Beach Boy / Wildfire

beach boy / wildfire

part five of playing with fire | pt. one | pt. two | pt. three | pt. four | { masterlist }

—hyunjin x reader (f) this chapter is centered around the chan x reader (f) dynamic —word count: 24.k (ao3) i am so, so sorry —genre: non-idol au, organized crime au, romance, explicit smut with plot (minors dni), dj!chan au —warnings: multiple povs. two original characters are part of the story. established backstory elements. strong elements of arranged marriage & marriage of convenience. post-relationship depression. drug abuse. alcohol abuse. casual drinking & drug use. mentions of murder/graphic acts of violence. hurt/comfort. angst. smut. explicit sexual content (mentions of cum eating. consensual but unprotected & unsafe sex. rebound sex. use of the pet name 'baby girl' & the name 'slut' during sex. semi-public sex. light vaginal fingering & hand fucking (m&f). oral sex (f receiving). breath play/choking (f receiving). creampie)

"Because Hwang is a fool," Chan insists, resting the bottle of whiskey on his desk again. "He could have chosen you, but he didn't. And now you're here. And we're having this conversation. Right now. You and I."

♡ taglist: @cixhoneyhuns @koorumis @neosracha / a special tag & thank you to @svintsandghosts & @cb97percent for providing musical inspiration!

Today is the day.

You open your eyes after, according to your phone, a mere two hours and a half of sleep and push the blankets off your body. The cool air from your room makes you want to pull them back onto you, roll into a ball and go back to sleep.

But you can’t do that. 

You’ve been doing that for weeks. You’ve been skipping meals, sleep, family time… You’ve dropped out of college, which in itself has been devastating, and has earned you a lifetime’s worth of criticism from your parents. 

That criticism you know is valid and deserved, but also, is simply icing on the cake.  They just don’t understand. They can’t understand. 

Nothing is the same. Nothing is alright. Even when you did make it to your classes—which rarely happened unless Jisung physically dragged you there—you simply couldn’t focus on anything. Going to college only managed to bury you deeper into this pit of despair, adding ‘school’ to the list of things you had failed at in life. In the end, it was Jisung who had stopped dragging you to class, claiming it made you miserable. Hell, he was right. So, out of the dorms you had moved, and back into mom and dad’s house it was. 

You make yourself get out of bed, which is painful in too many ways to list all of them, and head towards your bathroom. There is condensation on the windows from the cold weather outside. With a quick glance, you notice that you had forgotten to take your plants back inside this fall, and now they have a light layer of ice on them.

It’s beautiful. The deep green, muted by the milky white film on them. It’s enchanting, it looks like it could be a painting. For a moment, this ice is making the plants look so different from what they usually look like, but you know it will not last long, as it is certain that your plants will die from the cold. This doesn’t bother much the person you are these days, however. They’re just plants. It’s just ice. 

The girl you’ve become doesn’t care about much anymore.

But you make your way to the bathroom attached to your bedroom. The mirror shows you a reflection of a sad, sad girl. A pathetic girl. Sickly pale skin, circles under the eyes, dull, flat hair… You used to be pretty. Or at least, you used to look like something other than this. You’ve lost some weight but it doesn’t suit you—you no longer look like a healthy, young woman. You don’t know what you look like exactly, but the only thing that comes to your mind is the light layer of ice on your plants, and how it lessened the greens of their leaves. 

But today is going to be the day.

You shower, appreciating the wonderful water pressure and temperature from your parents' house. You use your favorite body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. After that, you move on to the skincare which you’ve been neglecting lately, making sure to use all of your more luxurious items for that, too.

After you’ve applied your cotton sheet mask and secured it onto your face, you return to your room and enter your large closet. However, you ignore your own clothes to look at one of the other shelves instead. The one where you’ve been keeping all of the things you very well intend on getting rid of today.

Because today has to be the day you move on from Hyunjin.

That thought hurts you and, for one second, you hesitate. For weeks, months, you’ve been keeping these items—borrowed shirts or hoodies, gifts from him, things that remind you of him—but for what? 

Because you were hoping things wouldn’t remain like that. You were hoping you would get back with Hyunjin, somehow.  But hope, in this context, is meaningless. As in, one can hope to win the lottery. One can hope to be cured of a rare illness overnight. One can hope to survive a bullet to the head. One can hope their plants will not freeze and die outside in the winter. 

At first, for a while, you had been hoping to get back with him. Somehow. So even if Hyunjin’s soon-to-take-place wedding was to be called off, it would be a total lack of self-respect to go back to him, right? Right.

You don’t have to mean it, you tell yourself, grabbing a large garbage bag acquired last night and stuffing it with Hyunjin’s gifts and belongings. You just have to keep telling yourself it and someday you’ll actually believe it and you’ll mean it. The whole bagging operation takes less than five minutes, yet it still feels like a marathon. 

You drag the bag back to your bedroom and do one last check-up around the room to make sure you haven’t missed anything. Sure enough, you forgot a necklace he gave you about a week before the breakup. A simple but beautiful piece of jewelry—a delicate gold chain with an elegant pink diamond pendant. 

Into the bag it goes.

A knock on your door throws you off—as if you weren’t expecting someone to disturb this profoundly meaningful moment in your life. You secure the towel that you wrapped around your body after your shower. “Who is it?” you ask, still holding the bag.

“Just me.” Jisung—of course. Who else? 

You let go of the bag to unlock the door and let your friend get in. 

He lives here now, permanently, not in one of the buildings around the property. He has a room in the basement, with other people from the staff that’s closest to your father. It had been your dad’s own decision to set up a room for Jisung after the attack on him and the whole family. Both you and your friend are thankful for this arrangement. 

For some reason, you feel less lonely knowing that you can be hanging out with him literally whenever. That you can simply go down a couple of flights of stairs and have a pair of welcoming arms to hug you and play vengeful breakup songs. That you can just text him and he will come right up with a comedy movie to watch with you. And, he does enjoy living in your parents’ luxurious home. 

Jisung walks past you the same way he would have if you had been wearing jeans and a shirt—proximity and familiarity will do that to people. You both often joked about how laidback your relationship was. About that, Jisung usually says that when he was hired by your mother, your dad made threats so terrifying about catching feelings for you or acting inappropriately around you in any way that it must have brainwashed him, somehow. 

In any case, he doesn’t care about your current absence of clothing, nor does it offend him that a sheet mask is currently on your face. And you don’t care either. In fact, if he hadn’t obviously showered just recently and weren’t fully dressed, you would offer him a face mask, too. Another one of the perks he seems to enjoy at your parents’ house is the abundance of skincare products. 

He sits on the edge of your unmade bed and looks at the bag you left in the middle of the room with a serious expression on his face.

“So it’s done?” he asks, an eyebrow raised. “Really? Show me.”

You click your tongue and roll your eyes but you oblige him, opening the bag to let him have a peek. Jisung grabs the bag and rummages through it as if to make sure that you did well. As if he was going to grade your work afterward.

“It’s all there,” you assure him with a nod. “Just like we said.”

“Then I’ll be taking this.” Jisung does a quick job of tying the bag closed and gets up to lift it off the floor. As it was filled with mostly clothes or small objects, it’s quite light. “I’ll be taking care of this. Get dressed, breakfast is served and your mother insists that you eat some of it.” 

You watch your bodyguard, your friend, walk away with your heartbreak in a trash bag. 

Last night had been the last string for Jisung—he found you in the yard, out in the cold, on your way to getting yourself blackout drunk while crying your eyes out near the water fountain.

He let you cry for a while until he decided it was too cold outside and brought you to your room where he let you cry some more. Then he gave you a long pep talk. In the end, you both agreed that you had to get rid of the objects you were only keeping in case Hyunjin would ever change his mind. Because these things were preventing you from moving on, moving forward. 

Jisung is supposed to have them all burned, all the contents in the bag. He said so, and you believed him. It feels powerful to think that your love will literally go out in flames. 

You want to cry again this morning watching Jisung take away all these things that used to mean the world to you, only you have no tears left. Your soul is weary—if you still have one at all.

But today is the day you’re getting over Hyunjin. You just have to keep telling yourself that. Doesn’t matter if it’s not true. If you keep saying it, you’ll manifest it into existence somehow. That’s what Jisung said last night. He said so, and you believed him. 

So you get dressed—sweatpants and a comfortable shirt—and head towards the kitchen area. There’s a slight commotion in here, but you can’t find the exact source of it. Jisung is in the frame of the door between the kitchen and dining room, watching the scene.

Your father is sitting at the table, casually reading the news on his iPad. Your mother seems to be walking from the dining room to the living room to somewhere in the hallway, before returning to the kitchen. By the looks of it, she’s been at it for a while and, for some obscure reason, she’s carrying clothes with her, as well as other random items.

“Oh, there you are.” Your mother stops in her tracks and turns to you. “Have you seen my red swimsuit? The one with the straps at the back?”

You frown. Both your mother’s and Jisung’s gazes are turned to you. “No, haven’t seen it.” The frown deepens as your exhausted-hungover self slowly processes the question your mom asked. Your mind wanders back to the plants that you forgot on the patio, and how they are frozen. “A swimsuit? In February? We don’t have an indoor pool and you hate pools anyway?”

Your mother sighs, but she doesn’t seem too annoyed at you. She just leaves the pile of clothes she’s holding on the dining room table and enters the kitchen, so you follow her. With a silent nod, you tell Jisung to go eat his food. After literally taking a bullet for you, he has been granted permission to eat breakfast with you and your parents in the dining room and is often invited to join the family and closest associates for dinner, too. This is another thing that Jisung enjoys quite a lot in his new life as a resident of this estate—the homemade, chef-prepared food. 

However, he and you often have dinner with the staff downstairs, and it’s just as lovely, simply in a different way. 

The kitchen is empty except for Bo-reum, the professional chef hired by your family. She’s just finished gathering her things and bows to you and your mother, before leaving the room—not without insisting that you eat her delicious food for once, or else she will start taking it personally. 

“Your father and I are going on a trip,” your mother tells you, putting random items of food, still displayed on the counter, into a plate she grabbed for you. “By the way, this is your breakfast and you’re going to eat all of it. You’re too pale. You look like you’re sick.”

“A trip? Oh, no, wait, mom… no dakjuk please… I just don’t feel like having this right now…”

“A business trip,” your father corrects from the dining room. “And if your mother gives you dakjuk, you eat it.”

“It’s good for you,” Jisung adds, but you don’t know if he does it to lick your father’s boots some more or just to spite you. In any case, that will earn him one of your famous flicks on the forehead later, for good measure. He keeps earning himself these, for fuck’s sake…

You sigh. Since you’ve dropped out of school, your parents have been acting as if you’re fifteen all over again. As if you needed this… You understand their frustration because, sure, yes, you were so close to graduating… but it’s annoying and doesn’t help with the state of your mental health. At all. 

However, you’re quite excited at the idea of having the house all for yourself while they’re gone, so you decide to be nice.

“A business trip,” your mom echoes. She slides the meal in front of you as you sit at the kitchen island in the middle of the room. “Eat. We’ll be gone for about two weeks, give or take… right, honey?”

Another thing changed after your parents had been attacked in public—they seem to hate each other a lot less.

“Depends on how it goes,” your father explains, entering the kitchen. He’s bringing his empty plate with him and takes a few seconds to rinse it in the sink. “I hope it won’t take too long to convince this guy to accept the job, but… you never know.”

Ah, yes. Your father wanted to have new warehouses built on the land he just purchased. The land that was in the middle of the big conflict… The land that Kangjeon Sunghood had wanted for himself. 

Of course, your father didn’t want just anybody to build these warehouses for him. It had to be someone as crooked but as reliable as him, or else he couldn’t trust them. He had a few contacts in the construction industry all around the world, so you’re not surprised by this sudden announcement of a trip.

“Okay,” you choose to say with a shrug. At that moment, your father gets a phone call and you hear him pick up the phone before he locks himself in his office, effectively muffling the sound of his voice.

Your mother and you remain silent while you do your best chewing the food she gave you. Jisung went back downstairs, probably content to know you’re eating breakfast. You’ll join him after, and maybe indulge him in a walk outside or something. He’s been nice to you lately. He always is, but you appreciate his friendship even more. 

“Alright,” your mother says, taking the seat directly next to yours. She takes your chopsticks right out of your hand and sets them on your half-empty plate. “It’s just us, now. So, you tell me what the hell is going on.” 

You blink under your mother’s accusatory gaze, a sudden flush of warmth spreading on your face. Fuck, by the look she has, you could swear she knows everything. This is not the first time you get this feeling from her, and it’s very strange.

“What? I don’t—” you start, but she vehemently shakes her head from left to right, gently slapping your hand. 

“I was your age once, too,” she points out. “I can tell a broken heart when I see one. So, are you going to tell me about him or not?”

You gasp, almost choking on your air. So, she does know, somehow. You want to deny it but you know there’s no point. For your mother to ask you to open up like that… then there’s no doubt. She knows. You just have no idea how much of it she actually knows. 

“What do you want to know?” you ask, your voice suddenly small. You close your eyes—you don’t want to cry. Not anymore. Not right now. “I don’t even know what to say, mom…”

A heavy silence falls between you two. You hear your mother shift her weight on her seat, and suddenly she has an arm around your shoulders. This is the warmest gesture she’s had towards you in a long, long time… and you need it. You need this so badly that you lean over and lay your head on her shoulder. 

“Oh, my sweet girl…” your mother is whispering now. “The first love is always the best, and always the worst.” She pulls you away from her, but only to make you look into her eyes. “Listen, my precious daughter. I promise you that your father doesn’t know. Nobody knows. But I know who it is who broke your heart. I know it’s the Hwang boy.”

The shock from that revelation is almost enough to make you forget your sorrow—your eyes widen and you put a hand over your mouth, thoroughly stunned. Your cheeks are warmer than ever, but you can’t move, frozen in place.

“Mom—”

“Wanna know how I know?” She offers you a comforting smile. “I had my doubts when he drove you home, after that Kangjeon son of a bitch got to you. So I looked into it… and I saw you once, the two of you. He had his hoodie over his head, for disguise, and you a hat, but… I saw you and I recognized him. I didn’t tell anyone… I didn’t even want to tell you. But I am asking about it now because I’m worried about you.”

You want to tell your mother not to worry, but you can’t—you don’t even know how you’ll ever claw your way out of this pit of despair. 

“So? Do you want to talk about it? Did he… did he hurt you?” your mother asks, her smile disappearing. 

Did Hyunjin hurt you? Yes. In more ways than one. He hurt you when he fucked you hard, either in a hotel room or in his car. He hurt you and you liked it, every time, and asked for more. He hurt you when he closed his fist around your neck as he emptied himself inside you, your two bodies becoming one. He hurt you when he kissed you softly and called you beautiful. 

He hurt you when he chose his legacy over you.

But you can’t tell your mother any of that, and you know it’s not what she asked anyway.

“No, no it’s not that, mom…” you swallow, but your mouth is dry and you feel dizzy. “It’s really complicated. Like, it’s not, but it is.” 

“That’s how it usually goes,” your mom concedes with a sigh. “I understand. But you both are so young, you know? Can’t it be fixed?”

Fixed? 

“No, mom.” Your eyes drop and you stare at the countertop in front of you. The lines and waves in the marble. “It can’t be fixed. We were doomed from the beginning, weren’t we? He’s… he’s his father’s son. And I’m my father’s daughter.” 

Your mother sighs. She takes your hand in yours and makes you look at her.

“How about you come with us on the trip? It’s a bit last minute, but your father has enough contacts to get you a visa before we take off tonight… I think it might be good for you to just be somewhere else.”

You look away, at the large window behind your mother. You can see the yard—it’s not that large, but it has a water fountain and pretty trees, and a pool. It's the same yard as it ever was, but for some reason, it looks different to you these days.

Is today really the day you’re getting over Hyunjin? Will that day ever come? 

Your mother had mentioned she was taking a swimsuit with her… 

“Where’s the trip?” you ask, your gaze finding hers again. You see genuine concern in it—it hurts you to know how much your heartbreak might have affected others around you. “You need a swimsuit for it?”

“Ah, but our hosts live in the southern hemisphere, own a lot of land, and have a private beach,” your mother explains with a smile. “You want in? Jisung would be coming with you of course, and Seungmin is tagging along too. We’re going to Australia.” 

Australia? It might not work as in, you don’t think you could ever get over it. You know that you will love Hyunjin until the day you die. But maybe, just maybe, this can help ease the relentless anguish that’s taken over you. 

There was once a time when Hyunjin was yours and you were his. But this concept is foreign to you now. 

Sometimes, when it’s too quiet, you still hear him. His voice. Begging you not to walk away, to stay with him.

Sometimes, you wish it would stop, that you would no longer hear him.  Sometimes, you hope it will never stop. That you will always hear him.

The sky looks like Monet’s La Pie, huile sur toile, 1868-1869. It’s heavy with snow but without snowflakes crowding it. There’s a crisp breeze flowing over the city, however, that doesn’t matter to Hyunjin—it’s just that he can’t help but notice it.

The sky looks like Monet’s La Pie. Almost a grisaille painting, almost monochromatic, but not quite—a single drop of blue mixed in white paint, creating an imperfect white, creating a perfect snow day. There is no contrast in the sky, there is nothing to contrast with. 

Gray is all there is. A drop of blue in an ocean of white. 

“Hyunnie? Are you listening to me?” 

Hyunjin keeps his gaze on the large window in his office, ignoring the voice behind him. Ignoring the girl he will be marrying in just a few weeks. Ignoring the weight of the alexandrite and gold ring in his pocket. He is often in his office these days.

“Hyunnie, I—”

“I did hear you the first time, Min-jeong.” Truly, Hyunjin has tried to remain soft with the girl. He’s tried to be nice, but most of the time, his words sound like icicles—his voice sharp, cold, shattering. “And for fuck’s sake, don’t call me like that—not when it’s just the two of us.”

“But—”

“I know my father wants you putting up a show at events,” Hyunjin goes on, his eyes still looking at the grisaille painting that is the sky today. “But don’t call me Hyunnie or baby or anything like that when we’re here.” 

“And what am I supposed to call you, then?” she asks, her voice so full of disappointment he can’t even bring himself to spin the chair and look at her, so he stares at the imperfect white instead. “Just Hyunjin?”

“Not that either.” He remembers the way you would say his name. The way it sounded like a promise in your mouth. In his pocket, the ring that he never gave you is heavier than ever. “Don’t call me anything, Min-jeong. Please leave me alone.”

She sighs behind him but he doesn’t hear her footsteps, which means that she’s still in the door frame.

He doesn’t even hate her. His future bride. It would be so much easier if he just hated her, but he doesn’t at all—she’s a sweet girl, innocent in many ways but not so much in others. She’s not stupid—actually, she’s rather smart, even. Sometimes, when he’s high enough, he can bear to have a conversation with her and it’s quite pleasant. 

But, by god, she isn’t you. 

It’s that thought that makes Hyunjin face the other side of his office again, leaving the gray sky behind him. He looks over at her, Min-jeong, still leaning in the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest. She’s wearing a long, pink skirt and a fuzzy sweater. She curled her hair today—she is a lovely woman, despite how he feels about her.

But, by god, she isn’t you. 

Hyunjin pulls open the drawer to his left, looking for an instant at the various small plastic containers in it. But really, he knows. When he starts thinking about you, there aren’t many things that will calm him down. 

Min-jeong watches him while he crushes some oxy, but Hyunjin ignores her accusatory stare and, instead, focuses on his task, and how the light blue of the pills looks on the dark color of his cherry wood desk. 

“Hyunjin—” she begins, closing in the distance between the door and the desk.

“Don’t call me like that,” Hyunjin warns, leaning over his desk to align his nose with the fine powder, excited and disgusted all at once to feel it enter him, abrasive and soothing and painful and euphoric. “Don’t fucking say my name, okay? How many times will I have to tell you?”

“Just because you’re miserable doesn’t mean you have to make me miserable, okay?” Min-jeong slams her hand on the desk, but Hyunjin doesn’t budge. It is her left hand, and all he sees is her engagement ring. “You should have known better than to fuck the daughter of your biggest rival, Hwang. It was your mistake. Own up to it.” 

Hyunjin leans closer to the powder, finally inhaling most of it. 

He doesn’t even like snorting shit, but it feels like a necessity these days.  The oxy burns his nostril and his eyes water, but it’s the only thing that will take the edge off. 

There is a light film of it left on the desk, and he uses his finger to gather it and press the remainder of the powder against his tongue. 

“Don’t talk about her,” he threatens, the fog descending onto his brain. “Especially not like that.”

“Or else what? You’re going to kill me?”

He considers it. Hyunjin contemplates the idea of killing Min-jeong and it’s not even the first time he seriously thinks about it. If he did so, one thing would be sure—he wouldn’t have to marry her. It doesn’t mean he could be with you again, but it would be a start. 

Of course, he’s not going to kill her. But he contemplates it, just for his personal satisfaction. He wouldn’t torture Min-jeong or anything, just a clean bullet to the head and quick disposal of her body. He would destroy the engagement ring she was wearing with her, and all of this would be behind him.

But today, there is a gray sky behind him. It would be white if it weren’t for the drop of blue that’s in it. The sky looks like an impressionist painting. The sky looks like Hyunjin wants to jump off the roof. The sky looks like he needs to mix the oxy with something else before he actually kills Min-jeong. 

“I won’t kill you unless you fucking make me,” Hyunjin sighs, opening the right drawer of his desk where he finds his cigarettes. “Will you please leave me alone, now? You do remember it’s not my choice to live with you, right? I’d like it if you respected my personal space. This is my office. You have your own bedroom, with a TV and a bathroom and everything you need. Please stay in your quarters. You’re driving me fucking crazy, woman.”

“You don’t have to choose to be such a bitch about it, Hwang.” Min-jeong’s hand retreats and Hyunjin notices that the ring on her finger left a mark on the cherry wood of his desk when she slapped it. Again, he contemplates murder. “I’ll have you know that you’re not my first choice either—I was going to give my virginity to someone a lot better than you.” 

Hyunjin feels his gut tighten—he doesn’t want to have this conversation. He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want her here. He doesn’t want to hate her. He doesn’t want the sky to be gray. But it is winter, and it’s cold outside, and there is a white film of ice on the city.

He lights a cigarette and breathes in the smoke, his eyes closed, letting the poison take over him. Letting the poison soothe him. He doesn’t even remember when he picked up smoking again. It just happened.

“You shouldn’t smoke that in here,” Min-jeong points out, finally taking a few steps back. Hyunjin figures he should have a lit-up cigarette in his hand at all times if it means she’ll steer away from him. “Especially not when I’ll be pregnant.”

“You’ll never be pregnant because of me,” Hyunjin warns. “Never. Go fuck whoever you’d like. I don’t care. I’ll never touch you.”

Min-jeong looks ready to kill him, but she remains silent. She rarely lets her anger out. Hyunjin never witnessed her wrath, and yet, he’s deserved a thousand times to be the victim of it. He breathes in more of his cigarette, hating the taste of it, reveling in the taste of it. This is the only thing that can take the edge off these days. 

His life has been nothing but edges since you closed the door of his apartment behind you. 

Hyunjin has not seen you since.

The sky looks like a Monet painting. His phone rings but Hyunjin doesn’t answer. Finally, Min-jeong walks out of his office—she doesn’t close the door behind him, but that’s okay. At least she’s out of his immediate space. 

He doesn’t hate her. In another life, a life without you in it, he might have fallen in love with her. He might have acted soft to her. He might have wanted to corrupt her, he might have put some kind of effort into the engagement ring he bought for her. Instead, he had sent Minho to shop for it. If life had decided otherwise—

If you had decided otherwise—

If he had decided otherwise—

Fuck that.

Hyunjin’s phone rings again, but he crushes the tip of his cigarette on his cherry wood desk, leaving a burn mark, before picking up the call.

“Yang?”

“Boss,” Jeongin says sternly over the phone. “You’re home, right?”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin answers with a sigh. He’s home, and he was supposed to review some construction contracts for his father, but then he noticed the sky, and then Min-jeong came to bother him… and now, he’s kind of high. But he doesn’t care much. “Why? Something wrong?”

“No, boss. Everything okay. Just… I have someone here, downstairs. For you. To see you. But it’s not somebody who should be here. Should we take the elevator at the back?”

“Here? Who would come to see me he—” But Hyunjin’s sentence dies off somewhere in his throat. He knows Jeongin enough to realize that something isn’t quite right. 

Quickly, Hyunjin pushes himself out of his chair, securing his phone between his shoulder and his ear while he smoothes out his button-up shirt and his trousers. A quick stop in front of the mirror near the door of his office confirms that he has a small amount of light blue powder around his nose, so he wipes it away.

There aren’t many people who shouldn’t be here that Jeongin wouldn’t hesitate to bring upstairs to Hyunjin’s apartment. In fact, only one person comes to his mind, and the heavy flutter of his heart clashes with the oxy that Hyunjin just took. Maybe he should have more?

No, no. He doesn’t want to be too high when he sees you again. 

“Yeah, take the elevator at the back, be extra careful with this, Yang. Make sure you're not being seen by anyone.” Hyunjin quickly spews into his phone before hanging up and leaving the device on the first chair he encounters on his way to the bathroom. He needs to wash his teeth. He needs to wash his face. He can’t kiss you like that. 

It has to be you, right?  Who else would it be? He has missed you so much. The sparkle in your eyes when he takes your hand in his. The feeling of your lips against his…

Hyunjin is drying off his face when he hears the knock on the door.

“Who is it?” he hears Min-jeong ask from her bedroom, but he ignores her.

Outside, the winter sky is still white with a drop of blue in it, but Hyunjin thinks it’s a lot prettier than it was just five minutes ago. 

He finds Han Jisung on the other side of the door, with Jeongin. He’s changed a little since the last time Hyunjin saw him, but it’s hard to tell how exactly. The hair, maybe, and maybe that he’s just wearing laid-back clothes. Or, maybe, it’s because he isn’t smiling at all.

“Han,” Hyunjin says, trying to see behind the man. “Been a while.”

But Han doesn’t move, and Han doesn’t let him look behind either. Instead, he eyes Hyunjin from head to toes, several times, seeming more and more appalled the more he stares. 

“Hwang, you look like shit.” 

“Fuck you, Han. Where is she?” 

Han scoffs with a frown, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re even more insane than I thought you were if you think she’s actually here, man.” 

Hyunjin’s heart sinks in his chest, and he feels the weight of the ring in his pocket once more. He also hears Min-jeong’s footsteps behind him. Damn, that woman is always somewhere around, and it’s driving him crazy. His father made her move in here, claiming they needed to become acquainted. But Hyunjin doesn’t want to get to know her. 

He thought that it was you. He thought that it was you on the other side of this door. 

He’s high. The oxy is really hitting right now, and his legs are turning to jello. 

“You’re fucking pathetic,” Han Jisung adds as if Hwang Hyunjin wasn’t one of the most dangerous men in this city. As if he couldn’t shoot him on sight. As if he had any right to say this.

Except. Except that Hyunjin knows Jisung isn’t wrong.

“You said you came here in peace!” Jeongin shouts at Han, putting his hand on Jisung’s shoulder to pull him back. “You fucking lied to me, I thought you were my friend!” 

Hyunjin knows vaguely that both Jeongin and Minho have been keeping in touch with Jisung. Mostly, they go clubbing together on their nights off or have coffee sometimes. He also knows that Minho tried several times to contact you, either through Jisung or your own phone, and you never agreed to even speak to him. 

“I’m here in peace, but someone should tell him the truth!” Han blurts out. He’s still on the other side of the door, and Min-jeong is still behind Hyunjin. “Anyway, Hwang, I don’t have all day, I have a plane to catch.” 

“Why did you come here?” Hyunjin inquires quietly. He feels small and ridiculous. For having hoped that it was you coming to visit him. That you would ever want him back. Out of habit, he wipes the skin under his nostril with one quick swipe of his fingers—a motion that Han obviously notices. “Are you leaving the city… Is she coming with you?”

“That’s none of your business,” Han responds. Then, he pulls a large trash bag from the side of the door and hands it to Hyunjin who stares at it for a few seconds before grabbing it. “There, Hwang. All of your shit.” 

“What?” Hyunjin locks eyes with Jeongin, who’s turned pale. “Did you go through this?” Hyunjin asks his man, who, after all, was supposed to be his security guy for the day. 

“He said it was yours,” Jeongin explains. “The things that—that she wanted you to have back.” 

Hyunjin almost drops the bag. Behind him, Min-jeong lets out a sigh. To his left, he can see the sky. It’s still imperfectly white and perfectly gray. 

“I don’t want these,” Hyunjin says, handing the bag back to Han. “Take this away from me.”

“I don’t take orders from you, Hwang,” Han replies, his eyes full of disgust. “She didn’t send me here. She doesn’t know I’m here—she wouldn’t be happy to know I lied to her. I told her I would burn them. The things in this bag. But I thought that doing so would be a wasted opportunity of ruining your day. Shit, I was right. The show’s worth the effort.”

Hyunjin’s eyes itch, but he can’t help looking into the bag. Immediately, he sees the sweater of his that you liked so much. He sees the soft, green blanket he got you. The coffee mug. The other mug. The bottles of perfume, the makeup, the silk scarf—

Before he even realizes it, Hyunjin’s knees are on the floor and he’s frantically going through the contents in the bag, painfully reliving every memory of when he gave you each thing. The smile on your face when he gave you the cute puppy plushie after he won it for you at the amusement park. The surprise in your eyes when he handed you an actual physical CD with tracks he carefully picked for you on it. Your laugh when you saw the keychain on which he had a little iced tea bottle engraved, with a heart next to it. 

Hyunjin is high now, for sure, but he remembers everything.

He remembers your kiss, your touch, the way you were his and he, yours. 

In the bag, he also finds the necklace that he gave you just a few days before everything happened. He gave it to you at the hotel on the last night that he spent with you, while the both of you were still fucked out and at peace. You cried when he put it around your neck, but you didn’t say anything except thank you. You didn’t do anything except kiss him, deeply, your mouth full of the taste of sex, full of the taste of love.

“Boss—” Jeongin starts but he also stops there, for there is nothing else to be said. 

“Let him cry,” Han says in a low voice. “God knows she’s been crying over this for months, torturing herself over this for months. He can shed a few tears. I’ll see myself out, gentlemen, if you don’t mind. By the way, it’s a lovely fucking bride you have there, Hwang. Have fun in this life of yours. I’m sure your daddy is real proud of you for once.” 

Hyunjin wasn’t even aware of the few sparse tears on his cheeks before Han pointed them out, but his hands are still holding the necklace with the pink diamond, and he can’t wipe them off, no matter how ashamed he is—he feels frozen in place. He feels the blade of Jisung’s words piercing him somewhere in the chest.

If life had decided otherwise—

If you had decided otherwise—

If he had decided otherwise,  his memories with you wouldn’t be scattered around him now, pulled out from a black garbage bag. He needs oxy. He needs a cigarette. He needs a strong drink and he needs you. He needs you, your voice, your sweet pussy, your love. Your laugh. 

