to Chan, how could he unload it onto Felix, his most precious dongsaeng. But he knows Felix will feel better if he agrees. So he lies.

“I will, thank you, Yongbok-ah.”

When Changbin’s phone buzzes on the mixing desk next to Chan at 1am on Friday night, 12 hours out from when he presumes your date with Hyunjin is, Changbin doesn’t even bother to check it.

But Chan glances over and picks it up.

“Y/N’s texting,” he says, casually, and hands Changbin his phone, like Changbin’s heart didn’t just fall into his ass.

If he was alone, Changbin doesn’t know if he would’ve checked it. But Chan is right there, and he doesn’t have the strength to make up an excuse for why he would be ignoring a text from his best friend. So he unlocks his phone.

from: Y/Nie hey hey Y/Nie is typing….

“Do you think we should keep Seungmin’s first or second take?” Chan asks. Changbin blinks at him and Chan presses play, brows furrowed, eyes glued to the screen.

They sound identical.

“I think the first one’s better, right?” Chan muses, and Changbin’s phone buzzes in his hands.

“Yeah, totally,” he mumbles, and whips his head back down. You texted again. His heartbeat picks up.

from: Y/Nie sorry for the radio silence 😅 kinda had to convince myself you didn’t hate me because you didn’t text me either but then I realised that that is hypocritical of me so here I am … please don’t hate me

Butterflies. A swarm of them. Something warm, dripping down Changbin’s spine. Regret, still, too much of it to put into words, but mostly … relief.

As quickly as he can, he replies.

from: me of course, I don’t hate you I could never

He tries to calm down, tells himself not to be too honest. Not when the situation is so fragile. Not over text.

from: Y/Nie THANK GOD

The message makes him huff out a laugh, and Chan looks over and gives him a little smile. Changbin blushes.

The dots, the little Y/Nie is typing…. text blinks in and out of existence for a solid minute before your next message pops up.

from: Y/Nie because I kinda really missed you

Changbin takes a deep, steadying breath.

I missed you, too is what he wants to say. I missed you, too, I always do. I wish it hadn’t ended the way it did. I wish I could stop loving you, but I can’t. But I want you in my life in whatever form I can.

from: me I missed you, too I think chan is sick of me actually being at the studio instead of disappearing at some point and leaving him to do his work

Changbin looks up. Chan is humming under his breath, completely relaxed, editing a midi track, his knee bouncing under the table. Sorry, Chan

from: Y/Nie well, we can’t have that! chan needs to write the next big stray kids hit, we can’t have you distract him like that!

from: me yah! you say you missed me and the first thing you do is bully me

from: Y/Nie gotta keep you humble ;)

Changbin sighs. He knows this probably isn’t a solution, pretending like it never happened, just going back to how things were before. But it feels so good. And everything … it’s too big, it’s too much. And if this is the only way your friendship will survive, then he’ll take it. He’ll take whatever you give him.

It’s silent for a few seconds and Changbin wonders if that’s it, but then you text one last time.

from: Y/Nie I gotta sleep now but let’s get lunch next week?

from: me I’d love that night, y/nie

from: Y/Nie night, bin <3

It’s the heart that sustains him, makes him breathe easier for the next half hour and all the way home and into bed. He falls asleep easily for the first time in days, sleeps a dreamless, restful sleep until he wakes up to the sun peeking in through the blinds, the warm sheets – and Hyunjin yelling at Jisung to get out of the bathroom.

The realisation crashes over him without mercy.

Hyunjin is getting ready. To go out. With you.

Dread collects and settles thickly into his bones, makes him bury himself further under the sheets as he fishes for his phone and opens his chat with Chan.

from: me yo what are you doing today? wanna hit the gym and write some music?

He places his phone down on the mattress, and he waits. Listens to the sounds of the traffic outside, of the dorm slowly waking up; hears Jisung screech, then Hyunjin yell something, before a door slams.

His phone buzzes.

from: cb97 sorry, man, already at the gym now having lunch with young-hyun later probably won’t make it to the studio at all today

Changbin buries his face in his pillow and sighs. Hyunjin’s cackle sifts through the cracks in the door.

He can’t stay here. He can’t witness Hyunjin getting all dolled up, wearing some cute outfit, bouncing out of the front door on his merry way to a date that might as well seal Changbin’s fate. No, he needs to figure something out, he needs to go.

So he texts the only other person he knows would willingly spend a Saturday buried in a dark, lightless studio.

from: me yah jisung-ah what are you doing today

If he mentally says a prayer as he waits for his answer, that’s between him and his pillow.

Jisung, predictably, texts back almost immediately.

from: j.one morning hyung~~ probably gonna to the company work on some songs why?

from: me need any help? or want some company? I need to get out of the house today

There’s silence for a minute, and even Jisung’s and Hyunjin’s bickering has gone silent. Changbin tries not to let his paranoia get the best of him. Hyunjin’s getting ready. Jisung is probably just on his phone on his bed. Or texting Minho.

It takes a few minutes before Jisung finally responds.

from: j.one sure! I actually got this rap I would love to get your input on

from: me cool leave in an hour?

from: j.one 👍

And it’s so quiet that Changbin really, really thought he could get away with it. That he could leave the dorm, with Jisung, without bumping into Hyunjin but, of course, he couldn’t.

He opens his door, takes one step, and collides with Hyunjin’s shoulder.

The impact isn’t strong, only enough to send Changbin reeling back a few steps, his backpack dropping from his hand and onto the floor, but that’s not what slams the breath out of his chest.

It’s Hyunjin’s perfume, the one he only wears for special occasions, thick and floral and, at the same time, somehow manly, laced with the smell of his shampoo and his hair, curling into Changbin’s nose and making his mouth water. And it only gets worse when he looks up and meets Hyunjin’s eyes. He’s always been a master at dramatising himself. Unlike Changbin, who’s always just the same, just … Changbin, Hyunjin knows exactly how to dress himself to look the perfect level of casual, yet fuckable. His long black hair is a little wavy, casual and he’s wearing make-up. Not a lot, for their standards, but just a bit. Just enough. Foundation, a light shade of brown around his eyes that renders them big and soft, soft pink lip balm on his full lips that makes them look obscenely kissable. If Changbin wasn’t already terminally, irrevocably in love with him, he’s sure he would fall in love with him then. He swallows bitterly when he realises that that’s probably actually exactly what Hyunjin is going for. With you.

Hyunjin’s dressed simply, but clearly with intent. Blue jeans, a white t-shirt, that’s just tight enough to sit snugly over his shoulders and his biceps and his … Changbin swallows … his pecs, and …

“Are those Jisung’s shoes?”

The words tumble from his mouth before he can stop them. The first words he and Hyunjin have exchanged in three days, and he’s asking about Jisung’s shoes?!

Hyunjin falters for a second, clearly stupefied by Changbin’s question. He nods slowly.

Changbin just nods back, barely manages to look Hyunjin in the eyes.

They didn’t get dressed together. Jisung knows nothing. I’m being paranoid. I’m being paranoid. Changbin, you’re being paranoid!!!!!!

Changbin must really be losing it because Hyunjin’s brows pull together in a grimace of concern that somehow makes him look even more like an angel.

“Hyung, are you okay?”

He sounds like he cares so much. Changbin wants to laugh. Or cry. Or both at the same time.

“I’m fine, Hyunjin-ah,” he forces out, forces a smile as he bends down and picks up his backpack.

“Are you sure?” Hyunjin adds, almost too fast. He sucks his bottom lip, starts gnawing at it. He looks like wants to say something else, but Changbin doesn’t let him. He can’t. Who knows what this conversation could turn into. Hyunjin needs to go meet you and Changbin needs to go to the studio with Jisung. It’s better this way.

“Don’t worry about me,” he chirps, so fake it makes his teeth ache with it, and pushes past Hyunjin as fast as he possibly can. He ignores the new wave of Hyunjin’s perfume that slams into him as he makes his way to the kitchen, where, thankfully, he finds Jisung already waiting.

Jisung’s head whips up when Changbin barges in, and they only widen more when Changbin beams at him and waves him towards the door.

“Let’s go, Jisung-ah!” he exclaims, much too loudly, and turns around before he can see Jisung throw a glance towards the hallway he just came from or look at him with any more of the surprise or the concern that makes Changbin’s stomach turn.

Thankfully, Jisung follows him, doesn’t ask any questions. Only falls into step with Changbin and when Changbin asks, talks about the song he wanted help with. Jisung had always been his favourite dongsaeng.

Changbin manages not to think about you and Hyunjin for most of the day. But what he does think about, a lot, is the moment he would have to face Hyunjin. By the time he drifts off to sleep he’s sure he’s imagined all the worst possible outcomes, Hyunjin stumbling in late at night only half dressed, Hyunjin walking into the kitchen the next morning with hickeys on his neck, Hyunjin with literal hearts floating around his head for all Changbin knows – but none of that happens.

He meets Hyunjin the next day in the kitchen when he goes to get a snack. Hyunjin, dressed in his ratty old sweatpants and his hair tied up haphazardly, is filling the little transparent cup Changbin knows he uses for painting with water by the sink, looks just like he always does. He turns around, sees Changbin, and smiles. A little sheepish, a little awkward, maybe, but he smiles. And Changbin does what he does best. He takes the excuse to delude himself, and he runs with it.

On Monday, they have a schedule. Hyunjin picks the make-up chair next to him. They don’t talk much, but Hyunjin knocks his foot against his and shows him a meme of a little piglet and a bunny being friends about halfway through, a devastatingly pretty smile on his lips. Changbin smiles back.

On Tuesday, Changbin meets you for lunch at your company. You hug him hello, wrap your hand around his arm so you don’t lose him as you pull him through the packed cafeteria. You pick out his favourite melon soda from the refrigerator without him having to ask. You chatter about this album you’re working on, about your parents coming to visit in a couple weeks. You don’t talk about Hyunjin. When you smile at him and sneak half of your helping of chicken onto his plate in exchange for one of his mushrooms, he can’t bring himself to ask. He hugs you goodbye.

On Wednesday, he stays late at the studio with Chan and Jisung. They get into a flow, manage to finish the demos for two songs. Write another, late at night, delirious off sugar and lack of sleep, one that will probably never see the light of day. He loves them. He comes home smiling, waves them off down the hallway to their rooms before he gets himself a bottle of water from the fridge. He takes a little detour past Hyunjin’s room almost automatically. His door is ajar, the light on, but he can hear Hyunjin snore quietly. He creeps in, tiptoes over to the bedside table, where the light is still on, throwing a hazy warm glow over Hyunjin’s sleeping form. Glossy lips parted, eyebrows slightly drawn up, almost like he’s surprised, his hair messily fanned over the pillow half his face is smushed into, he’s the most beautiful thing Changbin has ever seen. He indulges himself, brushes a few of his strands out of his eyes, lets his fingertip drag over the curve of his cheek, before he switches off the lamp and leaves, closing the door behind him.

On Thursday, he catches Hyunjin giggling at his phone, but he’s already convinced himself that the date on Saturday was most likely a dud. Maybe not even bad, just … not as exciting as you’d hoped. Maybe you’d met and the spark you’d both felt wasn’t there. Maybe you said something about the art that gave Hyunjin the ick. Maybe his dreaminess was too much for your pragmatic nature.

Because if it had been any other way, Hyunjin wouldn’t have just gone back to normal, right? Back to leaning against Changbin in the elevator and giggling with him in the kitchen. And you, you would’ve brought it up, right? That first day at lunch, or the countless times you texted after that. Right?

If Hyunjin and you had had a good date, if you’d kissed (a notion Changbin can’t entertain for too long because the mere idea of it makes him dizzy with a lot of confusing feelings that he refuses to decode right now) or if you’d agreed on a second date, if you were still talking, he wouldn’t be here right now, two weeks later, sitting on your sofa at some ungodly hour, ripped from the studio, from Chan who watched him go with a knowing, unsurprised grin, the remnants of delivery tteokbokki and dumplings still on the table and some random drama on the TV.

Your body wouldn’t have been slowly drifting towards his over the last hour, you wouldn’t have slung your leg over his, you … you wouldn’t have fallen asleep snuggled into his shoulder the way you did. Breathing softly, fingers twitching where they were still holding on to him.

And when he carried your half awake form to your bedroom later, tucked you into bed, you wouldn’t have leaned up, murmured his name, wouldn’t have pulled him into the softest, gentlest, kiss, just the pressure of your soft lips against his …

Right?

Except you would, apparently.

Changbin wasn’t meant to go to the company the next day. He was meant to have a day off, and he didn’t mean to work, he just wanted to get his laptop because he forgot it the night before because he was so eager to get out of there to get to yours–

Changbin wasn’t meant to be here.

He wasn’t meant to round a corner and see Hyunjin, standing between your legs where you’re sitting on the shoe storage outside the dance practice room, one hand caressing the skin of your back under your shirt, the other pulling your hips closer against his, as if your legs aren’t wrapped around him. He’s not meant to see you, tonguing into Hyunjin’s open mouth, the lips that were pressed against his not even 12 hours before pulled into a delirious smile as you devour each other.

Nausea rises in Changbin’s throat when Hyunjin giggles, when you bring your hand to gently cup his face. It’s so intimate. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this isn’t the first time you’re kissing either. Changbin’s stomach turns.

He turns on his heels, makes sure not to make a sound until he rounds the corner again, and then he runs.

He makes it into one of the studios before the first tears fall.

Fuck, this hurts worse than he thought it would.

Oh, he’s so fucking stupid.

Fuck, it hurts.

Now that he’s thinking about it, really thinking about it, there had never been any indication that you stopped talking after your date. Hyunjin had gone back to normal, and so did you because … he slams his fist against the side of his head so hard that it aches. He’s so fucking stupid. Of course, you went back to normal – because that’s all you were. Friends. You and him. Hyunjin and him. Friends.

But now that he’s seen it, he can’t stop thinking about it. Your date went well. You met Hyunjin at the museum, probably looked at his stupid casual outfit that showed off his stupidly attractive body, and you had probably worn something equally casual but flattering because you, too, were good at that. And then the two of you had probably walked through the museum and talked about art and life and the human condition, with sparkling eyes, maybe your hands had brushed, maybe Hyunjin had booked the museum for after-hours so you could have it to yourself, and maybe he kissed you in front of some painting and …

His stomach feels like it’s filled with lead.

He wonders if Yongbok knows. If Hyunjin came back from his date and told Jisung and Chan.

Why hadn’t he told him?! A part of him knows, it’s because he heard you and Changbin and … maybe he felt it even before then, Changbin’s resistance to the idea of them dating. Of course, he would. Hyunjin probably knew how fucking pathetically in love Changbin was with you and probably knew that you weren’t and …

But then why did he even date you? What happened to bros before hoes? I mean he saw the sparks, he saw the glint in Hyunjin’s eyes, the smile on your face but … was it worth it to Hyunjin? Was the connection that strong?

Also … why did you kiss him last night? He knows you were sleepy, but not that sleepy, right? And you weren’t aiming for his cheek, there was no way …

Changbin’s head hurts. And so does his heart. He still doesn’t have his laptop, because he would have to walk back and past where he saw you to get it, but it’s not like it matters anyway. And he wonders how on earth he’s going to navigate this new reality.

The reality where you and Hyunjin are … well, whatever you are. His heart cracks a little in his chest when he thinks the words.

In love.

“Right,” the staff member who’s always in charge of their SKZ Code episodes says and claps her hands. She looks oddly excited. “For today, you are going to pretend to be doctors. Surgeons, nurses, whatever, get funny with it!”

She grins, takes a look at the eight boys all lined up in front of her in fake scrubs and white jeans and lab coats.

Changbin feels stupid.

He’s also in a bad mood, which doesn’t help, but the outfit makes him feel stupid. Where there was sadness, there is a slowly simmering, building rage now. Changbin’s been watching it build slowly, watching his resentment thicken, his mood sour, and he hasn’t even bothered to try to cool himself off, because what’s his other option? Going back to heartbreak? No, he’d rather be angry. At himself sometimes, but also at Hyunjin, at you, pretending everything is fine — at being forced to watch Hyunjin giggle, bite his lip at his phone at least once a day. Sometimes he even nudges Yongbok, tilts his screen, points at something and whispers and Yongbok wiggles his eyebrow. And it’s not like Changbin would’ve talked to Yongbok, even though he offered, but the idea that that option was taken from him? It also pisses him off. So Hyunjin doesn’t just get you, he also gets Felix, huh? What does Changbin get? He gets fucking nothing.

He’s still brooding as the staff sorts them into groups, chatters to them, about the games they’ll play.

“The first group is Changbin, Chan, Hyunjin and Jeongin, the other Jisung, Minho, Seungmin and Yongbok,” she announces, pointing to the two tables set-up between them, “go to your team and pick what kind of doctors you want to be. That’ll be your team name.”

Chan shimmies over to him with a blinding smile, throws an arm around him and coos his name, his usual affection, just a little bit ramped up for the cameras – and trying to lift Changbin’s mood, because of course Chan knows.

“Binniiiiie,” Chan coos with a giggle, “we’ll be in a team. What kind of doctors should we be? Brain surgeons?”

Jeongin scoffs as he makes his way to Changbin’s other side. “We’re so not smart enough for that.”

Hyunjin is the last to find his way to them and Changbin tries not to look, but of course, he does. Hyunjin looks between Changbin and Chan and Jeongin, and Changbin does his best to tell himself that what he sees in his eyes isn’t disappointment.

Hyunjin makes his way over to them, a too bright smile plastered on his face.

“We could be doctors for like muscles and stuff, because we dance so much,” Jeongin muses, half distracted by Seungmin making faces at him across the room.

Hyunjin chuckles, tips how head to the side, makes eye contact with Changbin.

“Or we could be heart doctors?” he singsongs, making Chan chuckle into Changbin’s ear.

Changbin blinks. He can’t be serious …

“Ooh, Hyunjinnie, you want to be a love doctor?” Chan coos.

Hyunjin just giggles, his eyes crinkling at the edges.

Changbin stays quiet. Usually, he would’ve taken the opportunity. Would have walked right over there with a dramatic sigh of Hyunjin’s name, mumbling something about him not needing a love doctor when Changbin was right there, to take care of his heart, or some bullshit. But he doesn’t. He stubbornly crosses his arms and stares at the wall.

Jeongin next to them is oblivious.

“I like it, very macho,” he chuckles, and so it’s decided.

Chan announces the team name once the staff asks, Seungmin does his usual MC duties and they play. Rock paper scissors to decide the order. A spelling game.

Changbin knows he’s quiet, but he hopes it’s not too noticeable. Or at least Stay can forgive him just this once when the episode comes out. Because he’s trying his best to stay as far away from Hyunjin as possible, and it’s equally difficult as it is heartbreaking. Because Changbin misses his best friend.

Hyunjin cackles about something Jeongin said, and throws his arm around him. And Changbin aches. He feels like he’ll never stop aching.

“Next,” Seungmin monotones, “we’re going to be diagnosing each other as — each other!”

Everyone dutifully makes confused noises. Seungmin continues.

“One member will put on a blindfold and sit in front of the cameras, and another member will be chosen to use this microphone, which distorts your voice, to give the member in front of the camera a compliment – but not as themselves, but a compliment that someone else would make.”

Oohs and aahs.

“So if it was my turn to sit there, and Jisung’s to do the compliment, and his task was to pretend to be Minho complimenting me, he would probably just go ‘good dog’.”

Jisung and everyone else laughs, and Seungmin smiles at Minho’s offended noise. And Changbin thinks this is a safe game.

Except it’s not. Of course, it isn’t.

It’s all fun and games. They have a good time, make some jokes that will surely have to be cut out, especially when it’s Jisung’s turn and Jeongin makes an obscene sound instead of a compliment Minho would make, but there’s also lots of squabbling that he knows Stay will love. But then it’s Hyunjin’s turn.

Changbin watches him sit, slide the blindfold over his silky hair, a motion that would make Changbin dizzy on a normal day. But then Felix gets shown which member he’s meant to imitate, and it’s Changbin.

“Yaaah, Hyunjin-aaah,” Yongbok scream-whispers into the microphone, to the great amusement of everyone else. “When will you finally stop playing hard to get and be my boyfriend, Hyunjin-ah? You’re so beautiful! You’re an angel! You’re the most exquisite being God has ever created …”

Jisung slaps Yongbok’s arm and Yongbok breaks out into a slew of giggles.

