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asahicore · 1 year

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moonlight - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact pairing. dancer!sunghoon x fem!reader synopsis. In August 1963, your monotonous summer vacation becomes a lot more exciting when you meet a group of dancers that work as the entertainment staff of the resort you and your family are staying at. Your fascination with them, and particularly dancers and close friends Sunghoon and Chaewon, pushes you to help them out by taking Chaewon's place at another hotel's show when she's unable to dance. The week you spend with Sunghoon as he teaches you to dance and the events thereafter give you a lot more than the ability to mambo. genre. dirty dancing au, strangers to lovers, summer au, poor boy x rich girl trope, the Big 3 (fluff angst n smut) word count. 32.2k a/n. it's finally here !!! i've been working on this for a while so i hope you guys will like it, please lmk what u think ur feedback is super important to me !!! if you've seen dirty dancing you'll see that this is like.. a complete copy of the movie lmaooo i'm sorry i didn't wanna stray from the plot cz i love it 2 much <//3 i'll make a posting schedule shortly after this so you guys can see which of my old works i'll be reposting and all that :)) enjoy !! also thanks to @ozymandia-s for betareading this u deserve the world and u made this fic a thousand times better <333 and yep thats a compliment from me to u so u better treasure it fr.

It’s the summer of 1963, everybody calls you Baby, and it hasn’t occurred to you to mind. You’re 18, have plans to change the world, and are sure there isn’t a better man than your father.

After years of being too busy to leave work for over a week, your father has finally retired, and you can all go on a long, well-deserved summer break. Like most people your age, your dream vacation would be to backpack through Europe or Asia, discovering the wonders the world has to offer, meeting people from all walks of life and eating all sorts of foreign delicacies. But your parents wish for something more laid-back, so, on the first Sunday of August, after a six-hour drive, you get out of the car at Kellerman’s, a summer resort that belongs to your father’s old friend. You are to spend the rest of the month here, until the last day of the season.

The resort is truly a sight to behold. Even though it’s only four floors high, the main building is downright massive in terms of how much space it occupies. You can imagine the many rooms it must hold, such as the different restaurants and their respective kitchens, the ballroom and other leisure rooms, the stage for various shows, and some offices and apartments where the highest members of staff reside. Tables are scattered all across the front lawn, mainly older ladies and gentlemen sitting at them, drinking lemonade, playing cards, gossiping. You can make out a golf course and a small pond from afar, as well as the back lawn where you’re told most of the activities take place. Such activities include the outdoor dancing lessons, which your mother and sister Seeun want to get to immediately.

Max, your father’s friend, greets you as soon as you arrive as if he’s been waiting for you. Amused, you watch as they clasp each other’s hand before coming into an embrace, giving three hard but friendly pats to the other’s back. “So glad to finally have you here, Doc,” Max says earnestly. “I promise you, one week here and you’ll feel like you’ve never worked a day in your life, that’s how relaxed you’ll be.” Your father laughs and nods, and you turn your attention away when they start talking about work, and how life’s been, and how your daughters have grown, and other things you don’t care much for.

You notice that a member of staff has begun to unload your numerous bags from the trunk, about half of which are your sister’s (“See, Mommy, I told you I should’ve brought those coral heels!” you hear her complain), and start helping him out. He turns to you with a smile as you haul a suitcase onto the trolley.

“Hey, thanks a lot! You looking for a job here?” he jokes, making you smile.

“Just wanted to help out, but I’ll let you know. I’m Baby, by the way.”

“Baby? Is that your real name?” he asks with an amused expression and a quizzical tilt to his head.

“No, but it’s what everyone calls me,” you beam back.

“Alright then, Baby. I’m Jake.” He wipes some sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand before extending it to you, and you take it, shaking it enthusiastically.

Your conversation stops there when your father calls out your name, motioning for you to follow him and your mother and sister. “Come, Baby, let the staff do their work.” You give Jake an apologetic smile and wave him goodbye, but he simply shrugs and turns away, seemingly used to this kind of dismissal from guests.

“See you around, Baby,” you hear him say as you start to walk away.

Seeun only gives you a few minutes to settle into your shared room and unpack your suitcase before she practically drags you outside, eager to get to the dance class in time. Your older sister absolutely loves dancing. No matter where or with who, if there’s music, she’ll start moving.

You, on the other hand, have two left feet, which doesn’t make dancing such a fun activity. You like it, but always feel you look like a fool. As for dancing with a partner, the intimacy that comes with it is too much for you, and isn’t something you particularly want to share with boys you barely know, nevermind complete strangers, like the people at the merengue class your sister is making you rush to.

It takes place in the gazebo, which is wide enough to host about thirty guests and the instructor, who introduces herself as Chaewon. You try to follow her “1, 2, 1, 2” as best you can but it’s hard to focus on the rhythm when you have to avoid being stepped on by the lady to your left and stepping on the man to your right. Everything around you is turned upside down when she cheerfully calls out, “Let’s get into a circle! Gents on the outside, ladies on the inside! C’mon now!”

You manage to make your way into the inner circle, holding onto the hips of the woman in front of you, and finally start to sway to the rhythm a bit more. “Come on ladies! God wouldn’t have given you this body if he didn’t want you to shake it!” Chaewon shouts enthusiastically, emphasizing on the “shake” with a movement of her own.

“On the count of three,” she calls out, “ladies, you’ll turn around, and meet the man of your dreams! 1, 2, 3!”

You find yourself face to face with a grandma that had ended up in the gents’ circle and force on your best smile as you dance with her. She looks delighted, but that expression might just be stuck on her face permanently.

The class comes to an end and the afternoon with it, and you leave the bungalow while everyone gets ready for dinner, yelling out that you’re going to look around as you close the door behind you. It’s the early evening and the sun has just started to set, but not enough for the gentle breeze to be too cold. The small, round bushes and colorful flowers that line the pebbled path from the bungalows to the main building have been expertly tended to; there isn’t a stray weed, nor branch that hasn’t been cut properly nor a wilting plant. It’s all so perfect, it almost looks fake. Yet, when you bend down to feel a petal, it’s soft under your fingertips and very much real.

You walk on the porch that surrounds the main building until you reach the outside entrance to the restaurant. Max’s booming voice catches your attention and you’re able to peek through the ajar door, making sure you can’t be seen from where you stand. Your father’s friend sits at a table while the waiters stand in a half-circle in front of him, hands locked behind them and heads slightly bowed.

“Tonight’s the start of the second half of the season, so I’ll use this opportunity to set a little reminder. You’re here because I chose you lot from the most prestigious schools in the country and you need some financial help, correct?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “So do your job, and do it well. And if you want extra compensation, the gents here may be very generous if you show their daughters a good time and keep their wives happy. But no funny business, you keep your hands off. Got it?”

A quiet flurry of yeses is heard throughout the room just as a group of young people stride in, the sight of them piquing your interest. They’re wearing much more fitted and fashionable clothes compared to the waiters’ simple white vests and trousers, and carry themselves with a confidence you’ve only seen in celebrities and important people. The man that leads them particularly catches your attention: slicked-back hair, useless sunglasses now that the sun has set, all-black clothes, too much leather for the summer weather and the prettiest face you think you’ve ever seen to top it all off. He looks like an off-duty movie star.

“You hear that, boys? No funny business,” he says with a smirk to the group behind him, and they chuckle in response, eyeing the waiters up and down. They work at the same establishment, but they seem to be from two totally different worlds, you notice.

“I think you’re the one who should keep that in mind,” one of the waiters says just as the group passes by him, just loud enough for the other guy to hear. He reacts immediately to the taunt, spinning around and pointing a threatening finger to the waiter’s chest.

“And I think you should heed your own advice, you jackass,” he spits, unfiltered venom in his voice. The waiter only smirks condescendingly, as if proud his remark had struck a nerve.

“Alright, alright, calm down, Sunghoon, and lay off of Heeseung. You’re booked and busy this week, and your whole entertainment team has work to do, okay?” Max says, tone stern as if telling a child off.

Sunghoon takes a step back but doesn’t look away from Heeseung as he scoffs a simple whatever. He then pivots back around and leads his team out of the room. You decide you’ve seen enough and turn around yourself, heading back to your family’s bungalow with quick steps.

Barely half an hour later, you’re back at the restaurant. The tables have all been set, the candles have been lit, a band is playing soft jazz in the corner, and the waiters are taking care of the guests’ orders and keeping them content. You’ve just sat down when Max himself approaches, introducing your waiter for tonight to your table. You try not to let your astonishment show when you instantly recognise him as the one who had had that scuff with Sunghoon earlier.

“Doc, this is Heeseung Lee, and he’ll take care of you tonight,” he addresses your father, a paternal hand around Heeseung’s shoulder. “He’s a third year med student at Harvard and has been working here every summer for the past three years. A very reliable and hardworking young man.” You feel like you’re being sold a car, but your father just smiles and nods approvingly at Heeseung.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Heeseung,” your father greets, holding out a hand for the young man to shake.

“The pleasure’s all mine, Doctor,” Heeseung responds, a most dazzling smile on his lips. If you hadn’t seen him earlier, you wouldn’t believe that this smile could turn snarky and patronizing.

“This is my wife, our eldest Seeun and our youngest Y/N, but we all call her Baby. She’s going to change the world,” your father introduces, beaming proudly at you.

“Yeah, and Seeun’s going to decorate it,” you say, turning to your sister. A bit unprovoked, perhaps, but this is just the way you and your sister have always been. You smile and tilt your head innocently as she glares at you.

“I think she already does,” Heeseung says, your eyebrow raising up in surprise as your sister looks down at her hands, the sudden compliment making her blush.

“Alright, Heeseung, go get these folks our best champagne. On the house!” Max exclaims, beaming at your parents.

“Yes, sir,” Heeseung says, bowing his head slightly to Max and your table before shooting your sister a smile and walking off.

“Oh, and here’s someone else I want to introduce to you - Jay, come here! That’s my grandson Jay. Yale Business School,” Max says emphatically. Jay approaches your table quickly, a somewhat self-assured yet awkward smile on his face. He greets your parents and sister with a nod of his head until his eyes settle on you. “This is Baby, I was telling you about her earlier. She’s going to study at Yale too, and her dad says she’ll change the world!”

Jay’s lips form a pout, the kind of pout one makes when watching kittens play or a child running to his mother, as if he finds your ambitions endearing. Used to this kind of reaction from men, you raise your eyebrows and a small smile spreads on your face as if to say, “yep, that’s me.”

“How nice, Baby. But before you go off and do that, how about you save me a dance? Tomorrow night at the ball?” he offers, and the urge to kick him in the balls is hard to resist, but resist you must.

“Of course she will!” your father answers for you, and you have no choice but to put on your best fake smile, but none of the three men seem to see through it. If your mother and sister notice how annoyed you are, they don’t say anything. Knowing them, they probably think you’re being unreasonable if you’re not already throwing yourself at such an obviously intelligent and respectable young man.

That’s how you find yourself the next day, hands stiffly clasped behind Jay’s neck and his own on the sides of your waist, dancing with him to a slow-paced but lighthearted live song, although dancing might be an overstatement as it’s impossible to find a proper rhythm with someone as clumsy as him. You never thought you’d meet a worse dancer than you, but here you were. You have to keep yourself from snorting everytime he winces or tuts when you “accidentally” step on his foot, and you make sure to leave ample room between the two of you for the Holy Spirit.

Most of the dance is spent in awkward silence, probably due to the fact that Jay’s gaze, one that is perhaps meant to be seductive but only comes off as creepy, seems to linger on you for too long and too many times. When a pair of kids spins right by you, looking far more talented and serious in their dancing than the two of you, Jay seems to think he needs to step up his game and tightens his grip on your waist. Although you try to disguise it as best you can, the action makes you look up at him in alarm, and you have to stop yourself from visibly flinching when he bends down to say something in your ear although the music isn’t that loud.

“So, Yale, huh? What are you going to study? Design?”

“Um, Environmental Studies and Politics, actually. I’m particularly interested in how underdeveloped countries work and how we can change things there for the better, rather than making things worse,” you correct him, slightly raising your voice so he can hear you from where you’re standing.

Jay is visibly taken aback by your detailed response, and all he can do is nod. “Right, right, that’s-”

To no one’s disappointment, you never find out what Jay was going to say next because right then, the music suddenly picks up and one of the musicians announces “Sunghoon and Chaewon of the Entertainment Team for a mambo demonstration” into his mic. Your ears perk up at the sound of those two vaguely familiar names, and you quickly recognise Sunghoon as the leather-clad man from earlier and Chaewon as the merengue class instructor from yesterday. He’s now wearing a black suit jacket and matching trousers with a tight white button-up, the clothes fitting him perfectly and making the muscles underneath them appear when the light hits him just right. On her is one of the most beautiful dresses you’ve ever seen, the red fringed fabric draping over her body like it was created for her, her toned upper back and arms on display.

The crowd of guests quickly forms a circle around the couple, giving them enough space to put on their show, and everyone, including you, is immediately enthralled by their performance. You’re mesmerized by how elegant and energetic at once their dance is, the smiles on their faces unfaltering and their legs and arms forming perfect lines at all times. Their posture is proud and their gazes are always fixed on each other even as they spin around, somehow never getting dizzy. They move in perfect synchronization as one entity rather than two separate people simply dancing together, and even though it is probably due to an impressive amount of practice, you can’t help but find that their chemistry is what makes them so fascinating. When he lifts her into the air, it’s with so little effort that she looks like she weighs no more than a feather. There is not a step out of place, and you’re reminded of those impeccable bushes and flowers from the day before. It makes you wonder how it is possible for two people to look so perfect together, and if that perfection is only superficial or not.