If he had decided otherwise, you could have a gold ring with a blue alexandrite gemstone on it on your finger. There would be more gold around your neck. Hell, Hyunjin wants to cover you in diamonds, in gold. If life had decided otherwise. 

Han Jisung walks away without a word, and Jeongin lets him. And Hyunjin lets him. He’s high but not high enough. It takes a few instants for Jeongin to go after Jisung but Hyunjin doesn’t care what they say to each other. Doesn’t care that his friend, his employee, is going after Han instead of comforting him.

He deserves it. The misery, the pain.

Behind him, Min-jeong sighs, but not an annoyed sigh. She makes her way to him, kneeling on the floor beside him, helping him pick up everything. He wants to tell her to leave him alone but, really, Hyunjin doesn’t want to be alone. Hyunjin doesn’t know what he wants to be. 

“That was a bitch move, you should make him pay,” Min-jeong tells him softly, folding a blanket before putting it back into the bag. “Like, what is this, high school? Can’t this girl have her own petty revenge? Instead of sending her friend? Besides, she needs to get over it, it’s been months—” 

“Don’t talk about her, please,” Hyunjin begs under his breath, closing his eyes, closing his hand around the necklace. 

The sky looks like Monet’s La Pie, huile sur toile, 1868-1869. Just a drop of blue in an ocean of white. Hyunjin is high but not high enough.

He doesn’t know how he can go on without you.

Everybody knows that the Hwang boy likes to play with fire.  But he never finished painting that sunset for you. But the flame had gone out.

This was the price he had to pay for your safety, to make sure that his father would never hurt you, and there would never be too high a price. But Hyunjin simply doesn’t think he can keep going. He doesn’t think he will be able to get up from the floor right now, doesn’t think he will manage to do the work he has to do. There would never be a price too high for you, but he doesn’t think he will be able to exist for much longer—he will implode, he will become a black hole, he will be unmade by the crushing agony he feels every instant. 

Often, Hyunjin wonders if you still feel his love even if he can’t kiss it into you, fuck it into you. Often, Hyunjin wonders if you feel the love he still has for you. He wonders if you feel the guilt, the anguish, that he has for you. 

The fire had gone out. There is nothing left for the Hwang boy to play with.

So, Australia is really fucking hot. 

You feel like you’re going to die the moment you exit the airport after clearing customs with your family and security staff. The chauffeur informs you that it’s quite unusual for February to reach such high temperatures, and you want to believe him but you’re also beginning to regret tagging along on this trip. 

It’s not just the temperature, it’s how exceptionally bright the sun is. It’s just… right there, attacking you at any moment. You doubt the SPF you bought at the Incheon airport will suffice to protect you. 

The silver lining is that while you’re processing everything—the long flight, the warmth, the sun—thinking of Hyunjin hurts you a tiny little less. Somehow, putting thousands of miles between the two of you alleviates the pain. You’re not exactly happy, but… you also don’t feel a knot in your throat at all times, which is a big improvement over the past few weeks. 

The first stop is at a hotel where your family can rest after the flight before all of you travel to your final destination the next day. Your hosts own land near a beach, and they also own the beach—they have a few houses they either rent out or use when they have guests. Of course, they had the houses built themselves, as construction is their main source of revenue. Officially, at least. Apparently it’s quite the sight. Or so you have been told—you’re just not sure how much you care about any of it, really.

Your father always finds the most crooked friends. And the most convenient, too.

You share a room with Jisung and fall asleep first. This is the best sleep you get since you left Hyunjin for the last time, but when you wake up, you wonder when that will stop. When you’ll stop thinking things like that. ‘this is the first time I laugh since that day’ ‘this is the first time I eat a burger since that day’ ‘this is the first time I don’t want to bury myself under the earth since that day.’

You just want it to stop. 

First contact with your hosts happens the next day after a good rest, some movies with Jisung, and a little bit of shopping. You found a cute dress for dinner tonight, as you would like to make a good impression on your hosts—after all, if business is good for your father, then it’s good for you. Someday, his crooked empire will be yours, and you should remember that. 

(but, one day, Hyunjin will be in charge of his father’s business. he will be married and he will be Seoul's kingpin and he will become your enemy. he will be married. and your rival.) 

You ignore your deepest thoughts and force a smile on your face as you exit the car that just parked in front of a splendid seaside villa. Jisung walks beside you, looking everywhere around—you can’t blame him, you’re doing the same thing.

Considering you were suffering through winter in Seoul less than 48 hours ago, this is quite a change of scenery. The sun is still blazing and actively killing you every second, but you can hear and smell the sea from where you’re standing, although you can’t see it yet. 

There are beautiful trees surrounding the house, which has large windows and many patios and balconies. It’s so beautiful it gives you a pinch to the heart—you can’t imagine how relaxing it must be to live in a house like that, away from city centers, with a view of the ocean. 

(maybe Hyunjin will have his honeymoon in a place like this. maybe he will fall in love with his bride in a house like this. maybe he will fuck her and cum inside her and make her his in a house like this. maybe he will feel happy and free in a house like this.) 

Your guests welcome you warmly, as friends would. They are Korean expats and most of the conversations happen in Korean, although English is often used as well. You speak enough of it to keep track of everything, and especially enjoy speaking with the wife—while everyone is having cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, she insists on showing you her little garden at the back of the house and opens a bottle of champagne just for the two of you. Your mother joins—tempted by the champagne, you assume—but you enjoy the moment. You try to, at least. 

From the upper floor’s balcony, you can see the ocean. You’ve seen the ocean before but it never looked like this. The deep, pure blue of it makes you want to cry. There is a sense of peace that fills you when you look at it. The beach is inviting…

(this is the first time you do not want to actively stop existing since Hyunjin) 

“You should take your bodyguard and head down,” the wife tells you, then she turns to your mother. “My two youngest children are away—for school—but my eldest has graduated and is currently visiting, with friends… they’re occupying the house next to the one you guys will stay in!” 

“You should go,” your mother insists with a smile that implies a lot. It implies 'go ahead and make friends for once', or something like this. “Take Seungmin too.” 

But this would be the first time you make friends since Hyunjin left you. Since you left him. You’re not so sure anymore who gave up first.

“They’ll probably make some barbecue for dinner!” the wife adds as if this was in any way going to convince you. Well, it worked—while you’re not too hungry, you know Jisung was dying to try some of that famous Aussie barbecue. 

Besides, this might have just been a polite way to say ‘let the grown-ups do business over dinner.’ And for the present moment, you’d rather not think about how this business will, someday, be all yours to deal with. And who you will be competing against.

You head to the beach, walking in between Seungmin and Jisung, who are both arguing about what exactly they hope to find at this Australian barbecue gathering. It doesn’t take very long before you simply take off your sandals and walk barefoot on the beach.

God, this feels good. The sun has gone down for the most part, but the sand is still warm and the sky is still beautiful and the sea is there, right there. So blue, so deep. You’ve walked for about five minutes when you decide you just need to touch the sea, so you head over there and walk into the water until it goes past your ankles.

The waves caress your skin gently. The water is warm enough to be comfortable, and you close your eyes.  You want this to be the first time you’re happy since Hyunjin. You try, so hard.

“Careful there,” a voice calls from behind with a laugh. “There are sharks in these waters!” 

You turn around, the moment of almost happiness mostly ruined by that joke, but not actually ruined—it was said with such a pleasant tone that you can only chuckle at it. 

A guy is coming your way. He’s wearing black swimsuit trunks and a black t-shirt. He bows quickly, then flashes a warm and kind smile at the three of you before extending a hand to you first, which you shake. Then he turns to the other two.

“I was told you guys would join us for dinner,” he says. “I’m Chan! It’s really nice to meet you guys.” 

There’s a short pause during which Seungmin begins introducing himself, but then Jisung lets out a loud gasp, after having been frozen in place for a few seconds. He looks like he just saw a ghost.

“You’re Bang Chan!” Jisung has a hand on his mouth and seems in total shock. “Guys! That’s the DJ I told you about!”

For the past months, Jisung had been enjoying going out to nightclubs a bit more often, often enough to have his favorite DJs. You can’t quite remember this one specifically if Jisung told you about him. You’re certain he must have mentioned it at some point, but you only feel like a bad friend now—because you haven’t been present enough to remember about it. 

“Ah, yeah, that would be me.” Chan-the-DJ gives the three of you a formal but humorous bow. He sports a beautiful smile, and you notice his bright eyes, his dimples, his strong-looking arms under the rolled sleeves of his shirt. “I miss doing sets in Seoul, it’s been a few weeks already.”

“It was wild,” Jisung assures, following Chan who is now leading you further onto the beach, but slowly. Jisung introduces the three of you more formally, and Seungmin joins the conversation about Chan’s DJ occupation. 

It doesn’t take very long until the four of you end up at the little corner of the beach where he and his friends have been hanging out. It’s a bit more isolated than the other areas you’ve seen of this property so far, so much that you can’t even see the main house from here. 

But they’re comfortably installed for an evening of fun. There is a barbecue going on, and it smells frankly delicious. There are different kinds of chairs laying all around, and even a few cushioned sun loungers that are quite inviting. Music is playing in the background, not too loud but just enough to give the whole place a nice, relaxing atmosphere. 

Chan’s friends are Changbin and Felix. Changbin is busy behind the barbecue—it seems that he takes this task very seriously because he quickly gives his introductions and returns to his work, where he applies himself to grill the meat and some vegetables.

Felix, however, hangs around a bit more and finds out that he and Seungmin used to go to the same school in Seoul when they were younger and he was an exchange student. His smile is warm and true, and he has beautiful freckles speckled on his cheekbones. You decide you like Felix and would like to be his friend.

(this is the first time you think something like that since Hyunjin though)

“So, you’re the daughter,” Chan says, turning to you after Jisung also left you to go give poor Changbin a hand. “Heard quite a lot about you, you know that?”

You scoff, but one quick glance at Chan’s face tells you he’s serious. He has handsome traits but they’re quite unique, and you can’t look away from him. There’s something in his eyes that’s deeply caring, deeply intelligent, and it makes you feel like you’re stumbling—you don’t understand why, but it’s a strange sensation. Like he keeps you on your toes, and you can’t decide whether it’s a good thing or not. 

You remember that he is a stranger, though—so maybe it’s just a normal feeling to have, and you’re simply not used to it as you haven’t met anybody new in quite a while.

“Heard good things or bad things?” you ask with a smile. He seems like the kind of guy to make jokes often—or at least, to use humor as a way to make people feel more comfortable. “Because I can’t say the same about you. Well, except for when Jisung went out clubbing, apparently…” 

“Ah, don’t worry…” he shrugs. “Good things only. My mom spent the day telling me how their guests had a really beautiful daughter and I ought to be on my best behavior.”

At the word ‘beautiful’, you feel a flash of heat spread onto your face, but shut this down quickly telling yourself the word didn’t come from Chan, but from his mom. Besides, she gave you a little too much champagne earlier and your mind is fuzzy…

“Best behavior? Isn’t that boring?” you don’t know why it feels so easy to joke back and forth. It must be the sun and the champagne—bad things to mix together. 

Chan chuckles and cocks his head to look you in the eyes. He’s a stranger to you, but you feel at ease around him, even if you just met him. Something about his aura. And his strong arms. And his lovely smile. And his pretty eyes—

(this is the first time you notice a guy is handsome since Hyunjin)

“Can’t say I disagree with you.” Chan is still staring into your soul, so you look away, pretending to watch the other boys as they’re putting food onto plates. 

But you still see him, Chan, from the corner of your eye, and you’re pretty sure he’s looking somewhere below your neck. You suddenly feel very aware of the white-and-yellow sundress you’re wearing, its skirt lazily flowing in the breeze, the fabric hugging your breasts and your waist on your upper body. 

(this is the first time you feel something like that since Hyunjin. this is the first time you think ‘yeah, maybe’ since Hyunjin. it hurts you. it scares you)

Doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, you just have to keep telling yourself the same things over and over until you believe them. 

Today has to be the day. 

The sun has gone completely down by the time the six of you have finished dinner. Since Changbin did most of the grilling and Felix most of the prep work on the food, Chan offers himself to clean up plates and leftovers. Jisung, still not over being in the presence of his favorite DJ, follows him into the house they’re occupying during their visit, hands full of dirty plates. 

You sit on a lounge chair, eyes closed, soothed by the champagne and the beer, the food, and the ocean. Changbin and Seungmin are having a conversation about finance, which you have very little interest in, and are too tired to care about anyway. 

“Mind if I sit?” 

You open your eyes only to find Felix standing next to the empty lounging chair next to yours. You motion towards it and watch him set some weed and rolling paper in front of himself as he sits down. 

“Mind if I smoke?” he adds with a smile for you. He has a nice smile. A genuine smile—something that’s quite rare these days. “I can go smoke somewhere else.”

“You can stay if you share,” you answer, laying your head back on the pillow. 

“Deal.” You hear him fumbling as he’s getting to work. In the house, Chan and Jisung are having a conversation about music while plates are clinking. 

You should feel at peace. You should feel ecstatic. You’re in Australia for the first time in your life, during a beautiful, sunny summer, and you’re meeting new people who are interesting and funny. 

So why does your chest feel so empty? 

You know why. You know why.  Because you are a foolish girl.

This is how it felt when Jisung came to you and told you that Hyunjin wanted to meet with you in his apartment—it felt like an earthquake went through your body. It felt like a typhoon had swiped you off your feet, it felt like you were falling upward and downward all at once. It felt like a storm, it felt like thunder rolling within you.

This is how it felt when you entered his apartment and he did not kiss you—like the ocean before a tsunami. Silent, calm. Giving a false impression of peace. It felt like you had known all along that a storm was brewing, that lighting was meant to strike you someday. This is how it felt when you looked into Hyunjin’s eyes and you saw darkness and shame—it felt like black paint spilling on a canvas, it felt like a forest fire spreading. 

You are a foolish girl. You had chosen to make him a priority in your life. You are a foolish girl, but you were smart enough not to let him make any promises to you. Promises are only doomed to be broken anyway. 

You jump when Felix hands you the joint, exhaling smoke with a light cough. You take it between your fingers, unbothered by the fact that your mother will smell the weed on you when you get back later. You’re an adult, after all, and you’ve already disappointed your parents quite badly—what’s a bit more disappointment? Maybe you don’t even have to head back, maybe you can sleep right here, on the beach.

You loved Hyunjin more than anything. You loved him more than you should have.

Today has to be the day.

The smoke burns your throat just right, and you inhale as much of it as you can. When you exhale, you do not pass the joint, and smoke some more of it. Felix doesn’t complain. He sits next to you, his gaze turned towards the sea. 

“It’s really pretty here,” you tell him after taking a couple of good hits and hand him back his joint. 

“It is.” You hear his sharp inhale, and you revel in the sensation his uniquely deep voice brings to you. This kind stranger with the freckles, the good weed he shares with you. He is not just warm—he is warmth itself. “I don’t know how long I could go without the sea, you know? Like… When you’re home, where do you go to feel good? To unwind, to ground yourself, to find yourself again?”

Tears sting your eyes, but you do not shy away from them. You were a foolish girl. You once gave your heart to a man who didn’t know what to do with it. In a way, you don’t even want to blame him for the damage. The fault was yours all along. 

Everybody knows that the Hwang boy likes to play with fire. But your love had burned bright. But the rain had put the fire out. But the ocean, as calm as it had been, had swallowed the flames.

“I don’t know,” you admit to Felix, watching his lips lock around the joint. He has nice lips. This is the first time you think about someone’s lips since Hyunjin. “I’m not sure how that’s supposed to feel, anyway. To have found myself. So if it happened, I wouldn't notice.” 

“Oh, no, you would notice. For me, it’s when I look at the waves and nothing else. It reminds me of who I am and who I can be.”

So you look at the waves, wondering who you could be. From the very beginning, you knew this was going to be a bad idea. You knew you shouldn’t even have allowed Hyunjin to speak to you. But he had never felt like a stranger to you, and it had felt right. 

You were waiting for it to feel wrong, but that didn’t seem to want to happen. Even now, with your heart in pieces. It doesn't feel wrong, and you hate that it doesn't.

Mindful of the Hwang boy, you had been told most of your life. Do not speak to the Hwang boy, your mother had told you. He is dangerous.

But you had known. You had known the whole time that you were in for life with Hyunjin. He may have chosen other priorities over you, but you would always love him. He would always be Hyunjin. Your first love. 

You were waiting for the day you would get over him, but that didn’t seem to want to happen either. 

The night is calm, quiet. You look at the waves the way Felix does, trying to see if it will appease you at all, but it doesn’t, not really. The weed has definitely kicked in, though, and you decide to get up to walk a little. Chan and Jisung have joined the group again and are currently continuing the music discussion with the rest of the group—you can hear Seungmin making valid points from where you are. 

In the breeze of the night, the skirt of your dress brushes against your skin and it feels nice. The sand feels nice beneath your bare feet, caressing your skin, reminding you that you are alive. Reminding you that you are more than pain, more than a void where so much love came to die. 

It is quiet. In your head, you hear him, Hyunjin, begging you to stay. In your head, you hear the roaring of his car’s engine. In your head, you imagine him on the day he summoned you to his apartment, saying let’s go, let’s run away and be together. In your head, you hear the way his voice cracked as if it had been his heart splitting into pieces. Please, please. He rarely ever said please, but that day, he had said it to you and his voice had been stained with pain, and you had not recovered from it yet.

You realize you left your earbuds in your bag, which is still up the beach, a long walk from here. Music helps. Music helps drown the voices.

You close your eyes, listening to the waves instead. 

“See any sharks?” It’s Chan. He’s walking towards you, not really smiling, but rather giving you an appraising look. He’s holding a half-smoked joint, which he offers to you, but you decline. You’ve had enough. 

“No sharks,” you reply, welcoming the sound of his voice as it drowns the sound of Hyunjin’s in your head.

Cursing the sound of his voice as it interrupts the sound of Hyunjin’s in your head. 

Chan chuckles, running his fingers in his dark, wavy hair while he smokes a little. You stare back at him before looking behind as the rest of the group makes their way toward the house.

“Felix offered to make brownies,” Chan explains. “For Valentine’s Day.”

“For—” You pick up your phone from the pocket of your dress, checking the time. With the lack of sleep, you hadn’t even realized. But it is past midnight, and it is Valentine’s day. “Oh…” 

More tears prick your eyes so you look away. Chan carefully crushes his joint on a big rock nearby and you feel him lay a respectful hand on your shoulder.

“Listen, um—I don’t want to make this awkward, but I heard what happened, I—I’m really sorry. You haven’t seemed really okay all night, so… if you need anything, you can come to me, yeah?” 

“We don’t know each other,” you point out, swallowing a sob, crossing your arms over your chest, your hands flat on your sides—almost as if you are hugging yourself. “Why are you so nice to me?”

“Ah, I’m just like that. But I don’t think it matters if we know each other or not. I—huh—I don’t really like Valentine’s Day either.” 

You nod, choosing not to inquire any further. Chan’s hand retreats from your shoulder and it feels colder there all of a sudden. You find yourself missing his voice, only because while he spoke, the voices in your mind were muffled.

“Chan?” you say, still staring out at the sea, “You’re a DJ. Do you have music?”

“What?” He sounds confused, so you turn to face him. “Music?”

“I forgot my earbuds,” is all you offer as an explanation, but Chan nods and motions towards the house.

It did not take long for that house to become so… lively. In the kitchen, Felix is already surrounded by various pots and pans, whisking something while having a conversation with Jisung who’s in the living room, playing a video game with Seungmin. Changbin is somewhere in between, holding a beer, leaning on the counter, apparently selecting an appropriate playlist for the occasion.

None of them pay much attention to you or Chan, so you just follow him upstairs. He takes you to a large room—it doesn’t have a light on, but it doesn’t need to. There’s a little light coming in from outdoors, and the screen of a computer provides a little additional lighting. You feel the ocean breeze coming in from the large window, which is wide open. 

You… you actually like it here. You feel calmer. Despite the sorrow apparently inhabiting each corner of your mind, you feel a certain peace that you cannot explain. 

“This is my office, where I work when I’m visiting here,” Chan explains, but you had already guessed by the computer and the equipment in and around the desk. He motions towards a cozy-looking couch and you sit with your legs folded underneath you, watching as he sits on the chair in front of the computer. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Chan offers and you see him open a few folders on the computer after turning the speakers on. 

“You said you knew about it already,” you reply as a song begins to play. You don’t recognize it, but it’s a catchy EDM track, with good pacing. It doesn’t play too loud, but it doesn’t need to—you already feel a lot calmer than you did earlier when you were alone by the ocean. “How do you even know about this? About—” 

You realize that in the months following your breakup with him, you have not spoken Hyunjin’s name out loud even once. Not to your knowledge at least—since Jisung claims that you often have nightmares and talk in your sleep. 

You take a deep breath, turning your head to the right, staring at the night sky through the window.

“How do you even know about Hyunjin?” you make yourself say, and you don’t know how it feels just yet. To have let his name haunt your mouth instead of your mind. “Nobody knew about us.”

Chan scoffs and spins the chair to face you, so you make the effort to look at him, too. You still taste Hyunjin’s name in your mouth, sweet, bitter, addictive—it was a mistake to speak it out loud because you want to hear it again, you want your tongue to dance as you say it. 

“First off, your mother knows about it and she told my mother, who told me, but I already knew,” Chan comments, pulling a drawer open and extracting a bottle of liquor from it—the amber liquid inside is quite inviting. “Also, you guys weren’t as secretive as you think you were. Come on—the Hwang heir and you?” 

But you recall all of the steps you took to keep your relationship with Hyunjin absolutely unexposed. You barely saw him outdoors, and never for long. You only saw him in hotel rooms, which he booked under fake names. Sometimes, you both would sneak out of town and drive his car in the countryside. Just a few hours, the two of you. He would fuck you in the car after, and it was good. 

The music helps. The ocean breeze helps, too. But, god, you miss him so terribly. You remember so much but not enough, you remember that he liked to look into your eyes as he came inside of you, remember that he liked to go get iced tea for you after sex. The way he would wrap you in his arms in the bed, just holding you as the two of you watched a movie together. Simple moments. Meaningful moments. 

But this is why Hyunjin had not chosen you. These moments, he could have them with any other girl—probably had them already. They had meant a lot to you, and you know they had meant something to him, too—but not the same thing. You have thought about it a lot. Maybe Hyunjin has commitment issues. Maybe it’s because he lost his mother at a young age, or because of the way he was brought up.

But the conclusion had been this: Hyunjin didn’t love you the same way you loved him. And one might have thought otherwise—after all, he went to great lengths to seek revenge for your honor after the Kangjeon issue. He got you a lot of beautiful gifts, he told you that he loved you. He told you a lot of things. But those were just words. And he had killed Kangjeon for what, in the end? If he wasn’t going to choose you?

“We told no one,” you go on, unfolding your legs under you to sit a bit more comfortably on the couch. You really like the song that’s playing, but you can’t read the title of it from where you are. 

However, you watch carefully as Chan unscrews the bottle of liquor and takes a long gulp from it. He slides it on the desk so that it makes it closer to you, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It’s whiskey. You lean over to grab the bottle and don’t fail to notice that Chan looks directly at your cleavage when you do so. But you pretend not to see, and drink some whiskey. It’s sweet, bitter. Addictive. 

“Everyone knows,” Chan insists, leaning into his chair. He almost looks carefree, and it makes you feel even more comfortable. “He’s a psycho, everybody knows that, too.” Chan’s body is still relaxed, but his facial expression shows that he’s serious. You choose to drink some more whiskey before handing him the bottle again. 

There’s your chance to taste his name on your lips again. “Hyunjin isn’t a psycho,” you reply. 

Chan cocks his head to the side, raising an eyebrow at you. The song currently playing ends but is quickly followed by another. This one is another beat, more R&B in style, but with good instrumentals. “If Hwang isn’t a psycho, then he’s a fucking fool,” he concludes with a shrug before drinking some more whiskey. 

You frown, resting your elbows on your thighs. “Why would you say that?” Part of you wishes the conversation wasn’t about Hyunjin. Part of you relishes the fact that the conversation is about Hyunjin. 

“Because he is a fool,” Chan insists, resting the bottle of whiskey on his desk again. “He could have chosen you, but he didn’t. And now you’re here. And we’re having this conversation. Right now. You and I.”

Chan’s words hit you like a punch to the face. You take a deep breath, letting it all exhale into a sigh. You sit in silence for a while, the both of you, just listening to the music. The implications behind this are quite clear, only, your brain refuses to process any of them. Instead, you stare at him quietly. 

“You like it? The track?” he asks you, not waiting for a response to his earlier statement—statement or subtle attempt at flirting. You realize you had been moving your head to the beat of the song. 

“Yeah, what is it?” you inquire, glad to have an escape from whatever was supposed to come next. A little disappointed it did not go any further. Still—you catch him peeking at your legs when you move them.

“It’s mine.” Chan, for the first time, seems hesitant, even a bit shy, and there’s something endearing in his sudden change of demeanor. “The other one before, too.” 

You get up from the couch and cross the room to take a closer look at the computer in front of him. You see them, the files, the tracks, all of Chan’s work. You lean next to him to select another track from the EDM list—after all, you’ve heard Jisung gush over and over about his DJ sets, so you’d like to hear some more of that.

“That one is good, but try that one over there, 00-32A,” Chan advises you when the pointer stops on one file. You move it further down and click on the song he chose. 

He is so close to you. Physically. You can hear his soft breathing despite the music, can feel the warmth from his skin radiate onto yours. Hyunjin could have chosen you, but he didn’t, and now you are here. In this office. With this boy who has music in his heart and the beach in his eyes, who has whiskey on his breath, who doesn’t seem to know how to stop checking you out.

You sit on top of the L-shaped desk to listen to the track more in a more comfortable position, and to put a few inches of distance between you and Chan. 

It’s good. No, hell, it’s great. You don’t know much about music production, but you know when a beat is a good one, when it’s meant to be heard. You can only imagine the feeling of freedom that must fill anyone on the dance floor when this beat drops… 

“Your drops are exceptionally good,” you tell Chan, and he looks at you. He reaches his hand towards you, his eyes locked into yours, and your breathing stops—you thought he was going to touch your leg but instead, he goes for the whiskey and brings the bottle to his lips. 

You ignore the pang of disappointment that is currently being birthed somewhere within you. 

“Thanks,” he says evasively after swallowing the liquor, making a face as he drank quite a lot of it in one go. “My dad still wishes I would take over his business one day instead of doing music and DJ work... Maybe you should tell him about my exceptional drops. Maybe that’ll change his mind.” 

You can’t help the laugh that escapes your lips, but Chan laughs with you. Maybe it’s the weed, but it takes a few moments until the laughter stops for good. By the end of it, Chan’s forearm is resting on your knee and he is handing you the bottle of whiskey. 

It feels good.That he’s touching you. He’s barely touching you but it does feel good, and you feel a tingling sensation between your legs. Hell—talk about touch-starved. You’ve been so broken-hearted that you haven’t even managed to get yourself off in… in so long that you can’t remember when the last time was, exactly. 

This is the first time since Hyunjin that you want to fuck someone, and you’re really not sure if you like this feeling or not. 

Is today actually the day? 

Chan lets the music keep playing without selecting a particular track, and deep down you hope it’s because he doesn’t want to move away from you. His chair is right in front of you, and the proximity of him to your legs—with his forearm resting on your thighs—makes you shiver. You could blame it on the ocean breeze, but you don’t, because you’re no longer a foolish little girl. The foolish girl fell in love and she fell hard, but that girl is long gone. 

The girl you are today licks her lips and stares into Chan’s eyes, who stares back after his eyes lingered on her mouth a little too long for it to be normal. But you do not look away. 

Chan’s fingers move a little on your thigh, brushing on the exposed skin just beneath the skirt of your dress. You feel sparks all over you and a tingling sensation in your core. You have not felt this in a while, and it unsettles you.

“You probably get the same bullshit from your parents,” he points out, his voice lower. You can hear the boys downstairs, bickering, laughing. There’s the music, too—and your pounding heartbeat. “Must be even worse, too, you being an only child.”

You shrug, trying to keep a straight face as Chan’s touches become a little more… present. “Guess it’s all I’ve heard my whole life, and I never really questioned it… That I would take my dad’s place someday.” 

This, right now though, makes you question it. What if you had simply given your parents a big fat ‘fuck off’ and had just left? Where would you be right now, who would you be? 

Who would you be with?

“I don’t know what… I don’t know what else I could do,” you admit, slightly embarrassed. You had never put too much thought into it—you simply couldn’t consider any other option.

“Music makes me happy,” Chan says with a shrug. “What makes you happy?” 

Now, here’s the thing.

What comes to your mind when Chan asks you this is a boy with piercing eyes and plump lips and fire in place of his soul. You know it’s not at all what Chan meant when he asked you the question and yet, this is all your brain manages to come up with. You eye the speaker to your right, wondering if you ought to turn the volume up a little. To drown out everything else. 

Maybe you just don’t know what makes you happy. Your mother made you take ballet classes when you were little and you didn’t like it. You were never particularly good at sports—you were not bad either, just very average. You had good grades before you dropped out. But you didn’t have anything that made you special. 

You tell this to Chan whose fingers are still tracing lazy circles just above your knee. He sighs. The warmth of his breath, it feels like, spreads from your knees all the way to your core and you try your best to suppress the sound of the sharp inhale of oxygen that you take. 

“You just haven’t found your thing,” Chan concludes, pushing himself out of his chair. He stands in front of you and decides to drink some more whiskey, and you watch as his mouth locks around the bottle, as he swallows the liquor. It glistens on his lips. You wonder how they taste. His lips. Sweet, bitter, addictive? “You just gotta find your thing. When’s the last time you felt truly happy? Like… Pure elation?”

When Hyunjin ate his cum out of you and spit it in your mouth? When he gave you a necklace so pretty that it made you cry? When he surprised you with iced tea? When he told you he loved you for the first time, when he said it for the hundredth time? When he brought you flowers on a few occasions? When, some nights, he stopped the car in the middle of a deserted road and let you sit behind the wheel? And then you felt it become alive when you pressed the pedal to make it speed up, to make the engine roar.

You had let Hyunjin take all of the space within you, within your soul. And now that he was gone, you had nothing—you were nothing. Or so it felt like.

“Driving a fast car,” you choose to tell Chan just so he doesn’t take you for a complete idiot. You like to think that the foolish girl who fell in love with Hwang Hyunjin is dead. Maybe she isn’t quite dead yet, but you’re trying to kill her tonight. 

Chan’s gaze leaves your mouth to look into your eyes. “Fast cars, huh?” He chuckles, but suddenly, his face is much closer to yours than it was just a second ago. You can smell the whiskey in his mouth, can see the hunger in his eyes. “To be honest, I normally don’t really like the girls my mom sets me up with. But I do like you a lot.” 