Everyone’s laughing. Hyunjin’s ears are bright red. Changbin feels like he’s about to cry.

He’s always been pathetic, huh, he realises. He never cared if he looked a little silly, especially because Hyunjin loved it. But now, hearing Yongbok make a joke of it, seeing everyone else cackle and throw him looks, Changbin realises he’s been making a fucking fool out of himself. His eyes burn hotter than his cheeks do. He wants to fucking die.

“Ah,” Hyunjin chuckles awkwardly. Oddly enough, he doesn’t sound like he finds it funny either. “Changbin-hyung.”

Not a question, no surprise when everyone cheers and tells him he’s right.

Hyunjin removes the blindfold with a crooked smile, and when he turns, his eyes immediately fall on Changbin. His smile falls slightly. He gets up and walks back over to them and this time, Changbin’s side is exposed, so he slots himself right in. He slings an arm around his shoulders and Changbin gets a whiff of his shampoo and Changbin …

Changbin shrugs Hyunjin’s arm off his shoulders and steps away from him in one quick motion, and everyone falls silent. Changbin can’t bear to look at Hyunjin, but based on Yongbok’s expression, Hyunjin must be upset. Changbin swallows the guilt, lets it get swallowed up by the pool of resentment bubbling inside of him. Serves him right.

Minho puts them back on track quickly, steps forward to take his place, and everyone starts babbling, recovering quickly, practised, bouncing back to their camera personas, but Changbin tunes out. Yongbok’s distorted voice keeps repeating the words over and over again in his head until Changbin feels like nothing but a cheap distortion of himself.

The last game, or rather, the last thing they film, because the segment where they have lunch mercifully was filmed when they were actually having lunch today instead of at 4pm, is a dance challenge, but with a twist. They have to spontaneously dance to whatever songs come on, their own choreographies from over the years, but with another member and a balloon lodged between the two of them. And Changbin prays, tries to catch Chan’s eyes, or Jeongin’s, but the way they’re standing, they already paired up, and the only other person left on their team is …

“Hyung, we’ll kill it,” Hyunjin chirps as he walks over to him, balloon in hand. “Remember when we did this last time, and you turned to me. Our height difference was actually helpful. I think we’ve got this one in the bag.”

Hyunjin is avoiding his eyes, chattering on, an anxious smile on his lips, and Changbin just hums. Any energy he might have had to fight the tightness in his chest is slowly draining out of him.

Hyunjin places the balloon against his own chest, steps forward and, once it’s securely held up between their bodies, drapes his arms over Changbin’s shoulders. From this position, Changbin doesn’t have a choice but look at Hyunjin.

His heart fucking aches when he does. He’s pretty, as always. No, gorgeous. Subtle make-up, hair purposely fluffy and messy, of course, but what really gets Changbin every time are his eyes. They’re big, warm, they feel like home. Especially when they’re pulling into little crescents when he smiles. Like he is right now. Smiling at him with more warmth than Changbin has felt in such a long time.

“Hi hyung,” he hums, a teasing lilt to his voice. Changbin swallows down the urge to glare at him. “Fancy seeing you here. Come here often?”

Changbin swears his eye nearly starts twitching. Hyunjin’s breath puffs against his face.

“Ha,” he huffs out, but it lacks all humour. “Very funny, Hyunjin-ah.”

Hyunjin doesn’t seem to get the memo. But then S-Class blasts through the shitty little speakers the staff brought and Changbin’s body automatically responds with the dance, and so does Hyunjin’s.

But he’s grateful that, as he goes through the motions, he has an excuse to stare at the stupid blue balloon between them. Though the song ends before long, Jisung and Seungmin unsurprisingly already eliminated.

“Hyung,” Hyunjin mumbles, and Changbin makes the mistake of looking up. Hyunjin’s face is so close, Changbin can make out each individual eyelash framing his eyes.

The notes of Silent Cry slice through the room and Changbin momentarily forgets to be mad as he tries to remember the choreography – and promptly all thoughts leave his mind when Hyunjin swivels his hips and brushes his thigh against Changbin’s and Changbin swears he did it on purpose. When he looks up and meets Hyunjin’s eyes, Hyunjin is already staring at him.

Their balloon nearly drops with how fast Changbin tries to put distance between them. He tries to think of something unsexy, grandmas and dogshit, you and Hyunjin making out and probably doing a lot more than just grinding on each other, but that does shockingly little. Quite the opposite.

Thankfully, the song ends, but because nobody was eliminated, staff plays the next one right after. Maniac, now, and if Changbin’s heart didn’t feel like it was about to shatter and his dick didn’t feel like it was about to chub up embarrassingly fast, he would’ve laughed at how stupid it looked, everyone trying to do a half-assed twirl with the balloon between them. Somehow, he and Hyunjin make it, though, a little twirl, then hand to forehead. Hyunjin’s intense stare catches on Changbin’s, and he winks, lets his tongue slide over his bottom lip. Changbin almost moans.

The song ends, the game is over, everyone else is slowly peeling apart, but Hyunjin isn’t going anywhere. His arms fall back over Changbin’s shoulders, he tips his head to the side and stares at Changbin, eyes dipping down to his lips so quickly, Changbin thinks he might have made it up. And then Changbin feels his fingers at the nape of his neck, scratching up his scalp, and something in Changbin’s stomach turns.

He steps back so abruptly, Hyunjin’s arms and the balloon fall to the ground. The balloon pops, making everyone jump and stare over at them, but Changbin is beyond caring.

“We’re done, right?” he asks the staff, and stares them down until they nod apprehensively. He doesn’t know how manic he looks, he needs to get the fuck out of here.

He makes it out of the main room, back into the hallway that leads to their haphazardly thrown together dressing room, but he doesn’t get far before he hears steps behind him.

“Changbin,” Hyunjin’s voice echoes through the room and Changbin stops as if rooted to the spot, for one second, before he turns around and stalks towards Hyunjin, who stares at him.

“What the fuck?!”

It’s the only thing Changbin manages to say, his mind a mess, the resentment threatening to bubble up and over.

“Why the fuck would you … what the fuck was that?!”

It’s barely more coherent, so it’s no wonder Hyunjin just stares at him, mouth agape, eyes wide. Not understanding.

“Why were you … I wasn’t flirting with you?!” Changbin yells, “why were you … that’s not … why the fuck would you do this now?!”

Hyunjin shakes his head, takes another few steps toward Changbin, his arms stretched in front of him in an expression of utter disbelief.

“What?! I … I don’t get! I thought you wanted everything to go back to the way it was!? I was just trying to do what seemed to make you most comfortable!” Hyunjin yells, and Changbin shudders with frustration.

“Now you’re just being fucking cruel, Hyunjin,” he hisses, and Hyunjin’s big eyes turn narrow.

In two steps, Hyunjin is right in front of him, staring at him from where he’s towering over Changbin.

“Cruel? I’m being cruel? You’ve been flirting with me for years, off camera, on camera, and you waved it off every single time, and now I’m asking you to stop with the games and put your money where your mouth is before it’s too late, and I’m being cruel?” Before it’s too late?

Hyunjin takes a step forward, invades Changbin’s space and Changbin stumbles backwards into the wall with a thud.

“Fuck you, Hyunjin. I don’t know what you’re doing, but it’s not cool,” he manages to hiss out, but Hyunjin just shakes his head. His eyes are glued to Changbin’s lips.

“If you would just let me explain …,” he mumbles, and then Hyunjin is kissing him.

Kissing Hwang Hyunjin is everything Changbin ever thought it would be and so much more. He’s overwhelming, crowding him against the wall, his hand strong where it’s resting against the nape of his neck. He also smells incredible, his pomegranate chapstick smearing against Changbin’s lips in a kiss that is equal parts elegance and raw, desperate want.

Hyunjin presses Changbin into the wall harder, towering over him, and Changbin moans, his hands back on Hyunjin’s waist, trying to pull him closer, kiss him deeper, get more, and Hyunjin sighs into the kiss, links his fingers with Changbin’s and presses it over his chest and …

Reality catches up to Changbin all at once and his eyes shoot open and he pushes Hyunjin away so hard, Hyunjin nearly slams into the wall opposite.

“Don’t … What?!” he gasps out, wipes his mouth with the back of his mind, staring at Hyunjin. He’s so fucking gorgeous like this, all flushed and wide-eyed and– 

Oh fuck.

“What the fuck, Hyunjin?!” Changbin yells, before he can think better of it. Hyunjin stumbles further back, but he opens his mouth. “Do you think I’m fucking stupid?! That I don’t know you and Y/N are seeing each other?!”

“No, Binnie, …” Hyunjin tries to say but Changbin can’t … He can’t believe Hyunjin would do this.

Hyunjin raises his hands, eyes big and entreating, and tries to take a step towards him, but Changbin stumbles backwards. It’s no longer resentment he feels, now it’s just … anger. Disgust.

“So what, are you cheating on her?! Are you trying to prove something? What the fuck?!”

“Changbin,” Hyunjin says again, but Changbin just shakes his head. Slowly, he starts walking backwards, away from Hyunjin, because he doesn’t trust himself right now.

“She deserves better than that, Hyunjin. And I deserve better, too, than to be used like this. You can find someone else to fuck with.”

“I swear, Binnie, please …”

“Don’t get fucking near me, Hyunjin. I don’t want to see your face any more,” Changbin spits, and the venom of his words feel like daggers in his own chest.

He turns, walks down the hallway as fast as he can. This time, there are no footsteps following him.

Somehow, he manages to make it through the process of undressing, of filing into the cars, without crying.

Changbin barely looks at Hyunjin, the handful of glances nearly enough to make him break down, right there, in the middle of some random shoot location. Hyunjin looks about three seconds away from crying, but he won’t stop staring at Changbin. Changbin can feel his eyes, boring into the back of his head, like he’s taunting him. He can’t get the taste of him, the feeling of him so close, out of his goddamn head.

He gets in the car first and when the others don’t join, he watches through the tinted windows as Chan mumbles something to Hyunjin and Jisung, who nod, throw weary glances at the car, before walking over to the other car.

Chan turns and makes for the car Changbin’s in, climbs in, and closes the door behind him.

“Just us today,” he says to the driver, who nods and pulls away.

Changbin doesn’t look at Chan during the drive. For an hour, he sits next to him, his chest burning with unshed tears, his fists balled at his side, his brain running amok, white noise and pain.

Somehow they make it to the dorm.

Chan says goodbye to the driver, follows Changbin into the elevator, up to their floor, down the hall. He waits patiently until Changbin has punched in the code, until the door has fallen shut behind them, and they’ve toed off their shoes. He drops his backpack by the door, follows Changbin into his room, where Changbin drops his own, shrugs his jacket off.

When he turns around, Chan folds him into a hug and Changbin breaks down.

White noise. Static. His chest like a balled fist.

“H-he kissed m-me,” he hiccups, a string of drool dripping onto Chan’s shirt. Chan hums, rubs his hands over Changbin’s back soothingly. “H-he f-fucking k-kissed me, after a-all this f-fucking time, Channie.”

Chan’s arms tighten around him, and more sobs tear out of Changbin.

“I’m sorry, hyung. I’m sorry. I love him.”

He sobs again, so hard his legs nearly give out.

Chan shushes him quietly. “I know, Binnie, I know.”

Changbin can’t even pull back, he only clings onto Chan tighter.

“H-how the fuck do y-you know,” he wails, “why are you s-so fine with th-this.”

It’s overwhelming. And it’s getting worse, the idea of Chan knowing makes Changbin wonder who else knows. Who else has been witnessing this whole train wreck knowing more than Changbin does.

His chest tightens until his sobs turn into gasps for air and Chan somehow drags him over to his bed, guides him to sit, all without ever taking his arms from where they’re protectively, soothingly wrapped around Changbin’s body.

“It’s okay, Binnie, it’s okay to love him,” he murmurs, trying to be calm, but Changbin only cries harder. He sobs, spit and tears and snot staining Chan’s shirt.

“It’s not o-okay,” Changbin somehow manages to whimper out, “b-because I l-love her, too. I love him and I love her. I love them both.” Chan’s hands freeze momentarily, before they resume their calm movements over Changbin’s shoulders and his back.

It’s like a dam has broken and Changbin can’t stop spilling his fucking guts.

“And neither of them love me,” he wails, forces the words out between sobs and hiccups. “They love each other. And they’re beautiful together, Channie, they’re so beautiful. And I thought I would be f-fine w-watching because how can I be with either of them when I love the o-other, too, b-but it’s s-so hard, hyung, it’s so f-fucking hard.”

Somewhere along the way he has started hyperventilating again, Changbin realises, because Chan is now rocking him back and forth.

“A-and n-now … he k-kissed me?! A-and sh-she kissed me the o-other … day and … we hooked up, too, Channie, right before her d-date with H-hyunjin and I don’t even know h-how that happened but afterwards it was a-awful and then I s-saw them and now Hyunjin k-kissed me?!”

Chan rocks him hard, tries to shush him, but Changbin is on a roll now.

“Like, how could he ch-cheat on her, right?! Hyunjin, of all … of all f-fucking people. And on h-her?! H-how?! How could he th-throw a chance with her away like that, when it’s a-all I’ve e-ever wanted. How f-fucking d-dare he?! And wh-why the fuck would he use m-me to do it?! There are other p-people, so many people, h-hotter people, probably lining up to kiss Hwang fucking Hyunjin. Why d-did he have to drag m-me into this?! It’s s-so c-cruel.”

“Binnie,” Chan mumbles, but Changbin shakes his head. “Binnie, don’t talk like that.”

Changbin scoffs. A wave of self-hatred washes over him, so strong it nearly blinds him.

“W-why?! Isn’t that what the problem is?! That I’m s-so f-fucking unlovable that w-who I thought were my b-best friends are just … u-using me to play some s-stupid games with each other?! Like I’m just some t-toy. B-because Changbin won’t complain.”

Chan pulls Changbin from his chest so fast Changbin can’t even cover his face, his stupid sweaty, red, face, but Chan doesn’t seem to care. He shakes him. Gently, but Chan shakes him.

“Not another word, Bin,” Chan warns, gives Changbin one of his dad looks, and it’s so intimidating that Changbin actually doesn’t dare say anything else. “I don’t know why they would do what they did, but I’m sure it wasn’t because of that.”

Changbin sniffles.

“Th-then, w-why?”

Chan sighs.

“I don’t know, but it’s not because you don’t mean anything to them. If anything, I think it might be the opposite.”

The thought of that hurts more than all the anger that came before it. Changbin starts sobbing again, and Chan pulls him back into his chest.

“It’s okay, Bin. We’ll figure it out, okay? You’ll figure it out.”

Changbin doesn’t believe him then.

But Chan stays, holds him until the worst of Changbin’s sobs have subsided, waves away his hoarse apology for crying and snotting all over his shirt. Chan brings him water and painkillers and tucks him into bed so gently it would’ve made Changbin start crying all over again, if his body hadn’t utterly exhausted itself. Chan leaves and exhaustion drags Changbin into a deep, dreamless sleep, even though it’s only 8pm.

He sleeps for 14 hours and when he stumbles out of his room the next day, Chan tells him that Hyunjin and Jeongin will be switching rooms for a while.

When Changbin asks what he told them, Chan shrugs, says he just told them Changbin and Hyunjin had a fight. Most of them knew, apparently, about you and Hyunjin dating, about Changbin and his unresolved feelings about the matter, but nobody had dared push the question. On account of “Changbin acting like a ticking time bomb”, according to Chan, which makes Changbin crumple in on himself with more self-loathing.

Nonetheless, Changbin is more grateful than he can even describe. He mumbles as much to Chan, gives Jeongin a half-mumbled thank you as well, but Chan just pats him on the back.

“Told you we’d figure it out, yeah?”

And Changbin nods; realises he should’ve talked to Chan a long, long time ago.

Chan arranges for Changbin to take a couple days off, days which Changbin spends … heartbroken. Wallowing. Crying and eating ice cream, the whole nine yards. Except it’s even worse, because he didn’t just get his heart broken by one person, but two. And along the way he also lost not one of his best friends, but both.

There’s a you-shaped hole in his soul. Every now and again, he picks up his phone, and he sees your chat pinned to the top of his KakaoTalk and the last sticker you sent, and he wishes he could message you. He wishes he could open your chat and go ‘today sucked, wyd?’ like he used to and see your little message bubble pop up immediately, always ready with some words that somehow always made him feel better, even if it was just the stupidest little joke.

And he wishes that in the mornings, he didn’t hear Jeongin’s laugh echoing through the dorm from Jisung and Hyunjin’s bathroom. He wishes Hyunjin were here and everything was normal. He wishes he could knock on Hyunjin’s door like he always did when he had a hard day. Hyunjin always knew, somehow, only had to take one look at Changbin to know. Because on those days, there was only softness, no edge to his pretend words of resistance when Changbin asked if he could come in. He would let Changbin come into the sanctuary that is Hyunjin’s room, like a parallel world, a calm refuge, always smelling slightly of the dried roses hanging from his bedpost, the paint that’s always drying on some canvas or another.

But he has nothing now. He’s in his room, alone, in the empty dorm, while everyone else goes on with their life. And he keeps wondering if somewhere along the way he went wrong.

He didn’t think he did. His love for you and Hyunjin? There was never a question of it ever stopping. And the existence of two loves, his two loves, because they were always going to be a part of him, stitched into the fabric of his heart by fate itself, meant he could never have either. Because both of you deserved more than that. It’s what he always came back to. That part he was sure of. This was always the way it was meant to play out. Right?

A few days, he has lost count in his desolation, Changbin wakes up from a nap to laughter and chatter in the kitchen. One glance at his phone tells him it’s 8pm. He must’ve slept for an hour and a half somehow, though he doesn’t remember even falling asleep.

Groggily, he peels himself out of bed, throws a look in the mirror and runs a hand through his hair before he makes his way out of his room.

Though what he sees when he rounds the corner to the kitchen, makes him freeze in his tracks.

Everyone’s here. Jeongin, Seungmin and Yongbok are unloading containers and containers of takeaway food from countless white bags, Minho and Jisung are bickering and giggling while setting the table, and Chan is talking to …

You and Hyunjin, next to each other, laughing at something Chan said, fiddling with something in a big plastic container, trying to get it out of a brown paper bag …

When your eyes meet Changbin’s, you freeze. Chan whirls around, and Hyunjin sees him last, his face immediately falling as his eyes race up and down Changbin’s sleep-mussed form with badly contained worry.

“Binnie!” Chan exclaims and everyone else turns around. Changbin wants to disappear.

“Wh-what are you all doing here?” he somehow manages to rasp out, and Chan walks up to him.

“What do you mean? It’s your birthday, Bin, do you think we would let you wallow alone on your birthday?”

Oh.

He didn’t realise … Was it really … Wait, did he forget his own birthday?!

Chan seems to see the turmoil in his eyes, because he throws an arm around Changbin’s shoulder and leads him back down the hallway, back to his room.

“Why don’t you take a quick shower, and we’ll be right here, with food on the table, when you’re done, yeah? When’s the last time you had a proper–”

“Why are they here?”

It breaks out of him, interrupts Chan mid-sentence, but Chan doesn’t let it phase him.

“It’s your birthday, they wanted to celebrate it with you. Plus, they wanted to talk to you …”

Changbin panics, opens his mouth to say something, anything, to tell Chan that he isn’t ready, that he can’t face them, especially not together, but Chan shushes him.

“I think you should hear them out. Promise me you’ll hear them out?”

Changbin stares at Chan. He doesn’t know what they could possibly say that wouldn’t end with Changbin’s heart shattered on the floor of his room all over again, but Chan looks so convinced, so optimistic, so determined, that Changbin nods.

“Okay, now off to the shower with you. I’ll tidy up in here a bit, okay? Change your sheets, let some air in.”

Changbin nods again, lets Chan steer him to his drawers to get him a change of clothes, and then into the bathroom. And when he stumbles out of the steam ten minutes later, Chan is sitting on his clean, freshly made bed, scrolling through his phone.

“There you go, much better!” Chan exclaims with one of his patented smiles, and jumps up. “Now let’s get some food before it gets cold, and they kill us because they have to wait any longer.”

Everyone’s already crowded around the big dinner table, cheers erupting when Changbin and Chan come back. Jeongin mumbles a “finally!” and Changbin has no time to think before he’s steered into one of the empty seats, Seungmin to his left, Chan sitting down to his right.