“Who are they?” you ask Jay, your curiosity about them greater than your aversion to talking to him.

From the corner of your eye, you see him looking surprised by your question before he leans in and answers. “Sunghoon Park and Chaewon Kim. They’re part of the dance people. Here to keep the guests happy and entertained.” He sighs, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head in discontentment. “They shouldn’t be showing off with each other like that, it won’t sell lessons. I’ll need to have a talk with them later.”

You barely register Jay’s words after he’s answered your question, your attention focused back on the dancers in front of you. On the other side of the room, you spot Max frowning at them and marching towards them. As soon as Sunghoon and Chaewon notice him, he waves them off and they separate, choosing a guest as their new partner to dance with, which you assume is their way of doing a taster session.

Jay drags you off to sit at a table and for the better part of an hour, you let him bore your ears off as he tells you either things he can’t fathom you’d already know even though you do, or things you couldn’t care any less about. It’s such a shame that a man with that handsome a face and that charming a smile would have the stalest of personalities, yet deem himself the most interesting man to walk the Earth. You nod and hum when you’re supposed to, and that’s all he needs to think you’re listening intently, when really you can’t stop thinking about the dancers you just saw, and even steal glances at them still dancing with some guests mere meters away from you. All you want to do is get up and get Sunghoon’s, or even Chaewon’s attention so they could show you how to move like them - just touching their shoulder or waist would be thrilling. But when you catch your mother’s eye a few tables away and she beams at you, two thumbs up in the air, you know you need to stay planted in your chair.

Thankfully, the amount of guests in the room starts to dwindle, and you use this dip in the evening to run off, telling Jay it’s getting late and you need to get back to your bungalow. You don’t let him try to convince you to stay back, and grab your purse, excitedly waving goodbye at him. He’s probably confused, but you’re too giddy at the prospect of finally leaving to care.

You were on your way to the bungalow, you really were - but just as you reach it, light from a tall lodge about five hundred meters away catches your attention, and you’re too curious about the building you hadn’t noticed before not to investigate. So you continue walking up the small hill where all the guest lodgings rest until you find yourself before a sign that reads “STAFF QUARTERS - GUESTS KEEP OUT,” which you promptly decide to ignore.

In just a minute, a wooden bridge reveals itself, enabling you to cross over the current that separates you from the other bank, where the lodge stands. If you looked to your right, you could’ve made out some more, smaller and dingier-looking bungalows than the guests’ that hosted the staff behind all those trees, but you run into a familiar face before you can take notice of them.

“Hey! I recognize you. Baby, right?”

“Yeah, and you’re Jake!” you beam, surprised not only by seeing him again here, but by the three huge watermelons he carries in his arms like oversized newborn triplets.

“Yeah…” he trails, squinting his eyes at you, his enthusiasm turning into suspicion. “You can’t be here. Max would kill me. Go back to the dance, Baby.” He can only take a few steps forward before you grab a watermelon from his unsteady hold, putting your most convincing smile on.

“I’ll help you carry these!” you state rather than offer, and march forwards across the bridge. Behind you, Jake sighs and shakes his head, then rushes to stop you in your tracks.

“Didn’t you read the sign? This area is staff only, you can’t be here,” he repeats, punctuating his words. He stays unwavering even at the receiving end of your very menacing glare, so you simply huff and stack the watermelon back on top of the other two and turn away. It takes him approximately two seconds to change his mind. “Can you keep a secret?”

Jake doesn’t prepare you for what you’re about to see when you enter the staff common lodge, but you don’t think anything could. The smell of a room full of people sweating and moving about hits you instantly, the heat it creates hanging heavy in the air. The breeze coming in through the open windows is practically useless in bringing the temperature down, but you aren’t curious to find out what it’d be like with the windows closed.

The music, a genre your father always bristles at when he hears it on the radio, is now blasting in your ears rather than whistling through the wind, and it takes you a few moments to adjust to the volume and intensity of the bass and drums bouncing off the walls of the room. The guitar sound is sensual and almost yearning, the singer longs for his lover, and the tempo is just fast enough for the dancers to find a swaying rhythm.

As if the lyrics themselves aren’t enough to make you blush, the way the staff dances makes you feel like you’re intruding on something. You try to look away as a couple thrusts their hips into each other’s, only to find another lowering themselves to the group until they’re crouching then slowly rising again, using each other as support the whole time. Skirts bunched up around hips, shirts almost fully unbuttoned or even discarded, hands grabbing onto the partner’s clothes or bare skin - you’ve never seen anyone dance that way. Far from the choreographed performances you’re used to, here, they’re simply letting their bodies move to the music without any second thoughts or a care in the world. You hadn’t even known this could be considered dancing, but surely, when your body molds itself this perfectly to the melody and your partner’s hands, then you can only be dancing.

Watermelon in arms, you follow Jake as he snakes his way to the back of the room through sweaty bodies holding each other close. You recognise a few people here and there as the entertainment staff who host activities, teach dance classes or help guests find their way around. They peer back at you, expressions either confused or disdainful - you aren’t sure whether that’s because they don’t know who you are, or because they do and don’t like seeing you there. Even if they don’t know that you’re Baby, your dress at least is a dead giveaway of your being a guest. Your mom had picked it out for you - a white sleeveless summer dress that reaches almost to your knees and cinches in at the waist before flowing out over your hips. And no cleavage, of course. Along with your impeccably curled and styled hair, your prim and proper attire is a far cry from the short skirts, tight t-shirts and denim that the staff wears, revealing sunkissed skin and toned muscles. And if all of that still isn’t enough to tell you apart, then your wide eyes like a kid seeing fireworks for the first time should do it.

You finally reach the back of the room and set your watermelon on a bar counter. Jake rests his hands on his hips and watches the dancers, a smile on his face, the kind of smile you wear when you can never get enough of a sight even though you witness it everyday. You watch them too, but you must look a mix of fascinated and terrified - sure, they all look terrific, but if your dad caught you here, you’d be dead.

“Where’d they learn to do that?” you lean in to ask Jake as the next song starts playing, your gaze not leaving the dancers who adjust easily to the more upbeat tempo.

He looks at you, stunned. “Don’t you know? This is how the kids dance these days. This is what American basements look like on Friday nights.” His surprise turns into amusement and he steps in front of you, one hand extended for you to take and a mischievous look on his face. “Wanna try?”

Your eyes immediately double in size and you shake your hands in front of you, but he grabs one of them anyway and starts leading you back into the middle of the room. You’re saved by the doors suddenly bursting open, catching everyone’s attention. In run Sunghoon and Chaewon, wearing the same clothes from earlier, although Sunghoon has ditched the suit jacket and popped the top buttons of his shirt open. Your stomach flips at the sight of his flushed cheeks and hair slick with sweat.

Jake chuckles when he sees how transfixed you are by the two of them, dancing so differently from earlier, their moves far more sexual, hands not so polite anymore, completely free to do whatever they wish. Rather than a smile, Sunghoon wears a small frown and bites his bottom lip, deepening his dimples, and it all seems to make each of his moves that much harsher. The sheer sex appeal that he exudes is absolutely undeniable, and it makes you feel things you’ve never felt before - things you’re not quite unsure how to name. You let out a small gasp as Chaewon jumps and hooks her legs around his hips effortlessly, then as she leans her upper body back until her head almost touches the ground. Sunghoon’s hands are tight around her waist and his biceps apparent under the thin fabric of his dress shirt. You realize how strong Sunghoon must be when he carries her all the way to his shoulders, letting her rest her knees there as she plays with her skirt and swings her head from side to side. You’ve never seen anyone look so good while having so much fun.

“They look great together,” you blurt out without thinking.

“Don’t they?” Jake says, looking out at them with a fond smile. “You’d think they were a couple.”

This makes your head pivot towards Jake. “Well, aren’t they?”

“Not since we were kids, no. They’ve just been dancing together for so long that they’ve developed this- this chemistry and understanding of each other, I guess.”

“Do you know them well?”

“Sunghoon’s my best friend from home. He met Chaewon when he started working here when we were 16, and then he got me this job when we were 17. The three of us are 22 now.” He meets your gaze and his smile grows wider. “Why, you interested?”

The sudden question (and the very obvious, very embarrassing answer) takes you aback and you stammer out a few nonsensical syllables before frowning at him. Your reaction just seems to amuse him. “No, I’m not. Just asking,” you manage to say.

He looks back at them, and you follow his gaze. “Well, good, cause we’re not allowed to get involved with the guests anyway. Which is why you shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

Just then, the song ends and Sunghoon and Chaewon laugh before they separate, finding another partner to dance with. As Chaewon heads towards someone else, Sunghoon catches your stare and walks to where you and Jake stand, eyes fixed on your face. You feel small under his gaze, but you will your knees not to buckle underneath you, although that’s hard to do when his eyes sweep your figure, giving you a once-over.

“What’s she doing here?” he questions Jake without looking away from you.

“That’s Baby, she came with me,” Jake says, not really answering the question.

“I carried a watermelon,” you blurt, not really answering the question either, but that seems to satisfy Sunghoon. His eyebrows raise slightly before he heads back to the dancefloor and starts dancing again. You release a breath you hadn’t known you were holding, but another one catches right in your throat when, after barely thirty seconds, he pivots back around as if there was still something he was curious about. His eyes stay focused on you, unreadable.

And then, he bows his head slightly, looks up at you through his eyebrows, raises his hand, and beckons you to him with his index finger. As if spellbound, your feet move on their own until you find yourself in front of him, his hands reaching immediately for your hips and holding on tight there. All the nerves in your body are on edge and your heartbeat speeds up, almost matching the fast tempo of the song resonating throughout the room. Simply remembering to breathe becomes an arduous task. Jake’s voice is a faint sound as he says, “So you go dance with him, but not me?”

This kind of dancing is completely unfamiliar to you, so you have no idea what to do. Thankfully, Sunghoon doesn’t seem to expect anything else, and he knows how to guide you so that you get the gist of it. “Keep your eyes on me,” he commands quietly, gesturing with two fingers for your gaze to stay on his. “And move your hips in a circle, just like that,” he adds, executing the move for you to mirror. “Just relax, you’re too stiff. Relax your arms. Put them around my shoulders.” His hands brush down from your shoulders to your wrists, sending a trail of fire all along your arms, grabbing them and resting them on his shoulders himself before settling back on your waist. His arm snakes its way around it, bringing you closer to him. You aren’t sure what’s more electrifying, his gaze or his touch.

You start to focus on the music and on getting your body to move along to it, and it feels like a miracle when your hips, firmly pressed against his own, sway side-to-side in rhythm. Remembering what you saw earlier, you lean back slightly, hips still moving in small circles, trusting him to keep you from falling. You lean back as far as you can, and something about it is so liberating, you feel the adrenaline rushing through your body as if it’s the only thing keeping you alive. When you come back up, your palms are flat against his chest and he looks at you with a proud but surprised smirk that lits your insides up. “Just like that,” he whispers, but his face is close enough for you to hear him over the music.

He spins you around a few times, and as quickly as he appeared, he’s already gone, having weaved his way through the crowd back towards Jake. It takes you a few seconds to register his absence, but when it does, it’s like all the warmth he filled you with is gone; you’re left only with the heavy heat weighing the room down and you with it, when you’d felt light like air not a moment ago.

Before you can decide on what to do next, someone taps your shoulder, and you turn around to find Heeseung frowning down at you. In the fraction of a second, you can tell this is the snarky Heeseung that you’d seen when you were snooping around the day before rather than the polite Heeseung that had waited your table that night.

“Baby, right? I don’t know what you’re doing here, but your sister and parents are looking all over for you. If I were you, I’d go now, and quick.”

Alarm shoots through you as you realize you’d been here for twenty minutes at least, the sort of absence that wouldn’t go unnoticed by your family this late at night. You thank him rapidly and practically run towards the door before risking a look back at Jake and Sunghoon, still standing in the corner of the room. Jake looks worried, so you send him a thumbs up, but Sunghoon simply peers at you, sipping on a beer as his back rests against the wall, that same unreadable look from before back on his face. You don’t linger to figure it out and rush to your bungalow, coming up with an excuse that you got lost on your way back for your parents to believe. Because their Baby would never do anything she isn’t supposed to, right?

That night, as you toss and turn in bed, trying to fall asleep, your mind wanders off to those warm, big hands firmly planted on your waist, and how they had guided your body until it moved on its own accord, until it let itself go and only followed the rhythm. How far can you go until your body no longer belongs to you but rather to the music, or to the person holding you close, you wonder? And if that happened, would you, for a moment at least, no matter how fleeting, be freed of all your worries for your future and of all the pressure on your shoulders?

Your feet already ache - from dancing or from wanting to dance some more, you can’t quite tell.

Every year when August comes, it takes you by surprise how early the sun sets. Just as you’d gotten used to the sky still being fairly light by 10 p.m., it was already getting dark at nine. This is what you think about a few nights later as you look out at the dark sky, the bright full moon and the hundreds of stars lighting it up. You’re standing next to the gazebo with your parents as you watch other guests dancing about; clearly, since you’re thinking about the state of the sky and the sun in the summer, you’re very entertained. Your sister has managed to become friends with some of the other guests’ kids, as well as some of the staff, and has even formed a budding romance with Heeseung, which your parents have made it obvious they approve of. This means that she is excused of any activities she might not want to partake in, while you have to follow your parents everywhere.