That sentence takes a few seconds for you to process, during which you drink a considerable amount of whiskey before putting the bottle back on the desk. Chan isn’t smiling anymore, and you can feel your heart fluttering in your chest. He likes you. His mother set you up—

“Ah, don’t worry, it was a last-minute thing anyway,” he reveals to you, cocking his head to the side just a little, a slight frown appearing between his brows. “She just said that our guests’ daughter would be on the trip. That you were single. And very pretty. She didn’t lie, apparently.” 

You swallow painfully and make an attempt at wetting your lips by running your tongue on them without any real success, but this is when Chan kisses you. 

His lips are warm and he is kissing you firmly but delicately. But he is kissing you, and you freeze, still letting him take control of your mouth. He is kissing you, and you like it.

Today is the day. 

You bring your arms around Chan’s neck, this stranger, this boy who tastes like whiskey and smells like the ocean, pulling him closer. He is a stranger to you, and this feels wrong. And this feels right.

This is the first time you kiss someone since—

But Chan doesn’t let you think about the boy you fell in love with—he deepens the kiss, parting your lips with his, his tongue discovering your mouth swiftly and efficiently. You moan when his hands make it back onto your thighs and he trails them to your waist, pressing himself against you. Instinctively, your legs close a little on either side of him, and it’s his turn to groan into your mouth. 

You kiss him back. You tug on his shirt to pull him even closer, opening your mouth for him, devouring his in return. You know you’re a little drunk. And a little high. You know you’re kissing a stranger and you know you will regret it—but you don’t stop. Your skin tingles where Chan is touching you, grabbing you firmly by the waist. Blood rushes to your face and to your core when he bites your lower lip. In return, you slide your hands underneath his shirt and lay them flat on his abdomen, feeling his warm skin, his muscles beneath your palms. 

And then he pulls away, breaking the kiss unexpectedly. You look around, almost expecting to see someone in the door frame—but nothing has changed in the room except for the fact that your face is flushed, that Chan’s cheeks are darker than they were, and that you can still feel the imprint of his hands on your waist where he was holding you a second ago.

“I can’t do this.” He takes a step back, and another, and you feel the breeze from the window again, making you shiver. Making you miss his body against yours. 

“What?” You blink, trying to catch your breath. Trying to understand how the situation went from a hundred to zero in less than a second. 

“I can’t do this,” Chan just says again, and your eyes follow his hand as he apparently adjusts the crotch area of his shorts. “Sorry,” he adds and begins walking away. 

You were once a foolish girl, but it got you nowhere. So you climb down from the desk and follow Chan before he can leave the room. “Wait,” you say, trying to make your voice sound as steady as possible. Trying to pretend like you’re not a little wet from a short makeout session with him. “Chan, what’s going on? Did I do something wrong?”

This is what the foolish girl should have asked the boy she fell in love with, the boy who had never been a stranger to her. She should have asked him this early in their relationship instead of letting things go awry. Instead of not ever being quite right for him. Maybe, then, he would have wanted her enough. Maybe, then, she wouldn’t be here tonight. 

“No, no, I promise—sorry—I—” Chan’s face is flushed again, and he sighs, leaning against the wall right next to the door he just opened. You watch him take a deep breath, trying to soothe your own fluttering heart. “It’s not your fault, it’s—”

“Please, don’t go It’s not you, it’s me over this, Chan,” you reply dryly but in a low voice. “If you don’t want to fuck me, fine. But you didn’t have to be such a tease about it.”

He sighs again, staring at your lips before staring into your eyes for good. “It’s not that. I do want to fuck you. But you know what happened to the last guy who laid a finger on you? And shit, we're talking about a metaphorical finger here, because he had his men kidnap you and he didn't even touch you himself.” 

Chan bites his lip for a second but he goes on. “This guy? They found him with his trachea all fucked up. They found him with a damaged thyroid. They found him with all the blood vessels in his neck torn, same with the cartilage. Choked so hard, just seconds short of death by strangulation. But they found him with a bullet in his head, the bullet that fucking killed him. I’m really sorry for leading you on but—I just can’t, okay? Sorry.”

Talk about a cold shower. In the end, Chan offers you a chaste squeeze of your arm and you let him walk away. The music is still playing in the room, and it is still excellent. The smell of baked brownies is slowly creeping its way upstairs, and you can hear the lively conversations taking place in the kitchen and living room. 

But all you can think of is Hyunjin. And the way he made you feel his love. 

So—you don’t hate Australia after all.

Days come and go. You spend a lot of time at the beach with Jisung and sometimes, your mother. Felix often joins you as well—he likes to go on walks or ride bicycles along the coast. In just a few days, you’ve really got yourself a nice tan and a glowing sun-kissed look. You even manage to smile and laugh. Despite the sting in your chest. 

You don’t see much of Chan over the course of the week. Which is fine. The day after he kissed you, you realized he was right to be scared, and you hold no grudges. You’ve tried talking with him, but he’s been very good at avoiding you, largely helped by the fact that he was having a set in a famous nightclub in town two days ago—and, apparently, he has another one tonight. 

“Chan asked me to find out if you’d like to be there, too,” Jisung tells you that afternoon, about Chan's set. He, of course, was going—no way in hell would he miss a set from his favorite DJ. “He said he’d like you to be there.” 

Jisung is your best friend, but you haven’t mustered up the courage to tell him about Chan. About the kiss and what happened after. About the way it felt when you tasted the whiskey on this stranger’s lips. About the way it felt when Chan reminded you that, apparently, Hyunjin has branded you forever. But then, maybe it wouldn’t make any difference. To tell him about it. He always gets upset when Hyunjin is mentioned anyway, and you’re actually surprised he never attempted to murder him. Or maybe he did, and he just never told you.

“I’ll go,” you tell Jisung. Maybe just to try and have a conversation with Chan. Maybe just to listen to more of his music and see him in his element. Maybe just to go out clubbing and try to find out who it is you are, exactly. The way Felix knows who he is when he stares at the ocean. You can't quite remember who you were before Hyunjin. Before you saw him, alone, in that bar, the night that everything changed.

In any case, Jisung is delighted. 

You picked an outfit and did your hair and makeup after a long shower. The whole process took you most of the afternoon, as you didn’t neglect any part of your strict skin and body care regimen. The whole thing is also quite fun to Jisung who spent a lot of his day with you, using fancy body scrubs on his arms with a hydrating face mask on. As he seemed to be particularly fond of your glowing skin serum, you gave him a whole bottle of it. 

Your parents insisted that it was their hired chauffeur who drove you and Jisung to the club—Seungmin wasn’t particularly interested in tagging along, but you know it’s just because he’s glad to finally have some respite from a very excited Jisung. You enjoy the relatively calm drive there. The nightlife in Melbourne seems quite fun, and you just watch from your window as you are making your way to the nightclub where Chan’s set will take place. 

The club is nice but it’s just that—a nightclub. You are guests of Chan so you are given VIP access to a private lounge room with a lot of alcohol in it. It’s located on the second floor and the view from it is quite cool—you see the dance floor and the stage perfectly, as well as the beautiful and colorful neons that provided the only lighting in the club, and served as decoration as well. But really, it’s the unlimited amount of booze that pleases you the most. And, just for that, you know it was worth accepting the invitation, no matter how awkward you feel towards Chan. 

The set starts soon after you’ve finished your second drink. By then, you feel a little more at ease, and chat with Jisung a little, but he’s really focused on watching what is happening downstairs through the large window in your VIP room. You look away from your phone to stare at the crowd, too, and the way their bodies are moving to the rhythm of Chan’s beats.

You look at him too, because seeing the crowd just reminds you of Hyunjin and that first night at the club with him. Chan is very intense in the way he moves and the way he interacts with his crowd, and you find yourself staring for longer than you should have. 

It’s one of Chan’s signature Excellent Drops that pulls you out of your little trance—Chan’s shirt is sleeveless, and that in itself is enough to distract you for a while—and you turn to Jisung. He looks happy to be here, but you know he would be happier over there.

“Go downstairs, Ji. Dance your heart out,” you tell him with a smile, pushing him out of his seat. 

“I’m not supposed to leave you,” he reminds you. Up here, in this room, the music isn’t as loud as it is downstairs, and you hear him well. “I’m still your bodyguard even if we’re in Australia, remember?” He offers a smile at you, and you appreciate it. That he doesn’t want to make you feel guilty about it. “Unless you want to dance…?” 

But you don’t, not tonight—you had mentioned this to him earlier in the car. 

“Go dance, I’ll be fine,” you insist, squeezing his shoulder before pushing him away. 

He does seem to hesitate, but then a particularly good track begins to play—you recognize it from having heard it in Chan’s office, recommended by him, and Jisung gives in, but not before handing you the butterfly knife he’s been carrying around since the beginning of the trip. 

So he leaves. You look through the window to see downstairs better, trying to locate Jisung, but it’s too dark down there and there are too many people anyway. 

The screen of your phone has nothing interesting for you. Considering your life, you can only have ghost accounts for social media and can’t use them, so there isn’t much to see there. Still, you take a minute to check Chan’s public Instagram account, where Jisung was so proud to show you there was a picture that had him on it. On his favorite DJ’s Instagram account. You smile, remembering Jisung’s fanboying. 

The picture isn’t hard to find. It’s a picture that was taken on the very day you met him, Felix, and Changbin. Chan took a selfie with the whole group—but knowing you can’t show your face online, he made sure to angle his phone just right to keep your identity, and Jisung’s, private. Still, it’s a selfie of Chan with the whole group behind him while you were sitting around and chatting, having drinks, and learning to know each other. It was a good moment. The caption just said, “always fun to meet new people in places that feel like home.”

You press the screen to like the picture—even from your ghost account, you just want to give it some love. You really should have tried to speak to Chan sooner. He’s a good guy. And he made a very valid point, after the kiss… You should have tried to be friends with him. You hope you’ll be around to have a conversation with him after his set—

“Hello, I hope it’s okay if I join you.” 

You jump when you hear the voice and turn on your seat to look at the man who just entered the room that was supposed to have a door that can only be opened by the keycards that have been given to you, Chan, Felix, Changbin and Ji. 

But there is a stranger in your VIP lounge. He’s holding a keycard in one hand. In the other, he has a glass bottle containing a bright yellow liquid that reminds you of a yellow that Hyunjin painted once, for his half-finished sunset. No one is supposed to be here. 

You push yourself out of your seat, fumbling in the pockets of your dress to grab the knife Jisung gave you a few moments ago, and the man simply closes the door behind him and carefully observes you as you retrieve the weapon and open it to show the blade—you’ve been trained to use a limited amount of weapons, however, butterfly knives happen to be one of them. 

“Woah, what a welcome,” the man tells you with a chuckle, taking a few steps towards you, but staying at a safe distance. “Where I come from, we just say hello—but I must say, there are not many things in life as splendid and alluring as a beautiful woman holding a weapon she could easily kill you with.” 

He takes another step and you hold the handle of the knife tighter into your hand, hard enough to hurt your palm and turn your knuckles white. You could scream but even if you did—you wouldn’t be heard. Not with the music, not with the crowd. 

“I won’t hurt you, darling—don’t worry. I’m not like my brother. I just wanted to talk, and my friend Chan offered to set up a little private nook for us to chat. I even brought drinks.” 

You swallow your saliva painfully, refusing to drop your weapon even if the stranger’s body language shows no threat. He sits at the small table on the left, away from the window, away from eyes that might be watching from downstairs. You recognize that it’s a smart move on his part—there is no doubt that Jisung is constantly glancing back to check if you’re alright. He might even be worried at this very moment from not seeing you watching the show. 

“Your brother?” you ask, your voice smaller than you wanted it to be, but you pretend it’s alright. “Do I know you?”

“I’m afraid I do not have the pleasure of knowing you personally.” The man shifts his weight on his chair. He’s wearing a dark suit and his hair is styled in a trendy undercut. “I’ve heard of you quite a lot, though. You caused a hell of a commotion, pretty girl.”

You don’t like his nonchalant manners and the way he just casually grabs two shot glasses from a shelf and pours one for you, and one for him, of the yellow liquid. 

“Who are you?” you ask, not letting go of the knife. Your arm is starting to feel sore, but you won’t lower it until he’s gone. Or dead. “Tell me, or I’ll kill you.”

“I’d love to see you try.” The man laughs, mouth open and head fallen back, apparently mocking you. You grunt and take a few steps toward him. The purple lighting makes the sharp blade of the butterfly knife glimmer. “I get it now. I think I get it—why the Hwang boy went fucking nuts over you. You seem like you’re a lot of fun. I mean that, really.” 

It just happens—you lower the knife, just a little. The guy notices that but he doesn’t move except to drink his shot, immediately pouring himself another afterward. 

“Why don’t you have a drink with me?” he offers, sporting a genuine smile. “Really, I just need to have a short word with you.”

“How do you know Hyunjin?” You’re not going to sit with this stranger, and you’re not going to drink whatever it is he is drinking. “Who are you?”

“Pardon my manners, miss. I did not mean to offend.” The man gives you an appraising look before setting his piercing gaze on yours. “I know Hwang Hyunjin because he is the man who killed my half-brother.” 

Your strengths seemingly abandon you and your arm falls back to the side of your body. Your heart sinks into your chest, and you try to breathe but it doesn’t seem that any oxygen is making it to your lungs. The man is gracious about it though—he keeps his neutral facial expression and waits patiently for you to recover from this reveal, simply indulging in yet another shot of the yellow liquid.

“Daito,” you manage, frozen by fear. By shock. But he heard you despite the music, you know he did. “Kangjeon Daito.” Your parents had told you about him in the aftermath of Hyunjin’s revenge on Kangjeon Sunghoon. 

Sunghoon, his childhood friend. That Hyunjin had murdered. And now, Daito, Sunghoon's brother was in this room, with her, tonight.

“Please, darling, I hate to see you like that,” Daito insists, pushing the chair across from him away from the table using his foot, effectively inviting you to take a seat. “I’m not here to hurt you. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now. Your bodyguard is downstairs, dancing, and drinking.” 

You think about it and decide to stay over here for the time being, but you keep the blade down. 

“I never asked Hyunjin to kill him,” you choose to say, just to make things clear. You make a point of not mentioning to Daito that you were fucking relieved that Hyunjin killed his brother, though. But you really were. “Why are you here?”

“I have an offer,” Daito reveals, pulling the sleeves of his shirt up a little, revealing intricate and beautiful tattoos. He catches you staring at them, and a smirk paints itself on his face. “Come closer, darling. I’ll show them to you. Every tattoo of mine has a meaning.” 

This is when you remember this saying that was once said to you in a dire situation—the enemy of my enemy is my friend. You never wanted Hyunjin to be your enemy. He had never been a stranger to you, and you had thought that meant something. 

But he had decided otherwise. And now you are here, having this conversation with his other enemy. 

“What kind of offer?” you ask. In the end, you take the seat across the table, keeping the blade in your hand, just in case. “What’s that?” you add, motioning towards the bottle he brought with him. 

“That’s homemade limoncello, have you ever had that? Made from lemons grown on the Amalfi Coast by business partners of mine, in Italy… They also make this delicious liquor from it. Go on, have a try while it’s still cold.”

To hell with it. Hyunjin hasn’t chosen you, and some days, it made it hard to live. Some other days, it made it easy. More often, it was a peculiar mix of both.

You grab the glass and drink it, letting the liquid swirl in your mouth to take in the taste. It fills your whole soul with the sunshine those lemons grew under—this might just be the best fucking thing you ever had. The bright and sweet flavor with just a hint of tartness is perfectly balanced. 

“Fuck,” you sigh, not bothering with manners, or patience, and grab the bottle to pour yourself another shot. At least, you pour Daito one, too, under his observant gaze. “You should talk to me now. It won’t be long before my bodyguard comes back. He worries about me a lot.”

“He shouldn’t,” Daito responds with a shrug but a playful smile. “You seem like you’re perfectly able to handle yourself. Which is why I’m here to make my offer to you directly instead of going to your parents, as most would have done. As most have done in the past.”

You appreciate that he goes straight back to the point. You watch him carefully after drinking more of the limoncello and licking it off your lips—you simply do not want to waste any of this. 

Daito leans back into his seat and waits a few seconds before making his offer. “Would you be interested in marrying me, by any chance?”

You were such a foolish girl. You were a foolish girl and it got you nowhere. It got you here, in Melbourne, in a nightclub, with citrus on your lips, with the enemy of your enemy sitting across from you, speaking words to you that the boy you fell in love with never even mentioned. 

“You seem unfazed,” Daito adds, frowning. “Were you expecting me? Did Chan tell you I would come to talk to you?”

“No,” you reply, realizing that you are, indeed, unfazed. You even let go of the butterfly knife finally, soothing your aching hand. This isn’t the first time you’re either set up with a boy or a boy wants your hand in marriage. But you never cared about these deals—they never had love written into them. 

They mean nothing. And you understand that. Being the daughter of your father, you understand that it will be impossible for you to live the fairytale kind of love you had wished for. 

“But why would you want to marry me? Your family is much more powerful than mine—aren’t you one of the most profitable heroin dealers in Tokyo? What would you gain from marrying me?” 

“The most profitable, darling.” Daito offers you a smile, a true one, this time, not a cocky smirk. 

He leans over the small table, his face much closer to yours than it had been. He is a handsome man, a few years older than you. You smell him and the limoncello. 

“I’ll be honest with you, because you are obviously a smart woman—I’ve been plotting my revenge against Hwang since the very day I was shown the pictures of my baby brother, lying dead, a hole in his head, his neck broken. Sunghoon may have had a different mother than me, but he was my blood, my brother. What I wanted to do at first, darling is killing you. Exactly in the same painful way Hwang killed Sunghoon. Choke the life out of you, watch you struggle for air and turn purple, and finish you off with a bullet in your pretty head. But I thought—nah. I thought that making you mine would piss him off way more. So here I am.”

You ignore the anguish brought by Daito’s words, ignore the fear, the disappointment. You knew his offer wasn’t going to be about love, but you certainly did not expect to be a mere pawn in his revenge. You ignore, too, the tears pricking your eyes. You ignore the way Hyunjin was yours, once, and you, his. 

“He doesn’t care about me anymore,” you respond, making big efforts to keep your voice calm and not sound like a sad little girl. “He chose his… His other life. You marrying me wouldn’t piss him off nearly as much as you think it would.”

“That’s where I think you’re wrong, darling.” Daito’s smirk is back, but he pours himself a shot and one for you, too. “I know for a fact that it will fucking destroy him. But, you don’t have to give me an answer now. I’d rather you think about it.”

“Are you going to go to my parents with this?” you ask Daito. “If you do, they’ll say yes. There is too much for them to benefit from our union… What you have, in Tokyo, in Osaka… The business. If you go to them, we’ll have to get married.” 

Daito sighs and gets up from his chair after looking at the time on his watch. In the club, you hear Chan on the mic announcing his last track for the evening, but inviting people to keep partying after his set is done. Daito bends over just a little, just to look at your face from up close, and he pushes your hair behind your ear.

“We’ll have to get married the same way that Hwang boy has to get married to the Kim girl,” Daito says to you, his voice merely a whisper. “Which is not at all. You’re always in control of your narrative, darling. I won’t bring you into a loveless marriage by force. Do I think we could make a good pair? Yes. Do I want to see Hwang’s face when I put a ring on your finger? Fuck yes. Let him imagine the wedding night and honeymoon that follows. But you can always choose otherwise, dear. Remember that.” 

Daito winks at you and offers you one last smirk before turning away and exiting the room. Your eyes land on the bottle of limoncello, which he left on the table, and you don’t bother pouring any in a glass—you drink it straight from the bottle. 

Out of habit when you’re nervous, you pull out your phone. First, you notice a text from Jisung, accompanied by a picture—it’s him, Felix, and Changbin downstairs, at the bar, apparently having the time of their lives. Your friend is asking you ‘please come join us! it’ll be fun’, but you really, really don’t feel like it right now. So you encourage Jisung to keep having his fun but scroll further into the lists of text conversations. 

There was one rule to be respected with Hyunjin, at all times—to keep zero evidence of the other on your devices. To add to that, even aside from being with you, Hyunjin is the kind of guy that changes his phone number every month or so, for safety. And changes his actual phone, every other month, too, for additional safety—he has to be invisible. But you cheated that rule. He exists on your phone. He exists on your phone as the last text he ever sent you, a day before the breakup. 

Hyunjin: love you. can’t wait to see you. i’ll bring peach iced tea next time, i promise 

But the next time you had seen him after this, there had been no iced tea, no love. You remember the way the sky looked that day. The way Hyunjin looked at you that day. 

You have not tried talking to him since that day. He changes his phone number regularly. He should not exist on your device. But—

you: i know you won’t see this so that’s why i write it. i miss you. i still love you but i wish i didn’t. it would be easier if i didn’t. but i also hate you. i wish i didn't hate you. i really hope you’re happy. with her. with yourself. good luck, hyunjin. i’m sorry i was never enough for you. 

Chan enters the room as you press send on that text—a text that serves no purpose other than purging you of these words that have been haunting you, as you know this phone number no longer exists. 

He smiles at you softly, looking a little tired from his set, a towel around his neck, eyeing you silently.

Today is the day.

You knew that you were in for life. With Hyunjin, with this boy that was never a stranger to you. You knew that no matter the chaos, no matter the hardships, he would be it for you, you knew there would be nothing that could take this love away from you. But you also knew better than letting him make any sort of promise to you. You knew better than to let him give you false hope—it has been more than enough to permeate every fiber of your being with him, his presence, his love. The damage was done. It could not be undone. 

But today is the day you get over Hyunjin. As if Daito’s smirk and limoncello had been the reset button on something that you didn’t know could be reset.

As if you understood this now—you will live with the fading memories of Hyunjin within you forever. But you will live.

Chan entered the private lounge a little while after his set, after washing up quickly apparently and seeing Daito roam around the club. 

“Nice set,” you tell him as he dries his wavy hair with a gray towel. “People really went wild.”

“Makes me feel alive, to be honest.” Chan accepts the compliment humbly, with a shy smile, dipping his head a little. “It goes both ways, you know. I feed the crowd and they feed me… otherwise, it just doesn’t work.” 

You lean against the wall, not far from the window, where the party is still going strong despite the end of Chan’s set. You try to find the boys near the bar area, but can’t decide if this group of people apparently dancing the macarena to this intense EDM beat is them or not… 

“Right,” you concur with a nod, twisting your neck to stare at Chan as he grabs the limoncello bottle, and the glasses, and goes to sit on the couch in the corner of the room, away from the large window. Away from you. “Oh, feel free to help yourself to my delicious homemade limoncello from the Amalfi Coast, Channie boy.” 

You see him suppress a smile and look away as he licks the liquor off his lips. “I love this limoncello. This was my reward, by the way,” he reveals to you after drinking two consecutive shots in record time. “For giving Daito some time with you. Did he make the offer to you?”

“He did.” In the end, you’re pretty sure that it’s them dancing the macarena and making fools of themselves—but also gathering a crowd around them. So you walk away and join Chan on the couch, watching him pour you a shot. 

“And what did you say?”

“Didn’t say anything. He didn’t want an answer. Said I should think about it.”

“He wouldn’t be a bad husband to you, wouldn’t hurt you,” Chan assures, throwing the towel away on a chair as he’s done with it. “And if you refuse his offer, he won’t hold it against you either, no resentment.”

“But it’s kind of messed up, isn’t it?” you point out, ditching the glass to drink too much limoncello straight from the bottle once more. “That he just wants to use me?”

Chan chuckles at that and you can’t decide if you’re pissed off or if you think he's particularly hot when he laughs like this. But that might just be the liquor getting to your head, or the smell of his cologne. 

“You’d be using him just as much as he’d be using you,” he points out. “That’s marriage right there, baby girl.” 

Your breathing halts a little at the use of the pet name and yet, you feel a pleasant warmth spreading to your gut and at the back of your neck from it. It’s the way it sounded in his voice, too. Like it belonged there, in his mouth. In your ears.

“Don’t you want to hurt him the way he hurt you? Hwang?” Chan turns to you, his body facing you fully on the couch. 

Do you want to hurt him? The idea is… not unpleasant, but it doesn’t sit right with you. You shake your head.

“No. I just… I want to keep going, I’m just… I’m just scared to forget him, you know? I’m—I should want to forget him, but I'm terrified and—” 

You gather yourself before you actually start crying and avoid Chan’s eyes by drinking some more, but he takes the bottle from your hand to drink, too. And maybe to prevent you from blacking out from alcohol poisoning. 

“You will forget him, it’s part of it. But you’ll remember him in other ways. That’s also part of it.” 

You don’t really know why you feel compelled to pour your heart open to this stranger—or is he not a stranger anymore? You want to stop, you don’t want him to know the ways your heart has broken. 

But then Chan tells you about this girl. The girl he fell in love with. They loved each other very deeply, but it turned out that he loved her more than she loved him. And it had not worked out. Your heart aches for him—this is what happened to you and Hyunjin. His love and yours didn't match.

“Sometimes I forget how it felt to kiss her,” he tells you, his voice barely a whisper, so low that you have to lean towards him to hear him over the music, despite being upstairs, in this room. “You were the first girl I kissed since her. I lied to you. It’s not because I’m scared of your ex—I’m scared that if I kiss you again, touch you again, I’ll forget her for good. Her body, how it felt. Sometimes I do forget things. The way she kissed me. The next day, I remember her smile when she ate raspberry ice cream, her favorite.”

You feel honored by the confession and humbled, too. And a little sad. You did not expect to relate to Chan this way. It also gives you hope—that maybe, there is a future for you. Maybe. 

“You’re the first boy I kissed since him,” you admit, your cheeks flushing instantly, but you do not look away, this time, and you don’t flinch when he takes your hand in yours after putting the limoncello away. 

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” he says, his thumb tracing circles on the top of your hand. His skin is warm, it feels nice. “But I mean, also, I’m pretty sure he’d kill me if he found out I even dared lay my eyes on you…” 

“He won’t find out. He doesn’t have to find out.” You take a deep breath.

Today is the day you get over Hyunjin. Not in the way you thought you would. You didn’t think that getting over him would mean remembering him better, his kisses, the weight of his body on top of yours, his voice in your ears. His thumb tracing circles on your hand. You didn’t think it could be like that. 

“Will you kiss me again?” you ask Chan. He doesn’t hesitate to pull you closer to him, but he doesn’t kiss you just yet—his face hovers over yours, his citrus breath making you dizzy, his lips inviting. “Will you help me remember him, and I help you remember her?” 

A slight nod from Chan before his mouth finds yours. The scent of his cologne is so strong you can almost taste it—masculine, intriguing. His skin is still warm and damp from the quick shower he took after his set, and you let your hands run on any exposed part of it—his arms, his neck, the back of it. 

Chan’s hands are already making their way between your legs, finding the lace of your panties. You moan into his mouth, wasting no time closing your fists in his hair, pulling him even closer. It doesn’t need to be elaborate, he doesn’t love you nor do you love him. Maybe you could love him someday—not the way you loved Hyunjin, no. A different way, a little less prismatic, less… consuming. But still. Tonight isn’t about that. Tonight is about remembering and forgetting all at once.

“Is it me or are you a little wet, baby girl?” Chan whispers into your mouth before kissing it whole again, his mouth exploring you, teasing your lips. “Fuck, you’re smooth, too…” 

He’s pushed your panties to the side to let his fingers tickle your folds, rubbing them softly but intently. You’re definitely not not wet—and you feel pressure and arousal building quicker than it had last time, in his office. Maybe because you’re finally ready to accept the consequences of it. 

“Someone could come in,” you point out, glancing towards the door, your hands leaving Chan’s tousled hair to unzip his ripped jeans. 

“The guys are all busy trying to get girls downstairs, utilizing the fact that they know me to do so,” Chan replies, biting his lip when you manage to pull his pants and boxer briefs down just enough to free his hardening cock. Again—tonight is not about being elaborate. Tonight is just about being. “I told them to leave us alone.”

You whimper—Chan just grazed your entrance with his two fingers, and you can feel your juices coating his digits, making you spread your legs a little more, making you roll your hips to meet his hand harder. 

He whimpers too when you waste no time spitting into your palm to squeeze his cock—it’s smooth, with the tip flushed already. It doesn’t remind you of Hyunjin when you begin stroking him. It doesn’t remind you of Hyunjin either when you thumb his tip, squeezing harder, maybe too hard. 

But it does remind you of Hyunjin when Chan pushes himself on his knees, making you lie down, pulling your panties off you entirely, pushing the skirt of your dress until he can see your pussy, which he stares at with a frown, biting his lip. 

“Everything okay?” you ask, trying to get a grasp of his cock again, which is fully hard by now, but a little out of your reach. “We don’t—”

“Fuck, you’re so pretty,” Chan cuts you off, diving into you, burying his face into your neck to kiss it, to lick it, to graze his teeth over your skin there.

This, yes. Yes, this makes you remember Hyunjin, and you cry out a loud moan—too loud for a public place anyway—your hands clutching at Chan’s shirt, trying to pull him even closer. You feel him, his cock, pressed against your mons. His mouth on your neck, but you want more, more, more. 

“Tell me what to do,” you moan into Chan’s ear, your hips rolling to rub yourself against his impressive length. Fuck, he feels so good against you like that—it feels like your whole body is coming alive. “So you remember her.”

“Kiss me softly. Really softly. Just kiss me. I miss when she kissed me.” 

So you do that. You kiss him, a slow kiss, your hands underneath his shirt, feeling the warmth from his skin, feeling the ocean and the storms within him. Chan’s hips are meeting yours, his cock rubbing against your soaked pussy, eliciting pleasures in ways you didn’t remember they could even exist. 

You kiss him as softly as you can, making each meeting of your mouth with his as meaningful as you can, grazing your tongue on his lips, on his teeth, letting him kiss you back when he needs to. 

You reach between your two bodies again, your hand finding his cock again, squeezing him, rubbing him. Chan fucks your hand, fucks it good. You look down, trying to catch a glimpse of it. Not to remember or forget, just to see him leak precum, to see what he looks like when he throbs with your hand around him. 

His weight on you, his mouth back in your neck. You close your eyes to remember the way Hyunjin made you feel his love. 

You squeeze his cock harder, making sure it’s nestled perfectly into your hand. He could cum right now, this soon—you feel it, and you want it. But he pulls away from you a little, his face leaving your neck, his weight retreating from you for good. 

He takes your wrist in his hand and you let go of his cock, finally getting a peek at the precum leaking out of it as he’s getting rid of his pants and underwear for good. He kisses it, your wrist, the hand that he just fucked a little, his cock standing hard and wet, waiting for you.  

This. The way Hyunjin sought his own taste on you, in you, always. You can tell that Chan senses something, senses that you like this, because he parts his lips open and licks your fingers slowly, his eyes into yours. The sensation of his smooth tongue on your skin makes your eyes roll at the back of your head a little. Fuck—he’s good. He licks you slowly, each finger, sucking on each of them, driving you crazy.

His free hand moves between your legs—you jump when he touches your sensitive pussy, but moan when he presses three fingers near your entrance, coating his fingers, teasing you. 

