The Heartache - Tumblr Posts

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

star lost with you | hyunjin au | part 12

synopsis: working in a quaint little art store, you’ve had the honor of meeting all kinds of people, but you’ve never met somebody like him.

there were many reasons hyunjin returned to his hometown; a getaway from the ephemeral and fast-paced life of the city, so he could fall in love with life again. he thought he was prepared for everything, to study art in the way that he’s always wanted to, but what he didn’t anticipate was meeting you.

hwang hyunjin realises that sometimes, the best things in life happen unplanned.

series: star lost with you

pairing: idol! hyunjin x artist! reader

genre: friends to lovers, angst, smut, fluff, set in the idolverse, mutual pining, unrequited love, forbidden (?) romance, slowburn (!), soulmate au (kind of)

word count: 32K (!!!)

warnings: cursing, a lot of angst im sorry, jealousy, an excess of mutual pining, references to dieting, sexual tension, mature content, forbidden relationship angst, mentions of anxiety, fluff, dirty talk, making out, kissing, a lot of grinding, dry humping, sub! hyunjin, mentions of the word cock, groping, dom! hyunjin, edging (?), many many confused and conflicted feelings

a/n: well, a lot happens in this part too !! I feel like i say that for each, but it’s 32K, and i was very excited for this. writing hyun is always so fun, and he’s extra precious in this party. i really, really hope you enjoy it too! there’s a looot of emotions, and back and forth, so please get comfortable and read this! 

you can listen to my star lost playlist here! thank you @ortali for this gif <3 masterlist

The satin on your body was delicate, draped in a manner that provided no real warmth or comfort to you, but maybe it was better this way. The wind had picked up too — it was well into the night, and being out here in the open certainly wasn’t the smartest option. 

You didn’t step away though, because the goosebumps rippling up your skin distracted you from the only other thing you could feel right now.

The taste of Hyunjin on your tongue.

It lingered, still.

It had been mere minutes since you kissed, or maybe it had been hours, but the feeling was so intense, you don’t think you could ever forget it. 

Keep reading

INSOMNIA 불면증 CHAPTER #3 (18+)

CHAPTER SYNOPSIS:

💫 GENRE: angst (!!!), smut, fluff (if you search for it with a magnifying glass)

🗝 WORD COUNT: 11.0k

🧸 CONTENT INFO: chan x afab reader, minho x afab reader, nonidol!au, university!au, fwb, friends2lovers, reader is queer, roommate!chan, frenemy!minho, childhoodfriend!tzuyu (twice), roommate!lisa (blackpink), roommate!felix, miyeon ((g)i-dle), members of ateez, original characters, some quotes/references to BMTH – drown & sleepwalking as well as Florence + The Machine – Shake It Out, oc vicky our favourite gemini and reader protector 👏🏻 vicky marry me pls we also stan tzuyu, lisa, felix, chan and minho in this household because they are such good friends, reader is addressed as Ms Y/L/N once

🍃 WARNING: chan has insomnia, reader has depression, mention of SA in the past (not explicit and none of the idols of course!!), lots of insecurities about society’s expectations regarding romance and sex; daddy issues (!!), explicit description of depressive episode, loss of appetite because of depression (!!), mention of sleep paralysis and drowning (solely as a metaphor!), minho playfully slaps reader on the ass once but they’ve given consent lol (minho the butt hunter), homophobic comment, slutshaming and victim blaming comment, mention of violence, fighting, blood and injuries

✨ SMUT WARNING: dom!minho (both softdom and harddom) sub!reader, fingering, oral (f receiving), piv, semi-unprotected sex (reader is on the pill), marking, slight spit play, degrading, praising, edging, dumbification, possessiveness, name calling (doll, darling, slut, whore, good girl), accidental voyeurism

💌 AUTHOR’S NOTE: wow okay I guess this is a heavy one. Get your tissues ready for crying and other things This is also a bit self insert but at least it helped me cope with mental stuff, so this chapter means a lot to me! Anyways– pls still enjoy and thanks for supporting me. I really appreciate it 🤍

spotify playlist ☁️

☽ SERIES MASTERLIST ☽

The characters do not portray any of the skz members in real life, the names are just used for fiction. Also minors do not interact, this post contains mature themes. By clicking on “read more” you consent to nsfw content.

Week 1, January 3rd

Week 1, January 3rd

Week 1, January 3rd

Week 1, January 3rd

Week 1, January 3rd

Motivation: 4/10

General mood: 4/10

Swollen eyes get hit by the midday sunbeams, making them wake up earlier than you would have liked. Grabbing your phone from your nightstand table, you realise you haven’t charged it. Great. Now your device has as much energy as you, at least you’re matching!

It takes you thirty minutes to unlock your phone just to scroll through the same two social media apps for another half an hour, until you get up. The kitchen is empty and you’re glad about it. Socialising is the last thing you need right now.

But you’ve gotten your hopes up too soon, when you notice Chan joining you in the room. A small ‘hello’ escapes his lips and you greet him back with a nod.

“I hope I don’t cross any boundaries here but how are you? I haven’t really seen you these days.”

Right, Chan, I’m in the middle of getting over a heartbreak you caused whilst entering the worst depressive episode in a while. I’m doing just great.

“I’m alright.”

He doesn’t believe you, doesn’t believe any of your words that you so casually lie through your teeth.

“Wow. Clearly you’re not.”

It’s getting annoying now. You should have never left your room.

“Okay. What if? Still don’t wanna talk about it.”

His face softens, at least you’re being honest now even though you decline his offer.

“That’s okay. You don’t have to. Just know that I’m there for you, alright?”

For fuck’s sake – why does he have to care about you like that?

And it brings you back to all the little emotions and feelings you have for him and probably will never get rid off.

Even if the unlikely possibility of Chan wanting something serious struck, you would be way too insecure to get into a relationship now. You really don’t want to transfer all your emotional and mental garbage onto someone else. Especially, since you know Chan has to fight his own demons as well.

☽

Week 2, January 13th

Motivation: 3/10

General mood: 3/10

The new university classes you’re attending aren’t doing any good to your mental health. It has only been the second week, still you’re already overwhelmed. Not surprising, considering you’re so drained out.

You’re deeply holding onto the tiny molecules of energy that you have left, somewhere deep down, as they awaken whenever you’re listening to your current favourite song, seeing the sun rise in the morning or one of your friends sending a ‘this reminded me of you’ text added to a meme they share on social media.

The days go by, one exactly like the next. Blaming it on the general winter depression and New Years’ sadness that’s always overwhelmed you, you’re trying to push the thoughts aside.

Not the best idea. Ignoring them just fills your life with this void again. The void, that’s even more unbearable than all the emotions you can’t cope with. It’s like there’s shadow at places the light never visits.

Your friends distract you from it, being with them has always helped you – no matter if it’s Tzuyu who’s known you for so long, Felix who’s still the sunshine on a cloudy day for you, Lisa who thrives you to keep going whenever you can’t get up, Minho – the newest addition to your circle – who’s so similar to you it’s almost scary and Chan who’s just there for you and listens no matter what. 