Your gaze follows Sunghoon as he dances with an older woman, guiding her through the dance and teaching her a few steps. You can’t help but frown slightly at his forced smile when she lets her hands wander a bit too far down his back, and you wonder why he doesn’t say anything when he looks so obviously uncomfortable.

“You see that woman over there?” you hear Max ask your father as he motions to the lady dancing with Sunghoon. “Vivian Kim. We call women like her bungalow bunnies. Their husbands work all week and only come back on weekends. That dancer Park Sunghoon is pretty popular with them, if you know what I mean,” he comments with a dark chuckle. “But I gotta pretend like I don’t know any better, otherwise the wives are unhappy. And if the wives are unhappy, so are the husbands, and then I lose money.”

You daze out of the conversation when you see Jay approaching, his steps quick and headed directly towards Sunghoon. “Where’s Chaewon?” he questions impatiently, taking no notice of Vivian, who seems to take no notice of him either and continues swaying her hips to the music.

“What do you mean where’s Chaewon? She’s on a break, Chaewon needs a break,” Sunghoon bites back, tone just as harsh as Jay’s. That seems to shut Jay up, and he just squints at him before turning his head to where you’re standing. His whole demeanor changes instantly as he walks towards you, that smile one would reserve for children that he always looks at you with.

“Hey Baby, wanna go on a walk?” he asks, but with the intent way your parents, Max and Jay himself are peering down at you, you know you don’t have much of a choice.

You put on your best forced smile and take his extended hand. “Sure, Jay.”

He takes you to a small wooden bridge that overpasses a small but feisty current. The walk there is fairly silent, which you’re thankful for, because it’s easier to pretend Jay isn’t here when he’s not talking, but the fantasy is shattered everytime he sighs and hums contentedly. It’s like he thinks spending five minutes without talking will make the world implode, and he has to make some kind of noise to keep the balance.

When you reach the bridge, you lean back against the rail, and he leans on his side, apparently so he can look at you better. “I love to watch your hair blow in the breeze,” he says after a few moments, and it takes everything in you to keep your laughter in at the sudden romanticism.

“You know, not to brag,” he starts, and you know he’s about to say the most pretentious thing you’ve ever heard, “but around here, I’m known as the catch of the county.” He’s smiling, but you know he’s being fully serious. “I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? I’m handsome, parents love me, and I go to the best school in the country. People ask me, ‘well, what’s the difference between you and any other guy at Yale,’ and I say, ‘five hotels and a million-dollar inheritance!’” He bursts laughing like he’s just made the funniest joke ever, although you’re not sure where the joke is. You chuckle awkwardly and nod, remembering your mother’s advice - when in doubt, just nod. You’re not particularly in doubt, but you’re also not sure how to respond to such ostentatious self-praise.

To your great despair, Jay is about to open his mouth again, but a voice coming from the exit of the forest near you stops him in his tracks. “Heeseung, please, you have to help me with this-,” the voice says, and you recognize it quickly as Chaewon’s.

“I told you, it’s none of my damn business.”

“But it is! Please!” she shouts back. He walks ahead of her and she tries to catch up to him, and just like that, they’re already gone without having noticed you or Jay.

A hand placed delicately on your shoulder snaps you from your thoughts. You turn to Jay who has a sad look in his eyes and who sighs as if pained to say what he has to say next. “You know, Baby, sometimes, in this world, you’ll see things you don’t want to see. And sometimes, you can’t do anything about them. It’s all part of growing up,” he finishes, his tone self-important like he’s just taught you a world of knowledge.

“You hungry?” he suddenly adds, all cheery. “C’mon, eating something might take your mind off of this. We can go to the kitchens and get you anything you’d like.”

He indeed takes you to the restaurant kitchens, completely empty due to the late hour. He opens up a fridge, and even though he basically does, the way he acts like he owns the place makes you wince. “So, what have we here? Some smoked salmon canapés, some ham sandwiches… ooh, brownies! What else…” he trails off, but your attention has been caught by something else.

You can hear someone snuffling somewhere in the room, and when you lean to the side to peer behind the wall, you can make out a female figure crouched down in the dark. She’s trembling from head-to-toe, and when she lifts her head to look at you, you recognize her as Chaewon. You’ve never seen anyone looking so scared.

Thinking quickly, you grab Jay by the shoulders, smiling at him as you say, “You know what, I don’t think I’m actually that hungry, let’s just head back to the gazebo, yeah?”

For once, you’re the one who doesn’t let him answer your question and you speed out of the kitchens and back to the gazebo. You find Jake immediately, rushing to him to tell him what you saw, and he in turn rushes to Sunghoon, who apologizes and drops his dancing partner’s hand as soon as he hears what’s going on. Ignoring Jay’s confused look, you run with them back to the kitchens, from which Chaewon hasn’t moved an inch.

Sunghoon sits next to her, taking her in his arms and helping her up. “It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m here now. Everything’s fine. Let’s get you back to my room, okay? It’ll be quiet there,” he coos, getting her snuffles to calm down and her breath to steady itself.

Since none of them tell you to go back, you follow along, Chaewon in Sunghoon’s arms in front and you and Jake not too far behind. “What’s wrong with her?” you ask Jake quietly.

“She’s pregnant.”

“Jake!” Sunghoon calls out indignantly, sending him a look as if to warn him.

“What? It’s not like she’d tell anyone.”

“Still, it’s none of her business,” Sunghoon replies, glancing briefly at you.

“And what’s he gonna do about it?” you can’t help but ask. This makes Sunghoon pivot on his heel and Chaewon frowns at the sudden movement.

“‘What’s he gonna do about it?’” he repeats, venom in his voice. “Oh of course, cause it’s my baby. Of course you’d assume that,” he practically spits at you. You try to stutter out a response, but nothing comes up. How could you not assume that, when you’ve only seen him taking care of her like she’s his responsibility?

You thought all staff lived in small bungalows, but the place you reach is more like a one-person studio. Sunghoon sits Chaewon down on a couch, covers her shoulders with a blanket and brings her a tall glass of water.

“So, whose is it then?” you ask again, eyes darting back and forth between the three figures that stare back at you. Sunghoon starts towards you, an accusing finger out, but Chaewon stops him.

“It’s fine, Sunghoon.” She sighs then lifts her gaze to look at you. Her eyes seem drained, like her tears took everything out of her. “It’s Heeseung’s,” she answers plainly, and you think your eyes bulge out of your face. What you’d witnessed earlier starts to make more sense in your head.

Next to you, Jake looks like he’ll explode if he has to keep in the words he wants to say any longer. “That bastard Heeseung. She needs money to get an operation, and she needs it soon, but he doesn’t give a shit,” Jake spits.

“But, Heeseung, he’s got money, I’m sure if you just ask him, he’ll-”

“Baby? Is that your name?” Chaewon asks softly, interrupting you. “Well, you don’t know shit about my problems, Baby,” she continues, her tone doing a 180. “You don’t think I’ve asked him? You don’t think he knows?”

“But-”

“Go back to your playpen, Baby,” she dismisses you, a finality to her tone. Sunghoon just glares at you while Jake shrugs, so you decide there’s nothing you can do than leave, and head back to your bungalow, heart heavy, but determined to help Chaewon out. There has to be something you can do, you just know it.

The next day, you pretend to help Heeseung set the tables for the lunch service to have a talk with him. You waste no time starting your interrogation, not even greeting him before diving straight into it.

“I know about Chaewon, Heeseung. You need to help her out,” you say sternly, using a random water pitcher you’d found at the entrance to fill up crystal glasses.

“Well hello to you too, Baby,” he says with a sarcastically sweet tone. His fake smile drops when he sees you won’t play into his game. “I don’t need to do anything,” he scoffs. “Not like it’s any of your business anyway.”

“Haven’t you seen her? You can’t leave her alone in a time like this, she needs your help. Even if it’s mostly financial help. It’s the least you can do.”

“Girls like her, they get into trouble all the time, okay? Hey, watch what you’re doing!” he whisper-yells when water spills over one of the glasses, not wanting to rouse the suspicion of any of the diners around.

“Yeah, because of guys like you,” you bite back, but he ignores you.

“She was bound to get knocked up at some point, going around like that.” You follow as he moves on the next table.

“So you’re not going to do anything? Just put her in a bad situation and then run away?”

He finally turns to face you, looking at you like he’s exasperated, like you’re the bad guy here. “That girl’s not my problem, okay? She brought this upon herself.”

You take a step closer to him, a fakely sweet smile plastered on your lips. “You’re a jerk, Heeseung. You stay away from me, stay away from my sister, or I’ll have you fired.” You then raise the jug of water up to his chest, and keep that same smile as you pour it on him before marching away, ignoring the gasps that echo all around the room and Heeseung as he yells at you to come back.

Your mom is struggling to get the ball in when you find your parents on one of the many golf courses. Your dad smiles as he sees you nearing them, asking you if everything’s alright.

“Daddy.”

“Baby?” he answers, looking amused by your seriousness.

“You know how you say I should always do my best to help out others when they need it?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I’ve got friends who need some help.”

“What kind of help?” he asks, slightly frowning as he realizes you’re not being serious for no reason.

You take a big breath in. “Money.” You don’t like asking your dad for money, but it’s the only solution you’ve come up with.

“And just how much money?”

“Three hundred dollars?” you say, your sentence coming out like a question as you slightly wince in apprehension.

Your father sighs. “That’s a serious amount of money, Baby. This isn’t anything illegal, is it?” he adds after a beat, taking you aback. Is this illegal? If it is, your father doesn’t need to know it.

“No, no, of course not, Daddy,” you say, trying your best at a reassuring smile. It seems to work, because his expression softens and he smiles back.

“Of course not,” he repeats, “I should know that.” He takes you in his arms. “I’ll have the money ready for you tonight.” You hug him back, thanking him before skipping away to whatever activity you might find to distract yourself before the evening.

After dinner, when your dad’s given you an envelope filled with cash, you throw a quick excuse your parents’ way before rushing to the staff quarters, making sure no one sees you on your way there. The music emanating from the common room makes you hopeful you’ll find the people you’re looking for.

And indeed, you do - Sunghoon and Chaewon are holding each other close, her head resting on his chest, and swaying together to the slow and sensual rhythm of the music at the back of the room when you find them. You feel a ping of something uncomfortable in your heart but ignore it and head straight towards them. Chaewon turns around when you tap on her shoulder, her and Sunghoon both looking at you with unmasked animosity, but you just smile as you hand her the envelope. Jake notices you and walks over to stand next to his cousin.

“Here you go. I hope it’s enough,” you say, relieved to see her surprised but ecstatic expression when she opens the envelope and sees all the bills in there. Jake wears a similar expression but Sunghoon just leers down at you.

“Oh my God, Baby, this is amazing,” Chaewon exclaims in disbelief. “How did you get Heeseung to change his mind?”

You purse your lips. “It wasn’t Heeseung…”

She frowns slightly but her eyes widen at the realization that if it isn’t from Heeseung, it has to be from you. “Oh, Baby, thank you so much,” she murmurs.

“Yeah, takes a real saint to ask daddy,” Sunghoon says sarcastically. Chaewon’s head snaps towards you and she starts to shake her head, forcing the envelope back into your hands.

“I can’t accept it, then.”

“Why not?” you, Sunghoon and Jake blurt at the same time.

“Who cares where it comes from? You need the money,” Sunghoon says, trying to persuade her, but she just continues to shake her head.

“It doesn’t feel right. And I can’t go to the appointment anyway,” she chuckles defeatedly, and Sunghoon looks at Jake in confusion.

“I can only get her an appointment next Thursday, when you guys have your act at the Sheldrake,” he explains guiltily, as if it’s his fault.

“For fuck’s sake,” Sunghoon breathes out, looking up to the ceiling in despair, hands on his hips.

“Can’t you miss just that one night?” you ask innocently, but apparently it is the stupidest question on earth, judging from the harsh glare Sunghoon fixes you with.

“No, we can’t miss just that one night. This is our job, and if we cancel the Sheldrake, not only do we lose this summer’s salary, but also next summer’s gig. Our livelihoods depend on this,” he hisses.

“So… can’t someone fill in?” you ask again, and wince when he raises his tone.

“No, Little Miss Fix-It, someone can’t fill in. Everybody works here, unlike you. Unless you wanna do it,” he adds after a pause, chuckling sarcastically, “take some time off of Simon Says?”

You can only glare back at him, even though you couldn’t look as condescending as him if you tried. You’re just trying to help them out and find solutions, no need to be so rude about it. Jake looks back and forth between the two of you, a look on his face like he’s thinking things over.

“You know, maybe she could do it. You weren’t so bad last time, were you, Baby?” he says, eyebrows raised at you as he waits for your answer, a hopeful look on his face that makes you feel bad for letting him down.

You shake your head fervently - learning a complicated choreography and performing it in front of an audience is unthinkable to you. “No, no, I can’t even do the merengue.”

“C’mon!” he insists.

“You heard her, Jake, she can’t even do the merengue,” he repeats, adding venom to the words.