“So wet, baby girl,” Chan purrs, taking a sharp inhale of air. “Fuck, I bet your pussy tastes so good…” 

He moves on to your clit, grazing it lazily, watching you watch him with these eyes of him—focused, alert, carnal. You melt into the couch, your back falling deeper and deeper into the seats, unable to stop the moans from escaping your lips. 

It doesn’t take long before you’re a sweaty, panting mess—and all that Chan is doing is rubbing three fingers between your legs. But it’s the way he does it… It’s the limoncello, the music playing outside of this room, it’s the memory of Hyunjin fucking his love into you. It’s Chan’s cologne, his sweet voice filling your head with the ocean breeze and good beats. 

When he pulls his hand away, you sigh, missing the contact already—but a different contact makes you moan again. Chan positions his head between your thighs, leaving a trail of wet kisses on the way to your soaked folds, not waiting too long before parting you open with one expert motion of his hand, and kissing you there, too. You feel his lips tease your pussy, you watch him as he kisses and licks and tastes you.

“Please,” you beg, and you had promised yourself you would never beg a man, but this is different. Maybe this is meant to make you remember Hyunjin, too. 

Chan lays his tongue flat against you then moves his head to lap at you, to drink you whole. He moans and grunts as he swallows your taste. He twirls his tongue all over before he licks his way back up, pressing his mouth against your clit. You shudder, your eyelids fluttering. Yes, yes. Fuck, you can just feel how wet you are, and Chan is licking and sucking and teasing your clit. 

You almost cum when, unexpectedly, he pushes not one, but two fingers into your entrance. You gasp, crying out, moaning with your mouth open, bucking your hips to meet his face, his tongue, his fingers. Fuck. He massages your walls, stretching you just a little, curling and twirling his digits inside you as he attempts to find your most sensitive spots. And he does find them, groaning into your pussy as he feels you clench around his fingers—and you almost cum again feeling the vibrations of his voice against you.

You're on your way to heaven when he suddenly retreats for air, his mouth and chin dripping with spit and your juices. Fuck, that sight. That handsome face of his, his intense gaze, the way he licks his lips to taste you some more. “So good, baby girl, fuck—taste yourself, here.” 

And he climbs back to you, to your mouth, where you kiss him the way he had asked you to kiss him before. Slowly, softly, despite the urgency you feel to have him inside of you. 

His mouth tastes like fancy limoncello and like you—the two lace together just perfectly. 

“Please, I need you inside of me,” you beg. And you had promised yourself you would not beg a man ever again. But it’s the limoncello. It’s the taste of your pussy in Chan’s mouth, the memory of sharing lemon sorbet with Hyunjin while watching a sunset over Han River. “Please, please—Channie—”

But you can’t even finish your sentence, you can barely think anyway. Chan kisses you one last time before pulling away, and you watch him take his cock into his hand to guide it near your entrance. This is how you need him for you to remember Hyunjin. Raw, hard. 

Chan’s tip meets you, and then he buries himself inside of you with a feral moan, slumping over you once again to steal kisses from you, to pull your dress down to free your tits. He’s big. He’s big enough that you feel him stretch you as he pushes further into you, his cock hard, his cock so, so good with you around him like this. 

“Oh fuck, fuck, that’s good—” is all he manages, so you give him one of these sweet kisses he likes. He responds by cupping your breast into his free hand and twisting it a little, just enough to make you moan. To make you fuck him from underneath. His other hand is gripping your waist. “Shit, you’re tight but so wet, aren’t you?” 

But he’s stronger than you, and he fucks you from the top. The space is limited on the couch but it doesn’t matter—Chan slams into you one time, two times, three, four, and each time you feel your own juices gush from around his cock, you feel them coat him and you both, you feel pressure building within you.

He fucks you. Hard. Pounding into you unrelentingly, making your back arch, making you forget, making you remember.

Your tits bounce with each thrust, and you can’t stop staring at him, at his mouth—the way he bites his lip when he reaches a particularly deep point inside you, the way his eyelids flutter, too—this makes you remember Hyunjin. The way he couldn’t control himself with you. The way you were his lifeline, his escape, his home all at once. The way you were actually none of these things because he didn’t choose you, in the end. But he always made you feel his love, always fucked it into you. 

“Now tell me, tell me how he used to fuck you, baby girl,” Chan says, his mouth against yours, his cock buried deep inside you. Fuck, this is good. The music, the booze, his cologne. Everything. “Tell me exactly.” 

“I was his slut and I liked it,” you tell Chan in between moans, your nails sinking into his back, your hips rolling to fuck yourself onto his length while he seems to want to have a conversation with you. “Fuck me hard, Chan, please—when you cum, you don’t have to pull out, please, make me feel—” You can’t say it out loud. You can’t, but you won’t—but if Chan blows his load inside of you tonight, you might just remember Hyunjin perfectly, for a few seconds at least, and feel his love again.

Your request seems to please Chan—almost too much—he groans against you and pulls out of your dripping pussy, only to roll you on your hands and knees, shoving your head downwards. 

“His slut, huh?” you hear Chan say between his teeth, his tip back against your pussy again. He rubs it all over, teasing you, teasing himself at the same time, too. “You sure are a pretty little slut, baby girl—I’ll fill your cute little cunt.” 

And Chan sinks into you again, not letting you ease into it, not letting you adjust to his size from this position. You cry out into the couch, your face against the leather, Chan’s hands keeping you in place at the back of your neck and on your lower back, holding your wrist there. He fucks you relentlessly. Yes. Yes. Hyunjin. His soft hair, his lips on you, all over you.

The music, the crowd, the nightclub, the feeling of booze in your veins. Hyunjin. His fast car, the way he fucked you in it, the way he kissed you in it. Hyunjin, Hyunjin. 

You need more, you need to feel him. You reach out behind you to grab the hand that Chan keeps on your neck to bring it to the front of it, inviting him to choke you.

“What is it, love?” he grunts, rutting against you, fucking you harder than you thought he would, but reveling in the sensation, in the way his cock massages your walls, hits your deepest point. “Need me to hold you there, too?”

"Please."

Chan gives a cautious squeeze around your neck, and that’s it for you.  Your body goes limp and you clench around him, your voice filling the room. Yes, now you feel him. You feel Hyunjin, you remember the way he would watch you turn red under his touch, the way it made him cum when you couldn’t breathe. And then it made you cum when he filled you with his love. 

“Oh fuck, you are a slut—” Chan’s relentless fucking is becoming erratic, and you know he’s close. 

He chokes you harder. You clench harder, too—fuck. You close your eyes, basking in the memory of this love that you lost. 

Chan grips your waist harder, slamming you into him as hard as he slams into you. 

“Shit, I’m gonna—” 

“Don’t pull out, don’t—” But your voice is a breathless gasp. You need this. You need to feel it. 

Chan cums hard, his cock pulsing inside of you, painting your walls white, growling into the room as his pace slows down. His is hand still around your neck, still squeezing you. You feel dizzy and it hurts you and you love it. You help him ride his high, meeting his thrusts halfway, and he rewards you by choking you a little harder, eliciting a few raspy moans out of you. 

You are full of cum. So full of it, and Chan is fucking it deeper inside of you, cock still throbbing with aftershocks. 

The hand that was on your waist makes its way in between your legs, where Chan finds your clit, rubbing it with three fingers in circular motions, pressing hard against it. 

You try to moan and you can’t. You try to breathe, and you can’t. 

You were just a girl when you saw Hyunjin for the first time. Innocent, foolish. You were still foolish when you fell in love with him, and you might be foolish, still, for loving him to this day. Despite it all. 

This is how it felt when Hyunjin fucked you—like he was a fire and you a forest, like he was an ocean and you the shore. Like you were the only thing in the world that mattered, even if that was just an illusion. Like he was conquering you, like you were the light and he was darkness, running and running to bask in your luminescence, but the light evaded him at the last second. So he fucked his darkness inside you. So he filled you with his love. 

You can’t breathe, but you cum hard around Chan’s cock, your voice turned into gasps and throaty, ugly noises. This is the first time you cum since Hyunjin. This is the first time you remember him for real, too, since that day. 

You gasp for air when Chan releases you as he fucks you slowly until your orgasm dies out. This will leave bruises. Fine by you—more to remember. More to forget. 

“Fuck—” Chan begins, out of breath, but he just groans when he painfully pulls out of your still sensitive pussy. Your throat feels sore and you like it. Your pussy feels sore, too, and you like that as well. 

You both collapse on the couch, Chan pulling you against him in the best approximation of spooning the limited space allows. You feel his cock, wet and softening, against the small of your back. You feel his cum inside of you, some of it dripping out slowly, some of it sticking in. This, too, helps you remember Hyunjin.

Chan kisses your shoulder. “You okay, baby girl?”

You nod, putting your hand over the one he has on your side as he gently caresses your breast. “Yes,” you start, swallowing tears, looking away, staring at the purple lighting on the ceiling instead. “You?”

“I’m all good, sweet thing.” He kisses your shoulder again. “Do you remember, now? I do. It feels good.”

“I do too.” You look at him then, let him see the tears in your eyes—it doesn’t matter, because he has them, too. Two broken hearts understanding each other. “Thank you, Channie.” 

This time, it’s your lips he kisses, and you indulge him in one of the slow, soft kisses he requested, for you’re pretty sure this is the last time you ever kiss him. “Thank you, baby girl.” 

You never want to forget this. 

Despite it all, you feel it in your heart, now.  Hyunjin is yours, and you are his—no matter what. 

Hyunjin jerks awake, almost falling off his bed. Instead, he finds himself sitting in it, one foot on the floor, his other leg curled up under him. He can’t remember the nightmare that woke him up this time—and soon realizes that it wasn’t a nightmare at all that did so, it was his phone. 

He cannot see what the sky looks like. It is dark in his bedroom, and the curtains are covering the windows. 

But he’s still kind of drunk and kind of high from when he passed out. As he tries to sit normally in his bed, he realizes that he’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes, that he smells awful and feels even worse. 

He suppresses a bout of nausea as he grabs his phone to look at the screen. A private number is calling him—nothing new. Nothing to fear, as so few people have this phone number, which he changes constantly anyway, so he just picks up the call, hoping it will be worth it. Hoping, maybe, that it won't—so that he gets to jump into his car and go shoot the motherfucker that woke him up without valid reason.

“The fuck you want?” Hyunjin mumbles into his phone, rubbing his eyes, tentatively getting out of bed to make his way to the bathroom, just in case he does vomit. 

“Did I interrupt something, Hyunjaah?” 

The world collapses around Hyunjin. Sunghoon? 

Hyunjin might be high but he isn’t crazy either—he would recognize this voice anywhere. The voice that belongs to his childhood friend, the only person to ever call him like that, this stupid nickname that he gave him when they were just boys. Innocent, or almost innocent—Hyunjin doesn’t think either of them ever truly were that. Innocent. 

Sunghoon, who Hyunjin killed. 

At least, Hyunjin makes it to the toilet in time to throw up—he falls to the floor, his upper body jerking as the sour taste invades his mouth, his nose, prickles his eyes. But it’s just bile—he can’t even remember the last time he ate anyway. It’s just his body rejecting the last of the booze he drank to make himself fall asleep. This is the only way he can sleep anymore—mixing pills with booze and jerking off to porn a few times until he does pass out in his cum-stained clothes and bedsheets, a film of sweat covering his body. 

Hyunjin’s stomach churns a few more times and he heaves each time, but nothing else will come out for now, so he wipes his mouth as he lies down on the cool tile of his bathroom, thankful that Min-jeong is away visiting her parents for the weekend, thankful that he is alone in here—

Except for the phone, still on call with his dead best friend, just next to him. Hyunjin puts it against his ear again, only to hear a burst of laughter. 

“Man, people did say Sunghoonie and I always sounded the same on the phone, but I didn’t expect to have this much of an effect on you, Hwang,” the man tells him, and Hyunjin coughs on the bitter aftertaste of his own vomit. “Not that I’ll apologize—it was a good joke.” 

Hyunjin frowns, blinded by the lighting in the room, wondering if he should text Minho, on guard downstairs, to come check on him. To come check if he’s going insane, if he’s got alcohol poisoning. 

But then it clicks all in place.

“Daito?” The sudden realization hits Hyunjin like a ton of bricks and he sits up, leaning against the wall behind him. “Daito? How—”

“The how I got your number doesn’t matter, boy, it’s what I’m going to do with it that will. You see, I thought I’d touch base with you, see how you’ve been, since, you know. You’ve murdered my baby brother, broke up with your girl, got engaged to another… So much to talk about, Hwang, don’t you think?” 

Hyunjin is thirsty, but he can’t move—the simple act of sitting up was enough to make him want to throw up again. 

“Not that you asked, but I am doing okay, thank you,” Daito goes on before Hyunjin manages to come up with an answer. He knows he should hang up, he knows he shouldn’t be speaking to his worst enemy on the phone—but how exactly did Daito get this number? “I’m in Melbourne right now, partying a little… I met a girl, she’s quite nice. A little bit on the slutty side, but some people like them just this way, you know?” 

Something in Kangjeon Daito’s intonation just then makes Hyunjin’s heart skip a few beats. Or maybe that’s just the oxycodone from earlier. 

“What do you want, Daito?” Hyunjin asks painfully, wondering if he’s going to throw up again, have a heart attack, or just stop breathing, maybe. “Why are you telling me all of this?” From a tactical standpoint, telling Hyunjin that he was out of the country was a very bad move...

“I just wanted you to hear a little something, Hwang. I’m so fucking tempted to put you on face call, just to see your face when you do hear it.”

“Hear what? The fuck is this, man?” Hyunjin knows he deserves whatever blow Daito is about to deliver to him. He knew it the moment walked away from Sunghoon’s body. That there would be retaliation, consequences. But it was worth it because it was for you. The only thing that mattered in this ugly fucking life. You. There was not a price too high for you. 

“Just listen, boy. I recorded that shit from outside the door—wasn’t going to ruin their moment, really. But that shit was so hot it made me hard—fuck, I almost want to say I understand why you killed my brother over her… He was a psycho, we all knew that. And she’s… wow.” 

This—all of this—is enough to sober up Hyunjin almost immediately. He gasps, trying to calm his heart in his ribcage, pushing himself off the ground to stand. He needs to lean on the counter a little, but he manages to stay up—

And then he hears it. Music playing in the background, distant… 

And you. 

The world collapses around Hyunjin.

“Please, I need you inside of me, please, please—Channie—” Moans, whimpers. Brushing noises, grunts, too—a man. 

The man that is fucking you. The man that is making you moan in Hyunjin’s ear. The man that then, after a while of defiling you, after a concert moans, of wet fleshy sounds, the noises of his cock inside of your pussy, says: “Oh fuck, fuck, that’s good—shit, you’re tight but so wet, aren’t you?” 

Whatever recording Daito had been playing stops abruptly. Hyunjin expects him to say something, anything, but he just hangs up. 

He should have known. He should have known that you would move on, that you would let someone in again. He knew that a woman like you wouldn't stay alone for very long. But his world is collapsing. But his heart is breaking all over again. But rage is rising within him as he remembers the man's voice, the way he was talking to you while he fucked you.

Everybody knows that the Hwang boy likes to play with fire.  But he never finished painting that sunset for you. But the flame had gone out.

Hyunjin stares at the screen of his phone just one second before calling Lee Minho. 

“Boss?” Minho’s voice sounds sleepy—no doubt that he just woke up to take the call. 

“Get everything ready. Jeongin too. Get a jet. We’re going to Australia and I want to leave as soon as possible.”

Everybody knows that the Hwang boy likes to play with fire— And the flame had been reignited, and the flame was burning brighter than ever, scorching, advancing like a wildfire, hungry. 

a/n: hello everyone! I simply wanted to say that 1, I am sorry this took so long to be up. There has been a lot going on for me, and I found it really hard to write this particular chapter. But I tried my best. I understand it's quite different and clashes with the rest of the series, but I hope you found little parts in it that you like.

As always, thank you for your love and support, and feedback. To people who reblog my works to add feedback onto it: a very special thank you to you. I read everything and do my best to respond to everyone. Thank you for reading my silly little fic. <3

gold rush | bangchan

“I don’t like that anyone would die to feel your touch, everybody wants you, everybody wonders what it would be like to love you.” Or, a lot of people love chan but he only loves you. He just wishes you could see that.

⇝ pairing: bangchan x f!reader ⇝ rating: 18+ (for the most part it’s pretty pg) ⇝ genre: childhood friends to lovers | angst | fluff | smut ⇝ word count: 10.6k :o ⇝ warnings: lots of pining, based off of gold rush by taylor swiftie, attempt to use metaphors, kinda angsty, also fluffy, chan is rlly popular, minor character death (not mentioned in detail), misunderstandings kinda? but they’re bearable, chan halfway confesses like three times, but you just don’t want to get your hopes up :(, changbin is kinda mean, self indulgent!!, romantic-ish smut (I tried), the smut is skippable it’s like a bonus part <3, blow jobs, pussy eating, kissing, unprotected sex (we know better), multiple orgasms, overstimulation, lovey dovey stuff, time jump, lmk if i’m missing anything

a/n: hi angels, <3 this is now my longest fic… I listened to evermore on wednesday and gold rush and tolerate it filled me with the most insane inspiration ever, so despite my four current wips i whipped this up and posted it in a day so if it shows… i’m so so sorry </3 I could’ve made this way better so let’s pretend I couldn’t have! I hope you like it! It’s way longer than I planned considering it was only supposed to be like 2k. I also added smut which I hadn’t planned on but I made it as soft as possible just to fit the overall vibe I was going for. I wrote this in like ??? 8 hours maybe?? and most of all this shit is self indulgent as fuck like… i’m so !???? i love chan

playlist: gold rush by taylor swift, tolerate it by taylor swift, sad beautiful tragic by taylor swift, she by harry styles (idk anywhere near enough good romantic songs to make a playlist and this is all i listened to as i wrote so… yea idk what’s up with me)

mlist | taglist | navi

When did you fall in love?

You think you could most likely tie it back to when Chan first came to town, brown curly hair falling over his eyes, a fuzzy orange sports headband on his head, and a permanent blush on his cheeks. Or, perhaps it was when he’d introduced himself to you, blond hair curling behind his ears as he stared you down, looking less youthful yet even more handsome. Or, maybe it was when he sat next to you in your freshman year of university, spreading his books along his desk, badgering you for one of your shiny pencils, and winking at you when class began.

Maybe it was after all of this. Maybe you still aren’t really in love, but the way your heart beats when he’s around, when he smooths his hands over your shoulders and tucks his head under your chin, makes you think that maybe you are.

It doesn’t matter though– and it never will. Everybody wants him. All you are is another face in the crowd, a friend to talk to when things get tough. You’re someone with whom his shoulder’s brush as he walks past– not someone who gets to feel the wonder of his embrace. The feel of his lips against your skin, the sweet words saved for his lover. That’s never been you.

The sun beams down on you, its rays glittering over the wooden benches of the park, reflecting off of streetlights and seeping in through the cracks of windows and doors. Your feet move leisurely along the street, and in your hand you cradle a warm latte. It’s the middle of September and occasionally sharp gusts of wind leave an air of frigidness over your skin. Your lashes flutter under the breeze, and despite the cold you’re content to saunter along campus. It’s still warm enough for you to leave your hands exposed without them falling victim to the biting chill of autumn, and it’s exactly what you need to distract your mind.

Each step you take allows the thoughts that have been plaguing you to fall away one by one until they are no more. You’re free to ignore them until you have to see Chan again in all his boyish charm and utter cluelessness. Your eyes shut momentarily as the image of him comes to the forefront of your mind, each crinkle in his eye as he smiles, his dimple, his laugh. It brings a familiar ache to your heart. One that can’t fall away with your steps nor with the frigid air. It is one that never leaves you no matter how much you beg or how much you wish. It's become a part of you, and of that you’re sure of.

What you’re not sure of is how to feel about all that your life has become. When you were younger you were no stranger to love– to watching the way your parents interacted as if their life was a simple romance film. You had never lived a loveless life, whether through platonic love or familial, you had felt it all your life. It was normal.

When you were younger you never thought you’d have the same type of love that your parents had. You’d witnessed all forms of love– the best kinds and the worst kinds– and didn’t think you’d get the chance to experience either one. You’d been on the receiving end of many emotions, the good and the bad, though your attraction to others since you knew what attraction was had always been shallow. A simple crush that made your heart flutter, but nothing that made you want to dance to an imaginary song in the dim glow of the kitchen at night. Nothing that made you think waking up to them everyday would be a blessing, and losing them would be a tragedy. For you, it was just like it was for everyone else. Nothing special like the love you’d always laid witness to. Nothing like the love people on your television would cry and cheer about, completely and irrevocably in love with whom they considered their other half.

When you were younger, you envied your parents. As wrong as it had always seemed, as horribly shallow as it had felt, their love constructed a jealousy in you, an insecurity, a flaw. For something you had been exposed to since being a mere infant, why was it so hard for you to feel? All you wanted back then was the love that made people stupidly happy. The feeling that made a comfortable ache form in their chests and an irreversible smile form on their cheeks.

Now, you think that you simply don’t deserve that love. You feel it, you understand it, yet it doesn’t feel as good as it should. It doesn't feel like theirs.

You’ve tried to reverse it, to become the shallow young girl you once were, but the ache in your chest remains through it all, and the complete devotion you feel towards your best friend is just agony every day it isn’t returned.

You’ve arrived at your dorm room, the grandiose building imposing as it towers over you, yet bringing with it a sense of comfort. You don’t miss out on any chance to revel in that feeling– constantly feeling as if a rug has been pulled from under you in every waking moment of the day. It’s tiring, and at any moment you feel like you’re ready to crumble under the weight of it all. Was love supposed to be so agonizing? So terribly heartbreaking? Was it right to tear you down this way?

Your keys jingle on the loop, and your Mary Janes click with every step along the lacquered wooden floors, the entire building spotless in its entirety and poshness oozing uncomfortably from its walls. Though with every step you took you became more and more at ease just happy that you’d be able to crash in your bed and pity yourself for the next few hours.

That was all your life consisted of now, after all.

You jogged up the stairs, your legs burning with effort and your movements restrained from your long pencil skirt. A blazer was buttoned deftly over your chest and black tights made it so that barely any skin was exposed. Not that it mattered, anyway. You’re a grown woman free to do whatever you please, and if that includes getting sick in the late autumn weather then so be it.

Upon arrival at your dorm room your shoulders sagged in visible relief. The door couldn’t unlock quick enough as you shuffled your way inside, dropping your purse to the side and setting your empty coffee cup on the kitchen island. You knocked your head back, looking up at the ceiling through bleary eyes and a tired frown. Your feet ached in your shoes and you wanted to spread your legs wide without feeling like you were wearing an exercise band.

You plopped down on your couch, unstrapping and kicking off your confining shoes and curling your feet into the couch. You relaxed into the chair, letting the misery and affliction of the day seep into the fabric. Your eyes closed of their own accord, and a content sigh left your lips in bliss. This was your comfort after a long day. Sitting alone to your own thoughts— or rather with no thoughts, allowing the silence to envelop you and comfort you with an imaginary hand on your back. It was this that made every day worth working through— the knowledge that you’d be able to curl up at the end of the day and relax your muscles just to do it all over again the next day.

Ever since you were a child being alone was a comfort you always sought out. Being left to your own devices was the best thing your parents could have ever done for you, and it was when you were able to fully relax. Reading, writing, drawing— the silence of your bedroom was a safe haven for your turbulent mind. Always running, never stopping to give you a break or catch your breath. Your thoughts ran rampant ever since you could remember, tormenting you and making your life an aching bout of anxiety. Silence was something that should’ve made it worse, but it was when you could fall into your daydreams and pretend your life wasn’t your own.

Sleep pulls you under, insistent as it forces your eyelids down.

Chan has always been a stranger to love, and that’s why he’s always done his best to give as much as he could. Since he was a young boy he had never known his father, had never known what it was like to play in the backyard with him or watch basketball games. He never knew what it would be like to hang out with his own dad, sharing secret handshakes and joking around with his mom. He didn’t know what it would be like to feel fatherly love, to feel the embrace of who should’ve been one of the most important people in his life.

Since he was a young boy it’s just been him and his mother, in their downtrodden family home, barely standing no matter how hard his mother worked to support them both. His mother had shared as much love as she could, fighting through the bitterness Chan’s father had left her with and pushing herself harder to provide for them both without any help. She had tried her hardest since Chan was a child until he was a senior in high school, constantly making sure he was provided for and well taken care of. This love should’ve been enough, but for a long time it wasn’t.

Chan had never known what it was like to love someone completely and irrevocably, wanting to shout from the rooftops his devotion to another. He had never seen his parents love each other, had never met either of his grandparents, and had no aunts or uncles or cousins in his life or who cared about him enough to even pretend they wanted something to do with him. In elementary school he was ridiculed, fatherless and pitiful. He didn’t live in a house as nice as the other kids, he didn’t have a complete and happy family like the other kids, or the same amount of money, or the same amount of privilege. To them, he was nothing.

In middle school it was much worse. By that time Chan had been no stranger to bullying. He had struggled through it during elementary school, had been tormented by his peers since before he was a teenager, and didn’t let the words affect him no matter how much harsher they became. To him, his oppressors were the pitiful ones. They were the ones who had not experienced enough love, and no matter how much he lacked he would always hold enough love in his heart for others— so that they didn’t have to feel as worthless as he did.

Chan knew from early how hard-working his mother had been. He knew she tried her best, that she worked herself to the bone just to make him happy. How much she wanted her love to be enough— and maybe it would’ve been had he not had to experience all that he did. He knew, and that’s why he had never voiced his feelings to her at all throughout elementary school and middle school, and why by the time high school came around he was an expert at masking the pain in his heart with a smile on his face.

When Chan’s mother told him they were moving it felt like a weight had been lifted. Leaving all the pain of his past felt like the beginning he needed, the start he wanted to finally be happy. To finally let his mother’s love be enough.

By the time Chan turned seventeen, his smile was the brightest it had ever been. He didn’t know how good it felt to be admired, to be held in high regard, to love and be loved back. It felt good. He never wanted to let that go, and if it was up to him he never would.

Before Chan made it to college his mother fell ill. Chan willed the love in his heart to be enough, hoped that his prayers and wishes would bring his mother back to him. That the love she had always given him would strengthen her and allow her to live as happily and carefree as she deserved. Chan had a plan, he would be the one to take care of her this time around. He was 18, had his own car and his own job. He was going to college to start his career so he could be there for her in return. So she could be taken care of like she deserved. He begged for his love to be enough, but sometimes it simply isn’t. And when the casket closed on the worst day of Chan’s life, he realized that to be true.

Chan rushes out the cafe, umbrella in hand, giggling to himself as he runs across campus— two coffee cups in hand as he goes. Bystanders watch him warily as he runs, wondering if he’ll drop one of the items he’s carrying or wondering if he’s alright, but Chan doesn’t notice and if he does, he doesn’t care enough to stop. His feet splash in puddles, carrying him to your dorm room as swiftly as possible. He’s careful not to slip on the wet pavement and tightens his grip on your drink to make sure it doesn’t spill.

The building is still the same imposing grandiose thing that it always has been, but to him it’s nothing but slabs of cement between piles of brick. He pays no mind to the water that drops down his umbrella over the once pristine wooden floor, simply running up the stairs and to your room. You should be awake by now, he decides, all too familiar with your daily naps after class and after work. His cap hangs low over his eyes so no one recognizes him as he shuffles through the halls.

He knocks rapidly on your door and only stops when he hears your groan through the drywall. His giggles float from his lips freely and unfiltered, and he’s filled with unadulterated joy just at the simple thought of seeing you. His heart thuds in his chest and he hopes he’s early enough to see your face puffy from sleep, hair mussed and clothes wrinkled as if he had finally gotten the chance to wake up next to you.

When the door opens he grins, dimple on full display as you sigh, grabbing a cup from his hands and moving to the side to let him in.

“How was your day?”

“Same as usual— hey!” You place the cup on the table next to your empty one from earlier and move his umbrella outside the door, sending him a glare as you shut it behind you. “Not on my floors,” you huff as he ruffles your hair in response.

“I missed you,” Chan hums, bringing his cup to his lips. “How was class?”

“I missed you too. Class was fine, just tiring Channie.”

A smile flits upon your lips as you cross your legs on the couch, turning towards your best friend’s form sprawled opposite you. “How was the interview?”

Chan smiles, rubbing at his neck in mock modesty. “It went great, honestly. They said they’d call me, tell me what the next steps are and all that shit.” He turns to you, smile blindingly bright. “Fuck, I’m so happy.”

The happiness on his face is palpable in the air between you as you lean forward and bring him into a hug. His cologne sticks to your skin and you bury your nose deeper into his jacket just to feel a little closer to him. “That’s great,” you beam, “If anyone could do it, it’s you.”

His arms encircle you and his lips brush against your cheek. His fuzzy sweater rubs along your bare skin, leaning a trail of warmth in its wake. Chan’s hands run up and down your back and he chuckles. “I know, I can always count on you.”

“Count on me?” you repeated, curling closer in Chan’s embrace as he grinned.

“To be there for me, to trust in me, to support me. You’re always there for me.”

“And you’ll be there for me too.”

“And I'll be here for you too,” Chan whispers, his voice much quieter than it had previously been. He noses into the top of your head, tickling his skin with your hair.

Your breath is silent to match the sudden silence in the room. Chan is still, his nose still pressed into your hair but his hand rests against your back and he leans into you, still holding his weight but allowing himself to relax a bit more in your embrace. You shuffle closer, digging your chin into his shoulder as lightly as possible so that it doesn’t hurt him, and squeeze at his sides.

You know how hard it is for him having lacked a stable support system in one of the most stressful times of his life, and you’re just glad you could be that for him. You allow his cologne to relax you as the silence becomes heavier, enveloping you in its embrace. You let yourself think about things you shouldn’t, allow yourself to wonder if you’d be able to leave a soft kiss against his skin. If he would leave a kiss against yours, trailing fingers across each other and whispering sweet words to one another, simply lounging in each other’s presence. You let yourself think about what would happen next. Would he hold you close? Pull you into his lap? Tuck a strand of hair behind your ear and lean in slowly to kiss you?

“I wish I could tell you what you are to me.”

Chan’s voice almost makes you jolt, so wrapped up in the previous silence that it takes you a moment to recognize he’s spoken. His words bring a frown to your face— one of confusion and one of false hope. You know that no matter how much you want to, you can’t wish for feelings. His hair is soft to the touch as you run your fingers through it, curling tendrils behind his ear and ghosting over his skin as if he was yours.

“I wish you could too.”

When did you fall in love?

Maybe it was when Chan would run his hands along your skin as if you belonged to him. Touching you with such a gentle caress that it was painful to your fragile heart, treating you with such tender care that it was almost unbearable. Yet like a drug you were addicted. To his attention, to his words, to his love. As platonic as it was, it still felt like something to treasure and hold close. It was all you could get and probably all you ever would. Or, perhaps it was when he would take your hand in his, dragging you to a new secret spot and setting up a picnic.