Yes, even these days. Yes, even after the talk last week.

Even though you’re not really talking to each other, he makes sure you’re alright. Filling the fridge with food he knows you will still be able to eat even though you’ve lost appetite. You appreciate it, deeply, even though you don’t have any strength to tell him.

In conclusion, your friends are the last sunbeams you’re so desperately holding onto.

So there’s hope. There definitely is.

Until your phone receives a notification sent by him. He’s added you to a group chat with many people from your year, Tzuyu’s contact number is included as well.

All hope vanishes away like ashes in the slightest wind. It’s there again. The void mixed with the right amount of anxiety sprinkled in.

Even after all these years, you know you’ll feel uncomfortable around him. You can already sense all the anxiety attacks coming in, it’s like thousand tiny needles stabbing into your stomach and your breath hitches. Goosebumps all over your skin, whenever his name gets thrown in the room.

But only a few more years. Only a few more years and you will mark that seven-years-line. They say, a body and all of its cells regenerate after this period.

That means, one day you’ll have a body he has never touched.

Your ex boyfriend is inviting you – along with some other people from high school – to a birthday he’s celebrating with a friend. Said friend wants you there as a guest, that’s the reason you were added to the group chat in the first place.

They still don’t get it, don’t they?

A few friends from your year have known about the incidents that happened back then, especially the one who’s invited you. Correction – they’re not really a friend anyway. You’ve lost touch years ago and even ignoring this, they’ve never supported you with your trauma.

In your last year, right before graduation, when your worst depressive episode of all time was torturing you until you were only an empty shell, you’ve told them about your experiences. Even though more than two years had already passed.

The friend had never taken it seriously, pressuring you into speaking up about it and assuming it couldn’t be that bad since you didn’t go to the police.

Sure. Go to the police without any evidence to file charges against your boyfriend.

Also, when it happened, you didn’t even realise it was his fault. You’ve blamed it on yourself.

You’re not doing that anymore. You’ve been through way too many hours of therapy. You’ve gained a lot of self confidence and you know your worth.

Still, he’s the second man that broke your heart. That’s why you’ve sworn to yourself to never let anyone get close to you. At least no men.

And on top of that – as if you’re not already laying on the ground, bleeding and unable to get up – you get a text message from your father. Speaking of the devil. His contact name is his full name, you’ve changed it years ago.

Hello, Y/N. How is university going? You never call. Just wanted to let you know I won’t be supporting you financially for forever. You better finish that degree soon. Please keep me updated at least. Otherwise I’ll have to speak to your mother.

You grab your notebook from under the bed, taking out the pen laying on top of it, correcting today’s documentation.

Week 2, January 13th

Motivation: 3/10 2/10

General mood: 3/10 1/10

☽

Week 3, 19th January

Motivation: 1/10

General mood: 1/10

It’s like you’ve fallen into a hole, that’s growing deeper and deeper. The one thing you always wanted to avoid – your mood and mental state depending on another person. When you were still with Chan, even though it has never been anything official and serious, you’ve turned into the light of life.

There was nothing to worry about. He always made sure you’ve eaten enough, you’ve done your studies on time and you’ve just felt generally secure and comfortable.

You curse yourself for it. Even though it’s not your fault. Feelings, emotions and such have always been something incredibly hard to deal with. You’ve wondered why, through the years. You’ve spoken a lot about it in therapy, the reason why you’re scared to show your true self to others.

In one of the recent appointments you had with your therapist, you’ve dug a little deeper. Trying to find just a small particle that would lead you to an answer. You thought it was ridiculous. What your therapist said.

A constant state of anxiety should be the cause for all this?

These two play together like fire and ice. For the most time of your life you believed that anxiety wasn’t a thing you had to deal with. It’s still not like that. You’ve seen it in friends who are tortured with that problem.

Anxiety, somehow, is a feeling, an emotion as well. But you don’t experience those. You haven’t – in years.

Until it caught you right then and there. Last week. When receiving that text message.

It all makes sense now, even though you still can’t believe it. The way he’s been emotionally unavailable your whole life, even before your parents had separated, helps you connect all the dots.

It’s like a mixture of never learning how to deal with any feeling except for anger and the constant state of anxiety caused by the pressure he’s put on you. There’s simply no space for other emotions. There’s no space for sadness, for happiness, for excitement.

Void.

Void is all you’ve ever known.

And above all that – you’re so tired. Tired from the city that never sleeps, tired from all the little things that bother you, tired from being tired. 

Every day now consists of waiting for you don’t even know what, as the time just doesn’t seem to pass by. But still, everything happens so fast and in the blink of an eye it’s the next day. The next day of not getting anything done. Just laying in bed waiting for the hours to pass by.

It’s as if everybody else is having the time of their lives, dancing and cheering in the sun under the blue sky and you’re waiting for the sun to rise.  As if you’re stuck in the night. Everything’s dark. Everything’s quiet. Everything’s void.

It seems as if void is all you’ll ever know.

☽

Week 4, 27th January 

Motivation: 1/10

General mood: 1/10

You call Tzuyu every day. She listens to you rambling and crying over the two men who’ve made you lose trust in their whole species.

She listens to you no matter what.

Until you stop calling every day.

☽

Week 5

Motivation: (patient hasn’t specified)

General mood: (patient hasn’t specified)

☽

Week 6

Motivation: (patient hasn’t specified)

General mood: (patient hasn’t specified)

☽

Week 7

Motivation: (patient hasn’t specified)

General mood: (patient hasn’t specified)

☽

Another buzzing sound echoes through your bedroom. The blinds are preventing any sunlight from entering your dark room, so the phone screen flashing every other minute disrupts your thought process.

The thought process without any actual thoughts, to be precise here.

When the vibrations start again, making you get a bit furious now, you grab the device and turn ‘don’t disturb’ mode on.

Until you read the notifications.

Unread messages (14) from Tzuyu bestie

Daring to open it without any intention to respond – just like you’ve ignored the countless other texts from your best friend – you get hit by a long paragraph.

Tzuyu bestie: Hey darling. Just know there’s no need to respond to any of my messages. Remember I’m there for you whenever you need me. Please don’t hesitate to reach out but I also understand, if you don’t want to talk to anyone or me specifically right now. I love you. It’ll get better when the time is right. You’ve got this. Your body and mind both need this now. You’re strong and you deserve to rest. You deserve all the best in this world. Thank you for being there and for fighting. <3

Fuck. She’s online, you realise now. Your best friend has definitely noticed you reading her text. But there’s no time to worry anymore, since another received text interrupts your thoughts and her words are so fitting for this situation, it’s almost scary.

Tzuyu bestie: You’re not obliged to react to any of this, but I just wanted to let you know there are a few messages on pieces of paper in your apartment to cheer you up and help you get through the day. Maybe this will help. I love you.