When he looks up, he meets Jisung’s eyes, who smiles brightly at him, playing with Minho’s hand in his lap.

“Happy birthday, hyung! We missed you in the studio today,” he chirps, easily, dripping with sincerity, and Changbin’s heart convulses almost painfully. He had barely thought of the group these last few days, too focused was he on his broken heart. He feels almost bad.

“None of that,” Minho chides, as if he read Changbin’s mind. Though Changbin assumes it was written all over his face anyway. Clearly, his pokerface is lacking these days. “You needed the rest.”

Jisung next to him nods, and Changbin gives them both what he hopes is a genuine smile. But it’s hard. As Chan loads up his plate, he finally dares to let his eyes stray down the table where you and Hyunjin are, sat next to each other.

To his relief, neither of you are looking at him. You’re talking to Jeongin about something, Hyunjin is busy trying to get a drink from the kitchen island without having to get up, before he gives up and does, grabbing two diet cokes, placing one in front of you automatically. The gesture is so domestic it makes Changbin feel sick with jealousy. He can’t do this. He can’t watch this. What the fuck was he thinking?!

But then Hyunjin’s eyes meet his and Hyunjin smiles. It’s small, sheepish, and impossibly soft, big eyes round, mouthing a quiet “hi” and Changbin’s chest erupts into barbed wire butterflies. He wonders how long it will take for him to get over this. He wonders if he ever will.

“Come on, Bin, eat up,” Chan exclaims, rips Changbin’s attention away from Hyunjin and to his plate, filled to the brim with all his favourite foods and when he looks up, Seungmin is smiling at him.

“Eat, hyung, we had to go to like five different places to get all of this, so you better enjoy it,” he teases, and Changbin huffs out a laugh, but digs in.

And really, he didn’t eat very well the last few days, his appetite having all but disappeared, swallowed up by the heartbreak until there was nothing left. So he lived on leftovers left by the others, off cup ramen and convenience store kimbap. And he didn’t care, but now, with all of this in front of him, he realises he’s starving.

So he eats. Lets himself be dragged into different conversations, lets Jisung whine about how fast his rap is in the song they were recording, listens to him and Seungmin discuss singing techniques, to Chan talk about this new machine his personal trainer made him use the other day.

Every now and again, he steals glances at you and Hyunjin, and he doesn’t know if you’re doing it to be kind to him, but there’s no lovey-dovey-ness between you; no whispering, no touching, no stolen glances. Changbin is grateful, but he’s also confused.

But before long, everyone’s done eating and you and Hyunjin disappear into the kitchen only to reappear side by side, holding a giant cake. Everyone starts singing the most disjointed rendition of happy birthday which should be criminal considered they’re all singers, but Changbin doesn’t care. Tears prick in his eyes before the song is even over.

The cake is pink. Impeccably frosted. And it’s dwaekki-themed. Ears, little pigtail and face and all. On the bottom it says, “Happy birthday, Changbin!” and there are at least 10 candles, burning, flickering precariously with every step you take.

You and Hyunjin carry it in together, smiling at him, placing the cake in front of him on the table just when the song ends and Changbin tries his best not to cry. Before you pull away, he can feel your hand on brush against his neck, rubbing your thumb over his skin, then Hyunjin’s stronger one, squeezing his shoulder. They’re small touches, barely anything, but his whole body erupts into goosebumps.

But he doesn’t have time to dwell. Someone hands him the knife, tells him to blow out the candles and make a wish, and he does, wishes that one day he will be able to have his friends back.

They wanted to talk to you.

Changbin tries not to freak out about the prospect of it, but when everyone’s had cake, when Minho and Jisung and Chan are done tidying up the kitchen, and everyone slowly starts to make to leave except for you and Hyunjin, it all becomes a little too real.

“Bin?”

You say his name so sweetly, so quietly.

He turns and is met with you and Hyunjin, who’s hovering behind you, gnawing at his lips nervously.

“C-can we talk?” you ask.

Changbin doesn’t respond. He has the urge to say yes, because you clearly want to. He can see the worry and the stress in your tired eyes, wants to do anything he can to alleviate it, but … he doesn’t know if he can do this. He feels like he’s made of glass and one wrong move will shatter him all over the floor.

“Please, hyung,” Hyunjin mumbles, opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but Jisung screeching in the hallway, makes him falter. “Just, please?”

So Changbin nods. He tries to regulate his breathing as everyone files out with little waves and hugs and more “happy birthdays”, and even manages to hold it together when Chan hugs him and mumbles “you can call me if anything happens, okay?”, only when the door falls shut behind them, and he’s left alone with you, he starts panicking.

He turns around and finds you exactly where you were before, aimlessly fiddling with one of the containers of leftovers, Hyunjin leaning against the kitchen island, running his hand through his hair for the nth time, his foot tapping the floor nervously.

Changbin can’t stand it any longer.

“I … I can’t be your friend. I’m sorry. I really tried, but I-I can’t,” he forces out, “or maybe I can, one day, but not right now. It hurts too much. You hurt me a lot. I need time.”

You straighten up, a look on your face like you’ve been slapped.

Hyunjin winces, takes a step towards him.

“Hyung, I’m sorry,” he starts, and Changbin’s brows furrow, but Hyunjin just takes another step towards him, “I know, I fucked up, I shouldn’t have just kissed you.”

Changbin freezes, whips his head over to you, but you don’t seem surprised. Quite the opposite. Hyunjin is right in front of him now, his breath puffing against his face, just like it did a few days ago, right before …

“I shouldn’t have done it,” he says, his determined gaze racing all over Changbin’s face, “and I should’ve explained, but it was all so … I was so confused and so unsure because I couldn’t believe you’d really want me …”

“What?!”

His disbelief is genuine. Hyunjin blushes, and nods.

“Y/Nie kept telling me, but I just couldn’t believe it? I thought you were just teasing me all these years. Ironic, because the one person I wanted, didn’t want me back. Because it was always so obvious to me that you wanted her …”

Changbin’s head spins and for a second, he thinks he might pass out. You seem to be able to sense it. You mumble, Hyunjin’s name, who blinks, then takes a quick step back. Changbin feels like he can breathe again.

“Hey, why don’t we take this to your room, Bin?” you say gently, give Hyunjin a look. Hyunjin nods, steps back another few steps, and lets you take Changbin’s hand and drag him back to his room.

You lead him to his bed, make him sit down, Hyunjin immediately taking the spot next to him, just close enough, so his knee rests against the side of Changbin’s thigh when he crosses his long graceful legs underneath him. There’s more space between them now, which Changbin is grateful for, because even just that touch when it’s just the three of you here in his room, makes him a little dizzy.

You don’t sit down, instead you come to stand in front of him. Changbin blinks up at you. He feels like he’s staring straight at the sun.

“We’re sorry, Binnie,” you announce with a deep sigh, giving Changbin a look that melts his heart, “we’re sorry we didn’t talk to you sooner. Everything was so messy, and it took us ages to figure it out between ourselves and … and we didn’t know how much you were hurting, how much we were hurting you. We’re sorry.”

Hyunjin makes a soft sound of agreement next to him.

“The thing is …” you take a deep breath, ”both Hyune and I … we both went into our date with each other trying to get over you.”

Changbin’s whole world tilts on its axis.

“I kinda … I loved you for so long, and I figured you’d never want me back, I honestly always thought you were in love with Hyunjin, ever since you told me about him, but … I don’t know, it’s been like, what 7 years, and you never made a move and when Hyune and I met, there was so much chemistry and I thought maybe, just maybe, I should try, you know? And I didn’t know if it would last or anything, but I was kinda desperate because I really needed to get over you.”

You flush, fidget awkwardly where you stand.

“But then … I don’t know, I fucked up, I kissed you, and we had sex and afterwards it was so obvious how much you regretted it, and it hurt so fucking bad to see, so when Hyunjin kissed me in the museum and my heart nearly beat out of my chest, I, uh, I was so relieved. Like, maybe there was a chance, maybe I could get over you. But I couldn’t … of course not.”

Hyunjin’s hand splays over Changbin’s thigh, and Changbin shivers.

“And neither could I …” he murmurs, voice thick like honey in Changbin’s ears. “I really tried … and I was so confused that on Y/N and my second date, I just kind of … freaked out. Told her I heard you. Told her that I was sorry but also that I wasn’t, because it … it turned me on so bad.”

He breathes out the last words, and Changbin nearly chokes on his spit.

“But also that I was really jealous and that I was pretty sure I was in love with you but also liked her and … well, long story short, we realised in a, uhh, very explicit way, that we were both in the same boat, but also really liked each other … But it almost felt like … something was missing. You were missing.”

Hyunjin moves a little closer, lets his hand trace over Changbin’s arm, down to his wrist, before linking his hands in his.

“And we wanted to talk to you, but then you were so cold to me when we were filming that last SKZ code episode, and I kinda just … lost my head. I got so scared. And I followed you because I wanted to tell you all of this, but you were so angry, and it was so hot, and you kissed me back so hard it knocked any coherent thought out of me and I messed it all up. Chan told me as much, when he came to the other dorm. Yelled at me so loud in front of the others …”

Hyunjin shivers, and you take the break in his rant to sit down on Changbin’s other side.

“When Hyunjin told Chan we wanted to talk to you, he had this big, long dad talk with us, about our feelings and our intentions,” you mumble, and shiver. “He basically gave us the shovel talk, it was scary.”

Hyunjin giggles quietly.

“But the long and short of it is,” you take a deep breath, but it’s shaky. Hyunjin’s hand leaves Changbin’s only for long enough to reach over his lap and squeeze yours, before returning to lace into Changbin’s again. “We wanted to ask you … if there was any possible way you might have feelings for us. Because we do … have, like, a lot of feelings … for you.”

Changbin’s heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest. He wants to pinch himself, to make sure he isn’t dreaming, but Hyunjin’s warm presence, his thumb rubbing circles into the back of his hand, your leg jumping nervously, it all feels too real to be a dream.

“It’s okay if you don’t,” you breathe out with an awkward chuckle, “just … you just need to tell us. We didn’t really think that far because we’re both romantics and also both kinda delusional,” you laugh again, though Changbin can hear the sadness, “That’s something we learned about each other in the last weeks. But we’ll figure something out. If you just love Hyune, it’s okay, I … I’m not mad, I promise. At least I’ll know. I just can’t pine over you any longer.”

Changbin’s head whips up so fast he nearly pulls something.

“Is that what you think?”

You shrug, avoid his eyes.

“It seemed pretty obvious,” you mumble, “with how you talked about him from day one. How much you regretted sleeping with me, how you kissed him back …”

You look so devastated, it makes Changbin’s chest ache.

He shakes his head. He reaches for you, his hand as shaky as the day you kissed him, cupping your face. His whole body is thrumming with something he can’t name.

“I … wow, is this real?!” he huffs out, with a disbelieving laugh, “Angel, I’ve been in love with you for years …”

Hyunjin hums approvingly, and Changbin’s face snaps over. Hyunjin is right there, staring at him with wide eyes.

“You …” Changbin mumbles, and Hyunjin’s eyes suddenly widen, almost in fear, “Do you think I would flirt with you for so many years without meaning any of it?! Are you crazy?”

Hyunjin pouts, and Changbin wants to kiss it off him. The thought that he might have wanted him to all along, makes him feel insane.

“Well, you never shut up about her! It was always ‘Y/N this, Y/N that’ and ‘Ah, no, Changbin isn’t coming home until later, he’s at Y/N’s’. At some point, I figured the two of you were together and just didn’t tell anyone.”

Changbin blushes hard, but before he can overthink it, he decides to be brave. He frees his hand from Hyunjin’s reaches up, and pulls Hyunjin into a kiss. Hyunjin squeals into his lips, before he relaxes, presses himself closer, until half his leg is in Changbin’s lap and his hand is ghosting up his back. And then he pulls back, blinks his eyes open and looks past Changbin, and Changbin turns and meets your eyes. Your pupils are blown, and despite all of his words, there’s something so uncertain in your face.

“Come here,” Changbin whispers, and you do. Effortlessly, easily, shimmy forward until he can wrap his arm around your waist and press his lips to yours, and he wonders once more if he’s dreaming, but when Hyunjin’s lips find his neck, your fingers travel over his legs until they find Hyunjin’s …

When Changbin pulls back, he’s dizzy. Hyunjin is all but folded around him, nuzzling his face into Changbin’s neck, and you’re staring at him so intently and Changbin has a hard time figuring out what’s right and wrong.

Hyunjin shifts and Changbin feels him half hard in his pants, and he panics a little bit.

“C-can we … can we just … can we just hang out tonight? Watch something or cuddle, or I don’t know,” he asks, shakily, squeezes his eyes closed, “this is … this is a lot, I think I need a minute.”

Hyunjin pulls back, soothes his hand over Changbin’s back and you nod.

It’s only when the light is off later, the three of you tangled into each other in Changbin’s double bed, that’s just about big enough to hold you all, with you curled up against his chest and Hyunjin’s body plastered against his back, that Hyunjin dares bring it up again.

“This feels right, doesn’t it?” he whispers into the darkness, and Changbin’s heart skips a beat. You giggle and hum out a sleepy yes against his chest, and Changbin can’t even find the words. It does.

It’s scary, so, so scary and new, but it feels right in a way that only his soul can understand.

And his soul? Well, it seems that overnight, it found its way, back to where it belongs – in the spot right next to his beating, aching heart, beating and, maybe, just maybe, if last night wasn’t a dream, no longer aching for you.

And it wasn’t a dream, Changbin notes, with a relief that makes his toes curl. Because before he even opens his eyes he can feel Hyunjin’s hair tickling his nose, your soft arm thrown over his waist, your feet tangled with his, and the sun shining in through the crack in the curtains, and he feels like he’s finally come home.

You stir against his back, arch into him as you stretch, your fingers absentmindedly slipping under his shirt, brushing against the skin of his lower stomach. You nuzzle back against him, press a soft kiss to his back, and he sighs. Gently, he covers your hand and with his, gives it a squeeze that makes you hum softly.

Hyunjin wakes then, too, huffing out a breath, the little pout on his angelic face pulling into a yawn, before he detaches himself from Changbin’s side enough to roll onto his back. Changbin watches as he stretches his arms above his head, cursing Hyunjin because he clearly knows how good he looks like this, the lean muscles in his biceps bulging, his shirt riding up enough to expose his toned stomach, the little trail of dark hair leading into his pants where …

Jesus christ. Changbin had seen Hyunjin naked before, plenty of times, and distantly, he knew Hyunjin wasn’t exactly on the small side, but right here, right now, morning wood impressively hard in just his thin cotton boxers? His cock is fucking massive. The mere thought of getting his hands on him makes Changbin’s own half-hard cock twitch in interest.

And you seem to have felt it, because you chuckle deviously and the hand that was trailing over his stomach dips lower.

Hyunjin blinks his eyes open at the sound of your giggle, a pretty little smile on his face as he faces Changbin, his eyes falling down to where your fingers are tracing the waistband of Changbin’s briefs and he hums.

“Good morning,” he rasps, scoots closer, lets one of his hands trail up Changbin’s arm, up over his shoulder, until he can trace Changbin’s cheek. He’s gentle with it, his eyes constantly on Changbin, watching every single one of his reactions with a loving diligence. But below his gentleness, simmering somewhere deep in his eyes, is a hunger than Changbin has never seen before. His cock is rock hard now, your teasing fingertips keeping him teetering on the brink of insanity.

“Please tell me you haven’t changed your mind …” Hyunjin breathes out, and Changbin huffs out in disbelief. He shakes his head and that’s all Hyunjin needs before he leans in to kiss him, morning breath and all. But Changbin doesn’t care. He’s in his bed, with the sun on his face, your body pressed against him and Hyunjin kissing him. He has never been better.

Your fingers dip underneath his waistband like a question.

“Is this okay?” you ask, your voice a breathless thing against the nape of his neck.

Changbin nods, whines a yes into Hyunjin’s lips, and then your hand wraps around his cock and he moans. Hyunjin sighs happily, pulls back only enough to murmur a pleased little “so loud” against his lips, before he presses closer and kisses him even harder.

It’s mind-blowing how good your simple touches feel, nothing grand, only your bodies pressed together, your hand sliding up and down his cock, Hyunjin’s tongue licking against his.

When Changbin’s hips stutter, Hyunjin makes a noise into his mouth and pulls back. Changbin nearly comes just from the vision of him, eyes darker than he’s ever seen them, his sinfully plump lips bitten, chest rising and falling harshly. He looks like some kind of greek god of sex, even more so when he looks past him, over his shoulder, and then pushes Changbin until he’s all the way on his back.

When Hyunjin grabs you by the chin and pulls you in for a kiss right in front of Changbin, Changbin thinks he might actually still be dreaming because holy shit. You’re greedy, pull Hyunjin in with a hand in his hair and Hyunjin matches you effortlessly, parts his lips, lets you lick into his mouth before he returns the favour, kisses you so filthily, Changbin’s belly does a swoop and his cock twitches pathetically in your hand, that’s still pumping, albeit erratically, too distracted by Hyunjin’s assault on your mouth.

But before long, Hyunjin pulls back and turns his hungry eyes back on Changbin, keeps him pinned to the mattress with them as he shoves the covers aside and slithers down his body.

“Fuck, Hyune-aahhh.”

Changbin’s words are cut off when Hyunjin nudges his nose and open mouth against his clothed cock with a hum that travels all the way up Changbin’s spine. There’s an embarrassing wet spot where the head of his cock is leaking, and it’s only getting wetter by the minute.

"Let me make it up to you, hyungie," Hyunjin purrs.

“I’m not gonna … fuck me sideways,” he moans out when Hyunjin rips his briefs down and off his legs in one fell swoop.

“Some other time, gladly,” Hyunjin teases, and Changbin would’ve made a pathetic sound in the back of his throat if Hyunjin didn’t choose that exact moment to swallow his cock into his hot mouth.

He hollows his cheeks, hums, does a little flick with his tongue against the underside of Changbin’s cock and makes a whole show of rolling his eyes before he pulls off and grins up at Changbin.

“Your cock is so perfect, hyungie,” he teases, and Changbin tries to hide his burning, probably embarrassingly pink, face with a whine, only to awkwardly bump his nose into the side of your face. You giggle.

“What? Don’t like the dirty talk?” you hum, and Changbin gives you a mock glare, one that is horribly interrupted by his eyes rolling into the back of his head when Hyunjin sinks his cock back into his mouth.

“If I’d known … fuck, Hyunjin,” Changbin moans, his hand reaching down, tangling in Hyunjin’s hair, though feeling the bob of his head only makes him hurtle towards his orgasm faster, “if I’d known you had such a mouth on you …”

Hyunjin pulls off again, his eyes watery from the effort, and lets the head of Changbin’s cock rest against his plump bottom lip and smiles up at him. It’s an image that not even Changbin’s filthiest desires could’ve cooked up.

“Then what? You would’ve let me hit sooner?”

His tongue darts out and digs into Changbin’s slit, and Changbin curses. He’s going to come, and soon.

Your fingertips trail under his shirt, up the side of his chest, until they reach his nipple. Your touch makes electricity prickle through his veins, and then you turn his head towards you and your lips find his and Changbin loses any shred of sanity.

He comes with an arch of his back and a strangled moan that’s muffled by your lips, one hand buried in Hyunjin’s hair, the other holding on to your arm for dear life. Pleasure rushes through him so fast he thinks he might black out, his whole body shivering again and again, toes curling, until he has nothing left to give, and he collapses into the pillows, breathing heavily, one arm slung over his face.

Distantly, he feels Hyunjin pull off his cock, and he tries to slur out an apology, one Hyunjin promptly ignores.

“Did he just …” Hyunjin asks, fondness laced through every word.

“Did you just come from kissing me?” you ask with a giggle, but it’s so gentle, so fond, that the embarrassment burning Changbin’s ears can’t even harshen his post-orgasm glow.

Hyunjin giggles, then there’s shuffling. Hyunjin murmurs a quiet “come here, baby” and your warmth disappears from Changbin’s side with one more kiss to his forehead, and then the bed dips on his other. When Changbin lifts his arm and cracks one of his eyes open, he is greeted with the view of you and Hyunjin kissing again, though this time it’s different. A lot softer, more coordinated.