He’d lay out a large blanket, ground it with books and shoes, and then lay out all the food he cooked. Preserved in tupperware he’d make a show of having you try each one, watching with bated breath as you put a contemplative look on your face with every spoonful of food and only relaxing when you’d break character and assure him that his food was the best thing you’d ever tasted, and it was true. It was his and that’s what made it perfect to you.

Or, maybe it was when he’d come to your dorm room every night, right when you’d wake up from your nap, bringing a latte or a snack and lounging on your couch catching each other up on your days, on what’s been happening in the week, and later curling up and falling asleep to a movie. He’d grab ahold of your hand and thread your fingers together— never noticing the hitch in your breath but holding you close to him all the same.

He’d run a hand along your waist, let it slip under your shirt and ghost his fingers across your skin when you hugged. It was all earth-shattering, yet things that were so normal. You couldn’t allow yourself to think of it as anything more than it was.

“So I take it you’re never gonna confess.”

“Confess?” You question, bringing your croissant to your mouth and taking a bite.

Hyunjin sighs, bringing a hand to his hair in order to run through it. “Confess that you have feelings for Chan.” He grumbles, bringing his americano to his lips and looking at you through long eyelashes.

“Be serious, Hyunjin. Absolutely not.” You hiss, leaning forward against the table and settling him with a glare before returning to your croissant. “He practically has an entire entourage. The last person he wants is me when he can have literally anyone.”

“Y/n, are you an idiot? If you had even half the awareness the rest of us have you’d see the way he looks at you. The way he touches you? It’s practically like you two are dating already.”

“But we’re not.”

“But you could be.”

“Hyunjin—”

“I don’t get the big deal? I mean it’s just so obvious-”

“Hyunjin!? The big deal is that I could lose my best friend. It’s really not worth it.”

The eye roll Hyunjin sends your way is borderline petrifying, but you’re adamant in your refusal. You straighten up, swallowing the last bit of your croissant before staring at him with stubborn determination.

“Have you seen any romance movie ever? They always say that and then they end up together because, shocker, they both liked each other the entire time. Don’t be a typical mc.”

“Real life is not a movie,” you scoff, “You can’t possibly expect me to base my reasoning off that?”

“I do expect. You should listen to me. As someone with an outside view and who doesn’t have this fear of rejection I can observe you both very well and you obviously like each other. Just rip the bandaid off and move on.”

“Rip the bandaid off?? Really? Is that the best you’ve got? Not very comforting is it?”

Hyunjin sighs, grabbing your hand from across the table. His hand is large, warm, and you can’t help but be comforted when it envelops you.

“Just trust me.”

Against your wishes Hyunjin’s words stick with you for the rest of the day. It’s not the first time you’d considered confessing, finally letting the feelings that have been building up since high school free— wondering if getting all of it off your chest would make you feel better. But then again, you’d just be like everyone else who’s ever confessed to chan. Begging for him to love them back, face in a red flush, wondering what it would be like to love him.

Day by day the air gets colder, blowing against you so harshly it feels like needles prick your skin. The sky is a deep blue, only covered by a few wispy clouds. Around you couples and friends walk through town together, hand in hand, leaning on each other, hands running over each other’s waists. Happily in love.

You look down at the ground with a sad smile, quivering with each step you take, and this time the silence doesn’t allow your thoughts to disappear— it just lets them come knocking even harder. It happens sometimes, when no matter what you do you can’t escape them.

Against your better judgement you hope Chan is at your dorm. He slept over after a movie night, face pressed against the couch and bangs covering his eyes. you watched him for longer than you’d have liked, but you revel in any opportunity to imagine you both are more than you really are. You know it’s all in your head, you know you’ve got everything wrong, you know it’s just hurting yourself more— but when it comes to Chan you find that it doesn’t matter.

The walk to your dorm is slow, with you stopping to look at everything you could. Staring at worn down buildings, waving at cute dogs, and smiling at people as you walked past. Attempting to immerse yourself in the world around you and stop feeling like a passing viewer— to make it so that it felt like people saw you, and you weren’t just there.

You’d left your dorm room early this morning, meeting up with Hyunjin due to plans you’d both made the week prior. You always enjoyed talking to Hyunjin. He knew what was important in life, was strong-willed and attentive. He gave you the best advice, even if sometimes you didn’t follow it. Besides Chan he was probably one of your closest friends, as well as a boy named Lee Felix and your dorm mate. It’s been a while since you’ve seen them both, and it makes you a little sad. You feel like you lose grip over the people that’s important to you, and that after a while they’ll have no problem leaving you behind.

You heave a deep sigh to get the thoughts out your mind, wishing the September sun was a little brighter so it could lift your spirits. Your latte is still warm in your hand, and you tap your nails against it as you trudge up the road leading back to campus. Hyunjin had other business in the city so you two went your separate ways after breakfast. It was still early, unfortunately, and you had no idea how you’d spend the rest of your day. It was too cold to do anything really fun, and most of your friends had classes today anyway.

It was obvious when you’d arrived back on campus. If the intricate buildings weren’t enough, the perfectly paved pathways and neatly trimmed hedges were. People carried books with them as they walked, wearing big jackets and hats. It was really getting colder, and it almost saddened you. Another year coming to a close and you were still stuck with the same problems and the same feelings. You waved at people as you passed, recognizing a few familiar faces along the way. Attention fueled you, made you feel that maybe you were more in this world than you thought you were. That maybe things could be different, that you and Chan could walk side by side and all those people that usually follow behind him could follow behind you too.

Heat punches you in the face as soon as you step inside your housing, your feet clicking against the hardwood floors in something that’s become a comfortable routine. Your jacket now feels like it’s too warm, sticking to you and trapping heat inside. You rush up the stairs, by passing the elevator that’s been out of order for weeks now, and hurriedly shove your key in the lock on your door.

When you come in Chan isn’t there, but he could be in any of the other rooms of your dorm. You don’t call out for him, not sure if you want to hear the silence that might come as a reply. You kick your shoes off and hang your jacket on the door, unwrapping your scarf and tossing it on the couch on your way to your bedroom. The door is cracked open and the light is on, and the view brings a smile to your face without your control. You open the door wider and peek in. Chan is sitting on your bed, feet propped up in front of him, book in hand. Chan has always loved to read since the day you first met him in Junior year of high school. You thought that like a typical boy if he was reading at all it’d be a comic, or an action series, but it was a romance. At first it was anything he could get his hands on. He’d read pride and prejudice three times, and then decided to spend all his free time in the library. You always joined him, of course, happy to have a friend who liked the same things as you.

When you gifted him a large set of romance books for his birthday that year you were sure he’d kiss you. He stared at you like he would, before smiling and bringing you close into a hug. He still has every book, and it makes your heart flutter in silly ways. Right now, he’s holding a book out in front of him, reading glasses perched on his nose and a cup of tea on his nightstand. He’s really a sight for sore eyes, lips pursed in frustration or concentration you’re not sure. When reading it could be either. He flips the pages deftly, running over each line with the intention to devour every word, to soak it in with everything he could.

He’s so immersed you’re sure if you spoke he wouldn’t even hear, and if he did he’d only answer when he was done reading the page. You two were the same in that sense. You stepped into the room fully and closed the door behind you, dropping your latte and the coffee you got for Chan on the nightstand next to his tea and then laid flat on your bed with a sigh. Your arms sprawled out beside you, and your chest raised with every breath.

You turned your head to the side to look at Chan and couldn’t help the flush that warmed your cheeks when you met his eyes, him already staring down at you with a fond smile on his face.

“Hi.” You whispered, rolling onto your side to look at him more comfortably.

“Hi,” he murmured, closing his book and pushing it to the side. He rolled onto his side to look at you, moving himself even closer before running a hand down your hair and cradling your neck, running a slow finger across your skin.

“How was your day?”

“I read myself into oblivion while waiting here like a poor housewife for my dear best friend to come back.”

“House husband,” You correct, “And I went to the cafe with Hyun,” you whined, “don’t tease me.”

“I’m serious,” Chan laughed, moving his finger from your neck to slip it under the hem of your shirt and lightly tug it. “I was so lonely and I didn’t call ‘cus I know how much you like hanging out with him.”

You giggle, sitting up and facing him. “Oh yeah? I like hanging with you too, you know.”

“I know. I’d rather argue with you than laugh with anyone else.”

“So what does that say about you?” You scoff, laying back down beside him and trying to ignore the fact that you both have gotten even closer, and each breath that leaves his lips lingers against your skin. You see his lashes flutter under your gaze, yet he doesn’t stop staring intensely at your face.

“That I love you.”

It comes as a whisper, like a confession. But you can’t get your hopes up. You won’t. You pray for some miracle that Chan didn’t hear the hitch in your breath, or the fact that you noticeably flinched at his words, your lashes fluttering closed under his gaze. Your heart beats erratically, thumping against your chest and pounding harshly against your rib cage. If chan moved closer, if he pressed his body fully to yours, you wonder if his heartbeat would match your own.

“Yeah, I love you too.”

Chan holds his phone tightly, a frown etched onto his face. The group chat is blowing up and he can’t stop

for a moment to read any of the messages. He weaves between groups of people, waving at most of them as he goes. A lot of people know him, a lot of people admire him. He helps out as many people as he can and makes friends with most, just trying to be a pillar for others— someone other people can look up to and lean on when they need to. That’s something that he’s always wanted to be, who he felt like he needed to be since a young age.

He remembered what you’d had to say about it during your second year and his third, your books spilled over the desk in your bedroom. You had dark circles under your eyes, and you were getting thinner, yet you still managed to smile at him so brightly. As if he was someone that deserved to see such beauty, such love in your gaze.

“So that's the face someone makes when they know everyone’s obsessed with them, huh?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Chan, it’s good, you deserve to be loved.”

Just not in the way he’d like, Chan guesses, frowning at the memory. He still remembers how much it bothered him that he couldn’t do anything more but bring you company during one of your hardest years in college, just having to watch as you worked yourself to the bone. He would’ve taken all your exams if he could, but you would’ve never let him, too content in neglecting yourself rather than letting your friends do the same.

The sun is practically nonexistent this afternoon, hiding behind heavy clouds. It's been raining for the last few days, coating the city in a bleak atmosphere that heavily resonates with him. It almost feels like the lower his mood becomes the dimmer everything around him does too. Sighing, Chan turns around to face the large, grandiose building that’s become the meetup spot for him and his friends.

He skips up the steps, and pushes open the door to the studio, feeling good at the wave of heat that brushes over him. He goes there enough to bypass having to sign in, simply sending a nod the receptionists way and walking to the elevator. Judging by the state of the group chat, Changbin and Jisung are already there. Jeongin might be too, but he knows the younger one is busy with his own workload. It sucks to never have time to see each other anymore, and even though the school year just started he’s hoping to see the end of it sooner rather than later.

When he pushes open the soundproof doors and ambles into the studio, Jisung is on his back in a matter of seconds. As jumpy as ever and unnaturally excitable, he latches on to Chan already asking a million questions. Changbin just laughs where he’s seated in front of the soundboard, messing with the dials and settings until they’re at a level he’s comfortable with.

Chan drops his bag down before plopping onto one of the padded seats in the studio and Jisung wastes no time sitting next to him. Though when he finally stops his chattering a frown etches into his face.

“What’s wrong?” Jisung asks, a hand coming to Chan’s shoulder and squeezing lightly, attempting to bring a warmth of comfort.

“Nothing,” Chan laughs, shaking his head.

Changbin has come closer now, either finished with the setup or wondering what’s going on.

“I swear! I’m just having a long day, that’s all.”

“Is it what I think it is?”

“Well what do you think it is?” Chan tenses, eyebrow raised at Changbin where the latter stares down at him.

“Is it this shit with Y/n again?”

“I’m sorry, what? It’s not anything, exactly like I said.”

“We already know when you come in here pouty and upset it’s because of her. Dude, I think you just need to let it go.”

Chan sputters, his eyebrows furrowing more in confusion than anger. “Let what go?”

“These feelings? It’s just hurting you more than helping and maybe you need to realize that this thing between you two isn’t meant to be.”

“Bin-”

“Please, Sung, you’ve said the same thing yourself.”

“What!? So you two have just been talking about me like-”

“No, that’s not it. We’re just worried and it’s translating poorly.”

“You don’t need to be worried, and like I said it’s nothing, so leave it alone.”

“Whatever, man.”

Chan grabs his bag where he's set it down and wraps his jacket around him once again. He hears Jisung call out to him but he can’t work there, not with the hostile energy that’s bouncing around in that studio. The door slams shut behind him and he doesn’t even bother looking back. He bypasses the elevator, instead running down the steps and rushing outside, welcoming the chill of the afternoon air. It cools his heated skin and his angered heart, and gives him the strength to leave the area and walk back where he came.

He sees people he knows on the way but he pretends he doesn’t, not in much of a mood to pretend to be happy to see everyone he meets. His mind is a tornado of thoughts, and his feet move quicker than his mind. When he sees your dorm up ahead he scoffs at himself, at his stupidity, at his dependence on you. He continues anyway, running up the stairs and turning his key into the lock. You’re breaking so many rules for him, allowing him so much freedom in your life, and it just makes the spot he’s carved in his heart for you to deepen.

His mind is frazzled as well as his hair. His chest heaves in frustration. At himself, at his choices, at everything. It seems so difficult for everything to go the way he wants, as if the world makes it so that everything he wants to go his way simply doesn’t. His key is still in the door. He hasn’t pushed it open. He wants to pretend this act he’s got going on isn’t hurting him, pretend that acting like you’re only a friend to him isn’t something that carves pieces in his heart at every moment. His hand trembles at his side, wishing he had yours to hold. Wishing he had your skin to run over and calm him.

He doesn’t know when you’ve become such a comfort to him. Maybe it was when you’d smiled at him for the first time. When you offered him a seat at your lunch table and shared what you didn’t want with him when he asked. Or, perhaps it was when you’d accompany him to the library everyday after school, sitting next to each other and reading whatever books you both could get your hands on. Or, maybe it was when you’d spent your savings from your summer job on a stack of books for his birthday, and it was the first time someone besides his mom had ever gotten him a birthday gift.

Or maybe it happened after all that. When he’d cried in front of you for the first time and you just held him tightly, refusing to let go. Or, perhaps it was when you’d come to his mothers funeral. A sad one, it was, with only four people in attendance. Chan couldn’t afford a casket, couldn’t afford to have a church with a pastor. He didn’t have anything, but he had you holding his hand, rubbing his back as he cried at the loss of all he had left.

Chan didn’t know back then that he’d gained something too.

Let it go? He can’t let it go, because you’re a part of him now too and losing you, losing his love for you, would be like losing a part of himself. Chan pushes the door open, content in how much he’s relaxed in the moments before the door. You’re standing in front of the door when he opens it, a mug in hand and a smile on your face.

“You look like you could use a hug.”

“Yeah,” Chan chokes, wrapping his arms around you and cradling your head close to his chest. You slide the mug onto the table beside you so you can pull him even closer, gripping his shirt tightly and positioning yourself so that Chan can lean his head into your neck. His body trembles with the tears that were begging to be let out as he asks in your warmth.

“You know I love you, right? I- I love you so much it hurts me.”

Your eyebrows furrow at his words, whimpered and muffled as they’re spoken against your skin. “What’s wrong, Channie? Talk to me.”

Chan shakes his head, knocking against your chin. “I can’t. I can't.”

“Yes you can. You can tell me anything.”

“I want a lot of things that I shouldn’t.” Chan whispers, bringing a palm to smooth over your hair. “I think about a lot of things I shouldn’t. Wondering if I could have it.”

“Chan…?”

“You are one of those things.”

You don’t realize you’ve stopped breathing until you let out a long exhale, your face screwing up with unshed tears as Chan starts to sway your body against his. His palm continues to run along your hair as if it’s anchoring him, giving him the courage to continue.

“For years, I’ve wondered what it would be like to hold you as more than a friend.”

Chan digs his face deeper in the crook of your neck, pressing his nose into your skin, and letting his tears wet your sleeve. His eyes flutter shut and his grip on you tightens. He didn’t plan on confessing to you tonight. He didn’t plan on cradling you close to his chest, feeling your breath against his skin as he poured his heart out, letting you into the one part of his soul he’s shown no one. It’s fitting, he thinks, for you to be the first to know. He’s peeling himself bare, letting you see the pieces of him he’s worked so hard to hide. The parts of him that he’s held so close to his heart, unraveled with a few simple words.

“Everytime I said I love you, I meant it. I meant it with more of me than anyone has ever seen. I’ve meant it with every fiber of my being, and you have a place in my heart no one else could ever have.” Chan releases a shaky breath, chuckling lightly before he continues.

“You’re already the most important person in my life, and I can’t imagine life without you. I wish I could tell you what you are to me.”

Your vision is blurred by tears, and your hands tremble where they grip Chan's shirt. He's so broad, covering you with all of him. He’s all around you, suffocating you with his words and himself. Your lip wobbles, but you muster up all the courage you don’t have, the strength you wish you held, to open up your heart in return.

“I don’t like that anyone would die to feel your touch, everybody wants you, everybody wonders what it would be like to love you,” you start, your words muffled and your breath jagged.

Chan is quiet, his heart beating faster than what should be humanly possible.

“When I'm near you, in this space, the pause between this breath and the next, you’ve carved a piece of yourself in my heart.”

“…”

“And I’m not afraid to love you— only afraid that my love won’t be enough. If I know what love is, it’s because of you.”

Chan strokes a thumb against your cheek, moving from your neck to lean his forehead down against yours.

“So please love me. As more than a friend, because it’s unbearable to hold you and look at you without being able to call you mine.”

“I’m yours,” Chan murmurs, “for as long as you want me.”

“So forever?” You laugh, but it doesn’t sound much like a laugh, wet and nasally from your tears.

“I really want to kiss you,” Chan whispers, hooking a finger under your chin and pulling you close. His nose brushes against yours and your breaths intermingle, mending with each other.

“Please.”

Your breath is labored as Chan’s lips ghost over yours. His shirt is soft under your fingers and his hand is strong where he grips your waist. Your lips brush, and you realize that this is it, the moment you’ve been wishing for, begging for, since you met him. Since you realized you were in love with him. With his silliness, with his laugh, his smile, his care. Since you realized his genuinity, how determined he was and is to take care of the people around him.

It’s tentative— gentle and soft— but not hesitant. You’re sure of what you want, and what you want is Chan. Your best friend. Your lips move slowly at first, exploring each other, before they press closer, lapping over each other and locking you both against one another. Your body buzzes with warmth, and you wrap your arms around Chan's neck— pulling him impossibly closer as he smiles.

You feel so warm, so happy, the kiss becomes less of a kiss and more of your teeth hitting each other from the force of your smiles. Tears still drip steadily from your cheeks but this time from happiness.

“I like kissing you,” Chan giggles when you both break apart for air, sighing against your skin and leaving goosebumps in his wake.

You leave a kiss full of relief on his lips, salty and wet, moving your mouth against his as he returns it. Slowly, your lips start to press against each other more eagerly, lapping over each other and filling you with warmth.

You find that you’ve fallen.

Truly, madly, and completely.

Fallen for a man that treats you like you’re his saving grace.

For a man who holds you like you’ll disappear without his hands on you.

For a man who’s simple confession made your heart stop momentarily.

You’re in love, and as much as it had been a part of you for all these years, you’re finally letting yourself admit it.

And he, you.

It’s been a few weeks since then, and you’ve been thinking. Every time his lips brush over your skin, when he pulls you up into his lap and kisses you breathless, when he digs his fingers into your hips content to leave marks that last for the next few days, you think about why he stops. You think about why he doesn’t touch you more. After all, now you both finally can.

Chan sits on the couch, your legs swung over his own, and a romance movie plays quietly in the background. You brush his hair from over his forehead, and your nails gently scrape along his skin. Chan hums, the vibrations traveling through your shirt and into your skin.

You feel the happiest you’ve ever been. You feel like maybe this could be what your parents have always had. A love that sticks forever. You want Chan to be your person. You’re so sure that he is.

“Are you tired?” You question, leaning down to get a look at his face. “We can sleep.”

“No, I’m not.” Chan smiles, grabbing your free hand and tugging it close to his face, leaving a kiss on each of your knuckles. His touch lingers against your skin and warmth blooms inside you. He leans forward, leaving a sweet peck on your lips but you lean in, pressing insistently against him. He lets you, opening his mouth and swiping his tongue across your lips.

He runs his thumb across your cheek, gently caressing your skin and everywhere he touches you, it feels like your body is in flames. This something has been building up inside you and now you're not sure how long you'll be able to control yourself. “I trust you, so please.” You plead, nosing against him. His lips feel so soft, so fitting on your mouth, you let out a whimper when he goes further than just a gentle kiss, taking your bottom lip between his properly.

Chan hadn’t even thought about properly responding to you before he was flipping you over, caging you under him and grinding his hips against yours. Your fingers trailed down his skin, running over the fabric of his clothes before tucking inside the waistband of his sweatpants and sliding them down his hips. Chan was gentle. Always gentle. He pulled your shorts down slowly and you sent a nod his way when he asked you if you were sure.

He nosed against your stomach, trailing his fingers against your bare legs and pulling your underwear down with his teeth. A shiver runs through you at the sight, and you grab at his shoulders in an attempt to ground yourself. “You’re so gorgeous.” He sighed, as if he couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe that you were his, that he was yours.

His mouth moves along the sensitive parts of your neck, down the line of your throat, while his other hand separates from your own to run down your waist and touch you where he knows you shiver with need.

He slips his leg between your parted ones, allowing you to settle down right on top of his muscular thigh. As the kiss grows deeper, your hips begin to move, gyrating and pressing down against him. As your bodies move with one another, your pleasure continues to rise, forming from your center and spreading over your body.

You desperately try to avoid bucking your hips upwards into him, but fail again and again. Eventually, Chan drags his mouth away, trailing it down your neck. You’re gasping against him, and you curl into his touch, whimpering when sharp teeth nip at you. There’s a tongue soothing the wound, sucking at the same spot, lapping over it. You can feel yourself starting to shake, whimpering more often than not, before you’re dragging Chan’s face back up into a kiss rt. You can feel Chan smiling into it, chuckling just the tiniest bit, but resume kissing him.

He holds his gaze on yours when you fall apart, relaxing your body while the pulsing of your orgasm courses through you. He leans down into your arms right after, pressing tightly against your chest, so tight that you could feel his heartbeat pacing fast against yours. The kisses he gives you are soft and gentle, your thighs still trembling when he pulls away, pulling his grey t-shirt over his head.

The unmistakable shape of his erection that you feel brushing against your stomach lets you know just how turned on he is, and you equally so. His lips return to yours only after he has stripped himself, and your hands move from his shoulders to his chest, trailing down his naked skin, where you slide your fingers under the waistband of his boxers.

You lean forward, taking him into your hand. He’s heavy, full of cum, and you slide your body down so that your mouth is right against his cock. You leave a kitten lick on the underside of his shaft, feeling the veins and the way Chan throbs. He’s a pleasant weight on your tongue and you swirl it around the tip before sucking him into your mouth.

Still with your eyes on his face, you lean closer, kissing his sensitive tip before fitting your lips around the head, taking him into your mouth again. You hear him gasp before it turns into a deep groan, sucking and licking as you take him deeper.

Chan sighs, every time you inch down onto him you can feel his skin against your nose and hear the spit fucking back in your throat. Your eyes lose focus as Chan continues to rut into you, and your body buzzes from the sensation. You feel hot all over, allowing him to use you the way he wants. His low growl vibrates down to your core and you resist the urge to reach down and stroke your fingers to search for your own pleasure, choosing to focus on pleasing him instead.

His lips fall open with a few deep grunts escaping his soft lips, his hips moving faster as he pumps himself into your mouth. “Fuck, baby. I’m gonna cum.”

"You are so beautiful," he sighs, his thumb brushes back and forth over your cheek, relishing the way your body leans into his touch. "You have no idea how many times I wished I could take you like this."

He traces down your panties, soaked with your arousal, running over the lace and moaning at the feeling of it clinging into your clit. His thumb follows the wet trail on the flimsy fabric to find your opening, hardly shielding you from his touch. He twists his hand while he continues to press his thumb in circles over your covered entrance, his fingers find your clit, and then he pinches, hard, sending you over the edge a second time and into one of the most intense orgasms you've ever had.

You squirm at the feeling of your release, his fingers slowly peeling the scrap of black lace down your thighs, making a show out of it while he makes you wait. He continues to tease you, staring you down as you slip your feet from them and he pulls them off. His eyes roam over your body, inhaling deeply, breathing you in. His lashes flutter, and the view of him taking you in so shamelessly makes you shudder.

He drops the fabric in the next moment, looming over you with hooded eyes, and leans down to leave a lingering kiss on your lips. He continues to kiss you as he spreads your legs apart, holding them down with heavy hands. His lips find your hips, then he moves down, running his tongue down your legs, taking time to trail along your thighs, your calves, your ankles, and keeping his eyes on you the whole time.

You let out a gasp at the first stroke of his tongue over your clit. Your legs lift a little, but Chan presses them back down, keeping you in place— keeping you right where he wants you.

You run a shaky hand through his hair as you cry out at the feeling of his tongue resuming its ministrations on your throbbing core. You can’t do much but moan and sigh, an incoherent mess from Chan’s mouth. It’s funny to you, how you started this but he has you shaking from under him, building you up and then breaking you down with immense pleasure— a feeling that you can barely think around.

You hear his soft chuckle as he gives you a few more kisses with his tongue, tasting you, before he looks up again and whispers, “Does that feel good?” He teases, unrelenting in showing you just how determined he is to make good of his words. His grip tightens on your thighs, as the swipes of his tongue grow more intensely. He sucks at your clit, pressing his tongue against you to send you into your second orgasm.

Your hips move desperately against his face, hopeless in your need for more. Chasing pleasure with each roll of your hips and his head buried in your heat. You spasm, shaking in pleasure as you cum, soaking his tongue with your release and closing him in with your thighs. He doesn’t stop, sucking your clit in his mouth and using his tongue to lap up every bit of your orgasm. You cry out in protest, your body squirming away from his touch as instinct but the grip on your thighs doesn’t let up.

“Chan please, oh god.”

His chest shakes with a chuckle, rising up and slotting himself between your thighs. You want him, more than anything, no matter what. He kisses the corner of your lips, smiling against your mouth. “I love you,” he sighs, and a smile crosses your face.

“I love you too.”

As he continues to litter kisses against your skin, he presses his cock against your clit, rubbing his hard length against you, coating himself with your arousal. The next time he pulls himself back from you, he only does it briefly— and when he pushes himself back it’s with a thrust into you hard and fast, nearly bringing you to another orgasm despite you just coming down from your previous one.

Your thoughts leave you as he continues to move in and out of you, filling you up and satisfying you the way he always does, but you manage to speak without realizing. “You make me so happy,” You whimper, and your walls contract as he slams into you deeper, lifting your legs and situating them against his shoulders. He buries himself so deep inside it’s almost like he’s melded himself into you. He’s so big, you can barely breathe, allowing him to bring pleasure to you both as he moves.

“Shit, Y/n.”

Even this moment feels too good to be true. To have him rocking against you, pulling you closer than anyone ever has. It feels like a dream.

Your words become nothing but a moan when his thrusts don’t falter and instead pick up. You don’t know how he’s managing to keep going, how he’s managed to move even quicker.

"Come on, baby," he whispers, clenching his jaw, letting you know that he’s on the brink of orgasm. Chan bends down, taking your lip into his mouth, making you sigh in bliss. Then his fingers come down to find your clit, sending you erupting into another orgasm.

The next thing you know Chan is groaning above you, his body going lax against you and his cum shooting into you forcefully, making you clench harder around him. Chan whimpers as he continues to cum, again and again, releasing into you and painting your walls.

“Oh Channie,” you sigh, “does it feel good?”

Chan nods, his hair brushing against your naked skin, and he presses a soft kiss against your collarbone. His lips rest there as you both come down from your high, basking in the glow of your orgasms and relishing in the presence of each other.

He pulls out of you, dragging his tip against your skin before littering kisses against your face. Small pecks that tickle with the gentle force of them, and you giggle, running a hand through his soft locks.

Your chest heaves with the force of your breaths but otherwise your body feels light, airy, and any negative thought you’d entertained before is completely gone. You didn’t need this to prove that he’s yours, to feel comfortable, but he’s shown you that he wants every part of you, and it fills you with an undeniable warmth.

“How is it that you’re this cute even after all this?” Chan murmurs.

“Shut up.”

You trace your fingers against his skin, tracking his breathing and basking in his warmth. Your fingers slide through the grooves in his abs, tracing shapes over his collarbone, and tweaking his nipple just for Chan’s barking of a laugh when he shoves you away saying that it tickles. You lean your forehead down so that it’s resting just near Chan’s armpit, hairless like usual, and inhale— breathing in his scent, his proximity, him. He's perfect, and he’s yours, no matter what.

You’ve always wished for the closeness and transparency of a trusting relationship— have always wondered if you’d be able to get that, if you’d be able to keep it— and Chan is proof that you have. It feels good to know that there are no secrets, no doubts or worries, and that there can only be acceptance between the both of you. A secureness that would be hard to find anywhere else. It fills you with butterflies, as if you and Chan had just started dating, —and though you have, you’ve been best friends for years— but it makes you incredibly happy to know that those feelings will remain, and you can only hope it'll stay that way forever and always.

When Chan runs his hand down your back, reaching below the covers to squeeze your ass, you huff, poking him in the chest as a warning. Yet you know, and Chan knows, that it makes you happy that you have this. A home, a loving boyfriend who loves you just as much as you love him, and a trusting relationship.

Chan likes this familiarity. Laying down with you, bare emotionally and physically, and unworried about being judged or ridiculed. It feels good, it satisfies him more than he ever thought it could, and makes a comfortable, warm, feeling bloom in his chest. He’s happy, he’s loved, and he inhales— taking in the scent of you, your proximity, your love, and he smiles.

6 years later

Fire crackles in the fireplace of your childhood home, the smell of baked goods wafting through the air and filling your nose with delectable goodness. It’s warm, yet the sweater you adorn only feels even more comforting— though the hand around your waist feels even more so.

In the kitchen your parents chatter with your other family members and with your friends, and in the background a christmas movie plays. A christmas tree stands tall in the living room, ornaments dangle from the branches and twinkle with the small gusts of wind from the heater. Stockings line the fireplace and pictures of you and your family decorate every surface around the house. Pictures of chan, too. Him as a child, you both as teenagers, pictures of you on the first day of college, on the day you graduated, at your first job, a picture of you both carrying keys to your first apartment, and a picture of you both under the altar.

The warm, fuzzy feeling that you first had when you and Chan had started dating has yet to disappear even after all these years. It’s still there every time you look at him, every time you hold his hand, every time he kisses you. You nuzzle into his chest and sway. There’s no song playing, only the sounds of the tv and your loved ones, but still you sway together.