A smile instantly erupts all over your face and you believe it’s the first expression you’ve experienced in some weeks.

And the information she’s given you makes you curious. Curious to at least find out about these texts. That’s why you get up from your bed and leave your room, before you check twice if someone’s at home.

When you’re sure the coast is clear you toddle on your tiptoes to the kitchen, searching for any evidence for these mysterious messages your best friend mentioned.

It takes you a few minutes and by now you’ve already searched through the whole apartment, until you find a post-it on your bedroom door, directly above the door knob.

It’s not your childhood best friend’s handwriting, you would have recognised this for sure. Also, it’s quite obvious it has to be made by someone who’s visited the apartment in the past few days.

Taking a closer look, you come to the realisation it’s the same font that was printed onto those small notes attached to the candies and snacks some weeks ago.

Still, there’s no sender’s name on the paper.

But you don’t need one, you already know who’s written it.

“I’ll bring you home again. You’ve got this. I won’t let you drown, alright?”

These are Chan’s words, it’s clear as daylight.

Not solely the handwriting tells you, it’s the words he’s chosen, similar to the talks you’ve shared late at night.

One time, he told you that the depressive thoughts he’s had in his life felt like drowning, being unable to reach water’s surface. That night, you compared your own experiences to sleep paralysis – the urge to get up but it doesn’t matter how hard you try, your body is incapable of moving while your mind is aware of all that’s happening.

It’s comforting to know he’s there for you. Even though he physically isn’t. He’s helping you emotionally.

And after eternity you finally felt okay. Still empty inside but you’re not helpless. 

It’s always darkest before dawn, after all.

Week 8, 22nd February

Motivation: 1/10

General mood: 2/10

☽

Week 9, March 4th

Motivation: 1/10

General mood: 3/10

You get back from university. Even though you couldn’t manage to get inside the lecture hall, you were at least able to read some literature for your class in the library. 

Entering the kitchen, you spot another one of those notes from Chan.

He doesn’t know how you’re doing, he’s in ruins breaking his mind thinking about how you’re all alone in this situation. Simply, because you don’t really accept any help that’s offered to you.

Lisa, Felix, Chan – all of your roommates – as well as Minho, Vicky and Miyeon are trying to get through that thick shell you’ve built around you. You’re pushing everyone away, but at least they’re able to make sure you eat enough.

Felix bakes brownies for you and cooks, even though you barely eat any of his food. Lisa does your course work, homework, essays, no matter what. Miyeon and Vicky send you playlists with good vibes, offering you to get ready for appointments you can’t avoid, so you feel somehow comfortable.

Minho sends you pics of his cats on a daily basis, always waiting for you to add a little heart to his messages so he’s sure you’re surviving. He knows you don’t want to talk and he respects it. After all, you don’t know each other that well. Still, you feel so safe around him.

And onto your other roommate.

Chan is still ‘hiding’ all these notes in the apartment, attaching a piece of chocolate to it, so he’s sure your stomach isn’t as empty as your soul. It’s better to eat anything than nothing, that’s what he’s always told you. Your mind can’t work if your body is barely getting through the day.

It’s hard for him. There’s still no response to any of the texts, still, he knows you’re reading them. So at least he’s sure they help somehow. Your other friends keep him updated on you, telling him it’s getting better even though you’re just doing baby steps.

But baby steps are better than no steps at all. 

One step forward and two steps back still means you’re going in the right direction.

He dearly hopes you’ll never forget this.

“I know this loneliness can be haunting. I know the weight of the world is hard to hold, the weight of all of this. I’ll bring you home again. I promise.”

The words echo through your head once you read them, hours later after they’ve been written, still the ink looks fresh. Chan doesn’t know how much of an impact his little sentences have and you wish to tell him in person but you can’t.

You can barely speak about your mental issues with Tzuyu, let alone Lisa or Felix here. It’s always easier to throw all things bothering you into the suitcase of someone who's far away. That’s the only possibility for them to store it and lock it away in a safe until you’re ready to get the keys and deal with it.

But there’s no way you can live with avoiding him any longer. He’s still there for you, even though you’ve dumped him over the phone and made it look as if you’ve slept with one of his friends a week after – only because you’re afraid about your feelings for Chan.

He means so much to you, more than anyone has ever meant to you. You can’t do this to him. You have to at least say something, respond in any way even if it’s just a few words and not in person.

So you decide to scribble something at the back of the paper, hoping Chan will find it. You place it under his closed door. He went to the campus’s library some hours ago, wanting to get uni stuff done. At least that’s what he's texted in the group chat of your roommates.

Some hours later, when you've finally made it outside to get some groceries, Chan finds the tiny paper under his door.

“Help me find a way to breathe. It’s like time stood still. Please, wake me up. Give me a reason to start again.”

Not a minute goes by until Chan finds himself in his room, the note in his hand getting squashed and scrambled by the way he’s balling a fist. He’s at a loss for words caused by your own words and caused by his helplessness.

He’s wondered over the weeks if you got better. Always hoping for the best and he was sure his notes did at least a little something. 

But it’s way more serious even though – little does he know – you’re already on your way to become healthier again.

So Chan decides to text you although he knows he shouldn’t. He doesn’t want to cross any boundaries but your words let his heart shatter into pieces, making him sincerely worry about you.

Chan: I found your message. If you ever want to talk or I can do some more, please tell me.

You receive the message on your way up the stairs to the apartment, making you halt in place which causes the groceries to tumble down.

Shit. What are you supposed to answer? You’ve never thought he’d respond to your reply just like you didn’t. But there’s no way you can still ignore him now, you don’t want to cause any serious trouble.

A short text is the least he deserves for looking out for you, for letting the others know and for everything in general over the past weeks.

You: I’m not ready yet. I’ve gotta be honest here (sorry I’m doing this over text but I simply can’t speak these words) I’m not sure if I’m able to talk about all of this in person, I’m not sure if I can talk about all this with you. I hope you understand. Thank you for being there anyway. These messages have helped me a lot.

A few seconds later he replies and you’re already feeling relieved.

Chan: Don’t worry about me. We’ll talk whenever you’re ready. I promise, I’ll always be there for you. 

☽

Week 10, March 9th

Motivation: 2/10

General mood: 3/10

In a moment of weakness, you might have mentioned to Felix and Lisa that your mental state is not solely based on your general depression and family situation but also romance stuff.

You’re not telling them who you’re crying about, as they both respect your boundaries – as long as you promise Lisa at least once a day you’re not having mental breakdowns over Ben.

In any other situation, Lisa would have created a profile on any nasty dating profile for you. But she knows you’re not ready for that in the slightest. Instead, she’s still helping you with all your assignments, making sure you somehow study as much as what’s possible.

She also goes out for a walk with you every day, adding another five minutes from time to time. Felix waits for the both of you, still baking the brownies and making some tea since it’s still a bit cold outside even though spring is right around the corner.

Chan is busy with his internship, basically working the whole day and studying at night when he isn’t capable of falling asleep anyway.