Chaewon doesn’t seem to think this is such a bad idea either. “But Sunghoon, you could teach anyone to dance, you’re an amazing leader,” she says eagerly, but Sunghoon just rolls his eyes and sighs.

“The act is in a week, even if I was the best teacher in the world, she couldn’t learn the whole routine in that time. It’s a lost cause,” he sneers, his gaze fixated harshly on you. You’re not sure whether the lost cause refers to the situation or to you.

You squint your eyes at him, trying to match his gaze. It’s one thing that you think it’s a bad idea, but it’s a whole other thing now that he’s so against it. Jake’s right - you weren’t that bad last week, you’re sure you could be an okay replacement. Sunghoon raises an eyebrow at you as if in challenge.

Challenge accepted, you think.

“Now it’s one, two, three, four,” Sunghoon says, synchronizing each number to the beat of the music. “You don’t dance ‘til the two.” This is probably the fifth time he tells you this in the past half-hour, and although you know what you’re meant to do, your body will simply not listen to your head.

You’re in the dance studio, trying as hard as you can to get your body to shape itself into what Sunghoon wants it to be. Arms up at shoulder-level, core engaged, back straight, head proud. He may repeat those directions over and over again, you aren’t used to holding yourself like that, and it’s a lot harder than it seems, even though he makes it look so natural.

He moves the tonearm of the record player so that the music starts from the beginning again and walks towards you, his stern gaze never leaving your eyes as if to say, “you better not mess it up this time.” It makes the room feel a lot hotter than it actually is, and the strong summer heat coming in from the open windows doesn’t help.

You can’t help but wonder if Sunghoon is this impatient with all of his students - surely he’d be out of a job if he actually behaved like this with the fancy ladies of the resort, so he must have some kind of problem with you. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that he isn’t the fondest of you, anyway. The fact that you’re only doing this to help him out and not for your own pleasure seems lost on him, but you’d rather not aggravate the situation by pointing that out.

His hands firmly holding yours, his gaze still fixed on your face, you hear your cue approaching and tell yourself “on the two, on the two, on the two,” but it’s no use, your foot starts to move a beat too early. But this time, Sunghoon anticipates your movement and says, softer than you expect ‘no,’ and you put your foot back down instead of stepping on his like countless times before. Then he instructs ‘now’, and you finally get it right, getting into the flow of the music properly. You repeat this process a few more times, and only take a break when he’s sure you won’t make mistakes anymore.

You’re halfway through a one-liter bottle of water when you hear him say, “Finally got the basic footwork down, only took an hour.” You scoff at the snarky remark and are about to come back at him with something just as petty, but you notice the shadow of a smile on his lips, more playful than patronizing, so you bite it back and try to suppress a smile of your own. With Sunghoon, you’ll take what you can get.

He doesn’t give you more than another minute of break, ignoring your complaints and urging you back towards him in the center of the room. “Let’s move on to the second part.”

You only have a week to get ready, so you practice like crazy, Sunghoon trying to reduce his working hours as much as possible and you slipping away from your parents and sister whenever you can. You go over the steps on your own, taking any opportunity to do so, whether that’s when you find yourself alone in your family’s rental or as you walk back across the bridge and lawn to the main grounds, letting your body move to the music in your head.

When she can make it, Chaewon also comes to practice with you. Her presence is always helpful - she sometimes stands behind you, holding you by the hips and correcting your posture, sometimes replaces either you or Sunghoon so you can watch her and mirror her moves from different perspectives.

Although she was originally wary and dismissive of you, when she saw how intent you were on helping her, a complete stranger, out, her view of you completely changed. You can tell how thankful she is by the constant kindness she shows you, encouraging you to compensate for Sunghoon’s lack of praise.

Indeed, all three of you are surprised and happy to see how quickly you’re progressing, but Sunghoon has a knack for keeping his emotions behind a veil and his praises to a minimum. Sure, that means his compliments, his small ‘you did well today’ or ‘good job’ make you blush a little redder, but you wouldn’t complain if they were more frequent, either.

What he can’t hide from you, however, is that he is clearly starting to become more tolerant of your presence. You’d like to say you knew all along that he would soften up eventually, but truth is, you were scared he was going to stay this cold for the length of your time together, so it comes as even more of a relief when he stops reprimanding you so harshly for small mistakes or when he smiles along with you as you celebrate getting through a big chunk of the routine flawlessly for the first time. When one day, he actually laughs with you instead of berating you, you almost explode in on yourself out of joy. You convince yourself that those butterflies you feel erupting in your stomach is because it’s so surprising to see someone usually so guarded letting himself go a bit more, that it isn’t just the simple sound of his laughter making you feel lightheaded.

On the fourth day of practice, you manage to find enough time to practice for almost three hours in a row. Towards the end of the session, after feeling like you were about to pass out due to extortion, you have a strange surge of energy. Sunghoon, on the other hand, has almost exhausted his very impressive stamina, but still wants to go through what you’ve learned up until now.

The music starts, and you don’t know if it was this surge of energy, or if it was Sunghoon’s tired expression that made you want to tease him, but you decide it’d be funny to repeat back to him the directions he always gives you - you know them by heart at this point.

“Hey! Head up,” you joke as you face each other again after a spin. “Lock your frame. Wiggly arms!” You’re happy to see he laughs along with you, shaking his head in amused disbelief at you.

The laughter immediately halts, however, when at the end of the routine, because of your lack of concentration, your foot slips and you find yourself much closer to him than necessary for the ending pose. Your breath hitches in your throat, and your cheeks immediately burn up. After a long moment, Sunghoon looks away, clearing his throat, and you take a big step back from him as if being any nearer might make you spontaneously combust.

“That was, um, that was good today. Good job,” he says quickly, then rushes to grab his stuff and leave the room. Forget the proximity the two of you were just in - was that a flustered Sunghoon you got to see? And was it because of you? It’s almost unfathomable that you could render him shy like that, but a small smirk plays on your lips at the idea of it.

Over the week, you start reaching for the thin tank tops and shorts you own, and steal some of Seeun’s lipgloss and mascara. If Sunghoon notices it, he doesn’t say anything. But perhaps, you’re the one who hasn’t noticed the way he glances at you in the mirror when you take a break or practice on your own, how he can’t help raking his eyes over your body when you aren’t looking, unable to reign his curiosity in. That you might want to get some kind of a reaction out of him doesn’t even cross his mind - because no matter how attractive he may be, he can’t imagine that a serious, educated girl like you with big plans for the future might be interested in a guy like him.

So even if his iciness thaws a bit, he doesn’t let it show that having you around messes with his head, and stays a stern instructor who wants you to get the routine down to a T. “We can’t afford to make any mistakes,” he always says. But there’s something about the way he delivers his instructions sometimes that makes it impossible for you to concentrate on the dance. He’s always either dancing with you, your bodies just a foot apart, or sitting on the floor close to you and watching you, so he doesn’t need to speak so loud for you to hear him. It’s this quietness mixed with the strictness of his tone that makes your insides completely melt. Soft yet rigid, intimate yet steely.

“Don’t put your heel down, stay on your toes.”

“Keep your eyes focused on me, especially when you’re spinning.”

“Always keep your core and your head straight.”

Words that have no double-meaning whatsoever, yet it doesn’t take long for you to start wondering if he keeps this tone everywhere. Whenever those thoughts cross your mind, you’re practically unable to look him in the eye and speak without stammering. He makes you dizzier than the spins you practice.

It’s on the fifth day that you realize how deep your infatuation with Sunghoon truly is. The routine isn’t exceptionally long, so after five days of practicing, you have all the steps down, except for the lifts which he keeps putting off for later. He watches you do it on your own, and although he admits you know it in and out, he said there’s still something missing. The pang of disappointment you feel at his words soon turns into anticipation as he comes to stand in front of you, closer than usual, and brings your hand to his chest, keeping both of his own over yours.

“Feel this?” he says, voice almost a whisper. By now, you’ve gotten used to the intensity with which he always stares at you, but this time seems different; there’s something more vulnerable, more intimate about his gaze, something you don’t quite understand. You just stare right back at him, unable to look away.

You aren’t sure what he means so you lightly shake your head no. “Here,” he insists, pressing your hand more firmly to his chest, and it clicks. He wants you to feel his heartbeat. Your eyebrows jump slightly, and his lips form a small smile at your realization. “Close your eyes.” he says softly, and you do as told.

“The steps aren’t enough, Baby. You have to feel the music. It’s within you, it’s within me, it’s within all of us. You just gotta find it.” This was something you’d heard a lot of times before, said by singers on the radio, by some of your friends in the high school choir - that they felt the music. But you’d never quite understood what they meant until now, until Sunghoon showed you. With two fingers, he starts tapping against the back of your hand to the rhythmic beat of his heart.

“Du-dum, du-dum. Feel it now?” he asks, and you nod, too transfixed to produce actual words. His smile widens, and your heart swells because of his expression, more affectionate than you’ve ever seen it.

“Now dance.”

Your body moves as if of its own accord, the moves now ingrained in your muscles and coming as a reflex to you. Together, you go through the whole routine with no music. You hadn’t needed to check yourself in the mirror to know you did perfectly - the smile on Sunghoon’s face tells you enough.

When the evening rolls around, there’s a lightness to your demeanor that both confuses and delights your parents, but even if they asked you to explain what happened, you don’t think you’d be able to find the words to do so.

Sure, Sunghoon doesn’t look at you like he hates you with every fiber of his being anymore, and he even dares crack a smile or laugh once in a while, but it’s not like you’re the best of friends either. There are still moments when he gets frustrated with you - one of those being the time you practice the opening of the routine. He hadn’t yet taught you that part, but as soon as he showed it to you, you understood why.

You stand back to him, heads turned towards each other. Your heights match perfectly so that, when standing so close together, his lips are right in your eyeline. His beautiful, plump, kissable lips that you find yourself thinking about too many times.

Your left arm stays by your side but your right arm is raised so that he can trail his fingertips all the way from your hand down to your waist - a sensual move that, despite setting the tone for the routine, you are not at all ready to perform. Not because it requires any kind of complex technique or years of practice, far from that, but because you don’t yet have the professionalism that Sunghoon, Chaewon and other performers like them have. Nevermind his fingers brushing past your armpit, which is obviously a ticklish place, you can’t handle the seriousness that comes with such intimacy, nor can you resist the urge to laugh every time. This, of course, does not please Sunghoon.

The first couple times it happens, he just rolls his eyes and sighs, thinking you just need to get your head in the dance and then you’d be fine. So he gets back into position, again, again, and again, and even though your full-blown laughters turn into quieter snorts or chuckles, you still can’t find it in you to keep a straight face.

After the sixth time, his patience runs out. You can tell he wants to blow up at you by the redness of his face and the iciness of his stare, but when he speaks, he doesn’t raise his voice - his tone is so harsh that there’s no need for it.

“You pull yourself together, or we’re done here.”

Whether he means you’re done for the day, or completely done with the practice, meaning all your efforts this week go to waste and you don’t perform on Saturday, you aren’t sure, but you don’t think this is the right time to question him. You get back into position, and finally, on the seventh try, you don’t laugh. After so many times, his touch doesn’t tickle so much - rather, it burns. Now, instead of resisting laughter, you have to keep yourself from completely melting under his touch.

But then, you realize that this is what you’ve been daydreaming about this whole time - to have him close, to have him touch you. Even though this was still part of the routine, the point of this move was to show the chemistry between the two dancers, the attraction they needed to, or at least pretend to, have for each other to take the performance from good to mesmerizing. Good thing you didn’t need to pretend.

Of course, Sunghoon has touched your waist and shoulders thousands of times by now, but after so many days together, you start to crave a different kind of touch, and in different places. You never let yourself relish too much in the warmth of his palms for fear of getting too used to it, and, worse than anything, missing it when he’s gone - as if that wasn’t already the case. But with this opening move, you can finally let yourself melt under his touch and play it off as being really into the dance. If anything, he’d probably be glad you’re letting your reserves go.

And so you do. Eyes closed, head tilted towards him and slightly back, revealing more of your neck, you feel his fingertips brush along your side until they reach your hand, and you start dancing. For the two minutes of the routine, you aren’t even thinking of the steps anymore, only looking into his eyes and letting your muscle memory do the work for you.

At the end, you stay in the final pose for a few seconds longer than usual, looking into each other’s eyes. Sunghoon isn’t the most expressive person ever, so you’d quickly learned how to decipher the slightest changes in his face. In this moment, he looks at you like he sees you for the first time, really sees you, with something like pride in his eyes. You smile at each other, and his next words make your heart skip a beat in surprise at first, then swell in satisfaction.

“I think that was the best you’ve danced so far. If you do it like this on Saturday night, it’ll be perfect.”

However, there’s one last thing you needed to learn: lifts. Sunghoon has been putting them off almost the whole week, saying you’d get to them later, that you needed to get the other steps down before. There are two in the routine, and whenever one comes up, Sunghoon says “that’s for later,” and keeps going with the dance. Except later never comes, and soon enough, you only have a day left to learn and perfect those lifts. The stress of not mastering them on time starts to get to your head, and your stress must be contagious, because Sunghoon explodes for the first (and only) time on Friday afternoon when you make a mistake in the basic steps.

“Are you kidding me?” he suddenly yells, taking a wide step back away from you and looking at you with uncharacteristic anger. Sure, he wasn’t always the most pleasant with you, and you were no stranger to Sunghoon’s expressions of or dislike, but you hadn’t seen anger on him until now. No matter how beautiful he is, you have to admit this isn’t his best look.