The picture of romance you thought you’d never achieve, yet it’s so much more than that. It’s a completeness that fills your heart, a happiness that doesn’t go away even on your worst days, and the comfort of knowing that someone will be there after a long day— there to hold you and whisper their love to you. You’ve been surrounded by love all your life, but this love is something you never thought you’d have. You’d envied your parents for the fact that they’d achieved it, but now that you know what it feels like you can only be happy at the fact that they’d been so lucky. That you’re so lucky.

So, when did you fall in love?

You think you could most likely tie it back to when Chan first laid a kiss on your skin, cheeks flushed and eyes red with tears. Or, perhaps it was when he’d confessed his love to you, waxing poetic about the feelings that you thought were only yours to hold. Or, maybe it was when he took you into his arms for the first time, holding you with care and treating you as if you were something to be treasured.

Maybe it was before all of this. Maybe you still aren’t really in love, but the way your heart beats when he’s around, when he smooths his hands over your shoulders and tucks his head under your chin, or the way unshed tears brim at your eyes when you look at the ring on your finger, makes you think that maybe you’re in something much deeper than that.

a/n: 😭😭 as always i hope you all enjoyed and tysmm for reading <33 ily

mini taglist: ily all sm <;33 @itsisa @myjisung @raspbinniecreme @ughbehavior & @svintsandghosts (i can’t remember if u asked or not <33)

THE PUNCHLINE: Chapter 9

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"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!" "Fucking PACIFYING YOU, just SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR A SECOND!!!"

Chapter 9: Sex In The Driveway

📜7.2K words 🚨Themes of polyamory, conversation about sex work fantasy (use of the term "escort"), ragefucking/hate sex, physical altercation attempt (by mc), car sex, Christopher and his unlimited supply of "baby girl", slight praising, breast play, oral sex, unprotected sex, creampie, fully charged vibrators recommended per usual. 💭Special thanks to @nightlychans for the free muse (just crediting, please don't feel obligated to read) Reblogs & comments are always appreciated and please keep in mind they are the ultimate motivation fuel. 🔖Story taglist: @elizalabs3 ; @septicrebel ; @clearlyissleeping 📌Permanent taglist: @sai-kida134 ; @ughbehavior ; @bearseungmin ; @skywarriorkirby ; @sunnyville36 ; @hh0320 (@hwan-g) ; @svintsandghosts ; @jl-micasea-fics ; @skz317cb97 ; @abiaswreck ; @skyminniesworld

"Come ON, man, I don’t need this shit right now!"

You had been trying to open that door for about five minutes now, but the lock just would not budge. Your rage levels got to a point where you just had to kick the door, not because it was going to magically open, but to legitimately make it hurt.

"Who the fuck are you?"

You were so startled to death by the unexpected voice raising behind you that your knees gave way, but you were quick to recollect yourself.

"Beat it, purple dude. I can't with your ass right now."

"Do you at least wanna tell me why you’re trying to break into my apartment with the obviously wrong set of keys?"

"Huh?"

The man grabbed the keys from your hand and pointed to the door.

"Key to door number one does not go into door number two. Didn’t you learn shapes and patterns in kindergarten?"

Were you really trying to open the door that did not belong to your new apartment? Yes. Because why the fuck not, apparently.

"Oh, fuck. Oh, FUCK, SORRY. I thought… Fuck-"

Rather than calling the cops on you, the man burst into a loud cackle instead.

"I like you, crazy bitch," he leaned against the door, "You can address me as the contractual owner of door number two. Or Minho for short."

"Pleasure. I guess," you replied between your grunts as you were struggling to drag your ginormous luggage inside, "Uh- Could you give me a hand with this?"

"Sure. Would you like me to braid your hair, too?"

"Excuse you?"

"It translates to absolutely not. Learn simplified Minhoese if you wanna survive around here," he jeered, "I’ll catch you on the flip flop."

You stared at the door closed to your face in complete bewilderment.

What an absolute douchebag!

You didn’t own any furniture, or more like any stuff other than a couple of personal belongings and your clothes, and you liked it that way. It always allowed you to keep the door ajar if the need to immediately bail emerged for whatever reason. That was exactly why you always opted for furnished places. It didn’t need to be so damn fancy; just a decent place having the essentials was more than enough. You heard a knock on your newest door close to evening hours. The person on the other side annoyed the crap out of you on sight.

"What’s up douche rocket? Came to apologize?" you crossed your arms over your chest.

"Yeah, I don’t do that shit," Minho casually responded, "I ordered pizza. Come, let’s have dinner," then he proceeded to walk back to his apartment. The gesture simply appalled you.

"Why?"

Minho turned around with an aloof look, "Haven’t you been dealing with this moving in shit all day?"

"Yes?"

"Did you eat?"

"No."

"Then move your ass. I don’t like my pizza cold."

Oh, SHIT, a real-life tsundere. IN THE WILD!!!

"Thanks, bunny dude," you commented as you were walking behind him.

"Huh?"

"Your front teeth," you booped his upper lip with a smile, catching him completely off guard, "It’s adorable."

"Don’t be disgusting," Minho walked towards the kitchen island, albeit slightly flustered.

You went through an entire jumbo pizza and a couple of beers together talking about your past shenanigans; the previous cities you’d been in, the stuff that made you haul ass, the kind of jobs you took, your general intolerance of people’s bullshit… Minho was more on the listener side rather than talking about himself as he seemed genuinely intrigued and entertained by your weird-ass, or to be politically correct, unique stories. When you mentioned you needed to start looking for a job to sustain yourself, he nonchalantly suggested you come work at the bar he was bartending at.

"Depends, Ming Kong. Do you work at Hooters?"

"No, and are you gonna keep doing that?"

"Doing what?"

"The nickname thing."

"Yes," you responded and took a ginormous bite of your slice.

"What a bitch," he scoffed, "While you do have an ass fit to be Hooters material, I actually need someone to mix drinks with me."

"Bold of you to assume that I know the first thing about mixology."

"I don’t assume shit," he eyed your face, "First of all, you called it mixology and you’re way too much of a smartass to solely wait tables."

"Nope. Totally clueless."

"Oh, is that so?" Minho tilted his head with a grin, "Let’s play a game then, shall we?"  

"What kind of a game?" you raised your brows in suspicion.

"Simple," Minho threw the crust back into the box, "I’ll just keep giving you three choices and you’re gonna pick one. If you stutter or can’t give an immediate answer, you lose." Then continued with an emphatic voice.

"And when you lose, it's proof you're lying, and you’re dragging your ass to the bar with me."

"When I lose," you studied his expression intently, but eventually took on his challenge, "You’re on. Go."

"Black, gray, or white?"

"Black."

"Spaghetti, ravioli, or pizza?"

"Pizza."

"Vodka, rum, or tequila?"

"Vodka."

"B-52 includes Irish cream, triple sec, and?"

"Kahlua."

Minho broke into the most satisfied smile you’d ever seen in your goddamn life, smugly leaning back on the stool. You threw the slice on the box.

"DAMMIT!"

"Yeah, now you know the reason why I’m dubbed as the untameable 10th Dan™."

"Did you really just fucking trademark a nickname?" you asked with a mildly nauseated expression.

"I might as well have, bitch. I’ll pick you up before work tomorrow. Get the fuck out now, I’ll hit the sack."

An average person would be offended to the high heavens because of his attitude. Minho just did not give a fuck, and you found that weirdly charming about him.

"Fine, bunny dude, but if you wake me up before noon, I’m pressing charges for breaking and entering. I’ll catch you on the flip flop," you winked at him and left.

Weeks passed after your first day with Minho and you started working with him at the bar. Quick learner? Check. Sass? Check. Wit? Check. That was basically everything you needed to be proficient in his standards rather than experience outlined in a CV, possibly typed in Helvetica. The more you spent time together, the more you moved into his personal territory. You made yourself infinitely comfortable with him, and for some reason, he didn’t mind that. Come to think of it, it shouldn’t have been that unexpected maybe, considering Minho’s excessive fondness for stray cats.

It was another rowdy night at the bar. Minho made himself scarce from the bar area for a little breather from the incessant orders.

"Take cover here. I’ll go check on that table."

"You spend way too much time with that group," you stated with a cocked brow, "Do you know them?"

"Yeah, they’re our regulars. You should, too, if you want that tip box full."

It was always the same group of people occupying that specific booth. Five guys, coming in around nineish and not leaving until the last call at least four nights a week. Besides that pigment-ignorant fucker colossally unaware of any other color than black and evidently possessing irritation-inducing genes who kept disappearing with different people night after night.

"Look who it is! THE MAN, THE MYT-"

"Sit your ass down. I have something important to discuss."

The entire table broke into a unison "What?" at Minho’s words.

"You don't discuss things with us, Min. You just inform us of shit, and that is if you’re feeling generous," Chris commented with sheer panic, "Oh god, is this gonna involve posting bail again?"

"Nothing like that, headass," Minho stole a glance from the bar, "It's uh- It's about her."

"The barmaid queen?" Jisung confirmed the target of Minho's gaze, "Since when are we informing each other about who we wanna fuck?"

"It's NOT li- Jesus fucking christ," Minho ruffled his hair out of frustration. The table turned to Jisung, and Felix voiced everyone's common question:

"Do you understand anything from this, Ji?"

Jisung squinted his eyes and intently looked at Minho's face. His lips slightly parted upon the delightful surprise.

"He wants her to become a part of us."

"No fucking way! Really?" Hyunjin widened his eyes. Minho's response was a little too shy compared to his usual demeanor.

"I mean… Kinda, yeah." 

Palpable excitement started seeping through the booth with everyone talking over each other.

"Shit just got interesting," Chris stretched his arms to his sides on the seat, "First time anybody ever put something like this on the table. Not to mention you." 

"We might need some convincing. Cite your sources," Changbin demanded. Minho heaved a deep sigh and began his opening statement.

"You already know we're neighbors, right?"

"Might have been referred to as the bitch nextdoor in the passing, yeah," Jisung gulped his drink.

"We spend a lot of time together outside of work, too. We got pretty close."

"You got close with someone? Besides us?" Felix asked in shock.

"If you knew how many screws she had loose, you'd do too, asshat. And you're gonna."

At that moment, your voice raised from the bar area.

"Kindly fuck right off, sir. We reserve the right to not serve colossal dickheads here."

The entire table started cackling but for some reason, Chris had a fond smile on his face. Jisung took notice of that and responded to Minho with a shit-eating grin.

"Bold of you to assume some of us aren't already crushing, but continue."

Minho took a sip from Hyunjin's glass, "I don’t know. We talk about random shit for hours on end and I don't even realize it’s way past midnight. She even takes care of my cats if I'm not around. Like, unprovoked."

This was definitely a first. The group was witnessing Minho being borderline sentimental over somebody, something that wasn't a descendant of the feline family for that matter, and they watched the whole thing unfold in awe like they just confirmed the existence of Narnia.

"She just… she brings out something in me, and I can't shake this feeling that… that… you know."

"That she might be the one for us?"

"WHAT?" Minho snapped at Jisung, "That's- Fuck, no. Gross."

"That's a yes, gentlemen."

Changbin's clapback caused another round of teasing laughter, but Minho was relentless in his attempt to defend his ice-cold honor.

"She would fit right in is a less disgusting description," he retorted, "In conclusion, I want her around all the time, so everybody fucking behave."

"How do you even know she’d be compatible with all of us?" Changbin made a fair point, "It’s a little crowded here in case you didn’t notice."

Minho looked at him with an expression that said Try me, bitch, and started flipping through his rolodex of convincing arguments.

"Jisung, she’s way too into standup comedy. Felix, she listens to ASMR in lieu of porn on a regular basis. She’s even trying to get me into it but she’s getting on my goddamn nerves instead. Hyunjin, that ASMR heavily includes tongue fluttering triggers and we all know about your oral fixation. Changbin, she gets off to it every fucking night because I keep hearing buzzing sounds from her apartment, ergo, a massive potential for a through-the-roof sex drive. And Chris, she has a pussy."

"Why do I always get the sharp end? Just why?"

Hyunjin crunched on a couple of pretzels in front of him, "Why don’t you just straight up ask her if she’d be interested?" Minho rolled his eyes so hard he practically went blind for a second.

"And say what, 'Hey, you down for alternating between me and my dysfunctional entourage? We’ll show you a good time.' Be cool, man, goddamn."

"Would you like me to squeeze you into this drink?"

Your commentary got the booth turn to your direction again to watch another set of a dissing match.

"By all means, hot stuff."

You pulled out a heavy-looking instrument laying among a bowl of walnuts and slammed it on the bar counter.

"Or would you like me to demonstrate why they call me The Nutcracker around here instead?"

The group was relishing your snark every time you couldn’t hold it in, a clear mark that Minho’s personality was smearing on yours. Chris blurted out a little too emphatically while wiping the tears from his eyes.

"Man, I really like her."

The entire table turned to him upon the unnecessary declaration.

"What do you mean? You like her like her?" Jisung asked with creased brows whereas Changbin howled with laughter.

"Get a fucking grip, Christripper. She’s never gonna say yes to you."

"We like this bar."

"Don’t kill the bar, dude."

"Why the fuck?" Chris protested and forced a sigh out of Minho.

"For starters, she ain’t one of your regular bimbos and has a goddamn fuckboy firewall on. She deals with the likes of you on a daily basis here, Exhibit A," he gestured to the bar and continued, "You can’t hit that unless she's intrigued, and like hell I'm gonna let you pull a Christopher. I’ll fucking obliterate your ass if she leaves."

"So what? Aren't you guys neighbors? You'll still see her," Jisung thought he was making a point but Minho wasn’t having it.

"I've grown accustomed to certain luxuries like seeing that ass for twelve hours a day, and I'm not about to mess up my routine just because Crispy here can't find a glory hole."

"Hm… Intrigued, you say," Chris squinted his eyes, "Anything goes?"

"We seriously like this bar, dude."

"Please do not kill the bar."

Jisung slammed his hand on the table, "Which means, it’s my time to shine HAHA!"

"Who says I just wanna fuck and bounce? I really do like her."

Felix loudly scoffed, "Bitch please, everybody and their mother fucking knows you’re incapable of sustaining a relationship that lasts past breakfast hours."

"I don’t do breakfasts," Chris replied with a dead serious tone, "It’s a very intimate activity."

Unfortunately, Chris wasn't even joking, which was exactly why the entire table yelled in unison. 

"We know."

"It’s just a phone number. The fuck is wrong with you?"

"Everything, my guy," you widened your eyes at the third frat material of the night, "Take a hike."

Needless to say, the booth cheered for the umpteenth time at the goal. Chris was smiling at you while biting his lips.

"She’s just… So interesting, you know?"

"Yeah, we know. We really like this bar."

"Don’t fucking kill the bar, dude."

"Yeah, go ahead and fucking pursue her," Changbin put his glass down, "We’d love to watch Min crush you between those thighs Christripper."

Felix let out an annoyed sigh, "Why are we even discussing this? I’m the most approachable out of all of you. I’ll ease her into it."

"Uh, hello? When I’m fucking here?" Hyunjin argued.

"You really think your suave motherfucker shenanigans will work on her?"

"Well-"

Changbin just attempted to provide his argument but the table shushed him almost reflexively in unison.

"IMMEDIATELY NO!"

"You do realize we’re trying not to spook her, right?" Jisung opposed, "If anything, you will not open your goddamn mouth until we’re sure she’s comfortable around us."

"What the fuck, man?" Changbin stretched his hands to the sides, "I will have you know I’m a fucking gentleman, and more so than all of you combined. You already know I’d charm her socks off; why the fuck would I risk that by whipping out an alter ego right from day one?"

"Either I’m wasted, or he has a point," Felix agreed. Chris exhaled in frustration.

"Do I need to fucking remind you of how much game I already have? Sung, I might need your help on this, though."

"Fuuuuuck no. We’re rivals from this point on."

"It’s for the greater good of all of us, man."

"All of us?" Jisung cackled, "She’s gonna fucking drag your ass to hell and back. You're ready to endure that for the greater good?"

"Oh, you didn't know? I have a thing for that," Chris winked and glanced at the bar, "Just look at that fucking savage princess, my god."

"Fucking simp," Hyunjin landed a smack on Chris’ head.

"Oh, she’s gonna love that. More so since I won’t be faking it at all this time."

Changbin looked at him with sheer doubt, "Dude, you don’t even know her."

"Maybe. But I feel like I do," Chris smiled looking at the bar again, "You’ll see. I’ll get the yes."

Changbin sighed in defeat, "If you say so. Learn to stop fucking everything that moves first, maybe. You sound way too confident for your own good."

"It’s because I am", Chris smirked into his glass, "I always get the yes."

After listening to the battle of the wits around him, Minho facepalmed himself.

"You're gonna fuck this up so bad, I swear to god. Just let me handle it," he declared to the table, "We're gonna put on a little skit until we get our feet in that door. Y'all better give me that Oscar-worthy performance if you don't want your asses handed to you."

Hyunjin was astonished at how quickly Minho was about to put the gears in motion, "What the fuck? You already have a game plan?" 

"When the fuck do I not? You best check yourself, playboy," Minho stole a look from the bar to check your whereabouts and continued, "I’m literally her guy nextdoor, so I'll be in the friendzone until further notice. You two will be the massively incompetent wingmen," he gestured to Hyunjin and Felix.

"HEY!"

"Argue with the wall. Jisung and Changbin will be coaching you. She needs to believe you're not after her. Make sure she notices you keep fucking it up, though. Chris…" Minho paused briefly and quickly gave up on coming up with a disguise for him, "Well, she's already seen your shenanigans around here so you can be yourself."

"BRO!"

"Focus, man!" Minho pointed his fingers at his eyes, "Sung, I need you to use the Jedi mind trick thing somewhere appropriate. We kinda started a side thing here where we professionally hustle people. She does tarot readings in the back room."

"Back room, huh?" Jisung erupted into a smug grin.

"Cool it before I have to castrate you," Minho instantly countered, "Hang around by the bar. You're bound to see someone requesting her. That's when you'll ask for a reading yourself. That's our intrigue card," he eyed Jisung from head to toe and commented with a queasy face, "And get a fucking cut and color while you’re at it. I recommend dark blue."

"Can't you at least give us some more prominent roles in this?" Hyunjin objected, "We're barely supporting characters here."

"Fine, I'll be crushing on you. Does that jerk off your ego?" Minho shut him up, "Felix, dial down the husky charms to a minimum. I need you on your best sunshine behavior."

"You want her to think I'm some schmuck? What the fuck man?"

"Shh!!!" he silenced the unnecessarily high decibel, "And yes I do. She's eventually gonna cave."

"And you’re this sure because?" Changbin asked. Minho answered with a confident smile.

"Because we're the fucking charmers of this town."

"Why not invite her to our po-" Jisung attempted a question but Minho interrupted him.

"No. I want her to feel safe around us first. This is fucking important."

Chris examined Minho for quite some time and asked him with raised brows, "You're sure you're doing this for all of us? You seem a little too whipped for your untameable reputation."

Minho cleared his throat and got up to get back to his station.

"I'm not gonna confirm nor deny this information. Do not fuck this up."

Chris was about to collapse an entire building into mere dust out of sheer frustration, so he gathered the council in Hyunjin’s coffee shop at closing hours to discuss the matter at hand and hopefully find a solution.

"This is becoming a fucking problem now."

"Some context would be nice," Jisung reached out for his coffee.

"I’m about to lose my fucking mind. Thank you," Chris grabbed the mug from Hyunjin, "It's like somebody dipped her in Chris repellent. Why the fuck can’t I get through the door? Is one of you doing something to fuck me over?"

"Told ya. Fuckboy firewall," Minho slurped on his americano, "What happened?"

"She came onto me in the middle of the night on Hyunjin's birthday, and it was great. God, it was so great," Chris briefly closed his eyes holding his head between his hands, "But when I woke up in the morning she was nowhere to be found."

"Maybe she just doesn't do that waking up together stuff," Minho asked the rest of the table, "Did she sleep over with any of you?"

The unison ‘Yes’ that came from the four men basically punched Chris in the stomach.

"See? None of you are exactly husband material, but she doesn’t seem to have a problem with the rest of you? Why the fuck is she avoiding me? Why am I not enough for her?"

"For your information, I highly doubt that’s a matter of being enough," Jisung responded, "I have reason to believe she’s having a tough time admitting some things to herself."

"Like what?"

Jisung placed his mug on the table again, "Let’s just say that for some reason she seems to have developed a habit of making you suffer. And quite honestly, you’re fucking enabling her."

"Not to mention you deserve it," Minho retorted.

"Thanks so much for the cryptic insight," Chris deadpanned.

"Just because I love you doesn’t mean I’m gonna abuse her trust in me," Jisung commented with a soft voice. Chris furrowed his brows upon these words.

"What do you mean? You know something?"

"It's called common sense," Jisung shrugged, "Practice it some time."

Changbin was analyzing Chris’ face like he was trying to solve an equation, "What’s with the obsession? You wanna walk me through it?"

"What obsession?"

"The wanting what you can’t have thing."

"It’s not a matter of wanting what I can’t have."

"You sure?"

Chris heaved a deep sigh, "In your crass words, I already got it, remember? Twice. And she fucking loved it."

Changbin snickered at Chris, "Sure. You're just this mad not because it pisses you off you can't hit that whenever you want, but because you’ve just fallen for her, right?" Then he burst into full-on laughter, "Yeah, good one."

Changbin waited for a snarky comment in return but all that followed was silence, not to mention Chris’ flustered face and dark red ears. His eyes widened upon realization.

"No fucking way! You have?"

"He really has," Jisung followed with a faint smile, "You fell in love with her, didn’t you?"

Chris harshly grabbed the water bottle in front of him and gulped half the content in one go like he was trying to calm himself down. He dragged his hand over his face and groaned in defeat.

"I’m so trapped in her web I can’t move. You gotta help me out with this."

Although Minho recognized how serious Chris was, the snark was intended to lighten the mood this time, "You realize none of us will be willing to let you have her by yourself, right? And I top that chart, I mean."

"You know it’s not that, Min," Chris furrowed his brows again, "I just want her to let me love her, too. That’s all I’m asking."

"Settle something for us, baby. Roleplaying, yay or nay?"

You poured Jisung’s usual Long Island Iced Tea and responded enthusiastically while serving his drink, "Duh, fucking yay!"

"See?" Chris yelled to him, "Game, set, and match."

"Oh, you’re on the yay side?" you contorted your face, "Then I’ll go with nay."

Your satisfied grin elicited loud oohing from the gang and relentless Chris clowning followed suit afterwards.

"Ha ha, very funny," Chris deadpanned, "I don’t care, she said yes first."

"Yeah, but she hates your guts, so we win," Changbin raised his glass to you and you nodded in response.

"Like none of you are into that shit," Chris protested.

"Yeah, we just like seeing you suffer Crispy."

It was true, and for some reason, you were the head cheerleader of all the Chris-bashing activities. Felix noticed the gratuitous amount of satisfaction on your lips and mischievously smiled himself.

"Actually, this," he pointed his finger at the space between you and Chris, "is like two kids that keep bothering each other, don’t you think? When in fact they looove each other."

You slammed the washcloth in your hand on the bar top.

"Yo Freckles, you wanna die?"

They roared with laughter and Changbin slapped Chris’ back, "Pull her hair while you’re at it, why don’t you?"

"I want to if she ever lets me," Chris looked at you almost with a pout.

And you… No matter how involuntarily… With a complete lack of willpower…

Smiled at him.

A thought kept riddling you lately to the extent that you were losing sleep over it. You obviously had feelings for Jisung and it was way past the amazing sex at this point. It was how he made you combust with the warm and fuzzies whenever you saw him. It was how he made you feel truly appreciated. It was how comforting it was to be around him. It was how he made you wanna be there for him, love him, cherish him, open your heart to him and be completely vulnerable. Because you trusted him. Maybe even a little too much.

But could it be slightly, just a little, at all possible that you… had feelings for more than one person?

Tsch, yeah right.

"Well, in all seriousness, depends on what kind of roleplay," you shooed the redundant thoughts away, "What genre of fantasy are we talking about?"

All the men sitting in front of you plus Minho replied unanimously.

"Escort."

"You’re one of those?" you quipped, "One in three guys, I swear."

"Try six out of six, beautiful," Hyunjin teased.

This was by no means chastising. It was just an extension of a phenomenon you kept observing whenever you were around these people. It was how open they were whenever the subject was their sexuality, either in practice or in a conversation, making you believe that other forms of communication just could not bring people closer in the way that sexuality did and some form of intimacy came out of it. You would be lying if you said you didn’t feel much much closer to them compared to when you first met them. Granted, seeing them naked played a part in it, but if that was the case, you had seen a lot of people naked before, and you weren’t necessarily this close to any of them. That would require the will to keep in touch first.

"What is it about the escort fantasy guys like so much? Is it the aspect of being a customer? Like, ‘I paid for it so you're gonna do anything I want’ type of shit?"

"How coarse do you think we are?" Chris replied semi-seriously and added, "It plays a role but not as much as you think."

"Then what?"

"Personally, I really like how paradoxical it is," he continued, "While the offered service is one of the most intimate things between two people, more often than not you wouldn't be allowed to be intimate with your clients - it's against the rules. It's that forbidden aspect of it that gets me going."

You squinted your eyes, "You're legit telling me… The idea that riles you up is being intimate, not the unspeakable acts you'd ask them to do in exchange for money."

"Damn straight. Although I prefer the term ineffable acts," Chris knowingly smiled, "and how much they would fucking love it."

They would love the ineffable acts, huh? 

Because why wouldn’t they when the person you were playing with was already someone who continuously enjoyed what they experienced with you? You knew that, but you would rather do shots of bleach than admit that out loud.

"That’s bullshit. There's no way that is true."

"It is and I'll prove it to you," Chris put down his glass for you to refresh it, "One date. That’s all I’m asking."

"A what?"

"Why not?" Chris shrugged, "I already know Changbin took you out to dinner and Hyunjin even went down that private cooking route. What’s the harm in going on one with me?"

You were about to break into an entire monologue to talk yourself out of the urge to say yes, but Chris derailed your thoughts by placing his hand on yours.

"Please?"

You held his gaze for a while. His beautiful brown eyes looked way too candid and you absolutely hated how it made you feel.

"You’re serious."

"Yes, I am."

The entire clan basically started cheering very loud ‘DO IT!’s, pressing you to accept his proposal. The more you didn’t answer, the more anxious Chris was getting for fear of another rejection.

"What's it gonna take? Just tell me already."

Before you could answer him, Jisung intervened, "It’s fair game, baby. He’s the only one you relentlessly avoid paying attention to and god knows he’s paid his dues."

It was true. You reveling in making Chris suffer in whatever form was only because it satisfied something twisted inside you, but it was just the pleasure of putting him in his place, not because of some sadistic desire to damage him emotionally. That would be just straight-up cruel.

"Why not consider it an opportunity to diss me all night?" Chris smiled.

Now, that I can do.

"Fine," you replied curtly trying your best not to smile back. Chris’ dimples, on the other hand, grew even deeper.

When the clock struck closing hours, the guys all got up to leave for their poker night, but Chris stayed behind.

"I'll give you a ride home."

"You're not going with them?" you asked while getting your bag.

"I got a deadline coming up, so I gotta head home to work. Come on."

No wonder he had limited himself to only two drinks throughout the entire night.

Well, this is new, you thought to yourself as you got settled in your seat. You didn’t say a word during that entire ride and just watched him drive with stolen glances. You were used to being annoyed at Chris, not to noticing how sexy he looked behind a steering wheel, veins on his hand popping due to his firm grip, eyes intently on the road with slightly furrowed brows. It was warm inside. His car smelled really nice although not as nice as his own scent, and the melodies coming from his speakers were as soft and sultry as his lips were.

What?

"Well, good night then," Chris pulled you back to earth as he stopped in your driveway. You immediately went back to snark mode to camouflage your actual thoughts.

"Yeah, not happening since your face is the last thing I saw tonight."

Chris immediately killed off the engine and locked the doors to prevent you from leaving.

"Fucking CHRIST, Y/N, just WHAT IS IT? Why do you hate me this much? What did I ever do to you?!"

"I just CAN’T fucking stand your stupid face if that’s what you wanna know!"

"BUT WHY?"

Why? Did he really ask WHY?

"You," you nudged him on the shoulder.

"...think you’re fucking all that," you pressed harder.

"...when in fact", you shoved him harder.

"...you ain’t shit. That whole confidence thing you got going on? It's fucking baseless."

"Our nights together beg to differ," Chris scoffed, "You fucking dissolved under my touch."

You were almost caught off guard, "That doesn’t mean anything. I was both drunk and high. Nobody would be able to think with their brain."

"Oh yeah?" Chris fully turned to face you, one hand still on the steering wheel, "You seem to be forgetting about a particular bookstore incident. You were very much sober when I made you cum so fucking hard on my fingers in broad daylight - not to mention in fucking PUBLIC!"

Oh, you got some goddamn nerve. 

His words… His words got a fucking RISE out of you.

"Alright that’s it, you jackass, somebody needs to teach you a fucking lesson," you immediately grabbed the seat belt to unlatch it.

"HA, you don’t mean you, I hope?"

You literally swung your fist towards him in an attempt to land a punch, but the proximity was so close that Chris instantly blocked it by grabbing your wrist.

"You think you’re so irresistible. Well, news flash, you arrogant prick, I will resist you with everything I got. You’re nothing more than a fucking philanderer, a fucking WOMANIZER, you’ll just fuck EVERYTHING THAT MOVES."

"What the fuck, Y/N, are you fucking insane?"

"What if I am, huh? Congrats, you’ve DONE IT! You’ve finally driven me fucking CRAZY!"

You unleashed yourself onto him to tackle him in that tiny space and straddled him as if you could actually put him in a sleeper hold so he would just shut up. Just shut the fuck up. 

Needless to say, it was way too easy for Chris to break himself free of your attempts to assault him. With one swift move, he grabbed your neck to pull you in a heated kiss. You stopped it in utter rage.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"

"Fucking PACIFYING YOU, just SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR A SECOND!!!"

He pulled you back in his arms again and he was kissing you with such passion that it deactivated all your reasoning instantly, disabling your motor functions to inflict pain.

"Ah, Chris."

"Baby girl."

"Ah, I fucking hate you."

"Hate me all you want, just let me fucking touch you."

When his hand slid inside your shirt to caress your back with his warm touch, all you could do was moan. And moan. And moan. Loudly. He fucking groaned at the contact.

"Oh, jesus fucking CHRIST, YES- I've missed this so much."

You hated to admit it, but so did you. Your hands inadvertently found their way to his chest again to scratch it, mark it as deeply as you could.

"Behave. Behave, baby girl."

Chris sort of beat you to it and latched himself to your neck, lightly grazing it with his teeth. Then he whispered in your ear with a way too delighted smile.

"Just say you're fucking jealous, baby girl. It ain't that hard."

"Shut up."

"Say you don't want me touching anybody else but you."

"I said shut the fuck up!"