“Do you want a scoop of vanilla ice cream with your brownie?” Felix asks, once you enter the kitchen with Lisa.

You simply nod, laying your jacket aside before you sit down.

“She’s getting better,” Lisa says, almost inaudible.

“Because I’m having vanilla ice cream?” You question her thought process.

“Some weeks ago you would barely eat a piece of brownie. That’s a lot of improvement here and we’re proud.”

She pats your shoulder softly, while Felix places the plate in front of you, as they both join you with eating the sweets.

Once you’ve finished the delicious meal – yes you’re in fact finally enjoying it again – you head to your room, a sparkle of motivation hitting you to send a mail to your professor that you’ve been procrastinating to type into your keyboard.

The note attached to your door, unable to be noticed by your other two roommates since they barely go to this part of the corridor, gets into your vision and you immediately grab it before entering your room.

Sitting down on the bed, a moment of silence, you read the words.

“I’ll dive the deepest oceans for you. I’ll make you feel safe, I promise. I will save you. You’re not alone.”

You’re glad he keeps continuing writing the texts. They help you a lot, possibly the most out of all the incredible things your friends do for you. You make a mental note to thank him one day – with words, spoken out in real life.

But for now, you’re only capable of whispering them out, quietly to yourself.

“Thank you, Channie.”

☽

Week 11, March 14th

Motivation: 3/10

General mood: 4/10

In the distance you hear your bedroom door swinging open, but since Lisa mentioned to look after you today, keep you company for a few hours – even though you told her not to – you decide to continue laying down and ignore her instead.

Slap.

The stinging pain on your butt cheek makes you wake up from your depressed daydreaming. Since when does Lisa have such big hands?

“Get your ass up.”

This isn’t Lisa’s voice.

“Lee Minho– what the fuck?!”

You turn around now, so that you’re laying on your back – this way butthunter!minho won’t be able to fulfill his deeply rooted desires.

“I’ve made some high quality food for you and had been standing in the kitchen for two hours.You better not wait until it gets cold, I will scold you.”

Ah, he’s being strict today. But you’re not in the mood for that. Even though nothing between the both of you has happened since New Years Eve (you were simply not in the mood) you’re still flirting on a daily basis, because that’s just what you do.

It’s not weird. That’s just how you are.

“Who even allowed you to enter this apartment unannounced?” You ask him, wondering how he’s appeared in your room out of nowhere.

“I teleported myself,” he jokes, before he sits down next to you on the bed while placing the food on your nightstand table.

“Lee Minho, you are so funny,” you talk back, “but for real, how did you get in?”

The boy takes a deep breath as if he’s getting ready to be shouted at by you.

“I’m sorry to reveal this–“

“Lisa told you to look after me, didn’t she? I’ve told her I’m getting better I just need some more–“

“It was Chan.”

Oh. Well, that is surprising to say the least.

The conversation subsides, once Minho picks out the food from his bag and toddles to the kitchen to get some chopsticks and spoons.

“You’re gonna allow me to eat in bed?” You ask him as if he’s some kind of a parent to you that you have to ask for permission. Minho adores it, if he’s honest.

“Sure. As long as this makes it easier for you to eat I don’t see a problem with that. I know I’m intriguing from time to time,” his choice of words make you think back of the deep talk you had on New Year’s Eve, “but we’re still doing this at a slow pace, okay?”

You nod whilst taking the first bite from the delicious food and you’re happy you’re already at a stage of healing that you’re capable of enjoying the food he’s put so much effort in. 

“This tastes really good, Lee Minho, I’m sincerely impressed.”

You can see the red colour on his face, as he blushes because of your praise. But he just brushes it off and continues eating.

Once you’re finished with the food, the reoccurring thought comes back to your mind, making you question if he’s really just here to eat together. After all, Chan has invited him to get here, probably with the intention to do something about your mental state.

“So now that we’re finished, why are you here exactly?”

The boy doesn’t fight your accusations, still he rolls his eyes to your question. 

“I’m here to make an appointment with you. An appointment with your therapist.”

Yeah. It’s clear now. How could you fall for such an amateur plan?

“Ugh– I knew it. You can’t be trusted, you’re a Scorpio after all,” is all you can think of to somehow get back at him.

“What the fuck has that supposed to do with anything?! I’m here because I care about you, stupid.”

Because he cares about you.

“If you cared about me, you wouldn’t pressure me into speaking about my feelings.”

He’s furious. You can already see the smoke and the devil’s horns making their way out of his head. Minho visibly has enough of your behaviour.

“So first of all, brat, I’m not pressuring you into talking about your emotions with me, that’s why we’re scheduling that appointment instead. Second of all, if you’re friends with me, don’t expect me to handle you with kid gloves. I will always be honest with you, even if the truth may hurt.”

You scoff like a little child, crossing your arms in front of your chest before escaping his piercing gaze without any success – Minho is fast to grab you by the jar so you’re looking at him again.

“You barely know anything about me.”

That is a lie.

“Shut your mouth. You know I’m right. I know enough about you to help you and get back on track. I’m not here to make you feel uncomfortable on purpose but it will always get worse first before it can get better. That’s how it works.”

That is correct.

“Alright,” you give in now with just a simple word. Deep down you know you’re wrong and he’s just there to dig you out of this shithole.

“Ugh– I can’t believe I had a crush on you,” Minho blurts out, completely devastated from the argument.

“Lee Minho– you’re fucking mean,” you whine at his demand, knowing for sure you would be furious if any other person had pulled this stunt on you. 

But then something in your head switches and it makes you curious to ask for more. “You had a crush on me?” It’s not like you haven’t already known. He hasn’t necessarily been good at hiding it. Still, you want to push some buttons – mostly for your ego.

“Yeah. I mean, I still find you attractive. I can separate feelings from sex, unlike other people in this room,” Minho earns a slight nudge on his upper arm from you, “but I know we’re not meant to be and the more weeks and months had passed by, the more I fell out of love and realised how much I value this friendship instead.”

Something about the way his voice sounds when he speaks his words tells you he’s not completely honest. 

But you don’t push further. You’ve annoyed him enough for today.

☽

“Ms Y/L/N, it’s always okay to slow down. It’s okay to change your driving speed. Or to not drive a road down at all. You’re not obligated to choose a certain route or to choose a certain vehicle.”

She’s always known you’ve preferred to speak and listen through metaphors.

“Maybe, you don’t have that driver’s licence yet to take that path. But that’s okay. It’s okay to pause, as long as you’re gonna head towards the destination.”

She sees the small smile erupting on your face, knowing you understand what she means. 

And it’s for the first time that you’ve sat on this chair in this very room you’ve been in so many times, that your eyes start stinging, tears hanging on your lower lash line but your therapist is fast to hand you as tissue.

The droplets don’t roll down, they’re basically just filling and disrupting your vision but you still decide to dry them with the paper.

“What’s happening now is a huge step, Ms Y/L/N.”