“What?” you respond, voice at the same level as his, not understanding his sudden burst of impatience.

“What?! This is a basic step you shouldn’t even be thinking about anymore, let alone not get right. The performance is tomorrow, you can’t be making stupid mistakes now!” He sighs in frustration and tears his gaze away from you for a moment, then looks back, his eyes hard. “Is this your idea of fun?”

You scoff and cross your arms over your chest. “My idea of fun? You really think I’m doing this for fun?” He doesn’t say anything, just keeps on staring at you. “I’ve been breaking my back and sneaking around for almost a whole week just to save your ass, I don’t get anything out of it, and you have the nerve to ask me if I’m doing this for fun?” You can see he wants to say something, but you don’t let him. “Oh, and I’m glad you seem to remember the performance is tomorrow, because I’ll have you know you still haven’t taught me those damn lifts! How can you get mad at me for a small mistake when you won’t even teach me the whole routine?!”

You’re out of breath after screaming so loud and so quickly, but still Sunghoon doesn’t move for a few seconds, until suddenly, he pivots and walks towards the door. At the threshold, he turns to you and tells you to follow him, as if that should have been obvious. He doesn’t give you any time for questions so you run after him. Outside, a heavy summer rain is coming down, and your clothes are soaked through after just ten seconds. You walk a few steps behind him as he heads to his car, muttering a curse under his breath when he realizes he’s forgotten his keys inside the locked vehicle. You let out a small shriek when he breaks one of the backseat windows to open the door from inside, reaching for his keys still resting in the ignition. You just stand there, watching him in confusion, until he calls to you from the driver’s seat. “C’mon! There’s a place I need to show you.”

You know it’s a bad idea - you’ve already been gone for over an hour, and if you leave with him for God knows how much longer, your parents would start to wonder where you are. But there’s something about his face, his anger that had completely disappeared and let way for what seemed like excitement, the rain pouring down and the loud sound of his car’s motor; it all creates a rush of adrenaline in you, and you want to know what he has in store. So you get in the car, and as soon as you’re buckled in, Sunghoon backs out of the parking lot and starts driving, the destination completely unknown to you, but you trust him enough to not be bothered by that.

The two of you drive for around ten minutes in comfortable silence, sometimes catching the other’s eye in the rearview mirror and bursting into giggles. You don’t know why, but when you open your window and let your arm out, letting out a big whoop, he laughs like it’s the most amazing thing he’s ever seen.

In the week you spend together with Sunghoon, these are the moments you love the most. When he’s seemingly let go of his barriers and lets you see a side of him that you don’t think many people get access to, a side to which laughter comes easy. Although it gives you whiplash when he so suddenly goes back to his serious and stonelike nature, you’d rather get glimpses of his carefree self than forever be stuck with the face he usually puts on with you. You aren’t sure if he is always one or the other with other people, or if he keeps his tendency to almost switch personalities with everyone, but you’re just glad it doesn’t feel like he’d always prefer to be somewhere else than with you anymore - and that it almost feels like he enjoys, or at the very least tolerates spending time in your company now.

He parks in what seems to be the middle of nowhere, on a small patch of gravel between the road and a forest, right before a bridge that crosses over a current. He gets out and starts towards what looks like a forest, telling you good-humoredly to hurry up and follow him. The rain has calmed down to a drizzle, gentle as it falls on your shoulders and a refreshing break from the sweltering heat of the past few days. Faster than you expected, you’ve reached your destination, which is a point where the current is calm and a wide trunk tree crosses it. You have no idea how Sunghoon ever found this place, but you’ve never seen him wear such an ecstatic expression, so you don’t even question it.

He takes his shoes off and gets on the tree trunk, spreading his arms wide to keep himself from falling. You sit down, one leg on each side of the trunk, and watch amusedly as he titters and regains his balance, sending sheepish smiles your way when he gets close to plummeting into the water.

“Where’d you learn to dance?” you ask suddenly, the question forming in your head and leaving your lips simultaneously.

He considers you for a second, then plops himself down on the trunk, letting his legs sway over the emptiness. He looks out to the current when he speaks, as if talking to the air around him rather than directly to you. “I lived and went to school in a low-income neighborhood, so there were always these people coming and going, trying to get kids like us to start working and get out of the neighborhood, or make it better or something. One day these people came in, saying they were giving out lessons to become a dance instructor, and it was the only one that ever caught my interest. I did it, aced the test, and they gave me a spot here that I managed to keep every summer. Haven’t wanted to do anything else since.” He looks back at you and you catch a glimpse of cautiousness, perhaps a fear of finding judgment in your eyes, but his expression turns friendly again when he finds only curiosity and sympathy there.

“What about the rest of the year? Do you also have a teaching job back home?” you ask, daring to go further in your interrogation of Sunghoon’s personal life. Just a few days ago, you’d never have dreamed of asking him something like this, but there’s something about him today that makes you think it’s okay to get closer, if you tread lightly.

He snickers humorlessly and looks down at his hands, palms resting on the trunk in front of him. “I’m lucky I get to escape that place just three months a year when I’m working here. Otherwise, I’m stuck with the old man and his carpenting business I’m fated to inherit when he retires.” Before you can say anything in response, he jumps back up on his feet and holds a hand out to you, making a motion for you to come to him. You’re slightly taken aback at the sudden switch in his demeanor, but you know better than to force anything with Sunghoon. “We didn’t come here to chit-chat, did we? Come over here.”

Devilish - there’s no other word to describe his expression at that moment.

“Nuh-uh, I’m not getting on there, I’m gonna fall and break an ankle,” you immediately protest, but he doesn’t need to say anything, just approaches you with a mischievous smile and reaches his hands out to you - and you take them, letting him bring you to your feet.

You climb up tentatively, glad to see the trunk isn’t slippery even after the rain, and hold on tight to Sunghoon’s hands until you’ve managed to find your own balance. “Okay, what now?” you say breathily, half-paralyzed in terror and half-pumped with adrenaline.

“Let’s dance,” he says, a playful smile teasing his lips.

“What, here?” you reply, looking at him like he suggested you rob a bank.

“Yes, here.” He grabs your hand tighter and brings you closer to him, securing an arm around your waist before you can stumble off of the trunk. It’s definitely your near-death experience and not his proximity that makes your heart beat faster, definitely.

He quietly hums the song, but you’ve heard it so many times at this point that you could do the dance with no music at all. More than dancing the same steps, there’s something electrifying about knowing that the same song is playing in your and Sunghoon’s heads right now. You wonder if he feels it playing in his heart too.

What you’re doing isn’t quite dancing - you’re just taking small, careful, clumsy steps together, giggling as you try to stay atop the trunk and letting out a yelp when he attempts to spin you but it only results in you two almost falling off. He holds you close as if making sure that if one of you goes down, the other goes down with them. Your face is right in front of his chest, and when you risk a look up at him, he’s already gazing down at you, his playfulness making the light in his eyes shine even brighter.

Your breath hitches in your throat when his eyes drift down to your lips, moving as you talk, but you still manage to get the words out, whispering them in the small space between the two of you. “You’re supposed to teach me lifts, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Let’s go,” he whispers back, but makes no move to leave the trunk or distance himself from you.

“Okay,” you breathe. You repeat the word and take a step back, somehow gathering the will to tear yourself away from him, from his eyes fixated on your parted lips. “Let’s go.”

He leads you back through the woods to a wide clearing. After the downpour of the early afternoon, the sun is starting to shine again, rays of light making their way through the grayish clouds and high pines, and bathing your surroundings in a comforting glow. Sunghoon stands facing the sun, and the sunlight hits his face so perfectly, you have to keep yourself from snorting at how ridiculously handsome he is.

The only instructions he gives you are as follows: “You’ve seen lifts before. You know you just run to me to gather momentum, then when you’re close enough, bend your knees and keep your core and whole body tight as I lift you. But the most important thing is that you trust me, alright? If you don’t, we could both get hurt.”

The first few times, you just practice the running and the picking up, not wanting to venture into the actual overhead lift right away. It’s easy enough - just find the right distance, the right speed, and remember not to let your body go limp in Sunghoon’s hands.

But when you’ve gotten the hang of it, and Sunghoon tells you to try the complete lift, you freeze. You just stop right in front of him, looking at him with wide eyes. “This is too scary, I can’t do it.”

To your surprise, instead of letting out an annoyed sigh or rolling his eyes, Sunghoon smiles. His eyes go soft and the corners of his lips tug up.

“What’s scary?”

“Falling. Getting hurt, hurting you,” you say, looking into his eyes with the hope that he’ll make all your anxieties go away.

“Don’t think about those things. Don’t think about anything, just trust me. Let yourself be picked up first, and then we’ll worry about your form and how to keep it, okay?”

“O-okay.” You walk a few steps back to regain some distance, and he nods reassuringly as you take a deep breath in, and a deep breath out. You run to him, and as if his words had gone straight from his mouth to your limbs, you let him lift you - and the world looks so different from this high up.

You marvel at the feeling of floating in the air, but you quickly start to feel yourself slipping forward, and Sunghoon is yelling “Hold it, hold it!” and before you know it, you’ve dipped forward and fallen right on top of him. Thankfully, it was a slow fall, and he had time to soften the blow, so that the immediate reaction from the both of you is to burst into laughter.

You roll over so that you’re laying on your back next to him and rest your palms on your stomach, feeling it shake with laughter. Once you’ve calmed down, you turn your head towards him and he imitates you a second later. You probably look like idiots, out-of-breath and smiling widely at each other in this field, but there isn’t a thing you would change about this moment.

“Do you know what the best place to practice lifts is?” he asks, and you watch how his dimples disappear and reappear as he talks. You shake your head. His dimples deepen. “The water.”

You change locations again, heading back towards the current and finding the lake it stems from. You and Sunghoon turn your backs to each other as he takes his t-shirt off and you, your denim shorts, not wanting them to weigh you down in the water. When you turn back around, you have to force yourself to detach your eyes from his perfectly defined abs and shoulders thanks to years of dancing and physical exertion almost every day. You stare out at the lake like it’s the first time you’ve ever seen so much water, otherwise you’d be gawking at him like it’s the first time you’ve ever seen a man. Your cheeks burn up when you feel his eyes on your legs, taking your half-naked figure in, and he chuckles as you rush to hide yourself in the water.

Once in the water, you practice the actual lift, which consists of Sunghoon hoisting you high above his head and you keeping a straight posture, with your arms perpendicular to your body and your chest slightly lifted as if you were truly soaring through the air. It already looks difficult, and yet it’s even harder than it looks. It does help being in the water because at least you’re not scared for your life when you lose your balance and dive forward, but you let out a yelp nonetheless each time it happens. Sunghoon keeps on telling you to hold your posture, but each attempt ends in you falling into the water and bringing him down with you.

You drift apart and swim back towards each other every time, your arms wrapping around his neck and his hands coming to your hips to get back into position for the lift. You’re having a lot of fun, too much fun, probably, when the performance is just a day away - but getting to see Sunghoon’s smile and hear his laugh as you play around and try your best at the lift makes it worth it. When the strap of your tank top slips over your shoulder, you notice out of the corner of your eye Sunghoon’s hand reaching for it just as you put it back yourself. He plays it off by raking a hand through his wet hair, getting it out of his eyes, and smiles shyly at you when your gazes lock. You have no idea what’s going to happen after the performance, if you’ll stay friends or if he’ll pretend like this never even happened - all you know is that you’d be happy doing this all summer.

“One last time?”

And just like that, it’s late Saturday afternoon and the performance is just an hour away. You barely eat or speak during dinner, partly out of nervousness, but mostly because you want your lie of having a headache and needing to rest in your room more believable. Chaewon had said she’d help you put your dress on and get ready before the show, so when you’ve escaped the dinner table, you rush to her cabin.

But just as you exit the building, an old woman you recognize as Mrs Jung walks in. She must be surprised at your sudden appearance because she slightly bumps into the door and drops her bag. An unusual amount of wallets fall from it, but you don’t think too much of it - you’ve seen rich people do weirder things.

You bend down to help her gather her things, and she chuckles lightly, thanking you. “Such a sweet girl, isn’t she, Harold?” she says to her husband who had appeared behind the door as well. You wish them a nice evening and part ways, gushing to yourself over how cute old couples are as you head to the Chaewon’s cabin.

She does your hair, pulling it into a tight bun and securing every stray strand with a bobby pin. You have no experience with makeup since it’s always been off-limits in your house, so she expertly applies eyeshadow, mascara and lipstick to your face. The sticky feel of it is unfamiliar but once you look in the mirror, you almost can’t look away. It’s still you, of course it is, but the bright colors make you look glamorous, like performing in front of a large crowd is just routine for you. You thank Chaewon, a huge smile on her face, and watch her own light up in relief that you like the makeup.

As she zips your dress up, a flowy baby pink dress she got out of her closet just for you, you repeat back all the instructions Sunghoon has given you over the week to make sure you remember everything. “I just gotta keep my head up, keep my core and my arms straight, follow the mu-”

“Thank you, Baby,” Chaewon quietly interrupts, and the slight tremble in her voice and the vulnerability with which she looks at you lets you know she really means it. You stop your declamation immediately and smile at her, kindness in your eyes.