"Say you fucking want me to be your simp."

You hooked the crook of your elbow against his nape with a harsh move and roughly pressed his head against your chest like you wanted to legitimately choke him. Chris humored you for the briefest of moments, letting you relish that delusion that you could actually overpower him, but popped that bubble with the needle that was ripping open the buttons of your shirt instead. He didn’t waste any time freeing your breasts and began fervently sucking on them, punctuating the swirls of his tongue with a gentle bite on your nipples.

"FUCK!"

"Oh, you like that, don’t you baby girl?"

He groped both your tits with a firm grip, pressing them together, and kept hardening your nipples with the loud and wet movements of his tongue.

"I wanna fucking cum on these. Oh, I would cum so hard." 

"Not even gonna take you two minutes to blow anyway."

"Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?" he hysterically smiled, "You fucking love watching me lose myself over you."

He roughly pulled your face towards his again, hands never losing contact with your skin, lips already swollen over extremely needy kisses, panting into your mouth.

"Fucking grope me."

Chris landed a slap on your thighs from under you and squeezed them deliciously.

"That ass just begs to be spanked."

"Oh, bite me, you prick."

"If you insist, fucking gladly."

He literally moved on to sink his teeth on your shoulder and that was the most exquisite kind of pain you could ever feel. Your hiss morphed into a moan before it could even leave your lips.

"Ah, FUCK! You're going all alpha wolf on me now?"

"You want me to? I'm not even scratching the surface."

You reciprocated the move by trapping his plush lips between yours, biting on them like you really wanted a piece of him. Chris was getting way too riled up over how you were losing it and unbuttoned your pants, almost ripping them in the process.

"Touch me. Right there."

"Here, baby girl?"

That wasn’t an actual question because he knew the exact spot. He fucking heard it from you pressed against a door as you were instructing Jisung while Chris was touching himself to your moans.

"Oh, right there, right there, right there, CHRIS FUCK!"

"That’s my girl. There you go."

You yelling his name like that was doing something to his brain. His mind was completely infested with the urge of ramming himself into you. He hastily rid you of your pants and dropped his to his ankles, guiding his rock-hard length into your sopping wet entrance.

"FUCKING- YES!"

Those arms were just so fucking strong that he wasn't struggling one bit to lift you up and down on his cock. Like you were a fucking leaf. The pleasure spreading throughout your body was so fucking exorbitant that your loud moans echoing in his car were instantaneously transforming into screams of his name. You grabbed his shirt and pulled it to yourself.

"Fucking take it off. Take it off!"

When he flashed that magnificent chest for you again…

Oh… my fucking… god…

There was no fucking way you weren’t going to drag your nails on them.

"Oh, fuck yeah, baby girl. Scratch me. More!"

All of a sudden, Chris pulled the lever right next to his seat, leaning it all the way back, and abruptly flipped you under him. So fucking easily.

"Say you want me to wreck you."

"Like hell I w-"

Chris attacked your lips with pure fire again, taking all your breath away. Literally.

"Say it, baby girl."

"No."

He maniacally smiled, eyes filled with nothing but hunger, warning you of the looming impact.

"But I'm gonna, anyway."

He pushed your legs back and dove into your pussy like he was starved to death.

"SHIT!"

Indescribable. The sensation Chris was inducing in you was simply indescribable. It felt very close to pouring gallons of gasoline over an already uncontrollable wildfire. He kept sucking on your clit firmly enough to apply enough pressure, but it was that damn teasing of his tongue that was making you go absolutely feral.

"Say it, baby girl."

"FUCK, please don't stop!"

He allowed himself to sate his own burning desire to fucking dissolve you under his tongue, getting you to flow a river for him, coating his mouth with your sweet juices. You were like a spring that was never enough to quench his thirst. Chris could do that for hours if teasing you wasn’t more entertaining.

"Say I'm driving you crazy."

"You- You’re-"

"Say it, baby girl."

"You’re dr- You’re driving-"

"Do it for me."

"You’re driving me fucking CRAZY!!! Oh, fuck, FUCK!"

You grabbed him by his hair to get him up. If he didn’t pass through you right that second, you were going to legitimately lose your mind.

"Get up. Get the fuck up! Fuck me into this seat, you son of a bitch, DO IT!"

Chris grinned like an absolutely deranged lunatic and climbed on top of you, throwing your legs over his shoulders to angle for your sweetest spot. That stretch he caused while letting out that animalistic grunt was everything.

"Oh, CHRIS!"

Your voice… It was more than enough. It was the sexiest fucking thing in this universe. He could listen to it like a song over and over again and blow on cue. He was sure of it.

"Say it again."

"Say w-"

"My name, baby girl. Again."

You held onto his gorgeous arms again, sinking your fingers in them, and let yourself get lost in him.

"Oh, Chris."

You felt him twitch inside you and he let out a deep exhale.

"Fuck- Again."

"Chris, please."

"Ah, again, baby girl."

"Christopher."

This time he twitched so hard that you felt it deep within you.

"Ah, baby-"

"Christopher."

"Ah, baby, yes."

"Christopher."

"Oh, fucking-"

"Christopher."

"Fuck, again."

"Christopher."

"Again!"

"Christopher!"

"AGAIN!"

"CHRISTOPHER!". 

"Fuck, fuck, FUCK, give it to me. Give it to me, baby girl, just like that."

Chris fucking snapped. He was going more unhinged with every thrust, resolute to crash both of you into an iron gate at full force. He slithered his thumb on your clit to intensify your pleasure.

"You know you love this, right? You fucking love this."

"Fucking kiss me!"

Who was he to say no to tasting your lips at every opportunity? He could live the rest of his life attached to them for all he cared.

"Cum for me," you whispered into his mouth. He deliriously smiled again.

"Fuck no."

"Fucking blow for me."

"You first, baby girl."

Chris picked up the pace, disarming you completely under him.

"Where do you wanna cum? Tell me."

"No, please, no, y- you…"

He was simply ruthless, determined to not let you have your way whatsoever.

"You wanna flood my cock? You wanna cream on my face? Tell me, I'll do it."

You were trying. You were really trying to form a coherent sentence but all that came out of your mouth was your moans mixed with guttural sounds his thrusts were forcing out of you.

"You. Your- J-just you."

"Let go for me, baby girl. Hit me with all you got. You know you love this."

Then he bent over your face again and whispered looking dead into your eyes.

"You love me."

"FUCK, CHRIS, I L-"

Chris immediately covered your mouth with his lips and choked your moan that could have easily turned into something very inexplicable. Nevertheless, your brutal spasms along with what he most certainly knew was going to spill from your lips pushed him over the edge with you. Frantically.

"Oh, yes. Yes, I'm coming! I'm fucking coming, oh SHIT!"

His warm seed squirting inside you, spreading around your walls like that felt so weirdly soothing, wrapping you in a blanket of pure bliss. You felt yourself getting out of your body for a second. After he came down, Chris finally broke the silence minus both of your attempts to catch your breaths.

"So, I uh- I’ll come pick you up at 8 tomorrow?" he asked while panting, your foreheads still pressed together. Your hands reached for his curls and caressed them softly.

"Actually, I have something else in mind. Why don’t you meet me at the restaurant?"

My name is Y/N and I’m pretty sure I’m about to make the biggest mistake yet.

«TO BE CONTINUED»

Sweet dreams drinks are made of chocolate

pairing: Bang Chan x female reader

genre: cafe!au, fluff with a little bit of angst, barista!reader, skzleader!Chan

word count: 2.5K

Warning: brief mention of fire, brief mention of a car accident almost happening, insomnia, some cursing

The pictures on this post are not mine, I found them on Google. They were chosen as a way to illustrate the main ideas of the fic, but they don't represent exactly what I wrote about.

My note: Finally posting my first fic, yay! I’ve been thinking about posting my own stuff for years now and I’m so happy that my first time posting on here is with a SKZ fic. I wanna say thank you to my bird friend, and to @h0neydewmoon and @sparkystraynger. The three of you read my fic first and gave me such sweet feedback and encouragement. If it wasn't for the three of you, I probably wouldn’t have the courage to post this. Thank you again, and I love you ~

(Also, I apologize for the pun on the title. I had the idea when I was trying to sleep and I just liked it too much so I had to use it.)

To say Chan’s day was being eventful was a big fucking understatement. I mean, he woke up to the boys screaming with all their might and he thought that someone had died. He ran to the kitchen — where the sound was coming from — and found Jisung and Hyunjin throwing something completely burnt inside the sink. Feeling a headache starting, he asked if they were okay. Upon the answer that everything was, in fact, okay — they just got distracted playing games while the toast was getting ready and the thing ended up looking like a piece of coal —, he went to the bathroom.

Chan barely got any sleep last night. The countless thoughts, negative thoughts, threatened to take control of his mind and he dived deep into work to keep them away. The result? He stayed awake until 4am, even though he knew that he had to wake up early because of a meeting at JYP at 10am. 

It was around eight-thirty now. He still had some time to get ready and get something to eat from his favorite cafe before having to go to JYP, so he decided to do just that. After taking a quick shower, he grabbed his contact lens, and that’s when the second accident happened. While he was putting them on — very carefully, he had been doing this for years and was still not used to the feeling —, one of them slipped and fell right in the middle of the sink. Muttering a quick fuck, he started to look for his backup pair. After a couple minutes and no sign of them, he suddenly remembered that he left the backup pair in his room. At JYP. 

With a second shit, this time followed by a playful “no cursing, hyung!”, from Hyunjin, he went to his room to grab the glasses he kept there as a backup’s backup. He hated the thick black-rimmed thing. He felt like it made his nose look even bigger, if that was even possible. But, considering the poor circumstances, it was either the glasses or seeing barely nothing until he got at the company, and that wouldn’t do. 

After putting some comfortable clothes on — all black, no surprises here — and grabbing everything he needed, Chan said goodbye to the kids and went to the cafe. It was a cute little place about 10 minutes from the dorms that he found out on a morning walk, when he was so stressed that he couldn’t sleep, and working on his songs was not, well, working as well. On that occasion, the boy was on his second day with no sleep and he decided to try walking around the neighborhood to clear his mind. It wasn’t working very well, until he stumbled on the small cafe: a cute place decorated with pastel tones, dozens of photos of landscapes and pretty places in general on the brick walls inside, lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling and round tables with small vases with fresh flowers on each of them. 

Chan felt a sudden wave of calmness when he looked inside the place through the big glass window. There weren't many customers inside, but everyone there looked content, at peace, like as if it was a place just made for people who needed a break from their problems. Everything that composed the aura of the cafe was so appealing to Chan that he had to go inside. 

The girl at the counter opened a very friendly smile, welcomed him, and waited as he took a look at the drinks and food they had there. Everything they offered was written on the black board on the back with a beautiful calligraphy. They even had cute drawings to represent each item! That made him smile. Not even five minutes inside that place and he already could feel himself relaxing.

Not wanting to take too long to decide, he ordered a big cup of hot chocolate and a chocolate muffin. After paying, he went to sit next to the big window. With nothing to do while he waited, and regretting not taking his headphones with him, he just played some games on his phone to kill time until his order was ready. After a couple minutes, a different girl — he recognized her as the one who was making the drinks — brought him his food. She had a beautiful light brown skin, long dark curly hair up in a high pony-tail and the prettiest eyes. 

“Here you go. Enjoy your food!” The smile she gave him made his heart skip a beat.

“Thank you-” He took a quick look at her name on her uniform “Y/N.” Chan thanked, giving a smile of his own. “It looks really good!”

And he wasn’t just saying it. The hot chocolate looked thick and rich, just like he liked, and it even had those cute small marshmallows, whipped cream and a bit of cinnamon sprayed on top! The muffin looked really good too, chocolaty and fluffy.

Y/N gave him another smile and went back to the counter. Chan put his hands around the mug and just let it warm his hands for a little bit. It wasn’t so cold outside, but the feeling was nice. After a couple minutes, he took a sip of the chocolate and let out a low moan. The sweet drink tasted even better than it looked, and it made him feel really warm inside too.

The boy ate the — very delicious! — muffin rather quickly, but he took his time to finish the hot chocolate. He kept holding the mug with both hands and watched the people passing through the window while he took small sips of it, enjoying not having to do anything else for a while. On that day, after getting home, he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. It was the best sleep he had in months.

After that day, he came back as many times as he could. Sometimes only to have a drink — usually hot chocolate, but he tried some others that looked interesting —, sometimes to do some work outside his studio. Working while watching other people living their own lives could be quite inspiring. And, he would be lying if he said that he wasn’t interested in seeing the pretty girl who made the drinks. 

While he didn’t actually interact with Y/N much, since he didn’t want to end up bothering her when she was working, the few conversations he had with her were enough to make Chan start to harbor a crush for the girl. She sat with him a couple times, usually when the cafe wasn’t that busy, and they talked about a little bit of everything. 

The first time that she stopped to talk with him after bringing his to him order was when he first took his laptop to the cafe and it surprised him quite a lot. He ordered his usual — literally, he went there enough times so the girl that worked at the front started to only ask “the usual?” after greeting him. Was it weird that that made him feel warm inside? Maybe, but it was the truth —, sat down and turned on his laptop. 

He had been working on a specific song for a while that he couldn’t get pleased with the result. After many days of frustration, he decided to try out working on it at the cafe. Maybe a change in the scenario would help? So Chan put his headphones, laptop and keyboard inside his black backpack and drove to the place.

The boy made his order and sat down at his — also — usual place, right next to the big windows. He placed everything on the table and opened the music editing software. The music sucked him as soon as he started to edit it, and he didn’t even notice when Y/N stopped right next to his table with his food. She stood there for a couple seconds, watching him work.

“Can I?” Her soft voice startled him, and he stood up in surprise. Then he got surprised once again. Y/N was tall. How could he never notice? She was a bit taller than him, even. He got a bit flustered with that information.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you-” Chan apologized, feeling his ears getting red, and started to move his stuff to make some room on the table for his drink and muffin. 

“It’s okay! I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to bother. Also, I was curious about what you were working on. It’s a new song?” The girl said all that with a quiet voice and a brilliant smile on her face.

“Ah-” He stuttered “Uh, yeah, it is.” Feeling his face getting even hotter, he just looked away and finished pushing his things a little bit to the right. She put the food on the table and he sat back again.

“I feel honored that you decided to work on it at our cafe.” And she sounded sincere, even though her voice had just a little bit a teasing in it. He was probably looking like a tomato already, and that’s when he realized something.

“Wait-” Chan looked at her face again and she raised her eyebrows in question. “Do you know who I am?” The shock on his voice made her playfully roll her eyes.

“You mean our most loyal client?” The confusion on his face made her laugh — the beautiful sound making his heart hurt in response. Then, with a soft smile on her face, she said. “Yes, best leader Bang Christopher Chan, I know who you are.” If he thought that his face was hot before, he felt like he was going to combust after hearing that. 

“Uh-” The boy gulped. “Uh-” He blinked a couple times. His brain was probably broken. 

She muttered something that sounded a lot like fucking cute and he felt his brain restarting with the shock.

“A-Are you a STAY?” She giggled at the question.

“I thought my previous comment made it obvious, but yes, Chan, I’m a STAY.” 

Y/N opened her mouth to say something else, but someone yelled her name. Both of them looked in the direction of the sound and saw a big line of customers. Her coworker had a big smile on her face that was obviously fake, and after taking an order from a client she looked at them and mouthed “Less flirting and more working, bitch.” 

This time, Y/N was the one who got flustered and the boy giggled at her coworker’s teasing, still feeling his face hot.  She quickly said goodbye to him and went back to work. Later that day, even after getting home, Chan was still thinking about the conversation with her and feeling his face hot.

After that day, he started to bring his laptop to the cafe more often, and he and Y/N got closer because of their talks. He didn’t show the songs he was making for the group, but he showed her some songs he was making for himself. Chan loved her reactions; her eyes seemed to shine whenever she was listening to something he made, and a smile never left her face. 

Thinking about that made him smile too, but that smile slipped from his face almost instantly. The traffic wasn’t that great that morning, and even though the drive to the cafe was short, some idiot almost caused an accident by running a red light, which was just what he needed. There was a lot of honking and some cursing around him, but thankfully no one got hurt. 

The boy gripped hard on the steering wheel — hard enough to make his knuckles white. That was a fucking ton of stress for someone who barely slept and was awake for little more than an hour. He took a deep breath and kept driving, and soon enough he was at the cafe.

Chan parked his car close to the place, took another deep breath and left the car. He tried to control his facial expressions so that his stress wouldn’t be that obvious, then he went inside. The place was empty, even more than usual, so he just approached the counter and greeted the girls. Both of them greeted him back and the one who was in charge of taking the orders asked him if he wanted the usual.

“Uh, actually, I have a meeting soon, so I can’t stay today.” He explained with a sorry smile. “Can you make my usual but to go?”

“Of course! That’s not a problem.” She answered with excitement. He didn’t have a clue about how she had so much energy that early in the morning. “A hot chocolate and a chocolate muffin to go coming right up.” 

He paid for the order, thanked her and took a few steps to the side to wait for his food. Usually Y/N started to work on his order right after Chan confirmed he wanted the same as usual, but today she took a good look at him first. The boy felt he was doing a good job at hiding how stressed he was, but for some reason, she seemed to be able to read him like a book.

The moment didn’t last much, and soon the girl started to make his drink. He kept himself busy with his phone while she was working, and after a couple minutes she put his cup and a brown bag in front of him. 

“Have a good day.” Y/N's soft voice warmed him. She looked like she wanted to say more, and he thought he could see worry in her pretty eyes, but a new customer entered at that moment and her attention flew to them.

“Thank you, Y/N.” A shy smile took over his face and she gave him one of her own. That warmed his heart even more and he felt the stress starting to fade. 

Chan took his drink and muffin, said goodbye to them and left the cafe. He wished he could have stayed there at least a little bit, but the meeting was going to start in less than an hour and he still wanted to search for his contact lens before it.

After he got back inside the car, he put the bag on the passenger seat and took a sip of the hot chocolate. While he was putting the cup on the cup holder, he noticed black ink on the white part of the cup. With a closer look, he noticed there was a message written there.

“Your smile brightens my day =)” 

His face burned as a blush took over his cheeks. The calligraphy was pretty and cheerful, just like Y/N, and just like that, with that sweet little message, he felt the ugly burning of stress disappear. 

The day may have started badly, especially after bad night of sleep, but one trip to his favorite cafe to — if he was being honest — see one of his favorite people was enough to make Chan feel like he could conquer the whole world. 

THE PUNCHLINE: Chapter 10

« PREVIOUS CHAPTER · «SERIES MASTERLIST»

"This is what you do to your man?" Your smile changed colors, assuming a shade of dark red as you leaned into his ear and spoke very softly with a lot of air clinging to your words. "No, I whisper things to my man and watch him lose it in public," you placed the smallest kiss on his earlobe, "And I love it when he fucks my brains out later that night."

Chapter 10: Champagne

📜8.8K words 🚨Sexting, drunk dialing, mutual masturbation, implied somnophilia, nightfall (nocturnal emission), roleplaying: sex work fantasy (use of the term "escort"), narratophilia, public blowjob, public vaginal fingering, consensual sex tape, katoptronophilia (mirror paraphilia), Christopher and his unlimited supply of "baby girl", lowkey strength kink, newly introduced breeding kink, reference to lactation kink, choking, cumplay/cum eating, praising, food play, breast play, marking, edging, use of sex toys, oral sex, unprotected sex, squirting, creampie, fully charged vibrators recommended per usual. 💭Reblogs & comments are always appreciated and please keep in mind they are the ultimate motivation fuel. 🔖Story taglist: @elizalabs3 ; @septicrebel 📌Permanent taglist: @sai-kida134 ; @ughbehavior ; @bearseungmin ; @skywarriorkirby ; @sunnyville36 ; @hh0320 (@hwan-g) ; @svintsandghosts ; @jl-micasea-fics ; @skz317cb97 ; @abiaswreck ; @skyminniesworld ; @clearlyissleeping ; @cixhoneyhuns

It was a great day to take a walk to let out some of the excessive energy crawling in your body and do that very postponed grocery shopping. At first.

Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me with this.

Not even twenty four full hours had passed between your slip that was giving into Chris and seeing him with some woman, giggling at each other at some random coffee shop. He was never seen with someone accompanying him besides the gang, much less in broad daylight. You thought your eyes were deceiving you for a second, so you did what any normal person would: reached out to your phone and dialed his number while your eyes were glued to that window across the street. The person sitting at that table was laughing really hard and you watched him reach for his phone, as well.

"What’s up, baby girl?" The person on your speaker answered like he was in the last moments of a laughter dying down, effectively confirming they were indeed the same guy.

"Hey, uh-" your mind went blank for a second. You didn’t know what to say, but more importantly, you didn’t know why you felt this mad. So what if he was seeing someone? It wasn’t like he asked you to be his girlfriend or anything. He asked you out on a date, which quite frankly was barely a basis for any kind of relationship. But here you were, seething in sheer fury.

Keep cool. Just keep cool.

"I think I might be coming down with something. Can we skip the date thing today?"

Chris’ voice changed instantly at your words and became way more serious, "Sure thing, but are you okay? Do you want me to come over?"

"No. I uh- I’m fine."

You could see Chris taking a sip from the mug in front of him, "When would you like to do it then? Saturday maybe?"

"I- I don’t know, Chris."

"I’m not hanging up without a date on my calendar, baby girl."

He literally had a little notebook in front of him and he was holding a pen to mark it. You knew for sure that you didn’t want it to be right away because who knew what type of tantrum you were going to throw at him with the irrational amount of rage making your blood boil? Not that it wouldn’t set your mood absolutely straight.

"Fine. Saturday."

"Alright then. Since you’re bailing on me, I’ll reschedule the meetings I canceled for tonight. Take good care of yourself, baby girl. Call me if you need anything, okay?"

Meetings, huh? That’s what you call them?

Yeah, you were out to do grocery shopping, but you ended up buying a hefty amount of tonic with two bottles of gin instead, hoping to find an answer to this indescribable wrench in your gut in your living room. Eggs could kindly fuck right off for the time being. You felt a knot in your throat, but not because you wanted to cry. Maybe you did want to cry, but it definitely had something to do with anger since you had this intense urge to smash car windows all of a sudden, especially Chris’. It was barely evening hours when you started drinking, and by the time it was nearing 10 PM… Let’s just say that you were in no state to be even remotely rational.

How dare he be with someone else when you literally fucked each other downstairs just the day before, not that you had conclusive proof that he was with someone at that moment. If he was, on the other hand, the urge to ruin that moment was real, and it had to get ruined by you. This fucker needed his entire thought process derailed. By you. You reached for your phone trying to decide on that one move to short-circuit his brain.

You Thinking about you might be getting me a little too wet.

It didn’t even take five seconds for your satisfied smile to devolve into sheer panic and embarrassment. What the actual fuck were you doing? Why would he even look at his phone if he was busy doing something else? Or worse, someone else. Way to get yourself humiliated and serve him the upper hand on a silver fucking platter.

Your internal self-deprecating monologue got cut short with a text from none other than the man of the hour himself.

Christopher🏄 I really wish I was there. Or you were here with me. [Typing…] Wish I could touch you again.

HAHAHA WHAT?

Let’s recap, you thought to yourself. It seemed highly unlikely that he would reply this fast and back to back if he was indeed with someone, right?

RIGHT?

Maybe tonight didn’t need to be a night where you had to sort out your anger management issues.

You I keep thinking about your car. About how you felt inside me.

Christopher🏄 I miss the way your nails feel against my back already. It was just yesterday but feels so long ago. [Typing…] I miss your taste, baby girl.

Oh, he was good. Or it seemed that way to you because you were on that thin line between tipsy and drunk, having knocked down the entire bottle of gin by then. You kept smirking to yourself.

You Can’t stop thinking about how your tongue felt on my skin.

Christopher🏄 Can't wait till I can go down on you again. Saturday can’t come soon enough.

Fuck this.

That was the nonexistence of your inhibitions talking in your head with a loudspeaker. You closed the messaging app, went to your contact list, and hit call. Chris picked up with a voice deeper than his usual, and you hoped that was a sign of arousal.

"Hey, baby girl."

"You said to call if I needed anything," you slightly slurred, "Whatchu doing?"

"Sexting, apparently," Chris softly chuckled, "Sounds like somebody’s buzzed. Nyquil, or…?"

"Are you alone, Chris?"

You could feel the slight surprise from his brief pause.

"I am. Is everything okay?"

"No, it’s not," you heaved a deep sigh, "I could use some help."

Well, you did learn some moves from Felix anyway, and you saw absolutely no harm in using them on Chris, considering he seemed like he would be more than willing to indulge you.

"What are you wearing right now?"

"What’s gotten into you? Are you drunk?" Chris giggled at the other end of the line, "A sleeveless shirt and shorts, baby girl. What are you wearing?"

"Maybe sweats, maybe nothing. I’ll leave that to your imagination."

"That’s a dangerous thing to trust with me."

"Do you miss my body, too, Chris?"

Too. You said too. With your whole goddamn chest. What had gotten into you indeed?

"Miss? Are you crazy?"

Well… That was a little…

"I need to forget about it first to miss it. You're always on my mind, baby girl. Just hearing your voice makes me wanna touch myself."

You felt the smile climbing up to your lips with your entire being.

"Why don’t you?"

Chris sighed into his microphone, "Are you touching yourself, baby girl?"

"I am. Do you want a taste?"

"Oh, god, yes."

You guided your fingers to your clit and started gently rubbing yourself.

"Do it with me. Come on."

You heard some rustle on your receiver, which was probably Chris pulling his shorts down. He grunted as got comfortable.

"Tell me the things you like when I do it to you."

Chris took a moment to respond and you listened to his sweet grunts during the intermission.

"You’re gonna think I’m crazy but that thing you do with your tongue when you get annoyed. You press it against your cheek. Gets me so fucking hot every time, I don’t know why."

You chuckled at his words, "Didn’t realize it until this moment, but I think I have a kink for making you horny for me."

"Oh, baby girl, I love it when you talk like that."

You slid your fingers to your entrance to collect some of your juices and rub it on your clit, closing your eyes in the meantime thinking it was Chris.

"I really wanna see you naked. Like, right now."

"But you can’t," you responded with a teasing tone, "Tell me what you wanna do to me."

"I- shit- I just wanna feel you under my fingertips again," he loudly exhaled, "What do you wanna do to me?"

Under his fingertips again. Getting scorched. Melting. Evaporating. Hearing the odes he sang to your name if you so much as breathed towards his direction. Your fingers slithered inside you and you started working yourself open.

"I want those lips on me again, Christopher."

"Oh, baby-"

"I want you to fuck me senseless again. Drag my nails all over you."

"Fuck, fuck-" Chris heavily breathed into the microphone, "Oh, baby girl, you're asking for it. You're asking to get fucked so hard. When I see you, it’s on sight."

Your movements accelerated and you started fucking yourself harder, thinking about how he pierced through you the night before.

"Do you- Do you wanna- wanna listen to me cum for you?"

"Yes, AH FUCK YES! For me. For me. Please."

Your breathing got labored over how enthused he was. For you.

"Only if you cum for me, too."

Chris was crumbling to your voice on the other end of the line. You could hear how fast he was pumping himself, probably thinking that it was you.

"Just… Just say my name, again."

"You like that a little too much, huh Christopher?"

"Oh, I love it when you say it like that for me, baby girl. Prettiest sound in the world."

"Do your thing for me, Christopher."

"Ah, baby."

"For me, Christopher."

"Baby, yes."

"You already know I’ll give it to you so good, don’t you, Christopher?"

"Yes, YES baby, NO ONE does it like you. Shit!"

Why did he sound so pretty even with those raw, disgraceful, downright animalistic grunts he let out every time you riled him up like that? You thought you were about to bask in the beauty of the sounds of his orgasm, so it caught you completely off guard when he blurted that out and threw you into a pit of pleasure on cue.

"You own my ass baby girl, you know that, right?"

"Oh, CHRISTOPHER, FUCK!"

Your toes curled so hard as you came that you almost had cramps on your feet. Chris’ moans of ecstasy on the line helped you ride out your orgasm as if he was fucking you through it. You couldn’t help your giggles when you came down.

"I’ll tell Felix he has a serious rival the next time I see him."

Chris reciprocated your lightheaded laughter, "No need, baby girl. I’ll text him that right after we hang up. Please take good care of yourself for me until Saturday, yeah?"

"All spread out on her bed for me. Better not wake her up."

It was a whisper, but you heard it loud and clear as you felt your thighs being spread apart. Carefully. With soft movements. So as not to disturb you.

Then you felt this warmth between your legs, the source of which was a body. A man. Very much aroused. It was so intense that you could smell the sweet scent of pheromones raiding your nostrils. The cool night air seeping through your window reached all the way to your wet core when your underwear was slid to the side to expose it under your silk nightgown.

And you immediately started getting overwhelmed with the gentlest sucks on your clit. You wanted to moan. You wanted to moan so fucking loudly, but for some reason, you couldn’t. Or didn’t, just because you didn’t want the man to know how much you were enjoying his tender stimulations. For fear that he would accelerate his pace and it would eventually stop. They were so wet. They were delicious. They were heavenly. You never wanted them to end.

He was talking against your pussy. His voice was barely audible, but for some weird reason, the vibrations provided by his soundwaves against your clit were communicated throughout your entire body. You could understand everything he was saying and you wanted to fucking drink those words like a tall glass of cold water.

"So fucking beautiful."

"God, this taste."

"My baby."

"All mine."

"Need. Every drop."

Insane. He was driving you insane. Your screams of pleasure were only audible to you as you weren’t able to produce a singular sound. You squeezed your eyes to communicate your thoughts to him.

How did you get in here?

"Shh, Minho let me in, baby girl. I’m eating. Don’t interrupt me."

He kept making out with your pussy, drenching it with his saliva and mixing it with your own juices, getting his entire face covered with that beautiful mess of a concoction. He kept talking against you as he sated his hunger.

"So fucking tasty."

"I could eat for hours."

"Don’t ever cum, just let me."

Need you inside.

"You're always on my mind, baby girl. Always on my mind."

You were so fucking wet already that you didn’t need any lubrication for his fingers. They fit right in like your walls were a custom-made case for them.

"God, I love your body."

He hooked his fingers against that deep spot inside you and started massaging it, his tongue still at work on your clit.

"I love you."

Oh, god.

"I love you."

Chris…

"I love you, baby."

You slightly arched your back as you opened your eyes and witnessed yourself cumming to the nothingness in your room, your heart rate through the roof and your pants completely wet. The blurred lines of reality had certainly thrown you for a loop.

It might have been a dream, but you felt this intense urge to get back at Chris all of a sudden. To make him go through the exact same thing as he had just caused you. There was no rule set in stone stating you had to be normal about this. You fucking lied your ass off earlier that day, but it seemed like you were indeed coming down with something.

And you had less than zero clue as to what to do about it.