You look at her dumbfounded, unsure what exactly she’s referring to.

“You. Crying at an appointment. If I reckon it correctly, this has never happened before and I’m proud of you. Not as a therapist, but sincerely I’m happy you’re able to show how you feel even if it’s probably just a tiny bit of that chaos of emotions inside your head and soul.”

Well, now you’re definitely crying. The giggles escaping your mouth harmonise with your sniffling sounds, indicating these are in fact happy tears.

Tears showing you’re relieved, tears showing you’re feeling comfort, tears showing you’re on your way back home.

☽

Week 12, March 26th

Motivation: 5/10

General mood: 4/10

“No, really?! The little restaurant right at the corner? They sell the best pizza I’ve ever eaten in my whole life!”

You giggle at his words, already on a good level of intoxication.

“Yes! My best friend works there. Her name is Tzuyu.”

He takes another sip from his drink, offering you to refill your cup which you allow him to.

“I don’t think I know her. But– what brings you here? So far away from home?”

The guy you met approximately ten minutes ago – he’s attending the same course like the birthday girl Lisa – turned out to be from the same hometown as you.

“I could ask you the same, Sebastian.”

The conversation goes on for a bit and it’s refreshing to talk to someone who has the same roots as you, making you feel both nostalgic and welcome.

It feels good to be back – back at a party around your dearest friends, talking to this handsome stranger and you wonder what the night has to offer.

In the blink of an eye, you find yourself flirting with him, sharing little compliments as you play with a strand of your hair knowing for sure your old energy is slowly getting back.

He seems so innocent, you think while you are already preparing yourself to teach him some manners in case he’ll continue acting all bratty with his jokes.

But then he destroys everything you’ve built up over the past hour with one stupid comment.

“Yeah– no I think women who try to assert dominance, and I really mean trying here since they’re never able, are most of the time just some stupid gay feminists with daddy issues.”

So of course, the first thing that comes to your mind is an absolutely common reaction.

Splash.

Your drink meets his face, decorating his visage in such a pathetic way, just like the words this loser chose to speak out.

“My bad. Maybe it’s because I’m just a stupid gay feminist who can’t think.”

A second later Lisa makes him leave the party.

Luckily, it’s already past midnight by that time, everyone has wished Lisa the best for her birthday and you’re sure the party is almost over. What a washout of a night.

Maybe nobody wouldn’t mind me going to my bedroom anyway, you think as you already make your way towards the corridor. 

Until you catch a sound that makes you halt in place.

“Fuck– Chan,” you hear a woman whimper through the thin walls of your roommate’s bedroom.

The voice is familiar to you and it only takes you to listen to another few of her moans to realise you know her.

It’s Macy.

Macy with Chan.

Stupid Macy with your Channie again.

You should have known. That probably isn’t even their first time anyway. Still, it makes your heart ache and you have trouble breathing in the already sticky air that’s lingering in the narrow hallway.

Well, at least you don’t really hear a sound coming from Chan, so maybe that’s a good thing. He’s not enjoying it as much as he’s enjoyed it with you.

That’s what you tell yourself to somehow calm down.

It’s okay, Y/N.

You’ve seen it coming anyway. You haven’t expected the both of you to magically get together, for him to wait for you until you’re finally ready to leave that train station and meet him at the assigned destination.

It’s okay. 

You’ll get over him.

When the time is right.

“I’m sorry, Y/N.”

When you snap your head around, Minho stands in your vision, shoulders hanging down and a face similar to a puppy accentuating his empathy.

You remain silent after he’s spoken, trying to gather your thoughts.

“It’s alright. I understand him. I wouldn’t have waited for me either. It’s good he’s going out and having fun. He deserves it.”

With this statement, Minho’s visage tenses, eyebrows furrowing at the thought you’ve given up on the boy you’ve loved for so long.

“Come here,” is all he can think of, as he takes a few steps towards you, pulling you closer. “It’s gonna be okay. This doesn’t have to mean anything.”

You slightly nod, as your head softly lays against his chest. 

“I just want to forget him. I want this to be over. I want to think of anything else,” you’re finally able to transform your sorrows into a sentence.

Soaking in the scents of his perfume to calm you down, you try focusing on anything else. Until Minho lets go of you, only to make it easier for your eyes to meet.

“You want to think about something else, huh? Get your pretty mind off of him?”

You simply nod at him, looking at his face with big expectant eyes

“I can help you forget about him.”

And that’s how you find yourself back in your room, together with Minho, as he cages you between the door and his body, just like he did on New Year's Eve.

There’s no time to rethink the decision, his hands are already on your hips, his mouth attacking yours as he asks for entrance. You let out a moan once his tongue touches yours and you expect him to smirk against your lips, but he doesn’t.

Instead, Minho deepens the kiss, his hands wandering down until they meet the back of your thighs. In the blink of an eye, he picks you up so your legs are entangled around his waist, making it easier for him to guide you to your bed.

The weight of the mattress shifts underneath the both of you, once he’s laid you down on top of the soft blanket. He wastes no time in continuing the assault on your neck, kitten licks turning into rough bites now. 

Minho makes sure to turn those kisses into a memorable sight, as he wishes to imprint the look of your purple skin on his brain.

You’re his now. Even if it’s just for tonight.

That’s what good friends are for, right?

Every cell in your body wants him. The way his touches make you squirm underneath him, lets you lose your last piece of sanity. But it’s okay. You feel comfortable with him. You feel secure.

You feel so safe you almost forget it’s been some time since you’ve slept with someone. You can still reckon it, the day before you’d left for Christmas, when you said goodbye to Chan.

Get Chan out of your head, Y/N.

By now, Minho has placed his hands on top of your still clothed breasts, massaging the soft flesh as he’s hovering over you.

“Is this okay, pretty?” He wants to make sure you feel comfortable, since he’s been waiting for who knows how long for this exact moment.

“Y-Yes– feels good,” you whimper, rolling your eyes to the back of your head to deal with the sensations he’s giving you. His touches feel like everything you need now and they soon turn into everything you think about.

“I love this dress on you– but let’s get this off, darling,” he insists. You position yourself on your forearms first until you're sitting in front of him and Minho wastes no time to pull the fabric over your head, leaving you there in nothing but your underwear.

It’s as if you’re doing these things for the first time all over again – you’ve never imagined Minho to be so gentle.

You soon find your own hands unbuttoning his shirt to which the boy shyly giggles but he’d never complain. After all, it’s you who’s roaming their hands all over his body. You.

Suddenly, your lips are attached to his neck now, slowly wandering down his chest and Minho lets his head fall back in pleasure. It leaves him breathless, how your soft touches feel on his skin. It’s definitely the most beautiful feeling he’s experienced in a while and Minho wouldn’t trade anything for it.

Already lightheaded yourself, you aim a bit further south with your kisses until you're on eye level with his lower stomach. But the movements don’t stop until Minho halts in place and you’re unsure if you’ve done something wrong. So you just stare at him with big eyes, mouth slightly agape.