She looks down and tries to find her words. “You know, I- I just want you to know that I, I don’t sleep around, and Heeseung, I really thought he loved me, and-”

You can see the tears already forming in her eyes so you bring her into a tight hug, resting your cheek against the side of her head. “I know, Chaewon, don’t worry. And even if you did sleep around, it wouldn’t matter, Heeseung should take responsibility no matter what. We’re all here to help you. Don’t worry.” You lean back to hold her face in your hands and try to give as reassuring a smile as you can.

“I’m scared, Baby,” she whispers, trying to calm her sobs to get the words out.

“Everything’s gonna be fine, Chaewon,” you say, and you hope she believes it as much as you do. “Everything’s gonna be just fine. You’ve got Sunghoon, and Jake, and you’ve got me too.”

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath in. When she opens them again, she grabs your hands and shakes them between the two of you, mirroring your smile. “Okay, okay,” she murmurs. “Sorry, this isn’t the best time for me to break down. You feeling ready?” she asks, and even if it’s just for now, you’re glad she’s feeling better and got to let her emotions out.

“Not at all, I’m so nervous. I don’t want to mess something up and let you or Sunghoon down,” you admit, your smile wavering for a second.

“Whatever happens, you won’t let us down,” she says, squeezing your hands. “It’s amazing, what you’re doing.”

You can’t help but look away at her words. “It’s the least I can do,” you mumble.

“No, Baby, you’re doing more than most people would. And Sunghoon, he might have his own way of showing it, but he’s extremely grateful for you,” she says, and it puts a smile on your face.

“By his own way of showing it, do you mean not showing it at all?” you joke.

“That’s Sunghoon for you.” You giggle quietly together, but her eyes drift to the clock on the wall behind you and she lets out a sigh. “It’s time, Baby. And don’t worry, I know you’ll do amazing,” she says, bringing you into a brief hug.

You’re so nervous, everything that follows is a blur - leaving Chaewon’s cabin and sneaking over to Sunghoon’s car, the drive to the Sheldrake Hotel, the staff there leading you backstage, and finding your spot on the stage. You only snap out of it when the curtains lift and a voice booms from the speakers in the room, announcing “Sunghoon Park and partner dancing the mambo” as the audience breaks into polite claps.

The music starts, and Sunghoon can immediately feel the tension in your body. He trails his fingers all the way down your arm to your waist, just like you’d practiced a ton of times before, and he uses the proximity between the two of you to whisper “Relax” into your ear. “Just follow my lead, you’ve got this,” he says, loud enough for only you to hear, and extends his arm to send you spinning.

You manage the first few steps, trying to let go of your anxiety, but it’s got a tight grip on your body and makes your stomach twist. You think it’s all over when you mess up a turn, going right instead of left, but Sunghoon’s quick to whisper “over here” and you find your way again. “Look at me,” Sunghoon says once you’re facing each other again, and you lock eyes with him. And for some reason, that works - focusing only on him makes you feel like it’s just the two of you in the room, just like so many times this past week, and it dissipates all your nerves, makes your muscle memory kick in. You finally let him lead you and follow the music, thinking of nothing but Sunghoon and dancing together.

And yet, when it’s time for the lift, you freeze again. You find your position and run to Sunghoon, just like you know you’re supposed to, but you can’t let him lift you, your limbs turning into lead in his hold. Thinking quickly, you come up with another step on the spot, hoping it isn’t too obvious to the audience you just messed up. Sunghoon takes the lead again, and the rest of the performance goes smoothly, the other moves and the smaller, easier lift realized perfectly by the both of you.

You finish off the number, and the sound of the applause directed at the two of you fills you with a pride you’d never felt before, a feeling much more satisfying than any good grade or won argument ever had. Another sort of daze fills your mind now, and it makes you feel like there’s a small cloud under your feet so that you’re floating instead of walking everywhere. It almost makes you miss the Jungs, but when you see the old couple slowly walking out of the room, you’re scared you might be done for.

You rush back to the parking lot with Sunghoon, whooping in excitement as soon as you're out of anyone’s earshot. In the backseat, you change out of your dress and back into your regular clothes.

“God, that was- that was amazing, I can’t believe you get to live this every week during the summer, it was just- my God…” you say, struggling to get your right hand through the sleeve of your blouse.

“Yeah? Did you have fun?” Sunghoon answers, a smile on his face that turns into a gulp when he sees your half-naked body in the rearview mirror. He can’t help but risk a few more glances, hoping you don’t notice.

“I did, I really did, but I- I messed up that one turn, and I didn’t do the lift-”

“That doesn’t matter,” Sunghoon says firmly. “You did real good, Baby.” And after a beat, he adds: “Thank you. You did real good.” Your eyes lock in the mirror but you look away before he can catch sight of your reddening cheeks.

“And oh my God, there was that couple, the, the-”

“The Jungs, right? Yeah, I saw them too,” Sunghoon chuckles. “I got so scared.”

“Right? Me too! They won’t say anything, will they, do you think?”

“Probably not. I don’t think they even recognized either of us.”

You button your jeans and climb your way over to the passenger seat next to Sunghoon, grateful for the lack of headrests in his car. It suddenly grows quiet between the two of you. You want to ask whether you’ll keep meeting now that you’ve done your part, but you’re afraid Sunghoon might want to have nothing to do with you from now on even if it doesn’t seem like he dislikes you anymore. So you stay silent, watching out of the window, sometimes turning your head towards Sunghoon and catching his eye, then smiling at each other shyly.

Something in you is screaming at you to reach out to him, brush a hand over his hair, interlace your fingers with his - any kind of touch. You thought the ball of nerves in your stomach would disappear after the show, but it’s still there, and it’s taken hold of your entire body now, the anticipation of whatever is to come almost unbearable. You notice Sunghoon’s gaze ping-ponging between you and the road, and the tightness with which he holds the steering wheel, and you dare let yourself hope, just a little bit, that he shares those same wild thoughts jumping around your mind.

When you reach the parking lot next to the staff quarters, Sunghoon is quick to get out of the car, while you rub at your eyes and lips, trying to get as much makeup off as you can. Your parents would most likely be in bed by now, but just in case they were still up, you didn’t want them to catch you with bright red lips and blue eyelids. Sunghoon walks around to your side and opens your door for you, even grabbing your hand to help you out of the car. Once you’re out, he takes your other hand in his, facing you as he walks slowly backwards, and with the way he’s gazing down at you, you think those unspoken thoughts might finally come into the light. But before either of you can say anything, you hear quick footsteps rushing towards you, and a familiar voice calling out to Sunghoon.

He swings around to find a panting, alarmed-looking Jake. “Sunghoon, it’s- it’s Chaewon, something went wrong, she’s not feeling well-”

Neither of you need to hear more before you’re running to the cabin, reaching it in record time. There’s way more people than there should be in and outside Chaewon’s room, all watching and doing absolutely nothing except for another girl you recognise as part of the dancing crew holding a wet cloth to her head as Chaewon, her face covered in sweat and her eyes shut tight in pain, moans and mumbles incoherently, slightly delirious from fever. The girl at her bed steps aside when she sees Sunghoon approaching, and he kneels next to Chaewon, holding her hand in both of his and reassuring her as best she can.

“It’s that doctor,” Jake starts, “he was so shady, had a folding table and a dirty knife, and I- I heard screams coming from that room, Hoon, awful screams, and I tried getting in and getting Chaewon out but they wouldn’t let me-”

What’s obvious to you right now is that Chaewon is in desperate need of an actual doctor, and nobody here can provide that for her, so you rush out of the room, and, as fast as your legs can carry you, run to your father and wake him up in a hurry, grabbing his doctor’s bag. You’re glad for your father’s blind trust in you - other than an instinctive “Is Seeun alright?”, which you nod your head at, he doesn’t ask any questions, just sees you need his help. He listens to your unclear and frantic explanations of what’s going on as he follows you to the staff cabin.

“Alright, out of the way, everyone, give the girl some space,” your father says as he enters Chaewon’s room, the way he carries himself and speaks instantly commanding obedience from the group. People filter out as he takes Sunghoon’s spot next to Chaewon, checking her pulse and temperature. “Who’s responsible for this lady?” he asks without looking away from his patient.

“I am,” Sunghoon says, taking a step towards him. “Is she gonna be okay?” He seems so distressed you want to take him into your arms and tell him it’ll be okay, but you can’t do that - not here, not in front of your dad.

Your father turns his head to take a look at Sunghoon, his expression unreadable, then turns back to Chaewon, leaving Sunghoon’s question unanswered, floating in the air ominously.

He makes you all leave the room, and you wait for what feels like hours until your father finally comes out, his briefcase in hand, and announces that Chaewon just needs some rest and then she’d be okay. He lets Jake thank him and shake his hand agitatedly, but once again just stares Sunghoon down and ignores him when he tries to do the same. He takes you by the shoulder, making you walk away with him without saying goodbye to anyone. He’s silent for a few moments, waiting to have gone down a few steps before he speaks, and when he does, his voice is tense and almost trembles with anger.

“Is this what my money paid for? I’m disappointed in you, Baby. You’re not who I thought you were.” He doesn’t even let you defend yourself, just keeps walking without looking at you. “I don’t want you to hang around those people anymore, do you understand?”

“But dad-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” he says firmly, and the slight increase of volume catches you off guard. Not once has your dad raised his voice at you, or at least not since you were a child - that’s how you understand how truly upset he is at you. He finally turns around to look at you, his eyebrows furrowed. “And get that stuff off of your face before your mother sees it.”

The rest of the walk back to your bungalow is done in unbearable, utter silence, and you can’t wait to be away from your father and the anger pouring off of him in waves. But that silence doesn’t seem to go away, even when you finally reach your bed, even when your sister starts snoring quietly, completely oblivious to the events of the night. The silence grows so loud in your ears that it creates a fuzz all around your brain, making your head throb and blurring your thoughts, rendering them incomprehensible. The sheer weight of it forces your eyelids closed even though you don’t feel tired at all - there’s too much going on in your mind for you to fall asleep.

There’s the relief of your father having helped Chaewon, and the knowledge that she’ll be okay thanks to him; but there’s also the image of his disappointed expression etched into your brain and the words “You’re not who I thought you were” playing on a hellish loop. There’s the worry he won’t ever see you the way he used to, that you won’t be his little girl anymore, but there’s also the satisfaction of that exact thing, the liberation that comes with your father finally realizing you’re not perfect and make mistakes too.

And then there’s Sunghoon.

There’s Sunghoon, and his concern for Chaewon’s safety, his love for his friend that he’s known for years, the hurt on his face when your dad didn’t shake his hand, and the way he quickly retracted his own thereafter, a defeated expression like he was used to such disrespect. But before that, there’s his dimpled smile and sharp canines you find weirdly endearing, the carefree sound of his laughter after you fall on top of him in the water, his warm hands guiding you from step to step, the quick glimpses he throws your way when he thinks you’re not looking but hopes that you are. Even before that, there were the ice-covered walls he put around himself and his friends that could melt as quickly as they could freeze back up, until finally one day he opened the door for you to come in. There was the elegance in his moves and the feeling like all the air in the room had evaporated when you watched him dance, only for it to fill you back up when he took you by the hand and showed you how to let yourself go for the first time.

The fog in your mind clears at the thought of him, like sunlight forcing its way through gray clouds after a thunderstorm. You need to see him.

You need to check on him, to make sure he’s feeling alright, and laugh with him if he is or cry if he isn’t. You need to hold his head between your palms and graze a hand through his hair and do and say all the things you’ve been wanting to this week.

You climb out of your bed and grab the first cardigan you see, then slip your shoes on and make your way to the front door. You try to be as quiet as possible, but once outside, you hang back just for a few moments in case anyone has heard you leaving, so that if they come to check, you can just say you’re getting some fresh air on the front porch. No one seems to stir so you rush to Sunghoon’s cabin. It’s past midnight and the only light guiding you is that of the stars and the bright moon up above.

When Sunghoon opens his door, he seems at once relieved and surprised to find you there. “Baby,” he simply says, gazing down at you. He looks so tired, you think. The performance at the Sheldrake was just a few hours ago, but it already feels so far away.

“Hey. Can I- can I come in?” you ask, slightly out-of-breath from your walking so fast.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he says, turning his body to let you in his cabin. Since your first time here, that night you’d found Chaewon crying in the kitchen, you’d learned more about this place. Thanks to his seniority here, Sunghoon has a separate studio-like cabin further down the path where all the staff bungalows are, and it’s bigger than most of them, even though it’s still just one room that accommodates his bed, a closet, a desk, a sink and some other chairs, shelves and drawers.

A soft song is playing in the background and the main light is off, the small lamps here and there providing enough light for you to see. You hadn’t at all thought to look around when you were here last, so you’re curious to really see what Sunghoon’s living space is like.

You walk further into the room, taking in your surroundings and reveling in all the traces of Sunghoon’s life - discarded clothes here and there, a stack of record players from the early fifties to now, posters of movie stars and famous singers, some photos of him with Jake, Chaewon and other members of the entertainment team. He looks around like he’s seeing the room for the first time too, maybe trying to see it through your eyes and imagining what you could be thinking of it. He picks up clothes from the floor and from an armchair only to throw them in his closet, gesturing for you to sit down, and rubs the back of his neck in what seems like an embarrassed gesture.

“It’s not much… you’re probably used to a lot better…” he says with an apologetic tone.