You’re straddling Hyunjin’s waist, one knee on each side of him, draped over his chest, one hand supporting yourself in the pillows next to Hyunjin’s head, the other cupping Hyunjin’s face like it’s the most precious thing you’ve ever touched. Hyunjin’s hands on the other hand, are all over you – one smoothing under your shirt and over your belly and, if your gasp is anything to judge by, grabbing your tits, the other on the back of your legs, travelling up and under the boxer shorts you borrowed from Changbin. Changbin can’t see, but when you moan and arch into his hand, he assumes Hyunjin started playing with your pussy.

Changbin’s mouth waters just watching, but then you sit back enough to pull your shirt over your head and do the same to Hyunjin and suddenly, Changbin’s mouth is very, very dry. His cock twitches valiantly.

Skin. So much skin. Your plushness against Hyunjin’s lean, wiry muscles, his strong hands digging divots into your skin, one of them wrapped around your breast, playing with your nipples. Hyunjin is still hard, straining against his boxers, and when you grind forward, dragging your core against the base of his cock, Hyunjin moans, low and melodic and needy.

Changbin’s hard again. It must be some sort of record, but how could he not, with the two most perfect people he has ever seen, making out half naked after sucking soul of out him.

When you scramble off the bed to shuck off your (his, Changbin’s brain supplies unhelpfully) boxers and see him watching you, a smile so gorgeous yet so devious it gives him whiplash, pulls at your lips.

Hyunjin scrambles out of his boxers, too, and Changbin can’t help but stare when Hyunjin’s cock springs free and slaps heavily against his abdomen because fuck, that might be the most beautiful dick he’s ever seen in his life, long and straight, beading precum at the tip. And lord knows he has imagined having Hyunjin every which way, but the thought of him putting that inside him makes Changbin a little more than just dizzy.

Changbin gets distracted by Hyunjin reaching out, wrapping his fingers around his wrist and pulling him closer.

“Get over here,” Hyunjin rasps out, his eyes hooded, and Changbin doesn’t have to be told twice.

He leans in, captures Hyunjin’s lips in his, kisses him with everything he has because, oh god, he can just do this now. He can just kiss Hwang Hyunjin whenever he wants. And Hyunjin seems to like it, because he turns into putty underneath his hands, pliable and pretty, chasing Changbin’s touch until Changbin gives in, runs his palms over his stomach, down, wrapping his hand around his beautiful, heavy cock, and stroking him, swallowing his moans, until Changbin feels the bed dip and your leg against his again. Then he trails his hands up again, over his abs, until he can run his fingers over his pecs. When he brushes over his nipple, Hyunjin gasps, throws his head back.

“Binnie,” you murmur softly, and when he looks over, you sink down on Hyunjin’s cock, taking it all the way to the hilt with a choked moan, your fingernails digging into Hyunjin’s thighs and Changbin nearly comes on the spot. Hyunjin moans prettily, one of his hands finding your waist, eyebrows knitting together in an expression of pleasure-pain that is more gorgeous than anything Changbin has ever seen.

But when he looks over at you, you, with your hair wild, your back arched, goosebumps on your glistening skin as you throw your head back, circle your hips in a slow grind – Changbin is at a loss where to look because surely this cannot be real.

Hyunjin makes the decision for him, whines, demands his attention back by sinking his fingers into Changbin’s hair and yanking him down into his lips so hard pain zaps through Changbin’s scalp, only to be replaced by molten arousal when Hyunjin licks into his mouth like a man starved. And his moans only get louder when you start bouncing on him in earnest, getting up on your knees and letting yourself fall down on Hyunjin’s cock until your legs start shaking.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Hyunjin curses out, his hips bucking up to meet yours with every one of your bounces, and you mewl, falling forward and into Hyunjin’s chest weakly.

“C-can’t, legs h-hurt, p-please,” you whimper, voice so brittle and desperate it sends Changbin into a tailspin. He mashes his lips against yours and Hyunjin moans, plants his feet and starts fucking up into you, and the sound you make is outright obscene. Changbin’s patience snaps, and he reaches down, wraps one hand around himself. The relief of his touch makes him almost delirious.

You’re still kissing him, though it’s more teeth and spit than anything, and then you turn your head and Hyunjin catches you, cradles you against him and fucks up into you harder, until Changbin’s headboard is thudding against the wall in an erratic rhythm that Changbin knows all the neighbours can hear.

“C-close,” you mumble and Hyunjin whimpers into your mouth, turns, drags Changbin closer until his mouth is in the mix, too, and it’s filthy and messy and so entirely uncoordinated that it shouldn’t be hot, but, it is, because Changbin is swapping spit with the two loves of his life.

Somehow, he comes first, spills weakly over his fist as another desperate orgasm racks through him, renders him entirely boneless, watching as Hyunjin ruts into you until you come with a choked moan, muttering Hyunjin’s then Changbin’s name, and Hyunjin’s whole body arches when he follows you over the edge, burying himself in you to the hilt with a weak moan.

Then he collapses, and you along with him, cheek squished against his chest, fucked out and gorgeous, before you slowly let yourself slide off his chest, and into the space between them. You mewl weakly when Hyunjin’s cock slides out of you and his cum starts dripping out of you, a sight that makes stars dance in Changbin’s vision and his spent cock throb.

It’s a little gross. Sweat and cum and spit drying on skin, but neither you nor Hyunjin make any effort to move. And neither does Changbin. So the three of you just lie there, basking in the glory of it all, Hyunjin and your hands linked on his chest, Changbin wrapped around your back, drawing shapes onto Hyunjin’s abs.

“Are we … are we dating now?” you ask into the silence, sheepish, and Hyunjin cracks an eye open, before he turns on his side, presses a kiss to your nose that makes Changbin’s heart flutter.

“I’d be honoured to be your boyfriend,” he murmurs, and Changbin can see your smile mirrored in the one that takes over Hyunjin’s as he looks at you.

Then you turn around, enough to be able to stare up at Changbin.

“What about you? Wanna be my boyfriend, Binnie?”

“And mine!” Hyunjin chirps. You giggle.

“And Hyunjin’s?”

Changbin doesn’t even try to play coy. He smiles, big and uninhibited, so wide he knows his dimples are probably showing, but he doesn’t care.

“I’d love to be your boyfriend,” he says. He means it more than he has ever meant anything in his life. His heart threatens to leap out of his chest.

“And mine?” Hyunjin asks, fluttering his lashes at Changbin with a pretty little pout on his lips.

“And yours, silly,” Changbin laughs out and Hyunjin smiles, leans up to kiss Changbin, then you, watches as Changbin kisses you with a smile on his lips, before he settles back down, cuddles back up to you. Changbin yawns.

“We should shower …” he says, half-heartedly, but you huff, pull his arm closer around you.

“Just … a few more minutes,” you mumble, and Changbin can hear the sleep already tugging at your consciousness.

“Yeah, this is nice,” Hyunjin adds, scoots closer until his forehead is resting against yours on the pillow. His eyes are already closed.

And Changbin? Well, what is he going to do. He ignores the stickiness between his legs in favour of the soft body of his love in his arms, and when sleep tugs at his consciousness, beckoned by Hyunjin’s soft snores, he lets it overtake him. They can always shower later. They have all the time in the world now.

A year later, on his birthday, they’re all out together at a Korean BBQ place, one that Jisung and Minho go to so often that they’ve become friends with the owners, and always get a private room in the back where they can truly have privacy.

You and Hyunjin disappear after the meat is all eaten, and then you walk back in, moments later, side by side, holding a giant cake. Everyone sings happy birthday.

The cake has a picture of the three of you on it, because his birthday is now also partly your anniversary. You usually celebrate twice, though. Not like any of you need an excuse to be sappy and romantic on any given day. You may be the sappiest couple, or throuple, Changbin knows. He loves every second of it.

In the picture on the cake, Changbin is standing in between you two, Hyunjin’s arm slung around his shoulders, you folded into his side. You took it at Namsan Tower a couple of months ago, asked a stranger to take it in front of the famous hearts, giggling when you pulled down your masks and the stranger looked confused, like he was trying to figure out where he knew you from. It was a beautiful night. You ate ice cream and stole sticky sweet kisses in alleyways and behind trees and then went home and fucked each other’s brains out until Jisung was pounding on the wall separating his room from Hyunjin’s begging you to stop.

You place the cake down on the table in front of him as the song ends. Someone tells him to blow out the candles and make a wish. He blows them out and wishes this – you, Changbin and Hyunjin – will last forever.

Everyone cheers, you squeal, wrap your arms around his shoulders from behind. Hyunjin sits back down at his place to Changbin’s right and laces his fingers with his. He gives Changbin the biggest, fondest, smile, and leans in until he's cuddled into his side. Changbin’s heart melts.

You pepper sweet little kisses all over his cheek and over his neck.

“Happy birthday, Binnie,” you whisper, happiness evident in your voice. “I love you so much.”

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run along with the gods | a lullaby on his throat chapter four

pairing: demigod!hyunjin x f!reader + felix x hyunjin (past relationship heavily mentioned) | word count: 21k | genre: mythology au, romance | warnings: adult and sometimes dark themes ; complicated feelings ; angst ; elements of contemporary fantasy ; explicit sexual content. View all compiled warnings here (+nsfw warnings). This work is for adult audiences only.

He loved you in the way a mortal could love, which was to say, like he was running out of time.

A shooting star.

It was, after all, what you had always been. A temporary burst of light in the night sky of people’s existence. Something one of a kind, something flashy and fun but intrinsically ephemeral. A bench for people to sit on and rest when they were too tired to walk. A gentle voice to soothe their loneliness. Balance in their chaos. Mayhem in their order. A cold beer after a long day of work. A soft, woolen jacket on a chilly day. An upbeat song after a breakup. 

A tree to protect them from the harsh heat of the sun. A tree for them to sit under, to find refuge in its shade. 

You had been that to so many people that you weren’t sure what bore the curse exactly—your heart, your lips, or your cunt. It seemed that as soon as your heart warmed up to somebody they just ran away from you. As though your love was a contagious illness that people did not want to catch so they fled as soon as you exhibited symptoms. Your first boyfriend at the age of eleven. Your first real boyfriend at the age of fourteen, who broke up with you because you wrote him a love letter on Valentine’s Day but wouldn’t have sex with him yet. The boy who you had come to learn had asked you to prom so he could fuck you, which he did. His breath smelled like cheap beer and he dragged you to the back of the house where the afterparty took place. And he just fucked you there with your face pressed against the trunk of a tree, taking your virginity at the same time and staining your pretty prom dress with the pinkish cum that oozed from your pussy after. 

The woman who showed you the difference between fucking and making love, but had also taught you that people could make love even though they did not actually love you. That guy in college who only remembered you when he was drunk. That other guy in college who was mostly interested in pictures of your pussy or videos of you playing with it. The neighbor at the apartment in which you lived while you worked on your PhD, who turned out to be married.

Jisung, with whom you had fallen in love even though he couldn’t, or perhaps wouldn’t, get you off with meaningful lovemaking. Jisung, who had made it clear there was nothing between you two except sex and that your feelings were unwelcome because he wasn’t ready to commit yet. Except he kept you around, never too close, never too far. He’d call you at night if he had been bored and horny or something. Maybe fucking you was better than fucking his hand, but at least his hand couldn’t fall in love with him.

There had been another after that. A man more beautiful than you thought possible, his beauty coming from within. A man who held entire universes in his eyes, a man who fucked you so good that you saw god as you clenched around his cock. A man with whom you had believed you’d never run out of things to talk about. A man who you had believed might love you someday. As in, love love, not the fake kind. Except you had been wrong about that. You had been wrong about the whole thing since the very beginning of it, letting your loneliness win over your logic. Your brain had not put up much of a fight. Your heart had won that battle. Your stupid, irrational, foolish heart. 

And Hyunjin had left you. 

You had been a shooting star for him, something that was only fun for a second or two. After all, there were plenty of stars in the sky, so why try and get attached to the one that was meant to disappear? You had been a shooting star for him. A brief streak of light in the night. Something for him to wish upon.

Superficial. Temporary. A key to a museum vault. An opportunity. A cumdump. You had been many things to Hyunjin, but a lover was not one of them.

And you couldn’t care less.

“Miss? Miss?” 

The host’s voice pulled you away from your thoughts almost painfully, almost as though you had fallen into a pit full of them and he had grabbed you by the nape of your neck to hoist you back up. Suddenly you were no longer plummeting in the night sky—you were back in the reality of your life, which, for now, was a TV studio.

The spotlights blinded you and warmed up your skin more than the summer sun would. The chair they had given you was uncomfortable and the host conducting the interview kept looking at your cleavage as soon as the camera was away from him. 

The man, whose name you had forgotten already, stared at you, tilting his head to the side. “Are we experiencing issues with your earpiece, miss?” he asked, his gaze flicking to your tits once more. 

“N—No,” you responded, gulping thickly. “I just… What was the question again?” You couldn’t be more grateful that Seungmin had adamantly refused for you to do any live interviews. You only participated in pre-taped stuff. 

The host had an amused smile in which you detected flirtatious undertones. If he thought you had been distracted by him, he was wrong, but you wouldn’t let him know that. Later, you’d unbutton your shirt a little more so he could see your tits better, and hope that memory crossed his mind the next time he masturbated. 

He shot a glance at the camera to his left. “I’ll just do it again.” He sat straight on the chair again. “Miss, the world has given you many titles since you have shared your discoveries with it. You’ve been called a master linguist, a prodigy, a genius. But what about you? What do you think describes you the best?”

A shooting star. 

“I’m still just an art historian,” you replied, which was a rehearsed answer to a rehearsed question. “I guess you could say I got lucky.” That part wasn’t rehearsed, but they could cut it out later if they wanted, or if Seungmin didn’t like it. 

You had been adamantly against the idea of having an agent at first. How preposterous. How absurd that an art historian would hire an agent to handle the public aspect of this new life of hers. Yet Jisung insisted, claiming he could certainly not do that for you and that he knew a guy. That guy, Seungmin, was very good at his job and you were glad he was there to help out. There was so much to deal with—the publishers for the books, the business inquiries, the press… and everything else. 

This current interview, for example, was a PR stunt to shut down the accusations against you. People said you were a fraud, that someone else must have made the discovery, which you supposedly stole from that hypothetical person. Because, how on Earth was it possible for an art historian to take one look at the engraved words on one piece of a tablet and suddenly understand the entirety of this obscure language? It made no sense. And truly, you understood. There were days you still thought you were crazy. 

Others, however, were slightly more vile in their comments. They said that you hadn’t discovered anything, not because you had stolen someone else’s work, but because you had simply invented this language. Something to get money and attention from. The long list of world-renowned linguists who had double, triple-checked your work didn’t matter to them—they were persuaded that everything was made up. They somehow blamed the government for it, too.

“Lucky? I think you’re selling yourself short,” the host retorted. “What you did is no small feat. The circumstances around it may be… unusual, but it doesn’t take anything away from the immense worth of the gift you’ve offered the world.” 

Jonathan. His name was Jonathan.

You wondered if Seungmin had gone around the studio to find the host that needed to get his dick wet the most. This guy was really working hard to get some. 

You thought about his words for a second. They appeared in your mind in Cipherian too, but these symbols were coated with a deep, dark crimson light. “You flatter me, Jonathan.” You made yourself smile. Your lipstick was thick and left an unpleasant taste in your mouth. “It’s true that I’ve dedicated many years of my life to the myths and to the art created from them. Now, if some believe that isn’t enough to acquire the ability to understand a dead language, that isn’t my problem. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is.” 

Jonathan looked at the left camera again, behind which the director was standing. “Is it true? Is it true that they studied your brain?” He asked it hurriedly like he was afraid someone would stop him before he could finish his sentence. You understood why—that question was off-script. It had been posed to you many times, but not necessarily something you were meant to discuss today. 

The director raised his hand but you could barely see him because of the spotlights. You heard Seungmin’s voice behind you, complaining, but you made a reassuring motion, keeping your eyes on the host. “Yes, they’ve studied my brain. Scans and MRIs, and more.”

Jonathan frowned. For the first time since you sat down with him, he seemed to be experiencing a genuine emotion. “That’s kind of… unprofessional, isn’t it? No, even worse—inhumane? You aren’t a lab rat after all.”

You shrugged. “I was curious myself,” you admitted. “I still don’t understand how it all happened, and I figured that tests could help. But they didn’t really see anything. No structural abnormalities in my brain, no strange mutation, and nothing to report in their screenings of my blood and organs. Whatever happened had nothing to do with the state of my body.”

“But they can’t study your mind, can they?” He seemed interested enough to stop glancing at your tits. 

“They did. As much as science allowed it. I spent a lot of time answering questions and submitting myself to all those tests. I thought… that whatever it was ought to be discovered. What if it had been just a tiny thing that could have been, eventually, implemented in other people, developing the parts of their brain responsible for language? What if it could have helped treat patients with aphasia, or even amnesia?”

Jonathan shook his head with a sigh. “That’s a noble cause, miss. I salute you.” He dipped his head. “I understand, unfortunately, that they found nothing on that front either?”

“Nothing at all. I couldn’t be more normal.” You were so normal that it was super easy to walk away from you. You were so normal that you left nothing behind, no pain, no scar. “I tell myself that all this time I spent studying—you know, I even traveled a lot around the Mediterranean, visiting different sites—created some sort of puzzle in my head. Only, the pieces had no order to them. At one point, they aligned with one another and it just… appeared to me, finally. I maintain that I got lucky.” 

Your grandmother used to say that a person couldn’t be both lucky with love and with wealth, that one would always outdo the other. Safe to say that all of the buzz around Cipherian had filled your bank account with so many zeroes that you developed tachycardia anytime you checked the number. 

But you had never been more alone. 

“And I maintain that you sell yourself short,” Jonathan responded, smiling. “You are quite literally in the process of creating a guide to this language—which opens the world to a second lost language also. Your contribution to the world of history and art is unmatched, wouldn’t you say?”

You had nothing to say about that. You didn’t really care. You had figured out a language, then another. You didn’t even have any credit for it because none of it had been deliberate. It had just happened. More like a curse than a blessing.

Seeing that you weren’t reacting to his statement, Jonathan went on. “How is the book coming along, then? I know a good portion of the world is more than impatient to delve into Cipherian.”

You nodded but it was out of habit more than because it meant anything—you did not feel human but you could at least try to look like one. “I’m aware of that and it’s why I’d rather take my time with it and do it right.”

“Of course—this kind of project deserves to be executed well.” The flirty glimmer returned on the host’s face. “It’s almost all the time we have, but I know everyone at home would want me to ask this—can you share some of it with us? A sentence, a grammar rule, anything?” 

They had told you beforehand that Jonathan was going to ask you this. This was part of the publicity stunt around your book. After you had brought forth your discovery to the museum, the director had it validated by a few world-renowned linguists and translators. One of them had dedicated most of his life to try and decipher the Voynich Manuscript, another had worked on several movies and TV shows to help authors create whole new languages for their script and the last had published several books on the Sumerian language. 

While they could fully verify what you were telling them, they couldn’t believe it. Not even from a lack of faith or trust in you—it was just that incredible. So they consulted colleagues, and historians, too. And a good portion of the language had leaked on the internet, meaning that by now, a lot of it had been elucidated by amateur linguists. Hell, they had most of it right—you had seen their work. They weren’t wrong but they didn’t understand it. Cipherian had countless layers to it and was too complex to ever fit it in one book, let alone a Reddit thread started by some incel in search of validation between his wanking sessions. 

The word for a dream that one would have when they slept didn’t even have syllables or a sound—it was a soft exhale of about 1.5 seconds with a relaxed jaw. There was no other meaning to the word dream, as though whoever spoke that language never used it for any other reason such as an aspiration or an ambition. In Cipherian, you couldn’t dream of visiting Iceland, you could only fall asleep and experience it through your slumber.

There was, however, a word for yearning. It was beautiful and sounded like a poem. The word sounded eerily similar to both Hyathos and Feliks, almost like their names had been melted together to create a new one.

Yearning. You knew it. You knew its cruel burn intimately. 

But you couldn’t care less. 

“I can tell you about the word, or rather, words, for never in Cipherian.” You tried as hard as you could to sound friendly or like there was still a soul inside you. “In the paragraphs of the Casnea tablet that have been made public, there are two sentences in which the word never is found,” you began, and for the first time since the interview had begun, you felt comfortable, at ease, at home. The language, the words, their meaning—they had become your sole purpose now. 