“Is everything okay?”

You’re not the one supposed to ask him if he’s okay. After all, he should be the one to make you feel good, make you forget about your crush he hopes isn’t that serious.

“How about you lean back and just enjoy, doll?”

With the way you’re looking at him now, suddenly obedient, he’s gathering enough confidence to push through with his initial plan. You nod in agreement but that’s not enough for the man who’s by now towering over you, as your back hits the mattress underneath.

“Consent, pretty. I won’t start until you ask me to.”

You scoff, believing this is just one of his games to boost his control. 

“Minho– please, you can go rough on me. I can handle it.”

The boy is quite startled about your request, as he hasn’t expected you to go all in already but then a smirk appears all over his face at your request.

“Thought you’d never tell me to.”

He winks, before his lips meet yours again and he goes in for another kiss, this time much more aggressive than the others before. His tongue slips into your mouth, gaining dominance over your own.

In the blink of an eye, he’s caressing your cheek just to place his fingers under your jaw a few seconds later in order to keep you in place just like he prefers. A moan escapes your lips, vibrating against his own as he disconnects them from you so he’s able to let out a chuckle.

“Off– off with this,” he points at your underwear as he helps you out of the clothing. Once your panties land in his hand, he observes the wet patch on the fabric and smirks to himself.

“Gonna keep this one, doll,” he tells you before throwing it on top of his discarded shirt that’s pooling on the floor.

His kisses start from your chest again, slowly making their way to their desired destination, until he places them where you need him the most.

“What a pretty pussy you’ve got here and all mine,” he whispers against your heat.

You observe him putting two of his fingers inside his mouth next, as he stares at you and admires your eagerness. You roll your eyes to the back of your head, once the digits slide inside you, stretching you out so deliciously for what will follow.

A moan can be heard from you and you cover your face with your arm, as you soak in every moment of what’s currently happening. Caused by the sharp thrusts of his fingers, he manages to brush that velvety spot inside you.

You don’t even realise that the thought of Chan has left your mind minutes ago.

“Look at you, already squirming underneath me and I haven’t even done much. Pathetic.”

The next moan that can be heard from you is enough that Minho needs as confirmation he’s going in the right direction with you here.

“Just like I thought. Pretty doll likes to be humiliated, right?”

“N-No,” you struggle to talk back.

He spreads your legs a little wider, so the string of saliva leaving his mouth lands where you need to be touched the most. You whimper again and Minho just laughs about your helplessness, since he’s enjoying this a bit too much.

“Yeah, keep convincing yourself. Good luck with that.”

A long wet stripe over your clit spreads the precum and his spit evenly, allowing you to get ready for what’s yet to come. Quite literally. The way his tongue works over your sensitive bundle of nerves, sends waves of pleasure through your whole body. By now you’re sure there’s only desperation flooding through your veins.

And when you catch a glimpse in Minho’s direction, his fluffy hair disheveled and hiding his face, you can’t hold back anymore.

“Fuck–“ you cry out, as your hands grabs one of your breasts, softly massaging the flesh and Minho notices, so he keeps the other one occupied with his own fingers.

You’re getting closer and closer to that sweet feeling, the build up in your lower stomach makes you insane and the delicious taste is within reach.

Until Minho pulls away.

“What the fuck, Minho?!”

He chuckles, whilst wiping away your juices from his chin, before he cleans his fingers by licking the remaining droplets off.

“Nah, slut, when you cum, you only cum around my cock, you get that?”

You visibly gulp at his demand, as you change into a seating position again with the remaining physical energy you have left. The brown haired stands on his knees now, looking down at you in anticipation for you to help him out of his pants.

So you do, but you make sure to take your time, just for the fun of it. Minho is so easy to be provoked and you love it.

“Go on,” he tells you, as he grabs your face with his hands, fingers squishing your cheeks together and you do as you’re told.

Minho isn’t as big as Chan, but that’s the last thing on your mind. After all, his mission has been successful.

“Condoms?” He asks now, looking at you impatiently.

“I’m on the pill– I want you raw– if that’s alright with you,” you ask for his consent now.

“Of course– fuck– I can’t imagine anything better than that.”

With a swift motion he spins you around so that you land on your stomach, before he grabs you by the hips, so that your ass is high up now.

“Good thing I remember your favourite position from that truth or dare half a year ago, right, doll?”

Since Minho has first met you, he’s always wondered what being buried inside your cunt would feel like and it’s no disappointment at all – the way your tight walls clench around him, makes him lose his last bit of sanity, but he still takes his time to bottom you out fully.

Once he’s made sure you’re ready, he grabs you by your hair, the stinging feeling on your head making you get up, so your back collides with his firm chest. His mouth ghosts over his ear, but before he speaks, the movements finally start and he begins thrusting into you.

“I fucking knew it– I fucking knew you are just a needy slut for my cock.”

His words echo in your brain and you can’t help but moan to the sound of his voice. You’re about to go completely feral, when he lets go of your strands again, so that you crush onto the mattress.

You fall face first into the pillows, but Minho wastes no time and grabs your neck with his hands to keep you in place.

The other one is busy switching between roughly digging its fingers into your hips or clashing onto your ass, whenever you talk back at him.

The cushion of the pillow underneath you’re laying on is now soaking wet, since you’re drooling all over the fabric.

“Minho– please,” is all you’re able to let out. Minho chuckles at your helplessness, he’s enjoying every moment to finally have you under him, to make you shut up for once while you’re being so good for him.

“Aw, is my dumb little slut already too far away to speak? Are you fucked out already? Didn’t expect you to be that desperate.”

His degrading words switch a flip inside you, there’s no way you’ll make him believe he’s already got you where he wants.

“Please– Minho be rougher or is this all you’ve got for punishing me?”

Slap.

Well, you could have sensed that this question would earn you a stinging sensation on your ass.

“Pathetic little slut, now you’re even begging for punishment? Never expected you to be such a whore for my cock.”

You whine at his words again, as you allow him to thrust into you and when he finds that spot inside you, you’re sure you won’t last that much longer.

Still, you’re not giving up yet. It’s so much more fun to disagree with him, rile him up just to find out what he’s capable of.

“I’m not– not pathetic,” you try to talk back with zero success.

“Well you’re not quite innocent either, doll. Just look at yourself, taking it like the good slut you are.”

Fuck. The combination of his degrading and praising phrases will be the death of you.

“Gonna fuck you as long as it takes me to let only mindless babbling leave your mouth.”

Giggle after giggle escapes your lips at the thought of his goal and Minho wonders if he’s already achieved it.

He has. By the time only moans and the repetition of his name echo through the room, he’s sure he’s been successful with his plan.

“Whose good little whore are you, hm? Who’s making you feel good?”

“Please– need to cum–“

“Nah, you’ve gotta beg for it. Otherwise I’ll slow down.”

And so he does. It makes you go insane. The anticipation is killing you by now and you’re sure you’ve gotta do what you have to do to reach that sweet relief.