“No, no, it’s great,” you say quickly, not wanting him to feel embarrassed. You look at him with a smile. “I love it here.”

He mirrors your smile, letting out a shaky breath of relief, then sits down at the edge of his bed, too far away for your liking. The tense atmosphere from earlier in the car is back, filling the room with the silence of a thousand unspoken words. A beat passes before you speak up. “I’m sorry about the way my father treated you, Sunghoon. It wasn’t nice.”

Sunghoon looks genuinely shocked upon hearing your words and starts to shake his head fervently. “No, no, your father was great, the- the way he took care of Chaewon, I could never do anything like that in my life, he was amazing.”

“Yes, but I’m talking about you, Sunghoon, not Chaewon. He completely ignored you, he should have treated you with more respect.” His eyes find yours, and the look on his face like he wants to believe you but can’t quite bring himself to makes your heart ache.

He chuckles and lets his head hang low, looking down at his hands. “Why should he? I’m- I’m nothing,” he says quietly, so quietly that you think you might have misheard, because never in a hundred years would you have thought that someone like Sunghoon could think so lowly of himself.

Your surprise makes it hard to gather your words and say something coherent, but you try your best. “What- Sunghoon, how could you say that? You’re not nothing, you’re- you’re everything,” you say, the last word coming out breathy.

He looks at you like he’s never heard those words before, never had somebody tell him he was so much more than he thought he was - but maybe that’s because he’d never told anyone how he really felt. A pained expression flashes across his face, and you’re scared you might’ve said the wrong thing but his next words reassure you that that’s not it.

“You don’t understand… One month, I’m living off of scraps and struggling to make ends meet, and the next, rich ladies are stuffing hundred dollar bills in my pockets and giving me the key to their room. Everywhere I am, people just use me to get what they need. My dad basically forces me to work with him and doesn’t give a crap what I really want, the women here use me to escape the boredom of their lives, and Max and his asshole grandson Jay just want me to make as much money as I can so they can get even richer.” His voice gets louder the more he talks, the anger getting to him. He chuckles darkly, but his expression softens when he catches your gaze. “I have to live like this. If I start thinking I deserve more, that I- that I’m everything, like you say, I’ll never be satisfied. I’ll always want more. I can’t handle that.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. It shouldn’t be that way,” you say quietly, shaking your head and looking at him sadly. You don’t know how to make him see that for the joy he brings everyone who gets to see him dance, for the care and safety he gives the people he loves, and the way he’s made you feel like you can finally escape the thoughts in your head, he deserves everything he wants in the world. You don’t know how to make him see his worth and the respect he deserves as much as anyone else.

He smiles at you wistfully, like he can see his own, long-gone, naive hopefulness on your face. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Baby. You look at the world and you think you can make it better.”

It’s your turn to chuckle humorlessly. “Yeah, I run to my daddy, like you said.”

“No,” he says firmly, his tone catching you off guard. “No, that took a lot of guts, doing what you did. I love that about you, you just go ahead and do things. You didn’t even know Chaewon, and yet you learned a whole professional routine in a week just because you wanted to and you could. And now you risked your relationship with your father just to help her out once again. You- you’re not scared of anything!”

“Me? I’m scared of everything!” you cry out, suddenly standing up, the emotions boiling in your stomach making you unable to sit any longer. “I’m scared of the disappointment in my parents’ eyes, of failing school, of being stuck in a life I can’t escape from…” Your gaze travels around the room before it settles on Sunghoon once again, your gazes locking each other in so tightly you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to look away. “But most of all,” you continue, voice shaky and desperate, “I’m scared of leaving this place and never, ever feeling again the way I do when I’m with you.”

His jaw tightens and he has to force himself to look away from you, his eyes focusing on a random object in the corner of the room. With the way he huffs air through his nose and tenses his whole body, he almost looks angry, but you know that’s not it - finally, after a week of torturous hesitation and not-knowing, you understand how Sunghoon feels about you. He feels just like you. All those lingering gazes, those small shocks of electricity whenever you touched, those loud heartbeats at his constant proximity, he felt them too, and it drove him crazy too; you’re sure of it.

Or at least, almost sure of it. And there’s only one way to confirm your suspicions.

Sunghoon thinks you’re not scared of anything, so you’re going to prove it to yourself. You take a step towards him, then another one, and another one, until you’re standing right in front of him. You extend a hand out to him and he doesn’t question it, just takes it and rises, now towering over you as you had over him just a second ago. You’re as close as you usually are when you dance together - or perhaps a bit closer than that.

“Dance with me,” you whisper into the space between your bodies.

“What, here?” he whispers back, finally looking at you. His gaze lingers in your eyes before dropping to your lips, his pupils slowly dilating - there’s your confirmation.

“Yes, here,” you reply, echoing your conversation on the tree trunk, which somehow was only yesterday.

You wrap your arms around his neck just as his hands come up to hold you by the waist. It’s a position you’ve found yourselves in a hundred times by now, but tonight, it feels so different. The air around you is charged with electricity and all of your moves are purposeful, trying to make the other feel all that you’re feeling with just a touch.

Tight in each other’s arms, you sway to the slow rhythm of the music, your head resting in the crook of his neck while his hands travel from your waist, to your shoulder blades, back down to your hips. Even with two layers of clothing between your bodies, the feeling of having him so close sends shivers down your spine, even though your skin burns everywhere it comes into contact with him. Your breath makes goosebumps appear on the side of his neck, and when his grip on your hips tightens, you take it as a green light to start pressing faint kisses to his skin. He bunches the fabric of your blouse in his hands, slowly pulling it from the confines of your jeans and over your head, making you raise your arms. He makes a ball out of your top and throws it somewhere across his room, his attention fully taken by the sight of your now half-naked body. He immediately discards his own t-shirt, putting his hands back on you as quickly as he can, as if scared you might suddenly disappear.

You go on dancing together, bodies moving in harmony, as if you’re one being rather than two. You let your hands travel over his shoulders and chest and rest them on his stomach as you lean your upper body backwards, trusting him to hold you while you circle your way back to him. When you do, his hands roam down to grab your ass and hike one of your legs around his hips, the friction of your pelvises rubbing together eliciting a heavy, relieved sigh from both of you.

Finally, your lips find each other, and you kiss like you’re each other’s sources of oxygen. Of course, Sunghoon is one of, if not the best, kissers you’ve ever had the honor of sharing a kiss with, because how could he be anything other than perfect? The way he kisses is intense and a little bit messy, and it ignites your whole body, making you crave only more and more until you’ve had everything you want. Your hands and his are restless, endlessly drifting over each other’s bodies, grabbing at shoulders or hips or strands of hair.

He walks backwards to his bed, never once breaking the passionate embrace, until the back of his legs hit the mattress. He sits, spreading his legs wide enough for you to stand between them. His face is right at the level of your chest, and the way he looks up at you as he presses hot, open-mouthed kisses there makes your insides burst and the fire in your core burn harder. Keeping eye contact with him is too much to handle, so you close your eyes and let your head back slightly, grazing your hands through the soft locks of his hair and simply enjoying the feeling of his mouth on you. His warm hands roam your lower back before traveling north to the clasp of your bra. He undoes it but doesn’t take it off - instead, he calls your name, and it’s never sounded better than on his lips.

“Baby?”

“Hm?” You look back down at him and find in his eyes a sort of lustful, dreamlike daze that you’re sure must reflect your own perfectly.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks breathily, wanting to be certain this is okay for you, but sounding like it’d be the death of him if you said no.

You smile softly and take his head in your hands. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

He smiles too, exposing his sharp canines and pretty dimples, and sighs of relief. “Thank God.”

Your bra comes off, and you almost laugh when his pupils blow out at the sight of your naked chest, but your amusement dies, cut off by a loud moan as soon as he takes one of your nipples in his mouth, twirling his tongue around and sucking on the sensitive bud before moving on to the other one. One of his hands rests on your ass while his other arm is wrapped around your waist, and his grip on your waist tightens every time you make a sound that he particularly appreciates. You’re pulling at his hair so much, you’re almost scared of hurting him, but truth be told you’re too focused on the way his mouth feels on you to really be careful about it.

“Come here,” he says, voice hoarse. His jeans aren’t doing a very good job of hiding how hard he is, and he groans at the sudden contact when he pulls you down into his lap. You press kisses everywhere you can - his cheeks, the crook of his neck, his hair, before finding his lips once again. You don’t even realize you’re grinding yourself against him until he breaks away from the kiss to let out a quiet moan, and you bury your face in the dip between his shoulder and his neck, breath hot against his skin as you whine in pleasure.

You could do this for hours, and maybe you do - but at some point, you start needing something more and your core throbs, desperate for more attention. And what better way to communicate that to Sunghoon than to show him exactly what you want?

You unwrap your arms from around his shoulders and let your hand roam down to the waistband of his jeans, smiling shyly at him as you get down on your knees in front of him. He watches with a pained expression, like the anticipation of what you’ll do next actually hurts him, as you unbutton and unzip his jeans, then slide them along with his boxers down his legs. To distract from the fact that his size slightly intimidates you, you take him in your hand right away, circling his reddened tip with your thumb before starting to bring your palm up and down his shaft while your other hand rubs his thigh.

You’re absolutely breathtaken by the sight in front of you: Sunghoon’s abs tensing visibly at your ministrations, his head hung back and his neck and Adam’s apple flushed red on display for you, moans increasing in volume as you continue. You had a feeling Sunghoon wouldn’t be a quiet one, and you’re proud to be proven right.

You put your own needs aside for now, just wanting to see Sunghoon in as much pleasure as you can give him. You bring your head forward and lick a stripe up his length, satisfied when he lets out his loudest moan so far. You don’t tease for too long, only licking at his tip for a bit before taking more of him in your mouth. You keep one hand at the base of his shaft and swirl your tongue around the part you’re able to reach.

This is the first time you’ve gotten so much pleasure from giving - maybe because Sunghoon’s reactions feed your ego, maybe because you’re so obsessed with him that knowing you’re making him feel good is enough, or maybe both. Definitely both.

But Sunghoon doesn’t let you have your fun for too long, and soon pulls your face gently away from him. His flushed face and fucked-out expression is gratifying to say the least. You look up at him with a smile, rubbing his thighs with your palms as you wait for him to catch his breath.

“A minute longer,” he says, panting, “and I would’ve died.” You giggle at his dramatics and hoist yourself back up, about to position yourself again on his lap but Sunghoon has other plans. He lays you down on your back and comes to rest on his side next to you, holding himself up on a forearm; that way he has both full access to and full view of your face and body. Perfect.

His face is close enough to yours to press kisses there and on your neck while his hand makes his way down your body. When it reaches the waistband of your jeans, you don’t wait for him to say or do anything and undo them yourself, which makes Sunghoon smirk.

“Impatient, are you?” he teases.

“You’re one to talk,” you bite back with a smile, even though your cheeks start to burn.

He slips a hand under your jeans, and gathers slick from between your folds before starting to rub small circles on your clit with the pads of two fingers. He soon gets frustrated from the way your clothes restrict his movements, and whispers in your ear, “Might as well take everything off while we’re at it, don’t you think?”

You roll your eyes at his playful tone but comply, more than happy to undress if it means he can touch with more ease. And indeed, he wastes no time before slipping a finger inside you, smirk widening at the loud half-gasp half-moan you let out at the feeling. “Much better,” he whispers again, but any comeback is wiped from your mind as he adds a second finger in, curling them so that they hit just the spot. You’re drenched at this point, your arousal sticking to the inside of your thighs, but that only makes it easier for him to slip his fingers in and out and means you’re more than ready for him. He keeps his thumb on your clit so that the friction there doesn’t stop either, and it isn’t long before you start to feel that familiar knot twisting your insides, appearing much quicker than you’d like it to.

“Sunghoon- I’m gonna, I’m-”

“You are, huh?” he breathes against your neck in between kisses. And just like that, as if you’d told him to stop and not that you were about to finish, he slips his fingers out of you, watching your reaction with a devilish, amused smirk.

“What? No, no-” you whine, but it’s no use. He rolls away from you, opening the drawer in his bedside table to retrieve something, and he’s lucky it’s a condom, because you might have killed him if it was anything else.

“Just because it’s our first time, I’m making you cum on my cock,” he explains as he rips open the small packet and puts the condom on. He comes back and places himself over you, pressing a kiss to your cheek and aligning himself with your entrance. “Next time, you’ll cum on my fingers and mouth as much as you want, Baby.”

And then, he pushes in.

You don’t need to tell him to go slow, or to wait before he starts moving; he knows. He holds himself up on his hands, biceps tight, and watches your face carefully for any sign of pain or discomfort while he furrows his way in, inch by inch.

When he finally bottoms out, he presses a soft kiss to your glistening hairline and bends down to whisper in your ear, “I’ve been thinking about this all week, and it’s even better than I imagined.”

The corners of your lips tug upwards, but the feeling of Sunghoon filling you up like this makes your brain go fuzzy and you can’t even begin to form coherent words or thoughts. You grab on to his biceps and shoulders as he starts to move back and forth, slowly at first, but progressively picking up speed, your moans egging him on.

He takes one of your legs and hikes it up around his hip, allowing him to go deeper and hit that spot that has you arching your back and crying out. You’re clawing at his back, eyes shut tight and mouth going dry, and his fast, regular rhythm is bringing you to the edge once again. Either Sunghoon has terrible timing, or he knows precisely how close you are and wants to tease you, because he slows down and pulls out. “I just want to make it last a bit longer,” he explains, murmuring the words in the crook of your jaw and neck before pressing a kiss there.