The first sentence was, Feliks lies beneath the cypress tree, alone. Sometimes he wants to take people there, but he never does.

The other, Feliks knows that Hyathos doesn’t belong anywhere near the cypress tree. He never did, even if it felt good to be there.

It turned out that, in Cipherian, never was conditional when it was associated with a person, and whether that person was awake or not. 

The meaning behind the first sentence was that people other than Hyathos did visit the cypress tree, but never when they were awake or even alive. Corporeal. 

The meaning behind the second sentence was that no matter how happy he was there, Hyathos never belonged beneath the cypress tree, except for when he saw it in his dreams. 

So you told him that. Jonathan. You said it just like that in its most simple form, also speaking Cipherian so that people could hear the two different pronunciations of the word never. The interview ended like that—he thanked you and shook your hand for the camera but kept your hand in his after the director had called ‘Cut’. He thanked you again, saying it had been an honor to meet the woman behind this new language and he looked at your tits again, so you accepted his offer when he suggested grabbing a drink together. There was a small bar right by the TV studios and he often went there. 

“We’re not going.” Jisung appeared in front of you like a ghost yet you barely reacted—you were used to his lingering presence by now. 

“You’re not going,” you retorted. Behind you, the filming crew was wrapping up and gathering their things. Darkness was creeping up in the room as one by one, the spotlights were being turned off. “I’ll meet you guys at the hotel.”

Seungmin joined you hurriedly. “It’s his job to stay with you and make sure you’re safe,” he pointed out with an accusatory tone, phone in hand. 

“You hired Ji because he was following me around with some sense of duty, he just wasn’t being paid for it.” You wrapped yourself in your soft jacket. 

“And you hired me to take care of those things.” Seungmin’s voice left little to no space for arguing. He pushed his dark hair away from his eyes as though he really wanted you to see how serious he was.

“Don’t make me regret it, Seungmin.” You glanced at him, catching sight of Jonathan at the other side of the room, waiting for you by the door. 

You had hired Seungmin when things had picked up for you in the past weeks. But it was rather suspicious now that you were thinking about it. What had happened exactly was Jisung saying he ‘knew a guy’ and now these two seemed to have formed an alliance against you. 

As if on cue, Seungmin’s phone rang. He lifted his index at you, motioning you to wait a moment, and stepped away as he took the call. 

As you went to grab your purse, Jisung put his hand on top of it to stop you. “Do you really want to go with that guy?” he asked softly. Too softly. “Didn’t you see the way he was looking at you?” 

You gulped, staring into your almost-ex’s eyes. “It’s because he was looking at me this way that I want to go, Ji.” You pushed his hand away, finally getting a hold of your bag. “If you wanted to keep fucking me, all you had to do was tell me.”

A cloud of darkness passed on Jisung’s face. “Let’s not go there.” He handed your bag to you, effectively quieted by your remark. “I’ll go with you. Yes, I’m going,” he added when you opened your mouth to refuse. “I’ll stay out of your hair, but I want to be around.” 

Jisung let Seungmin know of the new plan and you joined Jonathan, who led you through the TV station building, giving you—and Jisung—a quick tour. He told you how excited he was for the interview to air because it was something the audience had been asking for. He said, “It’s an honor to be a part of this grand thing, grand enough that it might change the world.” You almost told him he wasn’t a part of shit but remained quiet. You did, however, hear Jisung’s soft snort at the back and couldn’t suppress the amused smile that appeared on your lips.

The weather was as awful as it had been for the past weeks. It hadn’t really stopped raining for a long while, which broke several records. It was cold and dark, so you pulled the hood from your jacket over your head as you jogged on your way to the bar.

The bar was small but cozy. Just one room, crowded with tables and chairs and people. Each wall, except for the one to the left where the counter and bartenders were located, had several private booths. That was where Jonathan led you while Jisung took a seat at a table on the other side of the room.

You looked at your phone while Jonathan was ordering your drinks. Your work inbox was filled with emails and inquiries—more interviews, neuroscientists requesting to get a look at your MRIs, linguists asking to be involved in your current project because they claimed they had a good understanding of Cipherian already. But you knew they were full of shit. Seungmin had access to that same inbox and usually dismissed all of those. He must have been busy today if he hadn’t done it already, but you took a certain pleasure in deleting the most annoying messages. 

You checked your missed texts, too. There were fewer of those, although your phone had been ringing non-stop for the first week after the discovery. Colleagues from abroad or even locals who wanted to congratulate you and get juicy details. You hadn’t slept that week—no more than two hours a night. 

Minji had texted you, updating you on the current events at the museum. With everything going on, you hadn’t been able to fulfill your duties as assistant curator of the Deities exhibition and Minji had taken over for you. Still, she consulted you regularly and dared not make any major decision without your or Mrs. Yoo’s approval, which was almost a shame—the young woman was intelligent and had a bright future in front of her.

Still, you responded quickly to her. The issue today was with space in the rooms of the exhibition—a few new pieces had been added and it was difficult to find the right location for them. 

You pressed Send, and as you were about to put your phone away, another conversation, way below on the screen, caught your attention. The device, all of a sudden, weighed a ton in your hand. There was a little red exclamation mark next to the recipient’s name, letting you know your message hadn’t been able to make it to him. 

You opened the conversation. The last message Hyunjin had sent you was begging you to let him speak with you, only you, about the myths, some time before he visited you at your apartment and fucked you. You had ignored that message. 

Here is what had happened—you had been beyond exhausted and had slept a lot after your discovery. A lot. Yet Hyunjin had been there when you’d woken up. He had made food for you, had helped you bathe. He made love to you on the floor of your apartment and his cum had been warm, unnaturally so. You could still feel its heat within you, as though it had stained you with something that couldn’t be washed away. That morning had changed you in ways you couldn’t explain—but that warm pressure between your legs made you crave things you had never wanted before. 

You had written the essay. The first of many, but still. A quick analysis of Feliks and Hyathos’ relationship, based on the pieces of the Casnea tablet that had been uncovered. It had taken days. One morning Hyunjin had fucked you and filled you with his cum which seemed to have aphrodisiac properties.

And then he left. 

There had been no tears, no sobs, only resignation. A shooting star. You were a shooting star, ephemeral, short-lived. Your pussy was tight enough for men to want to fuck it a few times but not good enough to make them want to stay around. 

You: I’m done writing the essay. Where are you? I want you to be the first to read it. 

[Message could not be sent] You: Hyunjin?  [Message could not be sent] You: Are you alright? Is something wrong? [Message could not be sent]

The number had been deactivated, which you had found out when you had tried calling him. Many times. 

But there had been no tears and no pain. You waited for it to hit you, to pin you to a wall, cut your chest open, and crush your heart in its cruel, cold hands. You had loved him. Hyunjin. It was crazy to think of it this way but you had fallen in love with him. And now he was gone. And you didn’t care. 

You were empty and you didn’t care. Your mind was empty, and your heart, and your cunt. You weren’t lustful, you weren’t even horny—nothing else in your life existed except Cipherian and that insatiable craving between your legs. And you didn’t care.

Jonathan came back with a tray of tequila shots and some lime wedges. He handed you the first shot which you did not follow with lime juice. You let the liquor burn you on the inside just to feel something. 

There was a short silence during which Jonathan suckled on his lime, glancing around the room. “That guy, your bodyguard,” he said after a while. The room was loud with conversations and music but you heard him well. “He’s your boyfriend or something? You two seem close.” 

You shook your head. “Nah. We had a situationship some time ago but he broke it off because I had too many feelings for him.” And now you didn’t have feelings about anything at all. 

“Situationships are like that.” He handed you another shot. “Bad idea, especially with coworkers.”

You squeezed some lime juice into your glass and it made your fingers sticky. “So I assume you are more the one-night stand type of guy, Jonathan?” You raised your eyes at him as you spoke just to see his face. 

He was both pleased and a little uncomfortable. He hid behind his lime again. “Call me Jon,” he said after a while. 

You reached for him under the table, squeezing his thigh gently. He jumped a little in his seat but let out a satisfied grunt. “So, Jon. Do you have a condom with you? How about we chat, get drunk, and then you can fuck me in your office?” 

And this is exactly what happened. More shots followed. You went to sit on the same bench as Jonathan instead of facing him. He fingered you a little under the table and you rubbed his semi through his pants. Both of your voices low, you told each other how you liked to fuck. You knew very well there would be none of that tonight, nothing fancy, but warmth pooled between your legs anyway when Jon told you about the threesome he had a few years back. 

You weren’t sure what to say when he asked your preferences, and you almost left the bar when he inquired about your best sexual experiences. Your preferences? You weren’t sure. Maybe you liked it when people fucked you like they meant it. Like they loved you. Your best sexual experience? He had a name, and you did not want to speak it, so you said whatever came to your mind instead.

Men like Jon were easy to read. “I like being used.” Ironic. Ironic but perhaps true—after all, wasn’t it exactly what everyone who touched you did anyway? Like you were a disposable fleshlight?

“Oh, you’re very upfront, aren’t you?” At that, he buried his fingers deeper into your cunt, and you clenched around them, needing more. Jonathan hissed through his teeth. “Ah, shit, you’re tight…” 

His hard-on throbbed underneath your palm and you figured there was no point in delaying the inevitable, so you simply pulled away and stood next to the booth while Jonathan was attempting to conceal the bulge in his pants with his jacket. He paid the tab and took your hand in his. 

Jisung followed you with his eyes, glaring at you from his seat. You pretended you did not see him and walked the same way you had when you came here except in silence now. It was dark after nightfall, and the TV station was empty except for a few people here and there. 

You shoved your hand into Jonathan’s pants in the elevator, really feeling him, tugging at his cock. He groaned, his fingers digging deeper into the skin of your waist, his other hand pulling your shirt down to expose as much of your tits as he could. 

You didn’t let him kiss you, so he nibbled at your neck instead. And when you made it to his office, he did the same to your breasts, now fully exposed in private, while you were unzipping his jeans. 

“I love little cockhungry sluts like you.” Jonathan’s eyes were glazed over, inebriated. Or maybe just horny. His breath smelled like liquor. “Suck me.”

He put his hand on your shoulder and one weak shove was enough to get you on your knees. The carpet burned your skin a little but you didn’t care. You pulled his jeans, then his boxers down, exposing his erection. His cock was on the shorter side, but thick—thick enough that you struggled to take it in your mouth.

You released a liberal amount of spit on his tip, using your hand to spread it on his length. 

“Come on. Don’t be a tease.”

You looked into his eyes when you took his cock between your lips. He tasted bitter, salty, unpleasant, and you had a hard time adjusting your jaw to his size. But from the way he throbbed on your tongue, you could tell Jonathan reveled in the sight of tears welling up in your eyes. 

You didn’t care. You couldn’t give any less of a shit about any of it—Jonathan, the vile taste of his cock, the emptiness within you. 

“That’s it, ohh, fuck…” Jonathan caressed your head in a way that looked tender at first, but only for a second—quickly, he grabbed your hair in a fist, pulling you closer, forcing his cock deeper into your mouth. 

You gagged, your body convulsing with it, your cunt throbbing with it. You let your mouth fill with saliva until it ran at the corner of your mouth and down your chin, until it clogged your throat, until you couldn’t breathe. Your vision blurred as Jonathan fucked your mouth in desperate, shallow thrusts. You welcomed the sting in your throat and the one in your lungs, too. These days, this was the closest you could get to feeling alive. To feeling anything.

Gagging again, you anchored yourself to this stranger, your fingernails digging into his thighs. Jon, bent over, was losing his cadence, muttering deep, throaty groans without a care for volume, despite the occasional footsteps heard on the other side of the door.

“Fuuuuck. Ah, fucking—” Jonathan used the grip he had on your hair to pull out, leaving you panting and choking, lips swollen and sensitive. Some spit and precum dripped on your chest, rolling down your tits. “Get up, come here.” 

He helped you up, dragging you to the other side of the room to access his desk from which he produced a condom. You watched as he applied it over his flushed, straining cock. 

Before you knew it, he had you pinned up against the wall face first. He hiked up your skirt and pushed your panties to the side before burying himself inside your warm cunt in one swift motion. 

You cried out as he stretched you, keeping you firmly in place. You wouldn’t have guessed he was that strong, but he had no problem keeping you still as he worked you open for him. “Relax now,” he grunted, his hand at the back of your neck, squeezing you there. 

“Fuck me.” Your voice was weak because of the burn in your throat but he didn’t need you to tell him what to do. 

Jonathan thrust into you until he bottomed out—and he let out a strangled sigh when he did, but wasted no time pounding into you. He was frantic, chasing his high and yet doing everything to delay it. Jonathan fucked the way a man who watches too much porn did—a way that was relentless and impersonal. 

“Tell me you love my cock,” he grunted into your ear, one arm draped over your chest to keep you close while he fucked you. When you took more than two seconds to respond, he grabbed your hair again, pulling it, forcing your head to fall back. It hurt a little and you clenched around his cock. “Fucking say it,” he repeated, his voice low.

You didn’t love his cock, but it was inside you, momentarily occupying your mind and your cunt. “I love your cock,” you said nonetheless as Jon’s hand trailed up, his fingers wrapping around your throat. You knew what men liked to hear. “I love your big cock,” you added, eyelids fluttering, electricity spreading all over your core. “Harder, harder, please…” 

Men like him liked it when women begged. Jon loved it—he let out a series of breathy growls as he forced his cock deeper into you, his hips slamming your ass hard enough that you were losing your balance, and also, losing sight of yourself. You closed your eyes, letting your body take control, allowing your mind to recede, to become nothing. A few seconds of peace. Just a few instants where nothing existed except the ache in your dripping pussy and the sting of fingers around your neck and waves of fire spreading under your skin. There was a word for that in Cipherian. Llhas. There was no direct translation for it, but it represented a place or a moment where pain and pleasure blended together to become one. 

Jon came to a stop abruptly. “Let me see while I ravage you.” 

He wasted no time dragging you to the floor and you found yourself laying with your back on the carpet, your legs spread wide open. Jon bit his lip as he lowered himself to you, staring at your pussy. You imagined it must be flushed and swollen and pretty. His cock, heavy, bobbed when he got on his knees. He guided himself inside you again, but this time you saw his face as he buried his cock into your heat. You tried to read it but you could not. You understood a dead language better than empty lust, it seemed. 

You cried out when he moved, setting a fast and steady rhythm with deep, powerful thrusts. He tugged at your shirt to expose your tits better and watch them bounce as he fucked into you. Then he buried his face into your neck and you knew he was close. You clenched around him and he called you a whore. You moaned when he did so and he called you a desperate slut. He retreated a little to watch his cock disappear into your folds and he said, again, that you were a whore because you were creaming all over him. 

“I know you like having your tight little pussy stretched like that, don’t you?” But he wasn’t even talking to you really. He was just talking out loud. It wouldn’t have been any different if he had been fucking a blow-up doll. You listened to the sounds of flesh and wetness as he sank into you over and over. He held your face in his hand a little harder than he needed to but another wave of llhas came over you. 

It felt good when Jonathan came—he came like a feral animal, letting go of your face to hold your waist instead, slamming you onto his cock as he arched into you, hips stuttering, spilling himself into the condom. His hair stuck to the sweat on his temples and he kept fucking you to ride his aftershocks, returning to your tits, massaging them, and suckling onto your nipples as you milked the rest of his load with strategic clenches and rolls of your hips. 

He collapsed onto you, out of breath, a little pathetic. The office smelled like sweat and sex. 

“Fuck…” he sighed after a little while. You could feel him softening inside you—he moaned when he pulled out. “You’re amazing…”

But all you had done was lay there and let him fuck you. 

He tried to kiss you again but you did not let him do that. It took him a few more moments to gather himself and manage to stand up, and you watched as he discarded the condom. It fell into the bin with a heavy thump. You became aware of the ache between your legs—not llhas, just pain. And you welcomed it because pain was better than nothing at all. 

Jon had the grace to help you up. He pulled you against him into an embrace that meant nothing. “Did you cum?” he asked, then immediately, “When can I see you again?”

You pulled away slowly, buttoning your shirt back up before adjusting your panties under your skirt. Some of your arousal dripped into them and it reminded you of something foreign. 

“No,” you replied. “And you won’t,” you added before grabbing your purse and walking away. You heard Jonathan stammer in an attempt to keep you in his office but cut him off when you closed the door behind you. 

It’s without any real surprise that you found Jisung in the hallway, sitting on a bench, scrolling his phone. Waiting for you. 

Neither of you spoke at first, but when he stood, Jisung stared at you for a long time, as though he was trying to say something but the right words didn’t come. In the end, he gave up, and you walked together toward the elevator. 

It was still raining outside. Pouring. The drops rolled down the wide windows of the TV station’s entrance, distorting the colored lights of the city and cars on the other side of it. The night sky was dark, darker than usual, like thick ink. 

“Wait here, I’ll go get us a cab,” Jisung said finally. “There’s a restroom over there.” He motioned toward a short hallway. 

It seemed like lifetimes ago now, but back in the day when you and Jisung used to fuck, you had been the one to explain to him how beneficial it was for girls to pee after sex, and he had always made sure to remind you afterwards. He apparently had not forgotten that. You wondered if he heard the things Jon said to you while he was using your pussy. 

You did use the restroom when Jisung went out, attempting to wipe your slick off your panties and yourself as well as you could. You washed your hands and returned to the lobby, only to find Jisung near the door. Together, you went outside and the raindrops were cold and unforgiving. At least the cab was warmer and Jisung took care of speaking to the driver, so you just rested your head on the window and watched the pretty lights. There were many words in Cipherian to talk about light. 

Light coming from a flame. Powerful and dangerous. Cekliptio. From cekl, which meant fire, and ptiox, which was a word to designate the opposite of shadow.

Light coming from the stars, glimmering, faint, undeniable. Axst. Similar to the word Ixst, which meant freckles. 

Light coming from the Sun, which belonged to those with a soul that needed warming up. Feyllhks. Pronounced Feliks.

The light in one’s eyes when they see the owner of their heart. Arra. A word that could also mean belonging and eternal. 

There was no word in Cipherian for the lights of a city you didn’t know, but you wished one existed. These days, the dead language was all you had to find comfort in because it was the only thing that mattered. It was the only thing you had, the only thing you cared for. 

You watched the traffic light ahead turning to red. After a moment of sitting at the intersection, Jisung’s hand found yours and he squeezed it gently. 

“Are you alright?” you heard him ask, his voice soft and low. 

You did not know how to respond to that. Your pussy was sore and you wanted to get back to the hotel to soak in a hot bath. Not warm, hot. Until your skin reddened all over. Until the heat made you dizzy and hurt you all over. Then you’d sit at your computer and work on translating and analyzing. Because it was all that you had. You’d be drinking all the while and masturbate a few times while watching cheap porn before passing out on the bed or the floor. 

You weren’t alright. 

You weren’t anything. 

You opened your mouth to tell Jisung that—you figured you at least owed him the truth, no matter how bleak. At the same time, the light turned green, and the taxi crossed the intersection.

And another car hit it. It hit the front of the car on the passenger side. Your side. And it knocked the air out of your lungs. Your head hit something and the sound of bending metal and shattering glass was horrendous and deafening, becoming one with the pain that was slowly spreading within your body.

It hurt you all over, but not for long, because darkness enveloped you.

You were dreaming. 

And you knew that you were dreaming because pain no longer existed here. 

It was not a meadow with a lilac sky that you found yourself in. 

The air smelled sweet in this place, the crisp scent of apples, the soft scent of plums. The smell of peaches, ripe, juicy, warming up under the sun. 

The orchard you stood in stretched as far as you could see. It was bordered by the ocean on one side and grassy hills on the other. Among the fruit trees grew other trees in places, tall and lush, casting their shadow, cooling the air. Your bare feet sank into the soil a little as you walked and it was pleasant. Like a caress. 

Maybe you were dead and this was heaven. 

You were at one end of the orchard—you decided to visit the hills nearby and went on. And on. You walked for a long while, your mind empty. But the sight was pretty from here with the fruit trees and the sea glimmering under the warm sun, whose light felt like a kiss. 

Movement caught your attention at the other side of the orchard—somebody else was here. You stretched your neck to try and see better but they were just too far away. Soft brown hair floating in the breeze. A slow but steady gait. 