“Fuck– yours, Minho, I’m your whore.”

He pick up his pace again, as he pounds into you without mercy. Brushing that spot inside you, his hand disconnects from your neck, so he’s able to graze over your sensitive bundle of nerves again. The sensation eliminates the last piece of resistance and his next words make you tip over the edge.

“Good girl. Go on, I’ve got you.”

You realise now you wouldn’t have been able to hold on any second longer, your vision is blinded by the lights and sparkles erupting in front of your eyes whilst the sensation spreads through your body at lightning speed but stays as long as Minho needs to get to his climax as well.

The overstimulation makes you dizzy, you’re sure you’re about to faint but Minho is quick to pull out of you. By the look of both your liquids spilling out of you, running down your inner thighs just to make a mess on your blanket, he desires nothing more than pushing the juices into your cunt again.

But he refuses when he sees your exhausted frame. You’ve fallen onto your side and giggles still leave your lips as you try to come to your senses. Faster than you’re able to realise, Minho has taken care of you and tucked the both of you under the duvet.

Week 12, March 26th 27th

Motivation: 5/10

General mood: 4/10 7/10

☽

Vicky is lucky her birthday is at the end of May and she’s even luckier you’re offering your apartment for her birthday party, knowing she would do the same if her financial conditions were better.

To quickly check your hair and because of the fact you’ve had too many beers, you left for the bathroom some minutes ago. Also – no need to tell a lie here – being in a room with Macy is something you still have to work on.

Sure, you’re happy she’s happy with Chan and he’s happy with her, but you just don’t seem to get along with her that much. Everything seems forced, every conversation, every sentence, every interaction.

When you get back, all the others are sitting on the couch, chairs and floor, and a big conversation including all guests has started. Well, it probably started while you were away, as you sense they’re already in the middle of a discussion.

“What do you mean? It’s a good thing everyone can dress how they want. Sure, there’s still stuff that needs to improve but I’m glad to live in the present,” Lisa says, keeping eye contact with Chan’s girlfriend.

Chan interferes now too, slightly shifting around in his seat, “She’s right. Like– why would you care what anyone else is wearing? It’s their own decision.”

You sit down next to Minho on the floor and he offers some of his drink, but you decline. The topic they’re debating about is something you need to have all of your focus to participate. 

“Nah, you know. It makes my stomach turn, seeing all these females walk around in these clothes that barely cover anything. No wonder men can’t keep their hands off of them.”

Females. What the actual fuck. You’re a woman yourself, Macy.

There’s no holding back anymore. You have to say something.

“Macy, listen to me. I’m attracted to women as well. I’ve never had the urge to do something like that just because a girl was dressed in a skirt. That’s like saying ‘oh better don’t own any money if you don’t want to get robbed.’”

Macy looks at you, a smirk decorating her face, before she speaks.

“So, how high is your body count?”

Your heart beat gains speed within half a second, it feels like it’s exploding out of your chest, numbing all other senses.

“W-Why are you asking?”

The words have trouble leaving your mouth.

“Oh, I’m just curious. You seem like the type of person to fuck around a lot. Like– look at that short dress, you’re practically begging all the boys in here to bend you over the next surface.”

You wish you were able to react in a somewhat similar way to that Sebastian dude’s comment some weeks ago, but you can’t. You’re simply not capable of it. 

And you spot the difference here – he’s just made an ignorant, almost incel-bullshit comment but what Macy said cuts deep. It cuts deep into your heart, soul and your whole body, everywhere. 

Sebastian’s comment was just the mirror of his ignorance, Macy’s words are personal, they are definitely directed at you in particular. Of course, you get that she views you as competition. But none of this is your fault. Especially not your body count or anything.

And the worst part is – you thought you would maybe get along with her. Also, to finally get over Chan. You sincerely wanted to be happy for the both of them.

But we’ll – she doesn’t seem so nice anymore.

Chan talks back to her but you don’t hear him speak. All unnecessary noises are shut off, so your whole body can concentrate on how to flee this situation.

Everything is happening so fast now, the room is spinning and you’re trying to grab onto something so you don’t fall quite literally.

But then you remember some little detail.

So, you pull at the hem of Minho’s shirt, big eyes stinging with tears staring into his own, searching for help.

“Soonie.”

Minho immediately senses what’s going on and wastes no time standing up from the floor with you. You don’t notice him giving a sign to your other friends, since you’re already on your way out, heading towards the corridor.

Felix and Lisa follow you, but the latter halts in her place before leaving. She turns around on her feet and chuckles to herself, before she enters the doorway.

“Macy, you know,” Lisa starts, her piercing gaze telling the other girl she’s already passed the stage of being on thin ice and has now fallen into a deep pond of dirt.

“If you put your stupid comment on the street and left it there, a truck would come pick it up the next morning because it’s all just garbage.”

You don’t catch Lisa’s words. It’s not that your friend is too far away, it’s simply your head spinning around and your brain buzzing like crazy that drowns out any other noise. At this point, you only sense the beat of your heart and the uncomfortable tingling, close to an itch, that’s creeping all over your skin.

Minho is still holding onto you, pulling you at your waist, as he guides you to your room. He sits you down on your bed, whilst Felix brings you a glass of water. The reassuring words echo through the room, but you don’t hear them.

It takes another few minutes for you to calm down but when Lisa arrives, she kneels in front of you at the edge of the bed and holds your face, staring deeply into your empty eyes.

“Forget what that bitch said, okay? We’re taking care of this, just trust us, okay?”

“I’ve ruined Vicky’s birthday,” you cry out now, tears streaming down your face like Niagara Falls.

“Y/N, stop, literally no one cares. Vicky doesn't even care about that. We all just want to make sure, you’re alright,” she caresses your cheek to swipe away some of the salty droplets.

The boys have taken both your hands in theirs but you’re just now realising. Neither of your friends leave their positions, making sure your breathing gets back at a normal pace.

“Okay,” you quietly whisper as you sense your pulse going down.

“Also,” Felix starts, “that bitch doesn’t know you, okay? She can’t judge you on any number. Nobody can, in fact. It honestly doesn’t matter.”

You turn your head around to look at him, before he pulls you into a hug, hand caressing the back of your head while he places a short but gentle kiss on your cheek.

“She doesn’t know your story, she doesn’t know your background. And even if nothing of this was connected to a response to your trauma, it still wouldn’t matter.”

You’ve told Lisa and Felix that Minho knows about what happened. It’s comfortable to be around people who always do the best in making you feel secure and safe.

The conversation subsides, at this point you’re all basically a big fluff ball of cuddling friends but it’s helping you.

“What do you need now? What has helped you on New Year’s Eve?” Lisa asks, as she gets up from the floor.

“You guys noticed?”

You’re sincerely surprised they remember you leaving the kitchen right after the clock struck midnight.

“Yes, we did but we don’t have to talk about it unless you want to,” Felix makes sure there’s no pressure behind any of their words.