The infamous Saturday finally arrived and if anybody asked you, you would straight up tell them you woke up like this when in reality you spent hours getting ready until you were satisfied with your look. Little black dress? Check. Heels? Check. Perfume? Check. Lingerie?

Well…

You told Chris to meet you at the restaurant instead of picking you up and you had your reasons for it. It was payback time after all, the reason for which he was totally clueless about for that matter. When you spotted him from afar, your stomach did a little backflip at how insanely gorgeous he looked, but you immediately slapped yourself mentally since there were more important matters at hand. You walked towards the table with determined but still sultry steps, clicking your heels firmly on the marble floor.

"Somebody ordered a date?"

Chris let out an involuntary whistle when he looked up to spot the source of the sound.

"Yeesh!" he exclaimed upon your sight, eyes all widened in surprise and admiration, "You look like the classiest, most expensive escort I’ve ever laid eyes on."

"Why, thank you, you’re such a gentleman. A five-star review to be delivered to my pimp would be much appreciated," you sat down diagonally to him with a smile.

Chris briefly choked and his lips parted at your statement.

"Wait, are you ac- you’re actually gonna-?"

"Let me remind you of some ground rules first," you declared with a firm voice, "Your deal for the night only includes this dinner and a one-time orgasm. Everything else is extra. And I only take cash."

His mouth wouldn’t close. Chris just looked at you in complete disbelief at what was coming out of your lips. You were excessively satisfied with his reaction and picked up the menu on the table while asking him very casually.

"So, are you gonna give me a name?"

Chris quickly shook his head and cleared his throat to get into the character himself, "It’s uh- It’s Chris."

"What do you do for a living, Chris?"

"You get this personal with all your clients?"

"With some of them. If they’re easy on the eyes." 

He looked at you over the menu with a smirk, but no way in hell would you let it get to his head this early in the night.

"Or, you know, maybe I just wanna know up front if they’re gonna be able to really afford me or not. I am the most expensive escort in the business after all. And for good reason."

Chris burst into a peal of nervous laughter and you could literally see his ears getting redder. You threw one leg over the other under the table and examined the menu carefully like your choice of dinner was going to change the course of your fate for good.

What followed your food and drink orders was a string of unnecessarily intimate conversations, very similar to the one you had with Minho the first day you met him, but unlike Minho, Chris was very much willing to talk about himself. Where he grew up, how he ended up in that city, his obsession with creating, and all that jazz. His charms swept you off your feet so hard that even you forgot the premise of the fantasy at one point. Then again, it actually ended up catering to Chris himself: he was the one who made it perfectly clear how being intimate with clients in this context was ‘against the rules’ and that was what riled him up. Midway through your meals, Chris couldn’t help smiling into his glass.

"I have a feeling you like me."

His words pulled you back to earth, reminding you who you were supposed to be, and you pointed your fork at him all aloof.

"Yeah, every guy in the club thinks the dancer likes them," you retorted, "It’s just part of the job to make you feel desired. You know, so that you’ll throw those one dollar bills."

"I’d like to throw hundreds instead if I’m allowed to," Chris responded with a seductive gaze, to which you weren’t exactly unresponsive.

"By all means. It’s encouraged."

You wiped your mouth with class and reached for your water glass both to quench your thirst and provide some more gloss on your lips to make them pop.

"So, what are you into?"

"As in?"

"As in what gets you going. You might have noticed that my job is customer service-oriented. I gotta be able to cater to you accordingly."

Chris tilted his head with brows raised like he was daring you, "Oh, that’s what’s gonna happen tonight? You’re gonna cater to me?"

"Isn’t that why you hired an escort in the first place? You’re supposed to make requests."

He gulped way too thickly to go unnoticed, but went full Chris on you nevertheless, pulling your chair a little closer to him to throw his hand over the backrest. Close enough to touch you, but not touching you in the slightest.

"Then I want the girlfriend experience."

The proximity was exciting you for some reason. You were painfully aware of the butterflies in your stomach, but you gave it your best to appear composed.

"Aren’t you sort of already doing it? Who the fuck takes an escort to dinner?"

"Classy men that barmaids hate," his eyes darted to your lips. You flashed a little smile and brushed your finger on his arm ever so gently.

"Maybe the aforementioned classy men are just annoying as fuck," you leaned back into your chair, smile still plastered on your lips, "But what do I know?"

You took off your right shoe with the help of your left foot and stretched your leg under the table. When you started stroking his inner thighs with your bare foot, Chris dropped his fork on his plate.

"Wh- What are you-?"

"Didn’t you say you wanted the girlfriend experience?" you batted your lashes at him naively. He was clearly taken aback by your boldness that he never got to witness firsthand before.

"This is what you do to your man?"

Your smile changed colors, assuming a shade of dark red as you leaned into his ear and spoke very softly with a lot of air clinging to your words.

"No, I whisper things to my man and watch him lose it in public," you placed the smallest kiss on his earlobe, "And I love it when he fucks my brains out later that night."

Chris closed his eyes and it was apparent that he was struggling to control whatever urge was creeping in, slowly taking control over him.

"You have no idea how hard I am right now."

"I think I kinda do," you pressed your foot lightly in his crotch area to feel the outline of his erection, "If it makes you feel any better, I'm dripping myself."

Chris eyed you from head to toe, chin resting on the back of his right hand, and tsked in disapproval.

"Yet, you still chose to ruin that pretty dress by wearing panties instead when it could have been your juices flowing for me."

You slowly pulled his hand from under his chin and guided it under the table, right over your core, so that he could feel the evidence.

"Who says I’m wearing any?"

"What the f-" Chris heaved a very deep sigh, "You’re acting like I’m the escort here. Can’t you just wait until we get to our room?"

"We have a room?"

"Oh, yeah. I’m taking you to a penthouse tonight."

"A penthouse, huh?" you tugged on his sleeve, "Can I expect some props?"

"Basically anything that allows me to tease the crap out of you, so yes," he dragged his finger on the strap of your dress, "And I’d like to tape this encounter if you indulge me."

You held his gaze for a second out of genuine surprise, "Tape it? Why?"

"I wanna remember possibly the best sex of my life forever," Chris spoke eyes still glued on the movements of his finger, "I was told I could do whatever as long as I pay up front."

You pressed your leg into his thighs again and leaned in closer to him, "Only if I get to keep the copy."

"How about I make you a deal?" Chris grinned shamelessly, "I’ll keep it in a safe and you can decide on the password yourself."

"A little too presumptuous of you to think we’ll cross paths again," you looked right into his eyes.

"Oh, we definitely will. Especially after tonight," Chris responded with a smirk, ordered two glasses of champagne to punctuate the dinner and added, "You asked what I was into. There is actually something that I get a little too excited over."

"That so?" you asked all intrigued, "Not something way too overboard I hope?"

"I wouldn’t say so," he continued taking a sip from the cold drink, "Have you heard of the term narratophilia before?"

"That doesn’t sound too reassuring, just saying," you chuckled into your glass. Chris leaned into you again to be particularly closer to your ear.

"It just means I fucking love it when my partner describes whatever obscene shit they wanna do to me in excruciating detail." Then he reciprocated your earlier tease in the exact same form with a tiny kiss on your earlobe.

"I want you to run that mouth for me."

His voice came out so sensual that it forced you to close your eyes. You couldn’t help the giddiness and the smile spreading on your lips.

"You mean you wanna hear how hard I’m gonna make you cum."

A muffled yet very content hum escaped his mouth and he broke into a smile, eyes getting squinted a little.

"Then you should know, I've been thinking about tonight for days ever since I learned my company was you," you gently ran your fingers on his hand, "Been also thinking about sitting on that pretty face all day long."

"God, I just can't wait to fuck you tonight," Chris licked his lips reflexively, "Fair warning, I’m a little too excited so I might just start fucking you right in the elevator."

"Told you. It’s extra," you shrugged nonchalantly.

"I don’t care how much it’s gonna cost me as long as you give it to me, baby girl. I'll fucking rip your clothes off the moment we get back."

The tone of his voice noticeably changed. It was obvious his enthusiasm was getting a little hard to control and you loved witnessing that.

"I keep thinking about your body against mine. I can't fucking focus," he placed a semi-chaste kiss on your shoulder which was at least defendable by public affection standards, "I want you between my thighs and I want it ASAP."

He brushed your hair behind your ear, basically eyefucking the shit out of you in public, and that stare… did something to you. You pierced Chris’ soul with your gaze before you talked.

"And I want to wrap my lips around you. Seems like a good match."

You slid your knife off the table with a swift movement and feigned the most exaggerated innocence ever.

"Oh, would you look at this? So much for swiping right. I’m such a klutz, I’m so sorry."

You kneeled down next to your chair and pushed the knife further under the table, creating the perfect excuse to crawl under it and spread Chris’ thighs for you hidden under that tablecloth. 

"Wh- What are you doing?" he whispered, utterly panicked.

"Keep quiet," you warned him, "Unless you have a thing for getting exposed, that is."

You unbuckled his belt and released his erection out of its confinement. God, that looked so pretty, all flushed and leaking for you. You took a deep breath in admiration and just went for it, taking his length in the comforting wet warmth of your mouth. 

You had an inkling of what was going on above the table from the way Chris clenched his thighs really hard at the contact. You weren’t able to see it then, but in reality, he was biting on his fist so hard not to make any noise, silently cursing under his breath so that only you would be able to hear them.

"Jesus FUCK, you’re gonna be the fucking death of me."

You chuckled with your mouth full of him and those vibrations caused him to flinch in his seat. You were just scratching the surface, just gently sucking him, not applying any sort of pressure whatsoever. Like he did to you. It didn’t matter if the scene of the crime was your subconscious. He had this coming.

"Fucking tease. Do you want me to shoot it on your face for everyone to see here? Is that what you want?"

You felt the slam of his fist on the table when you took all of him down your throat, possibly causing a few heads to turn to his direction. 

"How was everything, sir?"

"C-could we get the check, please?" Chris asked the waiter while tapping on your shoulder under the table to stop. You found his helplessness fucking hilarious. Nevertheless, you placed one more kiss on his tip and got up without letting him finish.

"On the house. Don’t get used to it," you winked at him while licking your lips.

"Those lips are pure fucking electric. That was incredible," Chris sighed with eyes still closed, "Although it escalated to painful."

"Pity. Maybe you should do something about it."

You pressed your tongue in your cheek, knowing damn well what it was going to do to him. 

"Fuck, I want you so bad. Let’s just get out of here."

You were expecting Chris to hail a cab, but he ended up opening the door to the backseat of a fucking Rolls-Royce Phantom for you waiting right in front of the restaurant, and got in after you.

"Could you roll up the partition, please?" Chris requested from the driver as soon as he closed the door. Once he was convinced you had some privacy at the back, he instantly grabbed your face for an excessively heated kiss, moaning into your lips loudly while slithering his fingers between your legs.

"Shh, he’s gonna hear!"

"Don’t care. I wanna feel how wet you are for me."

His fingers slid into you so easily as he kept kissing you with muffled moans like he was the one getting touched. So avid. So passionate. If Chris wasn’t arousal materialized at that very moment…

"You’re kidding me with this shit! Fucking soaked. Spread it for me, come on."

He parted your thighs more for himself and started fingering you in earnest. Chris knew exactly how to touch you, where to touch you, how much pressure you needed to go absolutely haywire.

"Oh, fuck, yes!

"You get me so fucking hard when you moan for me like that."

He pressed his forehead against yours, panting with you, thumb rubbing your clit fervently, smearing your wetness all over his palm.

"Tell me what you want from me," Chris asked eyes closed. You squeezed an answer in between your heavy breathing.

"I n- I need to feel you against me."

"I want to taste you so bad."

"I want you ins- inside of me. OH, GOD!"

Your moans were getting out of control with your orgasm approaching fast. You didn’t care if you were going to be heard by then. To hell with reservations, let people hear. Let people fucking hear some Christopher Bang was launching you into the stratosphere.

"Are you gonna let go for your man?"

Your man.

You snapped so fucking hard that you were squeezing his arms to hold onto something. You know, to not die. 

"Please, so fucking close!"

Instead of quickening his pace, Chris began slowing it down and eventually stopped.

"Not yet."

You let out another moan, but out of pure frustration this time whereas Chris was chortling, very entertained by the state he put you in.

"There’s no way I’m not requesting you again."

Oh, right. The girlfriend experience.

When you arrived at your destination, you did your best to alleviate any sort of disheveled look before getting out of the car and putting on a somewhat graceful demeanor like you didn’t just let a guy finger the shit out of you. Chris had turned the switch on and there was no way to turn it back off until you got that sweet release. When you got into the elevator you found yourself looking for ways to initiate something, but you hated the idea of looking desperate for him.

"Gave up on the idea of fucking me in the elevator?"

"Watching you get this horny over me feels better if I’m honest," Chris teased pressing your body onto his, and slowly grazed his teeth on your jaw, "And I’d much rather be kissing your waist instead."

"Who’s hornier is up for debate, apparently. Pin me against this mirror while you’re at it, why don’t you?"

"Say please," he smirked.

Like hell you were going to. You grabbed his hands on your waist and guided them towards your ass instead in retaliation, and squeezed it on his behalf.

"You little- Get over here."

Chris turned you around in one swift movement, making you face the mirror as he pressed himself onto you, properly groping your ass in full force. You could watch the way he was licking his lips in the mirror and it made you fucking clench.

"You like this a little too much," he observed, "Good thing I made plans to fuck you against a mirror tonight." 

"You like vanity tables, huh?"

"Not necessarily," he smiled with a sultry gaze and let you go as the elevator door opened.

When you walked into that prospective battlefield, you witnessed what Chris meant in its full glory. There was a mirror in the room alright, but it was a gigantic one placed on the ceiling. Your lips inadvertently parted.

Ideas. Too many of them. Your head was full of it.

"Some more champagne?"

Chris pulled you back to reality and offered you a sweating cold glass.

"Oh, absolutely."

"Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back."

You walked towards the couches facing the magnificent view of the city, also neighboring the coffee table harboring the champagne bottle on ice and what appeared to be chocolate fondue. You grabbed one of the plump strawberries in the bowl and dipped it in the molten chocolate. There was some clatter coming from behind you and when you turned around slurping on the strawberry, you saw Chris setting up a camera in the corner. Then he made his way over to you behind the couch and spread his hands to the sides on the backrest.

"You want some?" you looked up at him throwing your head all the way back, and lifted the chocolate-covered strawberry towards him.

"Oh, absolutely."

He grabbed the fruit from your hand just to feed it back to you. When you bit on it, however, Chris covered your mouth with his, taking the strawberry back with his tongue. He grabbed the fondue pot on the coffee table and walked towards the nightstand.

"I want this by the bedside. In case the craving strikes."

He put on some music as sultry as his entire existence was at that moment and reached his hand out to you to get you up from your seat. The moment you were on your feet, he pressed his strawberry-stained lips on yours, walking you slowly back to the bed. You took the moment to explore his lips, his jawline, his neck, everywhere you could lay your lips on.

"You’re so beautiful. So fucking beautiful," he kept repeating in between his kisses like he didn’t know how to form any other sentence. You tugged at the hem of his shirt and peeled it off of him. There it was again. That magnificent torso on display for you.

"Say my name again."

"Christopher."

You ran your hands on his chest and that contact forced you to latch your lips on his nipples, one hand palming him over his pants. The more you dragged your tongue on him, the more he was twitching in his pants, silently pleading that you would get him out of it soon. He lifted your chin to face him again and unzipped your dress as his lips continued to consume you.

"On your knees for me, baby girl."

Chris guided you to climb on the bed and unbuckled his belt, removing whatever obstacle there was preventing the much needed skin-to-skin contact. He positioned himself right behind you, your entrance already glistening with an excessive amount of gloss, telling on how ready you were for him to make you float on air. Feeling just the tip of his cock against you pulled a needlessly enthusiastic whimper out of you. Chris was no better than you, letting out a loud prolonged grunt until he bottomed out.

"Just how do you take it so well every damn time? Fuck!"

Then he started moving. Taking his sweet time. Absolutely no rush, but movements still firm enough to rub his cock against your walls, putting you in an utter dilemma. A part of you just wanted to relish this sensation forever, but another part of you was riddled with this urge to yell at him to fuck you into that mattress. 

"Look up, baby girl. You gotta watch this."

Being completely lost in the waves of pleasure, you almost forgot about the existence of the mirror hovering over you. When you glanced at the ceiling, however, the sight was such a fucking turn-on that you couldn’t help that violent clench. You watched Chris sucking on his fingers to get them wet enough for you and leaning over you, pressing his fingers on your clit to draw languid circles on it.

"Oh, fuck! Just like that. Right there."

"Moan for me. Come on, louder."

He practically didn’t even have to say it because you were in no state to control those exclaims of pleasure. Every touch, every thrust, every kind of contact just forced it out of you.

"Harder. HARDER! Don't stop."

But Chris did stop no matter how briefly. He pulled out to turn you around to face him, throwing one leg over his shoulder to hit that spot that he knew was going to turn you into mere dust.

"Oh, FUCKING HELL, CHRIS!"

"That’s it. That’s my girl. You’re doing incredible."

You could swear you went temporarily blind over how ridiculously intense the pleasure was. You took a second to avert your eyes from Chris’ crazily beautiful face and watched the sublime way he was fucking you in that mirror, his back all tensed up, literally asking to be marked by you. He caressed your face to demand your attention on him again.

"Your hands are so pretty, you know," you grabbed his hand, "Why don’t you choke me a little with these?"

Chris placed his right hand over your throat to expertly command the way you breathe. His grip was firm, but he wasn’t hurting you in the slightest, just making you question why the fuck it was this arousing to completely give into him. You clenched again.

"You like that, huh?"

It might have started as a fantasy but he was indeed making you feel like an unhinged nymphomaniac, making you want him more and more, and for some reason you caught yourself reveling in that feeling.

"Oh, these walls are just begging to be painted. You’ll let me, right baby girl?"

"Yes. Fucking yes!"

"And you’ll keep it in for me. Not let it drip out?"

"Why the sudden obsession?" you giggled, but Chris answered with a completely serious face.

"Because any drop of my cum that’s not inside you is a fucking waste, that’s why."

You clenched again and you could feel the contractions getting stronger.

"You’re not about to knock me up, are you?" 

He contorted his face and twitched inside you. Hard.

"No shit, you want to, don’t you?"

"Maybe I do," Chris broke into a grin, "Maybe I wanna claim you."

"Or maybe you just wanna see me lactate, you deranged prick. I see how you look at my chest."

He clenched again—harder this time.

"Yeah maybe. Maybe I just want an excuse to suck on your nipples all day every day."

You looked at Chris’ face covered with beads of sweat, dripping on you as he kept fucking into you with fervor. He wanted an excuse? You could give him one.

"Cum for me."

"Ah, baby, please-"

"Shoot it on my chest. Come on, Christopher."

"OH, FUCK!"

Chris pulled out at the last second and jerked himself off to your breasts, covering them with strings of thick warm fluid. It felt amazing on your skin.

"Kiss me. Right here," you fondled your breasts to present him with his new target. He hovered over you to cater to your request and then some. He was dragging his tongue around your nipples and breasts to wipe his trail off of you like you were a canvas meant to be immediately cleaned after being painted. 

"Holy shit, never knew my cum on your skin would taste this good. So milky."

You squirmed under him until he was done cleaning you, and at long last, it was time for some sightseeing.

"Show me that back again."

Chris moved up on the bed and turned around for you to admire that sight for however long you wished.

"Oh, GOD, I just wanna fucking tattoo this."

You sat up to wrap your legs around him from behind and started kissing every inch of his back while he kept caressing your legs. You eventually moved up to his neck and just went at it, kissing, licking, biting wherever you can. You pulled him towards you, signaling him to lie down, and climbed on top of him. Chris knew where this was going.

"Oh, fuck yeah, ride me, baby girl. Show me what you got, come on."

Well, he definitely shouldn’t have said that. You started rolling your hips with a newfound fervor, hands securely placed on his chest. Chris assisted your moves by fucking into you from under, and the faster he moved, the stronger was the urge to mark that gorgeous chest. It didn’t take that long for you to give into that impulse, completely unleashing yourself on him, riding his cock with rougher movements.

"FUCK, just like that. There’s my girl. I wanna watch you go to town on me."

…which was exactly what he did until he took control again to press you against him, marking hickeys on your neck.

"Turn around, baby girl. Lay down on my chest."

As you were taking your position, he reached for the nightstand to bring out an aid for himself.

"This is about to make you go fucking berserk."

Chris started fucking into you again with precise movements and pressed the wand on your clit at the lowest intensity. His cock inside you, the vibrator in your pussy, his breath on your neck, his entire body under you, all of them combined under the sky that was that goddamn ceiling mirror… It was just too fucking much to stay sane.

"Shh, don’t make me restrain you, baby girl," he warned you as you kept wriggling over him, "Watch us. Watch how fucking beautiful you are. See for yourself this is where you belong. My fucking god, you rile me up so bad."

Nothing but your crazed moans echoed in the room. Nothing but Chris existed in this world. There was no other feeling but pleasure.  

"Fuck, fuck, FUCK, you’re driving me fucking crazy!"

"And you’re absolutely making me lose my fucking mind, baby girl," he gently bit your neck again, "Time to cum for me now."

Chris started fucking into you harder and faster while increasing the intensity of the vibrator, making it crystal clear for you that there was no way you could escape that impending car crash you were about to experience.

"Oh, god. Oh, GOD. OH, GOD, CHRIS, PLEASE!"

He kept fucking you through your orgasm for a hot minute while you kept panting and moaning over him, making him pleasantly surprised that it was taking this long. This was a first for you. You had experienced some strong orgasms before, but nothing quite like this. That jumbotron of a TV that was the gigantic ceiling mirror broadcasting your own porn back to you was definitely to blame for this.

"Are you still cumming, baby girl?" Chris chuckled into your neck, nipping and leaving wet marks on it with his tongue, moaning into your skin along with you.

"Just like that. Coat me all over."

You eventually managed to come down, your body still spread over him. You were spent, but apparently, Chris didn’t see any reason to call it a night. He caressed your cheeks instead and asked you with a bright smile:

"You wanna go again?"

"In a bit," you replied, still slightly panting. Then your eyes darted to the nightstand, "Oh, almost forgot about this."

You rolled over to shift yourself and face Chris again. His entire body was covered in a sheen of sweat, making him glow under the dim lights of the room. There was this one part on his torso that you found particularly charming. You marked it in your mind as your final destination and reached for the spoon on the nightstand.

"This might feel a little warm."

Chris hissed in pleasure when you carefully dripped the molten chocolate on his abs, on his navel, and finished it off with a trail around his Adonis belt. You put the spoon back, positioned yourself comfortably between his legs, and started eating the chocolate off of him with languid drags of your tongue. The density of the sweet liquid was thick, and it tasted even more intense on your tongue when mixed with his natural scent like that. This was probably one of the rarer delicacies you ever got to experience in your life. You made your way down from his abs down to his crotch, licking him with pure appetite, his moans accompanying you throughout the entire route. Chris brushed your hair away from your face to get a better look at your beautiful features and you held his gaze as you relished the dessert you didn’t get to have during dinner. Then you hit your last stop.

The freckle right under his navel.

You focused your eyes on that beautiful mark and attached your lips to it, kissing and licking much like the way you did when he stripped for you. Your ministrations were so much more sensual this time around, causing Chris to throw his head back, tugging at his own locks. You placed one last kiss on the freckle and climbed up on him again, transferring the chocolate taste on his tongue because he made you want to share dessert with him. No other reason.

"My turn."

Chris laid you on the bed and reached for the spoon himself, delicately dripping the warm liquid over your pussy just enough to make it slowly drip on your clit.

"Eyes up on the ceiling, baby girl. Watch yourself get out of your body. Watch me make you fucking soar."

He made himself comfortable between your legs and continued with a playful tone:

"One condition, though. If you can’t hold it, I’m gonna stop. Please don’t make me stop eating, I get really hangry."

That same damn torture you saw in your dream a couple of days ago manifested itself right before your eyes in 4K this time. Chris latched his lips on your clit, applying no pressure on it whatsoever. Just this very faint buzzing sensation provided by his content hums and barely audible moans. The only other aid was his warm hands wrapped around your thighs, gently stroking them.

"Shit-"

"Mhm, that’s my girl. Just like that."

He coated two of his fingers with his saliva to make it easier to push into you and went back to working your clit again. Very softly. His pumps were unnecessarily tender like he was scared to hurt you. It was intense. It was violent. It was beautiful. Your toes were curling at how delectable it all felt.

"Oh, god."

"There you go. You’re incredible."

Chris grabbed one more aid from the nightstand to accompany the wand he was about to use on you. You were expectantly watching him, trying to distract yourself from the magnitude of the pleasure because if you did, you would blow right on his luscious lips. He initially grabbed just the wand, turned it on to the lowest intensity, and pressed it against your clit, fingers still working you open. You were struggling to keep yourself in place since the stimulations were starting to overwhelm you. 

"Fuck. Oh, Chris, please."

"You’re doing amazing for me, baby girl," he placed a kiss on your pussy, "You can take a little more for me now, yeah?"

Chris pushed the little bullet vibrator he just took out inside you and started giving kitten licks on your clit while pressing the wand right above it.

Oh, now you’ve done it.

Too much. It was just plain too much for you to handle and you had to make that known to him.

"Please! Ch- PLEASE!"

"Sensitive?" he giggled against your clit.

"I’m about to fucking lose it, Chris, PLEASE STOP THIS TORTURE!!!"

You were drenched. Fucking soaked. Sopping wet. And on the brink of passing out.

"Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay, baby girl," Chris soothed you, "I’ll just slide right in now. Hold onto me."

He cast his assault weapons to the side and placed himself between your thighs again.

"Watch yourself. Watch me drive you crazy."

It was true. Chris was rock hard, but he slid inside effortlessly as if he poured an entire bottle of lube in you. You clung to his arms.

"Press yourself on me."

"Wanna get crushed under me again?" he smiled with fondness on his face. When you frantically nodded, Chris pressed his body against yours, still careful not to actually hurt you, and started fucking into you again. He felt much better than all those vibrators combined.

"Fucking hell, why are you this pretty?" Chris couldn’t help the urge to attack your lips, "Moan louder for me, come on."

"Chris."

"Louder, baby girl."

"AH, CHRIS!"

"That’s my girl. That’s my fucking girl," he maniacally smiled out of sheer ecstasy. Feeling every inch of his body against yours, not to mention the way the heights he was taking you to was simply astounding, forcing moans after moans to rip from your throat.

"Ascend me. Drive me crazy. Crush me. Fucking use me. I can’t fucking take this!"

"You’re just so fucking filthy," he groaned.

"You can call me a whore to my face, it’s fine," you stupidly smiled at him. Chris unleashed himself on your lips instead, kissing you hungrily again.

"But I paid for the girlfriend experience, didn’t I? I wanna call you my baby instead."

Something churned inside you at his words. Your stomach dropped. You heard fireworks in the distance, but for the life of you, you couldn’t look him in the eye. Chris held your face in place and glued his eyes on yours.

"Look at me." 

You had no choice but to face him head-on now.

"Let me love you, baby."

You wanted to combust. You wanted the floor to part and swallow you whole so that you didn’t have to face him. This was way more embarrassing than whatever debauchery you allowed yourselves to indulge in for the past couple of hours. 

While you were wrapped up in this internal conflict, Chris grabbed the bullet once again and pressed it on your clit as he fucked into you at a way more quickened pace and a dangerous angle pressing into you, threatening a very explosive orgasm.

"Let go for your man. I want you to drench me."

"Please."

"Cum for me, baby."

"Please."

"Say my name when you cum for me."

"Chris, pl-"

"Say it, baby girl."

"Christopher, FUCK!"

For a second there, you weren’t exactly sure whether you were cumming or it was a very uncalled for watersports situation going on. You sank your fingers into his arms, violently convulsing under him with uncontrollable and frequent moans. The sensations along with the wonderful sounds coming out of you were way too much to handle for Chris. He let himself run wild, shooting his entire load in you with erratic thrusts, eventually collapsing on your chest.

"My beautiful baby girl," he kissed you and slapped a mischievous smile to his lips while trying to catch his breath, "You wanna go again?"

"I don’t plan on dying tonight," you inadvertently giggled. Chris wrapped you in his arms and drifted to sleep in absolute bliss.

You didn’t know how much time had passed when you woke up in the middle of the night again.

Your chest was heavy. Being next to Chris like that, replaying everything he said to you, pretend or otherwise, was making all your synapses fail. You had to get out of there if you didn’t wanna find yourself in a deeper mess than you were already in. You just had to control yourself. Control your feelings to avoid that inevitable pain. You gently uncovered the sheets on you, but before your feet could even touch the ground…

"No."

…you felt a tight grip on your wrist. 

"I’m not letting you go this time."

Chris pulled you back to bed in one harsh movement, completely trapping you in his embrace, his chest pressed against your back, arms wrapped around your waist, legs tangled with yours, and nose buried in the crook of your neck. You were overwhelmed with too many feelings, so much so that you were panicking. You wanted to scream. You wanted to cry. You wanted to bawl your fucking eyes out. You wanted to beg for mercy.

You were drowning in emotions you shouldn’t have been feeling.

Absolutely shouldn’t have been feeling.

What was even worse was that there was video evidence of it all if you ever wanted to torture yourself.

«TO BE CONTINUED»

❝𝐈 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐝 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐡𝐢𝐦.❞

↳ Part 8/10 of Loveless. See Part 1 for story description.

↳ Female reader x Changbin, female reader x Hyunjin

↳ 6.2k

! Strong language, explicit sexual content, heavy angst and tension, arranged marriage au, soulmates au, themes of cheating, mild threat, confrontation, descriptions of medical paraphernalia, pseudo-science, themes of virginity, pining, yearning, regret and poor decisions, no breaks this chapter, adult themes throughout !

「Part 1」 「Contents List」 「© August 2022 by jl-micasea-fics」

She did it.

She actually fucking did it.

Changbin shouldn’t be surprised. She loves Hyunjin, after all.

She’s loved Hyunjin since before Changbin even knew her, so really, it shouldn’t be any kind of twisted revelation that she took the opportunity to be with him when it was handed to her on a silver plate.

Hell, Changbin supposes he would have done the same thing.

If he were locked in a room with Elena and promised a single night of undisturbed privacy, he’d be more than eager to indulge without a second thought, losing himself in the girl he loves until morning.

But that’s just the thing.

He didn’t.

When he was finally faced with the girl he always believed was his one and only, he found himself unable to go through with it.

He wonders what it all means.

It wasn’t the fear of being caught that stopped him. No, Changbin doesn’t feel fear the same way others do; occupational hazard. It wasn’t fear of underperforming or anything so trivial as that; Changbin knows he’s a giver in all senses of the word. It wasn’t even that he wasn’t ready; it was all he was supposed to have ever wanted. To somehow make his mark on her that she might be reminded of him in the most fleeting or mundane of moments after they parted.

So yes. In theory, there was nothing stopping him.

Yet in practice?

Something did.

Something he doesn’t really understand himself.

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