You took a few steps, trying to decide if you could make it to the mysterious figure before being pulled out of this dream. Then you saw something else, closer—a woman was sitting under a pine tree. She was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen, with skin like honey and hair like silk. Her posture was both perfect and nonchalant, and you found yourself envying her effortless beauty.

She noticed you, too, and a smile appeared on her lovely face. “There you are. Come here, child. We do not have much time.” 

Maybe because you wanted to see her from a little closer, you did as you were told, hurrying to close in the space between you and the woman. She raised her hand, asking to take yours, and when you grabbed it, she gently tugged at your arm to invite you to sit with her. 

Her beauty left you speechless. There were roses braided into her hair, thorns and all, and the air carried their scent to you. 

“You have to tell me who did this to you,” the woman told you, pulling you closer as though she was trying to find the answer to her questions in your eyes. “Who did this to you, child?”

“Did what?” You frowned, confused. “Are you asking what killed me?” You did not remember. All that you remembered was loud noises. And pain.

She shook her head. “I want to know if you remember who put our words into your mind, my dear. I want to know who it is that wove them into your soul.” 

You looked away, your gaze trailing toward the sea, while you thought about it. It was difficult—it seemed like your thoughts had been separated from your body and your mind. It took a while to reach them. 

“A kiss,” you replied, and it was the best you could do. You could not say it with words. You could not remember it with words either, or images. But you remembered the kiss.

The woman nodded slowly as though she had been expecting your response. She sighed, turning her attention back to you. She caressed your cheek, still trying to read you. 

“The gift bestowed upon you was not yours to have,” she said. “But it is yours now, and it can’t be taken back. I am sure he’s sorry for it, you know. The one who gave you the kiss. He only ever wants to help people. He bleeds compassion, you see. I believe he thought he was giving you a message to relay to someone.” 

You looked behind her at the other side of the orchard, where the person there was now picking some fruit off the trees and putting them in a basket. “Are you talking about him?” you asked.

“No,” she murmured. “That is my son. This is his orchard.” 

“Your son?” You almost felt something at that but your heart dodged it. “I know him.”

“You do. You do know him.” This time, she caressed your hair before cupping your cheek. “You love him, but you don’t remember.”

“I love him.” Saying the words was strange. Distant. Cold. As though it was somebody else’s voice speaking through your lips.

“Oh, child…” The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “You can remember him here, if you want. In this place, love is stronger than anything.” 

You stood so that you could see her son a little better. He was still walking slowly among his trees, plucking dead leaves or harvesting ripe fruit. He hadn’t seen either of you yet.

“I remember that I loved him,” you said. “But I don’t remember what love feels like.” Your words made no sense, yet the woman understood you very well. She rose, and instead of standing idle like you, she made her way toward the closest tree on which peaches grew. She tugged at the ripest peach she saw and brought it back with her as she stood by you again.

“Eat,” she invited, handing you the fruit. 

You felt it with your hand, caressing its velvety skin—it was warm, unnaturally so, and dense. Denser than other peaches you had held before. It smelled good. It smelled like a peach that had been grown by the sea, and with all the care in the world.

You brought it to your lips, and then you bit into it.

And you remembered. 

It came to you all at once, so much of it that you felt physically heavier—like whatever had been contained in the peach had been transferred into you. But you remembered. Slow dancing in the night. A kiss. Many kisses. Pomegranate lips. Making love and meaning it. Being seen. Being understood. Being desired and desiring in return. You remembered him and his voice and his cock and his mind, as beautiful as a flower, as complex as life itself. His heart, sweet like a peach, fragile like one, too. 

“Say his name if you want,” she whispered. 

You closed your eyes, suddenly blinded by the sunlight shining upon you. You remembered him. You remembered Hyunjin and the depth of your feelings for him. 

It was too much—you cried. Then you laughed. You sobbed, you smiled. It was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen and the most painful thing you had ever felt. You remembered love.

“Can I remember when I go back, too?” you asked.

“I’m not sure,” the woman explained. “But I hope you do.” There were tears in her eyes. “He was always so alone before he met you. Even when he snuck out to meet the boy… I pretended I did not know, but a mother always knows. I could see it in his eyes, I could feel it in the heaviness of his steps. But you… It is different with you.”

The wind became cold, then colder. Somehow, you knew it meant your time here was coming to an end.

“Can I go see him?” you asked between bites of this peach, watching the young man as he carefully picked his fruit. 

“No. Not now. He is not really here.” Already, the taste of peach was fading away, and the world was turning dark again. “You’re in danger, child,” the woman went on. “My husband, and others, they do not want you to know what you know.” 

The peach was no longer in your hand, yet its juice still rolled down your wrist. “What should I do?” 

“Just remember.” 

It appeared to you in pieces, and you couldn’t tell whether you were dreaming or not. Pain in your arm. Your lower back. Your legs. Your head. The scent of gasoline, cold rain seeping through, twisted metal. Jisung, with blood on him, calling your name. 

The ambulance. More people talking to you and bright lights and more pain. The taste of peaches lingering on your tongue. 

Jisung again. Saying words you could not understand because you were busy trying to remember something, but it just would not come to you. It was a name. No, it was a name but it was also something else. Something sweet, and important.

Cold darkness. Then warm darkness, a mattress beneath you. Jisung. Again. With Seungmin. Their whispers makingtheir way to you, but instead of words, you just heard a breeze, like wind over the ocean. The pain wasn’t gone but it was different, more diffuse. There were moments you couldn’t even tell where it came from.

Jisung. His hand holding yours, his head resting on the bed. His face turned toward you. It was dark but not too dark, and you could see that he was sleeping. There was a bandage on his eyebrow and he had a few bruises on his arm. But he did not let go of you. Once upon a time, you thought you loved him, but that was before you understood love. 

He was still there when you woke up for good, awake this time. The light in the room blinded you and the first thing that Jisung did was to hurriedly close the blinds over the window and dim the ceiling light a little. You were in a hospital room, hooked up to a few machines and an IV, and there were vases with flowers surrounding your bed. Their scent permeated the room, subtle yet undeniably there underneath layers of antiseptic.

“Hey,” Jisung said, taking your hand again. “You’re back.” 

You almost joked by saying, I never left, but that would not have been true and you knew that. You did leave. You could still feel something velvety under your fingertips. You could still smell the rich scent of a pine tree under the sun.

You tried speaking and yet no words came out. They weren’t even stuck in your throat—it was as though they wouldn’t even leave your mind. After a few deep breaths, you made another attempt, forcing your lips open and focusing on nothing except the thought that you wanted to express, which was the overwhelming thirst making your mouth dryer than the Sahara. Panic took over you as you once again failed to speak. You looked around as if anything here could solve your problem. 

Nothing could, except Jisung noticed your gaze lingering on the water pitcher by your bed and understood what you wanted. He poured you a glass of ice-cold water and held it for you while you drank. Swallowing it was almost painful, yet immensely relieving. Llhas.

“You weren’t supposed to move before the doctor came to see you,” Jisung explained while he helped you lie down again, yet he remained by your side once your head lay on your pillow. 

The two of you stared at each other for a few seconds, and then the seconds stretched into a longer moment. There were so many things you wanted to say to him and your inability to do so had nothing to do with whatever made it hard for you to form words. You wanted to thank him for everything he had done for you these past months, yet it seemed those words did not even exist.

You wanted to apologize. For all the times he had asked you not to do something stupid, and you didn’t listen to him. Because you didn’t care. But it felt so unlike you not to care, and you could see that now. 

Jisung opened his mouth to speak but instead, cupped your face in his hand, pushing a strand of hair away from your eyes. He looked like a mess—he was wearing the same shirt he had been before, he hadn’t shaved, and he smelled like cheap spray deodorant. 

He seemed to read your question in your eyes because he gave you an answer. “A car hit the front of the taxi—the engine, actually. The police said he wasn’t drunk or anything. His car just… malfunctioned.” 

You frowned, trying to remember the actual event, but finding yourself unable to. Not clearly at least. All that you remembered was fear and the smell of gasoline. 

“Actually,” he went on, “they said it came close. We—you—were lucky.” He took a deep breath, struggling to keep his voice steady. “If the guy’s car hadn’t glided on the wet pavement before his brakes failed, he would have hit you directly.” He offered you a faint, joyless smile. “Everyone is begging for the sun to return, but if it hadn’t been for the rain, you wouldn’t be here I think.” 

You gulped, wincing as you did so, and Jisung took it as a signal to help you drink more water. It was only then, as you tried holding your own cup, that you noticed the cast around your arm. 

“I’ll go tell them you’re awake,” Jisung said, and he left the room. It seemed all incredibly empty then. Not even the flowers made it look any livelier. You lay on your hospital bed, eyes to the ceiling, letting the pain in your body speak to you. Your arm didn’t hurt as much as your neck and your shoulder, but it felt sore and heavy. 

It didn’t take very long until a doctor came in to see you, and Jisung remained by the door, waiting politely as you were told about a small fracture in your upper arm and a mild concussion, which explained the strange pressure you felt behind your eyes. It was alright because all you had to do was nod and say “Hm hm” in a variety of intonations, so your little problem went vastly under the radar. The doctor mentioned you were probably tired and advised you to rest—he didn’t want to discharge you until tomorrow, to make sure things were alright.

You slept most of the day. At one point, Jisung left to go shower but he was immediately replaced by Seungmin, who, it looked like, was inclined to speak just as much as you. He seemed troubled, often returning to his phone with a frown on his brow, but he brought you a phone. Not your phone, because yours had been destroyed in the accident.

In between naps, you held the new device in your hand. It was similar to the one you had, only a slightly newer model. You opened the text app and, naturally, it was empty. 

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Seungmin told you when he caught sight of the screen. “The SIM card was also ruined so I had to get a new one. Did you sync your stuff online? I can do it for you.” It wasn't worth it. On your other phone, you had settings that synced pictures and videos, but not text messages. 

You remembered the conversation you wished to look at with your own two eyes, the one where the recipient’s phone number was now deactivated. 

You slept more. You slept until a nurse woke you up for dinner, saying that you hadn’t eaten enough today and that youhad to finish your meal. 

Jisung watched you play with your food—some sort of casserole—for a while. “You need to eat,” he said, but he tookthe plate away from you. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to you after opening a food delivery app. “Order whatever you want. I’m starving, too.” 

Half an hour later, the two of you were eating burgers with french fries and an unhealthy amount of soda. He even ordered some cake for dessert, which you also ate. While you had dinner, Jisung showed you the flowers from up close and explained to you who they came from. They were pretty. 

There was one huge flower arrangement from the museum and one specifically from Minji and Mrs. Yoo, which brought tears to your eyes. There was a vase from the publishing house where you’d publish the book, and the last was a little smaller than the others, more modest, but lovely nonetheless. Chrysanthemums, aster and some leafage. There was a card with it: 

Get well soon. I hope to meet you again,

P. Seonghwa 

You looked at this one for a little longer than the others. Jisung seemed to believe you didn’t know, or remember, who the sender was, so he clarified for you.

“Remember? He’s the journalist who interviewed you a few months ago, about that tablet.” The Casnea tablet. How could he think you wouldn’t remember that? “Looks like you made a strong impression on him.” 

There were quite a few innuendos in Jisung’s last sentence and they did bring back a few memories—not anything that you had forgotten, just things that did not matter in the grand scheme of things. Not that Mr. Seonghwa himself didn’t matter. After all, he was a good person and a talented journalist. But Minji had hinted—no, she had claimed with certainty—that he had been hitting on you. And he did ask you out to dinner. And you never even responded to him, yet he sent you flowers? How did he even know you were in the hospital?

To Jisung, you gave a nod so that he wouldn’t insist, and you both finished your food. He helped you to the bathroom so that you could wash up—you sat on a chair while he ran a damp towel on your face and your neck. The gestures were familiar to you, only, not from his hands. He even brushed your hair with the comb that came in the bag of toiletries that Seungmin brought you. “I’m gonna have to tell the doctor, you know,” he said under his voice, nowspraying rose water in your brushed hair. “That you can’t talk.” He looked at you then. “Or is it that you won’t talk? Did that guy hurt you?”

It took a few seconds for you to even remember who Jisung was talking about. You shook your head, almost mumbling a no, but the words melted on your tongue before they could form. No. Jonathan hadn’t hurt you. You felt nothing about him, or for him.

He sighed. “I’ll go get us some coffee.” He remembered that you liked to drink one after a particularly big dinner. It spilled a little bit of warmth into your chest. “If it hasn’t come back in one hour, I'll tell the doctor. Aphasia’s no joke. They’re gonna have to do more MRIs.” 

You knew he wasn’t even talking about the tests the doctors did last night—this was about how nobody could figure out how, or why, you suddenly acquired the knowledge of a dead language. They had studied you and your brain for weeks without finding anything even a little abnormal about it. And yet here you were, involved in yet another language-related incident.

You sat on the bed with your empty phone, not even knowing where to begin with it, or perhaps enjoying its silence. The nurses Jisung had tasked with watching over you were pretending not to be staring, leaning against the wall by your door. He had done that when he went to pick up the food too. As if you needed a babysitter. 

You cleared your throat, inhaling as much as you could. You could talk. You really could. You could read and talk. And write. None of these things were foreign to you, so it wasn’t supposed to be hard. You needed to be able to speak again if only to tell Han Jisung that you wouldn’t allow him to put a baby monitor in your bedroom later on, no matter how overprotective he acted with you.

“Here I am,” Jisung announced proudly when he returned, a cup holder in one hand and a paper bag in the other. He gave a not-so-inconspicuous nod to the nurses by the door, who then walked away. “I had an idea while I was downstairs—I figured, maybe some reading could help. Make your brain think about words.” 

He handed you your coffee which was average hospital coffee, and left a pile of magazines on your bed. “They didn’t have much,” he apologized. “But it’s better than nothing, I guess.” 

When he went to sit on the chair, you made space for him on your bed. He seemed to hesitate before he sat next to you. It reminded you of the few instances after you had sex with him, when you’d smoke before sleeping, or before he left your place. He rarely spent the night at yours. 

The first magazine was a little boring—it didn’t have much going for it other than a few scientific articles. One about Antarctica, one about heirloom tomatoes, and another about the fauna in certain African countries. You flipped through the pages, finding no problem in reading, just having no interest in doing it. 

You finished your coffee by the time you made it to the second magazine, which was a well-known, music-oriented magazine. This one seemed to have a bit more life to it, so you started on page one and actually read the article—about an up-and-coming alternative band—alongside Jisung, who commented on it. You knew he was doing it just to stimulate your speech abilities and you appreciated it. A lot. 

Actually, you were just laughing at one of his stupid jokes when you turned the page you were on and came face to face with a full-sheet advertisement for a luxury jewelry brand. Your heart dropped in shock, putting an abrupt end to your laughter. It stirred in your throat, becoming something else, as tears tickled your eyes. You fought them, though, so that your vision remained as clear as it could be, staring at the ad before you. 

Hyunjin.

You would say that you had almost forgotten how beautiful he was but he possessed the kind of beauty that was impossible not to remember. He was handsome in a way that nobody else before him had been or after him would be.

In the ad, he was dressed in modest, white clothing and sported his usual chin-length hair. He sat nonchalantly yet with his usual perfect posture in a white porcelain bathtub, posing with elegance and looking directly into the lens of the camera. Droplets of water could be seen sticking to his honey skin. One hand was buried into his damp hair while the other displayed a textured silver bracelet and a ring. 

Hyunjin.

You reached for the magazine, caressing his face with your fingertips as though you could feel him, but it was only a fool’s attempt at making sure that he was real. That he had ever been real. Just yesterday, you could still pick up your phone and scroll through your texts until you found the dead conversation with him just to verify that he had indeedexisted. That he had indeed once existed with you. In your life. And you in his. 

Just yesterday, you didn’t care that he had left you.

“Fuck.” Jisung tried to take the magazine from you but you were quicker, which caused you to moan in pain from having moved a little too fast. He raised both his hands, yielding before you could hurt yourself any further. 

You reported your attention to the page only you weren’t really seeing it. You were seeing other things. You were tasting expensive wine, you were slow dancing in the cold night, you were talking for hours about history and art and everything else. You were smelling petrichor and amber and rose and peaches and you were feeling Hyunjin’s smooth skin under your touch. Under your tongue. His lips on yours kissing you alive and his cock inside you fucking you to your demise. 

You exhaled in an unexpected sob which caught you off-guard and brought you back to reality. You turned to Jisung, your lips trembling, your heart sprinting, its beat echoing within your ribcage like a song, or more accurately, war drums. 

The words came to you as though they were meant to be the ones you spoke all along. 

“I miss him,” you uttered, your voice no more than a whisper, but not weak. “Hyunjin. Ji, I miss him so much.” 

There was nothing that Jisung could do, but he held you as you wept as finally, the scorching pain of his absence tore through you like a serrated blade. And yet you relished it. Every moment of it, every tear, every second of agony. Nothing had ever hurt you quite as much as losing him, but you would choose to be tormented over being numb any day. Because it meant your heart was still beating in your chest. It meant that you could feel something. Anything. It meant that you had loved him. That you still loved him. 

But had he loved you? No. Why would a man like him love you?

If he loved you, why would he leave?

You did not sleep, but Jisung did, his arms around you as though he could bear some of the weight of your sorrows for you. You let him sleep, tears rolling down your cheeks quietly as the night shift of the hospital began. 

It was two in the morning when Jisung stirred in his sleep before waking up almost violently. His first instinct was to check on you. Your cheeks were still damp and your eyes were dry and sore but you had cried all of the tears you had to cry.

“Do you know, Jisung?” you murmured as he took your hand in his. “Do you know why he left? Was it because of me?”

You had spent all these months without thinking about it but had made up for it these past few hours, analyzing the situation, going through all of your memories to find something. A reason. The shadow of a reason. But you couldn’t think of anything, so the natural conclusion had been that Hyunjin had realized he didn’t want you and had left. He was kind and sensitive, and you could imagine that he had found himself unable to tell you because he knew it would break your heart. You couldn’t compare with that past lover of his, the one he never forgot. The one he still loved. 

It probably felt wrong. To kiss you, to fuck you, when he loved another.

“Because of you?” Jisung frowned, squeezing your hand harder. “I’m not supposed to—” He cut his own sentence off, biting his lip. You couldn’t make out his exact expression in the darkness of the room but you saw the moment his shoulders went from tense to relaxed. Not from relief, but from a surrender. “He came to see me. Before he left.” 

Your heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“He came to see me,” Jisung repeated, his voice low. “He… he wouldn’t give me details, but he said that you would be in danger, and he asked me to watch over you while he was gone.”

The words spilling from Jisung’s mouth were so unlikely, so foreign, that you took the time to translate them in your mind. But none of the languages you knew could explain their existence. Nothing made sense anymore. You hadn’t really questioned Jisung’s sudden willingness to become your personal bodyguard. But you hadn’t really questioned anything back then. 

It wasn’t even the part about you being in danger that shocked you the most.

“But why would he ask you that?” You shook your head. “It’s not like he cared, is it? If he cared, he wouldn’t have left. He never… loved me. Or anything like that.” It hurt you to say those words, but it was better than not speaking at all. 

Jisung’s breath hitched softly, ending in a sigh. “Is that what you think? Is that what you’ve thought this whole time, why you… do these things?” And you knew he meant getting drunk and fucking strangers just to feel something.

There were no words for the feeling that was creeping up in your chest, and it had nothing to do with your temporary aphasia. 

“God, I hated not telling you, I should have told you.” Jisung leaned closer to you then, as though you wouldn’t hear him from a few inches farther. “He did. Love you, I mean. He said so, I promise. I swear, he told me that he did.”

You thought that you were dreaming, but you knew that you were awake because of your desolation, that feeling of emptiness—the barren thing that you had become, it all felt too real to be a dream.

Outside, the rain stopped.

Hyunjin: How is she doing? You said they’d remove her cast yesterday but you didn’t text me. Please respond. 

Hyunjin put his phone down and grabbed his glass instead. Half of it was filled with wine and the other half was pure boredom. Despair. Sorrow. And it was sour, the taste of it overcoming the wine. 

It was a white. It was the wine that he had with you on your first date.

It wasn’t supposed to be a date but it became one. Nothing was supposed to happen the way it did but it was too late now, and what had been done could not be undone. You could not unlearn Cipherian. 