“Okay,” you say again to indicate you’re comfortable but will most definitely speak about this some other time.

“So, what do you need for now?” Felix asks again, dearly wanting you to feel better.

You snap your head around again, until your eyes meet those of the boy sitting on your other side. He looks at you with hopeful eyes, contemplating if he should say something or if there’s anything he needs to say out loud for you.

“Minho.”

The boy in question has his gaze still fixated on your face as your eyes meet. His face softens and he places a strand of your hair behind your ear, pulling you into a warm hug.

“We’re gonna leave the two of you alone. Just tell us, if there’s something you need,” Felix insists before he walks out of your room with Lisa, leaving the door slightly agape.

“Please, just help me forget all of this.”

The words leave your lips faster than you would have realised and Minho is visibly surprised about your eagerness. He’d be lying if he said he expected you to make a move now.

But you just want to forget. You want to get your mind off of any of this and he knows exactly how to do it.

“You sure you want that? We don’t have to…”

Stop being so considerate, I’m doing fine.

His hands roaming all over your body, touching you in the right places until he makes you see stars, his name the only word you remember, is all you long for.

“I want to. Unless you don’t.”

The idea of Minho pounding into you mercilessly is all you crave right now. He’s helped you forget about your sorrows so many times before, it’s the only thing you want on your mind.

“I do. I always do.”

☽

Chan curses himself for not realising earlier. He curses himself for not perceiving all the red flags, hitting his head all the time like a bright neon sign. 

But what causes that stinging pain to enlighten the most is the fact he’s betrayed you. Not in a way he’s had something going on with someone else – after all he’s seen the aftermath of you and Minho going to your bedroom on New Year’s Eve.

He betrayed you by bringing this specific woman to your apartment. Macy and Chan haven’t really talked about deep topics before and there’s never been a point in their relationship – if you can even title it like this – when he’s believed this could be something for the long run.

Still, this doesn’t excuse him letting this girl get near you when he at least had been suspicious about her view on certain issues.

Chan has never cared about Macy not being as open as you are in bed, he’s the last one to judge and would never cross anybody's boundaries. Up until now he was convinced she may be a bit shy when it comes to intimate interaction but the conversation you all had earlier changed his whole perspective about his now ex-girlfriend.

Yes, his ex.

The minute you left the kitchen with the others and especially entangled in Minho’s arms (another thing he curses himself for – that it wasn’t him to help you out of this situation), he was taking Macy aside to have a little talk in his bedroom, already knowing what this would lead to.

Maybe, this was just the last little push he’s needed, the icing on this cake made of bullshit that he calls the relationship with her now.

He should have seen it coming. But Chan was too desperate to finally have someone, even if it wasn’t you. He was happy to have someone on his side, even if it wasn’t you. Chan was relieved to be with someone, even if it wasn’t you.

Now he’s realising, the way she’s spoken should have ring the alarm but the boy was too busy hitting that snooze button for god knows how many times.

The way Macy has spoken about other women, sometimes not about you in particular, sometimes about you in particular. Of course, it’s not easy for a girlfriend to find out that her partner doesn’t only live with people of the opposite sex but that he's also had a past with one of the roommates.

But even if Chan was still in love with you (which he for sure isn’t, okay!) it would have never been your fault in the first place. You’re not the one to blame that Chan is– was having all these feelings for you.

And last but not least, there was never a reason for Macy to shame you like that. To talk about you like that. To make you feel so small in a place you should feel comfortable in.

Who would have ever thought Macy and Ben would make the perfect couple?

So, Chan decides to slowly count down from ten to zero, hoping to gain enough confidence to enter your room.

Ten

He gets second guesses if it’s the right timing for speaking to you but there’s no way out of this situation now, he’ll probably never get such a chance again.

Nine, Eight, Seven

Chan’s palms are sweaty, his knees weak and threatening to make him lose his balance – all just because of you.

Six, Five, Four

Most of the guests have left by now, the apartment is getting quieter by every second. He’s already looking forward to getting some rest before he needs to do this overdue assignment for his uni course tomorrow.

Three

Chan can still taste the cheap beer on his tongue he had hours later. He will definitely not buy this one again.

Two

The tapestry on the walls should be renewed soon. Perhaps, the next vacation weeks after the semester could be a good time for that.

One

The door closes with a loud clicking sound, indicating another guest has left, now probably lurching home.

Let’s Go.

Your bedroom door is slightly ajar, a sign you both have used before to show the other one it’s okay to enter.

So Chan carefully approaches your bedroom, until one of his feet stands on the doorstep, ready to enter.

But then he sees the last thing he’s ever needed to see.

His hands on your body.

Minho’s hands on your precious skin, towering over you, as you allow him to attach his lips on yours.

His stupid friend’s body all over his other friend he’s still secretly in love with, if he’s honest.

Stupid Minho’s body all over Y/N’s.

Channie’s Y/N.

He halts in place for a bit, trying to get air in his lungs again. He breathes in, as he slowly turns away. The last thing he’d want now is for you to notice he’s caught you with his friend.

Creek.

For a second Chan senses his demise is within reach.

You’ve definitely noticed. 

You must have heard him.

But you haven’t.

And he realises he's not the source of the noise. 

Instead, it’s Vicky standing right in front of him, a purple spot under her eye and a bloody abrasion decorating her nose.

“Oh god– Vicky, are you okay? What the hell happened?!” 

He gets a bit closer, wanting to make sure his friend isn’t severely injured. Also, from this position he stands far away from your bedroom.

“Ugh– nothing bad. You know, I just don’t like when people treat my friends like shit. Especially not on my birthday. Then they’ll get a bittersweet taste of my revenge, that’s all.”

Chan gulps, slowly realising what’s going on.

“Wait until you see your girlfriend's face. Matches mine, kinda cute, isn’t it?”

She gets a bit closer to Chan now, grabbing him by his collar. His heart is beating out of his chest and he’s convinced Vicky notices it. If she doesn’t, his shocked face will betray him.

“Also, don’t you ever bring Macy to your apartment or anywhere close to Y/N again, alright?”

The blonde nods at her demand, sweating heavily. 

“No need for that, Vicky, I’ve already broken up with her and told her to piss off.”

In the blink of an eye, Vicky’s whole demeanour switches and she’s back to being all friendly as she lets go of Chan’s shirt.

“Great. See you, then!”

She waves goodbye and he observes her in the distance, still trying to understand what has just happened.

Some minutes later, Chan goes to his room, knowing for sure he won’t be able to get any rest tonight.

After all, he’s booked a night at the heartbreak hotel again.

Guest’s Name: Bang Christopher Chan

Week 1, May 21st

Sleep: 2/10

General mood: 3/10

🖇 TAGLIST: @heelover5 @chimmycupcake @avyskai @angellixie @svintsandghosts @lachinitaaaaa @drrramaaaqweeen @septicrebel @chrissybang @hugs4chan @brit97 @choxcosmos

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Something about the word "yearn" destroys me