He could not unlove you.

He tried. He did try, not because he wanted to, but because he thought that making you insignificant might be the only way to save you. Making it so that you did not matter, that you were invisible to the gods. But it just was not possible. He could put the whole world between the two of you; he could prevent any access to the internet from his phone or laptop to resist temptation; he could keep his days and his nights busy with photoshoots and fashion weeks, but it did not mean that you would leave his mind for one second. You never did.

You haunted him. 

Hyunjin looked at the horizon before him. The view from his hotel room was stunning—he was right by the sea, close enough that its scent invaded the room through the double doors he left open. Tonight, however, he was sitting on the suite’s private balcony, with a bottle of wine kept on ice and a dinner he hadn’t touched in front of him. 

The sun was setting and taking its time doing so, blending and melting into the blue of the sea. The sight of it cut his breath short. He reached out, as though he could feel it with his fingers. Its light, its warmth, its force. And he did. He did feel it. Light came to him as a gentle caress. Like somebody taking his hand in theirs. 

“Feliks,” he said under his breath, and the sounds of the promenade below him swallowed his voice. The waves, lazy but steady, and the conversations. All these people, so alive, so mortal. Alive because they were mortal. 

Hyunjin was neither of these things. One might believe that immortality granted an unlimited amount of vitality, ofresolve, too. He found that it was rather the opposite. Did they know? All of these people? Did they know how lucky they were? 

He jumped when his phone vibrated on the table—Hyunjin let his arm fall back on the side of his body while his other hand grabbed the device quickly, eager to read the response.

Seungmin: Sorry, things have been busy. The cast came off and she’s fine, just a little sore Hyunjin: Is she eating? Sleeping? Seungmin: Mostly. Han is on it 24/7. You ok? Hyunjin: I’ve got lots of really cool gigs.

Which was his way to say that he was okay even though he was not. However, he would keep pretending otherwise over the phone so that his former manager wouldn’t worry. During their time together, he and Seungmin had grown fond of each other—enough so that Hyunjin knew he would leave your employment and come find him again should he feel like it was necessary. But Hyunjin had asked him to keep an eye on you. 

He could not tell Seungmin, or Han Jisung, that you had angered the gods, and that it was all his fault. But it seemed like they did buy his made-up conspiracy story about how your big discovery made many people jealous. They even believed they had a distant connection to Hyunjin through past jobs and that they could use him to find you, because they would find you. At any cost. You mean any cost? Seungmin had asked while Hyunjin was going around his bedroom, throwing random items of clothing into a bag—he had booked a last-minute flight to get away from you as quickly as possible. Why does that sound like these people are going to… kill her?

Because they fucking will, had been Hyunjin’s answer. It was the closest word to it anyway—kill. Death. It was the only way he could explain the urgency of the situation to a mortal, but what he feared might happen to you was so much worse. Death was the proof that one used to be alive, that they loved and were loved. 

But when some of them would get ahold of you—his father, or perhaps Feliks’ father—they would just unmake you. They would make it so that you had never existed. Nobody would remember you. All of the things you had ever touched would go untouched by you. Including him. His lips, unkissed. His cock would never have known the miracle between your legs. His heart, his mind, and even his soul would have no recollection of you, same as everyone else. 

They were greedy, self-important, arrogant gods. It would not matter to them that it was Feliks who had kissed their language into you without consulting you about it—it would not stop them from doing what they felt was necessary to do in order to remain that. Gods.

Because it was that for them—that rift separating them from the mortal, all the pieces of it that made it whole and solid—was what made them godly creatures. It wasn’t about who they were, what they were, and the vastness of their dominance. It was about who they were to mortals, what they were as opposed to mortals, and how they could use their sovereignty to establish themselves as supreme beings. 

And maybe it had been why he never fit in. Because Hyunjin had never cared much for it—for who he was to others, and whether he was worshiped or not. He’d much rather have a simpler life, where one has to earn love instead of claiming it by force or manipulating others into it.

Seungmin: I saw that. Congrats!

Hyunjin let his thumb hover on the screen as the next text he wanted to send appeared in his mind. It was the very same text he had wanted to send since day one, since the very moment he sat his ass down on that first flight that put distance between you and him. 

Maybe it had been foolish. To think that by making this sacrifice, he was saving you. That it would take the gods’ attention away from you a little—after all, it was him they were meant to observe while he served his sentence on the mortal plane, not you. Hyunjin knew his father, he knew the anger of others like him—they were probably furious that you had come to learn the secret language of the gods, but he knew that they were even more resentful that he, Hyathos, had fallen in love with a simple mortal and had decided to devote his life to her. 

Hyunjin typed the words just to see how it felt to do so. Does she ask about me sometimes? What a pathetic question. Counterproductive, too. Kyma had been generous—and brave—enough to provide you with indifference, but there was only so much she could have done from here after all, so it was Hyunjin who was cursed with the yearning for your love.

A blessing can sometimes come disguised as a curse.

There was no winning with that, no matter what Seungmin would tell him. If he said you never talked about him, it would crush him. If he said you asked for him or missed him, it would be even worse. That was also why he never let Seungmin tell him where your public appearances took you—otherwise, nothing would stop him from just getting on a plane and finding you. And kiss you again. And tell you how he felt. 

There was no point in sending that text to his former manager because Hyunjin had been very clear—if for any reason, at any moment, you asked about him, Seungmin and Jisung were to tell you that he had ghosted them, too, not even bothering with saying goodbye.

He drank the rest of the wine in his glass and instead of filling it again, Hyunjin started to drink directly from the bottle, then he erased the text and put his phone back. He had typed those words many times yet never sent them. 

Hyunjin jumped when a flash of light illuminated the world, followed by another. When he heard the rumble of thunder, he looked up out of habit, only to be faced with the sunset again. Although it was rapidly descending, it was still very much there in a clear, limpid sky. 

One glance behind him showed another story—over there, dark, thick clouds were rolling over the world, coming face to face with the last slither of light, blending with it in the sky like oil on a canvas. Lightning cracked once again as the scent of petrichor invaded the air. Hyunjin remained there, motionless, as the tourists on the promenade were becoming aware of the incoming weather, hurrying to take shelter. It was noisy, but then Hyunjin realized the racket didn’t only come from downstairs—it came from the skies, too.

And then it rained. It rained so hard that each drop felt like tiny shards cutting into his skin—if Hyunjin had been able to feel pain, he was certain that this would be enough to make him pass out. Instead, it just felt like a hundred little cuts. Still, he lingered on the balcony for a few moments, watching the sunset as it struggled to withstand the sudden storm. The world was becoming dark and cold. Somewhere on the promenade, a child was crying and calling for its mother, only the rain was so dense that he couldn’t even see where the screams came from. 

The clouds swallowed the sunset and Hyunjin retreated inside, closing the double doors behind him. Tomorrow, on the news, they would once again talk about the strangeness of the weather and the impact it had on the world. He envied them. The mortals. They thought it was climate change. They thought it was some meteorological once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. 

Well, it was a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon but it had nothing to do with climate change. 

Despite the closed doors and the rain falling hard outside, it seemed to him that he could still hear the child. Screams coated with cold-blooded terror, with sheer panic. The child begged for their mother over and over and Hyunjin heard it despite thunder and distance.

He grabbed a hoodie left on the back of a chair and quickly put it on, pulling it over his head before heading downstairs. Dismay was tangible in the hallways—people were afraid of the sudden rain. He ran into many of them, drenched, making their way back to their hotel room, just grateful to be somewhere dry.

Hyunjin was glad to have chosen the stairs instead of the elevator when the power went out in the building but even more so when did not come back on. No auxiliary power seemed to be functional either as the entire place turned dark. He used his phone to navigate his way outside, but by now, it was difficult because of the straight-up agitation that reigned in the hotel. He heard a scream downstairs, then someone asking others to keep calm. 

Hyunjin found the lobby crowded. By the mismatched arrangement of people here, he figured that some of them had probably been lounging on the beach when the rain hit and had simply run for shelter to the nearest door they could find. Others clung to their suitcase. The room was lit up by many other phones and a few small lanterns that people sometimes brought on camping trips. 

Outside, it looked like the end of the world.

It wasn’t raining. Oceans were falling from the sky, crashing down hard enough that it felt like an earthquake. Or maybe there was an earthquake. 

Hyunjin elbowed his way toward the door. Two security guards were standing by it, not guarding per se, but like everyone else, watching the peculiar scene outside. Water was rising in the streets—it wouldn’t take long before it reached the door and crept under. Some buildings farther down the promenade were already half-submerged. 

“You really should stay inside,” one of the two men told Hyunjin, barely glancing at him—just enough to notice that he had wrapped his fingers around the door handle. 

“There was a child in distress,” Hyunjin replied. 

“Authorities have been called,” the guy assured. “Was this your child, sir?” 

His child? No. He wondered sometimes if his divine seed could have taken within you. You were the first woman he had fucked without protection and he wasn’t entirely sure mortal birth control worked in this case. That would have been so much worse. Should he have put a baby inside you, his father’s retaliation would surely be the worst imaginable. Hyunjin could very well picture it and the way his father would tear the unborn child out of your womb and claim you for himself by putting one of his inside you. It was the way they did it. The gods. The cruel ones. 

He had been so careless. He had been negligent. Clearly, you weren’t pregnant so there was no point in ruminating and yet, he realized the magnitude of his mistake as he watched the torrents fall from the sky. He had been foolish and fearless when he should have been the opposite. He should have walked away the moment you made his heart flutter at the museum. He should have walked away the moment you made his cock hard just because of the words you were saying, or because of your perfume. He should have walked away the moment he realized he could not walk away because he did not possess the strength to deny himself this, to deny himself you.

He had been unreasonable, unwise, and imprudent. He had been a mortal.

He gulped, his throat dry. “I’m just gonna go see.” He did not wait—Hyunjin pulled the door open and walked outside. 

It was probably as close as it could get to drowning while standing with two feet on the ground. The storm went on, worsening the deluge, yet Hyunjin could still hear the panicked screams. Somewhere farther, much farther, were sirens and honks. But here, it was just him, standing in the middle of the street as he tried to locate the source of the cries. Whenever he thought he found it, thunder rumbled, or someone pounded on the window of the hotel, surely to incite him to come back. 

The water had risen above his ankles when he figured out where to go, weighing down his footsteps. The rain was cold and unforgivable, and for once, he felt like something was matching the desolation of his life since you were no longer in it. He felt like it was that, this torment of his, that was descending from the skies, permeating every molecule around, flooding the entire place. This is how he felt without you. Like he was drowning, except not. Like every footstep, every inhale of oxygen cost him part of his soul, and maybe it did.

Could one drown in emptiness the same way they could in water? 

The more he walked, the louder the cries became. He called out to see if he would be heard in return but got no response. His heart was pumping so hard in his chest that he felt something strange happening to his body, something that had never happened before. It felt a little like his brain was floating in jello, like his body was going limp despite his unwillingness. His balance was weird too, like he really had to focus just to stay on his feet. 

Was this what being dizzy felt like? He had heard so much about it during his time here but had never experienced it himself. He did not think he even could experience it. Maybe it was the wine—while alcohol didn’t affect him as much as it would a mortal, he wasn’t insensitive to it. But this… was a lot.

Hyunjin held onto a ramp by the side of the promenade as he fought his way through the wall of rain. Using his hearing to guide himself, he stopped again near a small shop that rented beach chairs and other similar items. The cries stopped then, but he had enough time to finally be sure that they came from the other side of the building.

He jumped over the fence, landing in water that now reached close to the middle of his shin. He did not know what he expected to find when he turned the corner of the shop, but it certainly wasn’t this.

A child stood there. A little boy, his posture stiff, his hands closed in fists. He did not move when Hyunjin appeared beside him, keeping his gaze fixated on the horizon, toward the place where the sunset had been before it got swallowed by a storm.

Hyunjin tried to speak but the words remained stuck somewhere in his throat. He reached for the boy, not really thinking, or perhaps thinking that he would at least take him back with him to the hotel, where they could try to find his parents after the rain was over.

When his fingers came in contact with the child’s shoulder, the boy turned to him, his head snapping at inhuman speed. Hyunjin had not been afraid very often in his life—certainly not among mortals—but he was now. The child’s face was distorted with emotions too deep for a boy this age—terror, agony, and dread decorated his traits, taking control over them, over him entirely. 

Hyunjin looked into the boy’s big, intricate eyes, and then his gaze lingered on his soft brown hair. Damp, it stuck to his honey skin. He had seen this face before. He could not shake off the feeling of familiarity he felt, no matter how scared of one another they were. He had seen this boy before.

He had been this boy before.

It became obvious then, that Hyunjin was staring at a version of himself when he was still young, even by god standards, when he was little and innocent. I must be dreaming, he told himself, unable to look away. Tears pricked at his eyes as terror invaded him too. 

How could this be possible? 

Then, the boy resumed his screaming, his face contorting even more as though he was in pain. He screamed and he cried and he begged for his mother, for their mother. Hyunjin wanted to tell him that no matter how loud he shouted, Agatheia would never hear him, not from here. 

Before he could even do anything, the boy ran away, but not for long—he ran toward the other side of the promenade, stopping at the fence, which was the only thing between him and a nasty fall into the sea. I won’t hurt you, Hyunjin wanted to say, but that would have been a lie. He had hurt himself plenty. 

The boy climbed on the fence—Hyunjin darted in his direction but it was too late. The child glanced behind his shoulder, looking straight into Hyunjin’s eyes, and he jumped. 

He looked down into the sea when he reached the place where the boy had been just two seconds ago but he couldn’t see anything, just waves. It was at this moment that the rain began to falter, too, the incessant sound of it becoming less and less deafening, the pressure of it less and less unpleasant.

He stood there for a long time, not moving, staring at the water. Neither jumping after the child nor walking away. The rain had completely come to a stop when Hyunjin finally looked away, finding the avenue crowded with emergency services. A firefighter was coming his way and even spoke to him but Hyunjin could not respond yet. In his head, the scene kept playing over and over—the child turned ugly by fear, the child screaming, the child running, the child jumping into the sea.

“Sir?” the man insisted, putting himself in front of Hyunjin. “Sir, are you hurt?”

Hurt? No, he could not be hurt. Not his body anyway. A curse, a blessing. All of his wounds were within him, bleeding, raw, sensitive, and you were the worst of them all. 

He shook his head, walking away. The firefighter followed him for a few meters before being called somewhere else, so Hyunjin went back to the hotel on his own. His shoes were filled with water, much like his clothes. He didn’t look at anyone when he reached the hotel lobby, and he climbed the five floors in the staircase because the power was still out. 

He was cold, or at least he thought he was. 

Once he reached his room again, he put his phone on the table and removed all of his clothes, and then Hyunjin lay down beneath all of the covers of his bed. It seemed like he had never been as tired as he was now. 

He fell asleep, only it felt a little too much like it.

Like he jumped over a fence and fell into a stormy sea.

Hyunjin was dreaming. 

And he knew that he was dreaming because he was back here in the meadow with the cypress tree. The sky was lilac, the air smelled like evergreen trees, like salt, and like gold. The soft grass caressed his bare ankles, and it was at that moment that he realized he was fully naked, much like the figure sitting underneath the tall tree. 

Feliks. 

He wanted to run yet he knew there was no need to hurry in this place, so he simply took one step, then another, crossing the space between the sun and him at a steady pace. The closer he got, the sweeter the air became as undertones of ripe peach and plums blended with it. 

Hyunjin could not take his eyes off him, off Feliks. He knew that it was a dream, but it felt so real. The warm glow of his light-colored hair, the shimmer of the constellations on his skin.

His smile. The smile that he had for him, back when he could still call this place home. Not that the land of gods had ever been that for him, a home, but this meadow had been the only thing that felt like it for him before you came into his life. 

“Hyathos.” Feliks’ voice filled him like sunlight melts ice on a winter morning. “I’ve missed you.”

He was there then, towering over his past lover, looking at him as though he could not believe what he saw. And yet he was there, undeniably. His smile, his delicate and beautiful body, his thighs, his cock. Soft, it rested lazily on Feliks’ flat stomach, as tantalizing as ever.

Feliks offered him a hand. When Hyunjin took it, he pulled him gently to the ground with him, and he let him. His knees sank into the soft grass, and then they sat close to one another, their bodies touching in more than one place. It started little fires all over Hyunjin, its flames coursing through his veins, settling at the back of his neck, somewhere within his ribcage, and between his legs. 

“I miss you,” Feliks repeated, and the slight alteration in his sentence made Hyunjin want to cry. 

“I miss you too.” And he did. He missed him and how easy and forbidden their love had been. He missed his lips and his laugh and his hands all over him. He missed the man he had been when they were together—hopeful, self-assured, courageous. Yet, he resented the god he was facing now. “Why did you do this, Feliks?”

He knew he didn’t have to explain any further—they never needed a lot of words to understand each other. Besides, Hyunjin imagined he could read it in his eyes. 

Feliks bit into his lip, his glimmering eyes filling with tears. “I thought it would help if you could read the stories again, the real ones, not those the mortals tell each other. I thought... since you could no longer understand our language, that I could give it to someone close to you. Someone who wasn’t selfish, who would share it with you willingly.” 

Hyunjin found nothing to respond to that, but he had to admit he had been waiting eagerly for your published translations of the ancient texts so that he could remember them, really remember them, once more.

“I didn’t think enough,” he went on. “I should have known this would anger them.”

Them. Hyunjin’s father, Feliks’ father, the others. “Do they know it’s you who did it?” he asked, his voice low and strangled. He had lost you already and he wasn’t sure he could lose Feliks also.

The god of light nodded slowly. “That is why I called you here, Hyathos. I wanted to see you one last time before…”

“No.” Hyunjin felt something tickle his throat. 

Feliks sighed. “They’ll probably send me to my aunt Ismene and she will be the one to judge me for my actions, which I know are highly punishable.” He reached for Hyunjin’s face, cupping his cheek in his warm hand. He had forgotten that feeling—the feeling of light itself spreading on his skin like kisses, like honey on warm bread. “My betrayal runs deep, I don’t expect exile would be quite enough to pay for my mistakes.”

“Don’t say that.” He hadn’t noticed before, but there was a small basket with peaches on the other side of Feliks, their skin soft and brightly colored. He recognized them. His peaches, the ones he used to grow in his orchard. The ones he used to bring here to share with Feliks. How did he get ahold of these? “It can’t be the end. They can’t unmake you, you’re… Feliks.” 

“There are other suns. I am just one of many. I am replaceable.” Feliks let go of him to grab two peaches, handing him one. 

Hyunjin understood that feeling—he had been that, once. Replaceable. One of many. He had been that to Feliks, and it had broken his soul. Or so he thought. Sometimes he wondered if he had truly loved Feliks but then regretted having those thoughts—of course he had loved him. Part of him still did love him and always would. It just had not been truelove. The kind of love that binds souls no matter what. The kind of love one doesn’t have to beg or wait for. 

Still. A world without Feliks was not a world that Hyunjin could imagine. When he tried to think about it, his brain only sent him white noise. 

He did not taste the peach, but he watched as his former lover bit into his, as the sweet juices ran down his chin. Feliks wiped them with the back of his hand. 

“Am I dreaming?” Hyunjin asked.

Feliks nodded. “Yes. It’s the only way I can reach you. It’s the only way I could reach her.”

He gulped as a strange sensation spilled into his chest—not quite anger, something milder than that. Irritation. Displeasure. “It’s the only way you could reach that painter too,” he pointed out, doing his best not to scowl. 

“I wanted you to get the message somehow, and back then, even bringing you here in your sleep would have been dangerous,” Feliks retorted before taking another bite of his peach, slurping as flesh and juice filled his beautiful mouth. 

The message. Yes, Hyunjin had read it in Caverley’s painting. It was not a message meant for mortal minds or words. It was a message of love. It was an apology. It said something along the lines of, I’m sorry I could not love you enough. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to love you enough. I miss you, but I can’t have you.

Hyunjin tilted his head. “It killed the man who painted it.” 

Feliks averted his gaze, letting go of his half-eaten peach. “I wanted you to—”

“You wanted me to understand, I know,” Hyunjin cut him off. It was always that with Feliks—he was so scared of being forgotten and misunderstood that he did not hesitate to use drastic measures to prevent it. Like fucking an apology into a clueless human, or kissing a dead language into the mortal Hyunjin had fallen in love with. 

They had been lovers for quite a while, but it had not been enough time for Hyunjin to make Feliks see that he loved the sun even after the night fell. 

“Feliks, have you ever loved me? Truly?” Sometimes, ignorance was worse than a dreaded truth.

“Is that what you think? That I never loved you?” Feliks’ eyes filled with tears. “Of course I did love you. I still do. Our loves are just not in the same language.” 

Hyunjin disagreed—the language was the same, it was the tenses that varied. Feliks only ever spoke to him in the present tense while he had seen his future in him. He had been a little foolish, perhaps, but he had truly believed thattheir love could unite their families. That, with time, his father would see that the gods from the realm of Light were not enemies, not rivals, but could be powerful allies instead. In return, he had been certain that Feliks could have convinced his parents that the people from the realm of Blood could be more than simple-minded warriors. The land of the gods had never known peace, and he had wanted to change that. He loved him enough for that, Feliks, that it could have changed the world. 

“It couldn’t have worked,” Feliks continued, his voice lower. “There are too many things between us.” 

He was right. Except that Hyunjin had wanted to try anyway. He would have tried, he would have. 

But when he went to respond, Feliks stopped him, raising his hand, listening. “Someone’s here,” he whispered. He turned toward the tree line at the other side of the meadow and spoke to it. “Come, dear. I’m sure he’ll want to see you.” 

Hyunjin turned his head just in time to see a person step onto the tall grass and approach the cypress tree with slow but purposeful movements. 

You. 

He stood, his heart stopping as you made your way toward him, more beautiful than any god or goddess he had ever seen.

“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” Hyunjin asked no one in particular, but it was Feliks who gave him a response.

“Yes.” He stood, too, and embraced him from behind. It felt a little like Hyunjin was propelled two hundred feet farther. Feliks’ body was warm, comforting. Familiar. Like many times before, Feliks kissed his neck, pressing his full lips on his skin there. “There’s a reason why she’s here, but she is just a dream. It would be too risky to bring her whole here again. You want to keep her safe, right?”

Hyunjin gulped, hating the sudden weight tugging at him in his lower stomach, or perhaps hating that he relished it. “Yes. More than anything.”

You came to a stop before him, looking at him with big, sad eyes, your lips trembling. Your hair was longer than it had been the last time he saw you. He was stunned at the unexpected sight of you. He hadn’t thought about the moment he would see you again because he had just assumed there would be no such moment. 

“But she looks real,” he insisted, his body going limp. 

Feliks held him tighter, leaving little kisses on his upper back, his bare shoulder, wrapping an arm around his chest to pull him closer. 

“She looks real because you want her to look real, Hyathos.” Feliks offered you his other hand. “Come see me.” 

So you did—you obeyed, walking past him to join Feliks but never letting Hyunjin leave your sight. He couldn’t hold it against you—nobody could ignore it when the light itself summoned them. It used to be all he had. Those moments when Feliks called on him and they would come here in this secret place to talk and to fuck. It used to make him feel so big, so important, to be loved by someone as bright and warm as Feliks. It used to drive him crazy when Feliks would get hard under his touch, or when Feliks begged to suck his cock. Then Hyunjin would watch as his length disappeared between his lover’s pretty lips, and everything felt right. 

He used to believe it when Feliks said I love you. And he did. Love him. This, Hyunjin and Hyathos alike knew. But Feliks wanted to be loved by all—he felt inadequate and small and lacking when he did not feel the love of many.Hyunjin, on the other hand, felt inadequate and small and empty when he did not feel the love of Feliks. He never sought more than that—he never needed more than that. Feliks, perhaps, had a bigger heart than he did, and it just required more to replenish it. 

Feliks let go of him to take both your hands, pulling you closer to him. He left a chaste kiss on your cheek. “You should taste a peach, they’re delicious,” he advised you, and you complied. When you were at a reasonable distance, Feliks approached him again. “It’s time to say goodbye, Hyathos. I don’t think I’ll ever see this place, or you again.” 

No. It did not matter that he had not been enough for Feliks, he couldn’t imagine his life without him. Hyunjin had learned that—that love was rarely fair. But that did not bother him.

“They’ll come get me and you have to be gone before they do. They can’t see you. It’s too dangerous,” Feliks insisted. He pressed his small hand on Hyunjin’s cheek, pulling him into a kiss. Lips on lips. And then the lips parted, deepening the kiss. 

It felt good. Like returning to a favorite travel destination knowing that it would never be your home but enjoying being there nonetheless. It felt good like a ray of light appearing from behind clouds after a storm. It felt good like a blade through the heart.

Hyunjin pulled away, realizing that kissing Feliks felt exactly like it always had, only he no longer wished to do it. It hurt him. It hurt him to become aware of it, and yet relief overtook him. 

Feliks had a faint smile. “Go now, take her with you. They’ll be here any minute.”

He wasn’t quite ready to let go yet. “You have to fight. You have to lie, to tell them… it wasn’t you. You have to—”

Feliks shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I tell them. Aunt Ismene will see everything.” 

Hyunjin wondered what she would see. He wondered if, perhaps, Feliks had wanted to give mortals the language of the gods so that they found new ways to love him. That was something that he did, sometimes—giving up entire parts of himself seeking validation, admiration, and affection. As though he was blind to himself, to how bright and regarded he was. Nothing would ever be enough for him. Nothing. And for that, Hyunjin pitied him. 

He could hear them now—footsteps coming from the forest, and voices, too. As though whoever was coming to get Feliks had no fear of being heard. “Feliks…” 

“Whatever happens, we’ll never be fully apart,” Feliks said, letting go of him, even nudging him away. “Please. You have to leave.” 

But Hyunjin’s feet were anchored to the ground. He wanted to weep and scream. He looked away, past the forest, toward the mountains separating the realm of Light and the realm of Blood. On the other side of them was his mother. She was probably sitting in her garden, hoping for the safe return of her only remaining son. He wanted to stay here and go see her. He wanted to stay here and eat peaches with you and Feliks. He wanted you to get to know him. Feliks. You’d like him, he was sure of that.

“Now!” Feliks insisted through his teeth, and when Hyunjin still didn’t move, he turned to you. “Get him out of here, please. Please, both of you have to go.”

The peach that you were holding fell to the ground when you let go of it, immediately taking action. You made your way to him, taking his face in your hands. “Hyunjin, come with me.”

You were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. 

“Follow me. We’re leaving.” And he did follow you, but not without a last glance at Feliks from over his shoulder. He could see it now—Feliks had summoned you here because he knew you were the only thing Hyunjin would choose over him. “Faster. Faster!” 

You were running then and so was he—both of you bolted, sprinting to reach the safety of the trees surrounding the meadow before it was too late. Feliks still stood underneath the cypress tree, looking at the both of you even though he could not see. 

Six figures appeared, but before he could make out who they were exactly, you forced him to look away, holding his head in your trembling hands. “Wake up now,” you whispered. “I miss you. I miss you. Please come find me.” 

You were a dream. You weren’t really asking him this. It could not be real.

Behind him, noises of a fight echoed.

“Wake up,” you said again. But all he wanted to do was go kill the men who were taking Feliks away and then fuck you hard. He missed you in a way he did not know something could be missed—like he had put a part of himself in your heart and existed without it since. 

He kissed you, tears running down his cheeks. Feliks screamed, and Hyunjin woke up.

The hotel room was dark, the air humid and cold. Hyunjin stayed motionless in his bed, his heartbeat the only thing he could hear, holding onto the last thing he had felt from his dream, which was your lips. He was rock hard underneath the sheets, sensitive, leaking as though he had been aroused for hours. 

He closed his eyes again, chasing the dream, trying to make sense of it. It was night outside and it was night inside andit was night inside of him too. He didn’t know if any of it was true. Feliks. He didn’t know if they had taken him away or if it was just his mind telling him that he, Hyunjin, was ready to let him go.

Maybe it was both.

He remembered you, too, your body, the feeling of it against his. Your skin, your lips. Your scent. You. He rolled on his stomach to rub himself on the mattress, an unbearable pressure building between his legs, an ache spreading all over his cock and his balls and his chest. 

He loved you. He did. He loved you in the way a mortal could love, which was to say, like he was running out of time. He needed more of it, more time, to kiss you, to love you, to make you breakfast. To eat your pussy. To bake a peach crumble with you. To make love to you, to visit hundreds of museums all over the world with you. 

He was running out of time. He had been wrong. He had been wrong to leave. How could he keep you safe if you were on the other side of the world? 

Hyunjin came then, the thought of seeing you again more than enough to tip him over the edge as he humped the mattress desperately, longing for you, yearning for you. He came whispering your name like a madman, spilling himself all over the satin sheets. His high lasted him for an unusually long time during which he could not stop seeking friction and imagining it was you he was fucking, remembering your pussy, remembering you. 

When he had fully emptied himself, he collapsed on the other half of the bed, his stomach covered in cum, his body covered in sweat, the fancy sheets stained in a way that ought to make him ashamed except he was not. The rain had stopped outside. He stared at the darkness around him, panting softly. Maybe the sun would never rise again, but that would not stop him. 

He could see it now—he was meant to be with you. At all costs. He would give his immortal life if it meant it would keep the selfish gods away from you. 

Night fell early these days, and the air smelled crisp—the fall winds were merciless outside of the car. You wrapped your woolen cardigan tighter around you, your gaze fixated on the road ahead. Music was playing at low volume on the car’s satellite radio—just some late-night chill beats to fill the silence that reigned inside the car. 

Jisung sat behind the wheel, driving carefully—neither too fast nor too slow—with his fingers tapping on the wheel to the rhythm of the music. 

Jisung sat behind the wheel, driving carefully—neither too fast nor too slow—with his fingers tapping on the wheel to the rhythm of the music. 

He cleared his throat. “Feels kinda weird to be back home, doesn’t it?” As though to support his statement, he motioned vaguely at the scenery around you, which was the highway between the airport and the downtown area. “It’s been a while.”

You nodded distractedly. “Yeah, been a while.” 

But even as you came upon familiar buildings and as you entered and drove deeper into the city, none of it felt like home. It felt no different than being on this stupid press tour. You wondered if perhaps it might feel strange because it was nighttime and that everything would be alright tomorrow morning, yet you knew you were only telling yourself lies. 

Maybe out of habit, Jisung slowed down the car as you drove past the museum. Your museum. You had visited so many of them to give press conferences that you had almost forgotten how much you liked this one. Maybe it was just because you were used to it. Maybe it was just because once, Hyunjin had kissed you within these walls. 

You almost told Jisung to stop here, that you’d go get something from your office just so you could see this familiar place again but changed your mind at the last minute. Still, you watched the museum from the side mirror after you went past it, not letting it leave your sight until the car took a right turn. 

When you turned your head at the front again, you noticed that Jisung had been watching you from the corner of his eyes, but pretending he wasn’t at all. 

Again, he cleared his throat. “Maybe—I mean, look, do you maybe wanna spend the night at mine?” He spoke a little too fast for it to sound natural. “I mean, not like, spend the night, I mean, just sleep there. I’ll take the couch. Then I’ll go help you unpack your things at yours tomorrow.”

You took a deep breath. Could he really sense that you weren’t exactly sure how you’d react to being back there again? At your apartment? It had been months, after all. You feared, almost, that Hyunjin’s scent would linger in places, like your couch or perhaps even your bedroom. And you didn’t know how that would make you feel. 

The same question that had been haunting you since the night of the accident returned to your mind, like pieces from a shipwreck lost at sea resurfacing after a violent storm. 

Why did he leave? If what Jisung said was true—if Hyunjin did love you, or even something close to that, why didn’t he stay?

For your safety had been Jisung’s only and relentless response whenever you questioned him, but that was a pile of horseshit. You couldn’t even blame Jisung for it—you knew he had been fed that aforementioned horseshit by Hyunjin himself and was only repeating his words.

“I’d rather go home,” you replied, but your voice sounded strangely foreign. You knew he offered because he cared and because he seemed to genuinely believe you were in some kind of danger. You, on the other hand, didn’t. Or maybe you didn’t care. “I’m not really tired so I’ll be up all night anyway. I’ll just work.”

Jisung let out a non-committal hum while he was trying to form a response. “It’s all you’ve been doing though. Working.” Still, he negotiated a turn, heading toward your neighborhood. 

“It’s all I have.” And it was just true, yet you knew it was a bit dark and that he would worry. He always worried, it seemed. “To do,” you added quickly. “It’s all I have to do.”

He saw right through you yet Jisung pretended he didn’t. “Will you go back to work at the museum? Like, after the books are out?”

You shrugged, feeling a strange weight pressing on your chest as you approached your building. “I mean, yes, I figure.” Technically, you were still employed there, and the entirety of your work on Cipherian and the myths was sponsored by the museum. You wondered how strange it would be, though. To walk on those floors again. To remember the woman you had been before.

That woman, you figured, was dead. She had been changed forever, altered to the point that she no longer existed. You would never be her again. You had been stained by something you couldn’t describe with words. 

Jisung did help you get your suitcase up to your door and stayed by your side while you were looking for your keys—you hadn’t used them in so long, after all. He asked if he could look around before you got inside, and you granted him that—after that, you knew he would be at peace and he would leave you alone. And it wasn’t even that you minded his company. If anything, you had come to enjoy it quite a lot. You just needed to be alone for a few hours, as though it would allow you to mourn something. 

“Looks fine to me,” Jisung told you. He hugged you, keeping you in his embrace a little longer than he needed to. “Call me if you need anything.”

“I will. Thanks, Ji.” 

He smiled but there was no joy on his face, only remorse. 

It felt strange to close the door behind him. You listened to the sounds outside—his footsteps in the stairway, the cars passing in the street. His rental starting and driving away. Then you focused on the noises coming from inside—the steady buzz of your fridge, your upstairs neighbor walking from his bathroom to his bedroom. Your breathing, deep, slow. Different. The same.

Sometimes, you only notice that things changed after you brought them back to the place they were before. 

You showered. It was still the same body wash as it had been before you left and it reminded you of Hyunjin. Of showering with him, here. His body against yours. His big hands lathering your skin, his lips on your cheek, your jaw, your shoulder. Other places. It felt strangely empty without him.

Everything was empty. Your fridge, your cupboards. You still had some gyokuro green tea though, so you put some water to boil and made yourself a cup, but without anyone to share it with, that felt rather hollow, too.

Just sitting on the edge of your bed while changing into your clothes was too much. Nothing felt right. Someone else ought to be there. For an instant, you considered calling Jisung and telling him you had changed your mind, that he should come spend the night, and then you realized there was no point to it—it just wouldn’t do. Even if he slept with you in your bed. Even if he fucked you in it all night. 

You found your laptop in your luggage and went to sit in a corner of your living room, which was also barren and cold. But you sat by a window and drank your tea while the night deepened outside—there were fewer cars on the road, lesspedestrians too. You cracked open the window and started by checking your personal email. You composed a simple email to your mother to let her know you were back in your apartment, figuring it ought to suffice for now. She had been asking you to come visit but you kept telling her you were too busy. It wasn’t even a lie, but you just didn't want her to realize that the woman who had once been her daughter was gone forever.

In your work email, however, one message in particular caught your attention because it came from the most prestigious university in the country. It wasn’t that you never received correspondence from people attending art history classes there—you had worked with quite a few PhD students these past few years, and even some professors who wanted to consult you for their courses. 

But this email wasn’t from someone at the university. It was from the university. It was a rather short email, yet a deeply significant one. You read it once, and then another time, but it took two more read throughs for the words to be processed by your mind. 

Your phone rang then, and you wouldn’t have taken the call if you didn’t know exactly why Seungmin was calling you. 

“Did you see the email?” you asked, but you knew he had because he had access to your work email and he was always on his phone.

“I did.” You could tell Seungmin was in a car. “So, you’re going to accept it, right?” 

The Alden Breay Award, presented to scholars whose research distinguished itself by its contribution to the world. It wasn’t unlike a small-scale Nobel prize. Only one of them was awarded each year to researchers from all across the globe, all fields included. It was a highly sought-after honor that generally immortalized the researcher’s work.

Your selection had apparently been voted by a vast committee of experts in philology, palaeography, ancient history, linguistics, archeology, art history, philosophy and semiotics. There was, apparently, no doubt that you ought to be this year’s recipient of the award for your work on Cipherian and the ancient myths. According to the selection committee, your discoveries had propelled the world of history several decades into the future, making the impossible possible.

You gulped, but a knot remained in your throat.

“I don’t think I really deserve it,” you murmured, closing the lid of your laptop as though it would make the award disappear forever. The living room was dark without it. “I didn’t really research anything. It just happened.”

“You made the discovery regardless,” Seungmin insisted. Before you could add anything, he went on. “Of course they gave it to you. You’re all over the news already. Everyone says it’s the discovery of the century. They had to give it to you. I think you'll also get a Pulitzer, but you didn't hear it from me. It’ll be good exposure. Good money, too.”

You didn’t care about money. You already made more of it than you needed. 

Your silence lingered, during which you heard Seungmin pay the driver of his cab and come out of the car. You stared outside, looking at this place that didn’t feel like home, wishing that it did. 

“Okay.” You tasted the word in your mouth, finding it had no flavor. “I’ll do it.” You may not be of much importance, but whatever exposure this would get you, the museum would get as well. “The email said we could choose the location for the event, right?” 

“Yes!” Seungmin sounded happy about it. It painted a faint smile on your lips—at least one of you was excited. “Do you have a preference? There are some very good venues—” 

“The museum.” You thought about Mrs. Yoo, about Minji, about everyone who had worked so hard on the Deities exhibition. They should be the ones who reaped the honors of it all. Not you. The least you could do was to bring the party to them. 

Oh, you had spent many late nights at the museum, same as anyone else, trying to make everything work, organizing shipments of valuable artifacts, trying to convince other museums to let you borrow something of theirs for a while. But none of this was of any importance because a language had appeared in your brain, and now that language was your prison. Now, that dead language was the only thing about you that mattered. 

“The museum’s a great idea,” Seungmin retorted and you could hear him typing frantically on the phone. He must have put you on speaker and was already drafting an acceptance letter for the award, no doubt. “It’s so late, why don’t you try getting some sleep? We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Well. Later.”

It was already two in the morning. You cleared your throat, taking a deep breath to keep your voice as steady as you could make it. “Yeah, okay.” It was best not to argue with him. 

“I forgot to tell you—congrats, really,” Seungmin said and you could even hear the smile in his voice, which somehow made you feel even worse.

There was nothing to congratulate you for. You had done nothing. Yet all these people wanted to speak with you and give you awards and call you grand things but you knew it had nothing to do with you. None of these people knew you. You had not let them know you, nor would you ever. 

You had let someone in once and it cost too high a price.

None of this was about you personally. Whatever had happened, you were simply the voice for a language that had been extinct for millennia. After you were done translating all the available texts, after you had written down every ounce of knowledge you possessed on Cipherian, your purpose would be fulfilled, and the world would no longer have a use for you.

It was, after all, what you had always been. A temporary burst of light in the night sky of people’s existence.

A shooting star.

It took you a long time to fall asleep—by the time you drifted off, the sky was beginning to turn pale. You dreamt. You dreamt that you ran, holding someone’s hand, dragging them with you. You ran away from something terrible but you did not know what. You ran toward the unknown but it did not matter and you were not afraid. There was a hand in yours, familiar and warm and the feeling of it was intimate. You never looked behind you to see who it was—there was no time for this, there was only time for running. 

When you woke up hours later, you were out of breath as though your dream had been real. 

You noticed it as soon as you opened your eyes—in the sky, a sun had risen, but it did not look the same as it did yesterday. 

.. to be continued.

author's note: Hello everyone! How are you guys doing? I hope you all have been well & that you are having a good summer. I wanted to say a huge thank you for all the love that you give me. It's such a wonderful thing and yet I cannot help but feel like I don't deserve it. I will always work hard so I do deserve it one day 🤍 I appreciate every ask sent, every reblog, everything. I am the luckiest author on here and maybe in the world, and I owe it all to you guys. So, thank you.

I would like to extend a special thank you to @cb97percent who helped me with this chapter when I struggled a lot with it. Thank you, love.

Also, a special thank you to @hyunskizz whose love for Hyathos has kept this story alive. Thank you my lil apple. May he always bring you comfort and delicious fruit.

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