He pushes himself away from you and sits up on his bed, his back against the headboard. He looks at you with a lopsided smile, and when you position yourself on his lap, you take a couple moments to admire him before taking him again. His hairline beads with sweat, his face and upper body are flushed a light red color, his breathing is quick and shallow, mouth slightly agape, and his eyelids are heavy with lust, eyes almost closed. He’s never looked so good.

“Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” he asks, and you smile both at the compliment and at the fact that you were thinking the same thing about him just a second ago, as if you shared each other’s exact thoughts. You shake your head, and his gaze turns loving as he brushes a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Baby. There. Said it.”

You kiss him passionately before taking him in your hand and raising yourself on your knees to guide his tip towards your entrance, keeping eye contact with him as you sink onto his length. The new position hits even more sensitive spots and makes the two of you moan simultaneously.

Deciding to let him rest for a bit, you start moving yourself up and down on his cock, quickly settling into a nice rhythm that doesn’t tire your legs out too much but still manages to make you see stars. You hold onto Sunghoon’s shoulders, hands sometimes grabbing onto his hair while his stay firmly planted on your ass, kneading the soft skin there. You try to hold his gaze for as long as you can, but the pleasure starts to overwhelm you and you can’t do anything but shut your eyes, head falling back as loud moans escape your lips. There’s no way you could have kept it quiet, so you’re extremely grateful that Sunghoon’s living quarters are far enough away to avoid an audience.

Despite the immense pleasure of being on top of him and of choosing your own rhythm, your thighs start to hurt after a few minutes of this. Thankfully, Sunghoon notices your decreasing pace and the way your legs falter, and takes things into his own hands, finally ready to stop edging and bring the both of you to your ends. One hand on your lower back, one arm wrapped around your shoulders, he presses your chest firmly to his, hugging you tight, and starts bucking his hips into you at a pace that has you crying out into his shoulder. Your hands find purchase in his hair, pulling tight enough to hurt at the roots. If Sunghoon stops, it might be the death of you, so even if it’s a struggle to get the words out, you want to let him know how you feel.

“Fuck, Sunghoon, right there, please don’t stop, please- oh, my God!”

The sound of your two bodies coming together is lewd, but it only adds to your bliss, and in just thirty seconds of this, the knot in your stomach breaks loose and sends your whole body trembling against Sunghoon’s. He’s not long after you, the sound of his name over and over on your tongue as you cum sending him tumbling over the edge. You feel hot tears streaming down your face at the relief of finally having come undone, and the sounds leaving your lips now are fainter, your body too weak to even make any noise.

You stay like this for a few moments, body limp on top of his, allowing your breaths to return to normal. You’ve had two boyfriends before, and they were the only two you’d ever had sex with, so it’s not like you had already discovered everything about the joys of sex, but you knew for sure that it didn’t always feel like this, didn’t always take you to heaven and back. Usually, you’d have stood up and cleaned yourself by now, but with Sunghoon, you never want to leave this spot. Fall asleep like this, wake up like this, stay as long as you wanted like this. But after a few minutes, Sunghoon stirs and you jolt out of your daze, getting off of him, wincing slightly at the sensitivity between your legs.

He slips from his seated position and lays on his back. You follow suit, turning your body towards the ceiling, suddenly feeling shy at the idea of touching him, of getting closer - or maybe scared that he’ll suddenly want to be left alone, or worse, never want to see you again. But all your negative thoughts dissipate when he shifts to his stomach, sliding slightly down the bed to rest his head on your chest, burying his face there, hugging your waist tight, and letting out a contented sigh. Although your heart swells at his ridiculously cute actions, to say you aren’t a bit surprised would be a lie - after seeing a leading, more dominant side to him all week, since he was the one teaching you the dance and guiding you through the moves, you had thought it would translate to the way he was in bed. Yet, he had let you do what you wanted, let you set your own pace, as much as he had himself. And now, he was perfectly happy seeking out your affection and not making you come to him. It made you appreciate him that much more.

One of your hands makes its way to his back, grazing your fingernails along the expanse of it, while the other plays gently with his hair. You fall asleep in record time, perfectly at peace and exhausted from so much exertion.

When you wake up a few hours later, you’re still laying on your back, and although Sunghoon has drifted away, probably due to the heat in the room, your legs are still intertwined and he’s got an arm resting on your midriff. There’s nothing to let you know the time, so you look out the window and notice with panic that the sun has started to rise, which means it must be close to six a.m. You try to shake Sunghoon awake, but he just grumbles something incoherent and hugs you tighter to him, which you absolutely would have swooned over if you didn’t need to get back to your bungalow - and so you shake him harder.

“Sunghoon, wake up!” you say, far too quietly for it to actually wake him up, but he looks so cute asleep that it’d break your heart to wake him up too harshly.

“Why…” he whines, face buried in your neck and voice coming out muffled.

“I don’t want my father to notice that I’m gone,” you say, the aftertaste of the words bitter in your mouth.

“Why, what time is it?” he asks, slowly coming to his senses.

“I’m not sure, but he never wakes up late, so I don’t wanna risk it.” Your father, needing a real break from intense work days, had started waking up at 6:45 instead of 5:30 every morning. How relaxing.

“But I want you to stay,” Sunghoon grumbles, and you bless him for speaking your own thoughts but also curse him for making it harder to leave.

“I know, so do I. But I’ll see you later, okay?”

A beat. “Fine,” he sighs, then pushes himself off of you. He doesn’t look at you while you put your clothes back on and walk out of the room, but you know he can’t have fallen asleep again so quickly, so you’re terrified of having said or done something extremely wrong, but you can’t take it back now, so you just close the door behind you and rush back to your own bed.

The breakfast table is completely silent, the tension between you and your father clear to your mother, who doesn’t say anything, scared of accidentally adding fuel to the fire, and even to your sister, who eats her grapefruit quietly, darting her eyes back and forth between the three of you. Jay shows up from only God knows where and, not even trying to read the room, asks cheerfully what you’re all planning on performing at the show.

“We won’t be at the show,” your father says, making everyone’s heads snap towards him. “We’re leaving tomorrow morning, miss the weekend traffic.”

“We haven’t discussed this, honey,” your mother says just as Seeun whines, “But Daddy, we’ll miss the show!” You keep quiet, pretending the overcooked scrambled eggs on your plate are the most interesting thing you’ve ever seen.

“It’s the biggest night of the season!” Jay chimes in, also trying to persuade him.

“Yeah, and I wanted to sing something!” your sister adds.

Your father looks back and forth between your mother’s and sister’s bewildered faces, then sighs and begrudgingly bows to their wishes. “Alright, alright, it was just an idea.”

A smile breaks on your mother’s face and Seeun clasps her hands together with a small noise of joy. “Perfect,” Jay exclaims, pointing a finger at you as he walks away. “Baby, I’ll need you for props.”

“So, Seeun, what songs do you have in mind?” your father asks and gets up, gesturing at your sister to follow him, although he looks completely uninterested. She practically jumps up from her seat and starts listing all her song ideas, leaving her half-finished breakfast behind.

You finish eating your own, making small talk with your mother for long enough so that she isn’t suspicious of your trying to escape, although you can tell she knows something is up and just won’t mention it. You thank her silently for it, and excuse yourself from the table to go check up on Chaewon.

When you get to her room, she’s still in bed, but isn’t sleeping and doesn’t look in pain anymore - she’s sitting up, flicking through a fashion magazine. She smiles brightly when she sees you at her door, discarding the magazine and extending her hands out to you.

“How are you feeling?” you ask as you take her hands in yours, crouching next to her bed.

“Much, much better,” she says, sounding relieved at her own answer. “You just missed your father. He’s an amazing man.”

You only have time to talk for a minute when the door opens once again to reveal Sunghoon. Seeing him creates a pit in your stomach, either from the memory of what you did last night or from the way you had to escape soon thereafter. You stand up straight, taking a few steps away from Chaewon. He looks at you briefly before turning his attention to her, and asks the same question you did moments prior.

“I’m feeling a lot better. Baby’s father says I’m still able to have children.”

“That’s great, Chaewon, that’s amazing,” Sunghoon says, sounding relieved.

“But what about you guys? How did the show go last night?” she asks, a hopeful expression on her face.

Sunghoon glances at you, and you avoid his gaze as best you can. “It went well,” he simply says, not explaining any further.

“Yeah, I didn’t do the lifts, but other than that it went well.”

Chaewon looks at him, then at you, and all at once notices the awkward tension in the air - and she understands the situation as clearly as if it had been written out in black and white for her.

It’s silent for a few seconds until you speak. “Well, I guess I better go then… I’ll see you around.” You give Chaewon a small smile and head to the door, letting your eyes linger on Sunghoon before slipping out. But of course, you can’t actually bring yourself to leave, and sit on the stairs a few meters away from the door. From where you are, you can hear every word spoken inside the cabin.

“Sunghoon,” Chaewon starts.

“So, you’re feeling better, huh?”

“Sunghoon.”

“But you should still get some rest, right?”

“Sunghoon, stop it.” That shuts him up. “What are you doing? You’ve told me so many times not to get mixed up with them,” she says, sounding at once worried and reproachful.

“I know what I’m doing, alright?”

“Sunghoon, listen to me you gotta stop it, you know it’s not gonna end well-”

“I said I know what I’m doing,” he snaps, but seems to immediately regret it. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Chaewon, I just- you’re in no position to be worrying about me right now. I know what I’m doing. I trust her.” There’s a small silence, and you have no idea what expression Chaewon must be wearing right now. Is she unsure, satisfied, worried, angry? Is she nodding, trying to respect his decision, or looking like Sunghoon’s making the biggest mistake of his life? “I’ve gotta go, but I’ll see you later, alright? Rest up.”

“Alright, see you later, Hoon,” she says quietly, and when Sunghoon opens the door, he finds you waiting for him. You stand up and just look at him, unsure how to express what’s on your mind. You’d completely forgotten everything you had meant to tell him.

“Oh, hey, Baby,” he says upon seeing you.

“Hey.”

You both just stand there, staring at each other, no idea how to start the much-needed conversation.

“Look, I’ve got a uh, a lesson I need to go to right now, so…” he trails off.

“Right, right, no problem,” you say, nodding far too vigorously.

“But I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, you will.”

Neither of you move for a few moments, and you feel like you’re completely stuck in place, unable to move until you’ve had the reassurance that things can stay as they were between you and Sunghoon. But he walks past you, already a few meters away when you gather the courage to call out his name, and he turns around so quickly, you dare to hope he might have been waiting for you to do so. You don’t say anything, you just smile, and hope he understands. He smiles back, an actual smile where his dimples appear and the corners of his eyes crinkle, and you know that for now at least, everything is okay.

“God, I am so sick of this rain,” your sister complains as she dabs powder on her face, covering up non-existent blemishes. All four of you are in the living room of your bungalow, resting after lunch and getting ready for the rest of the day. You and your father play a boring game of checkers, trying to make the tension disappear slowly, while your mother reads some detective novel.

“Where is my beige iridescent lipstick?” Seeun asks furiously, punctuating each of her words, as if that was the kind of everyday thing that lies about in everyone’s house.

Your father wins the game and looks relieved that it’s over more than anything. You pick up a light raincoat and head towards the door, but your mother calls out your name, stopping you in your tracks.

“Where are you going in this weather?” she asks with curiosity rather than wariness in her voice.

“They’re playing charades in the main lobby,” you reply casually, used to giving out random excuses by now.

“Quite the little joiner, are we?” your sister teases, and you’re not sure if she’s just making fun of you or if she knows you’re up to something but you ignore her anyway and walk out of the cabin.

You make your way to Sunghoon’s place as quickly as you can to avoid the rain. You had ran into him that morning and, when your parents weren’t looking, he let you know that he was free all afternoon with a smile that was as good as a spoken invitation.

He brings you into a hug as soon as you’ve closed the door behind you and presses a kiss to the top of your head, murmuring an apology into your hair. “I’m sorry I acted so awkwardly yesterday. You left so suddenly that night, and I was scared you regretted it…”

You lean back and gaze into his eyes. “I regret absolutely nothing, Sunghoon.”

He breathes out a relieved sigh, smiling as he nods. “Good. Me either.”

You press your lips to his, and although the kiss starts out slow and soft, it doesn’t take long for things to heat up. You let out a small yelp when Sunghoon lifts you up and carries you to the bed, laying you down gently on the mattress. He holds up to the promise he’d made the other night - namely, making you cum on his tongue and fingers as much as you want, or rather, as you soon find out, as much as he wants.

He starts by undressing you slowly, taking his time to revel in the sight of your naked body and the idea that it’s all for him. He only leaves your panties on, rubbing small circles over your clothed clit as he works his mouth on your nipples and breasts, paying each side its due attention. He then makes his way down, leaving warm kisses everywhere he can from your stomach to your inner thighs, and makes sure to work you up and have you squirming before actually slipping your panties off and giving you what you want. Once he’s wrapped his lips around your clit, it’s like he can’t get enough. With two fingers inside you, he sucks and licks at the sensitive bud for what feels like so long that you don’t know how his wrist and jaw don’t get tired. You don’t even try to count the number of times he makes you cum, simply taking every orgasm in stride, and even though you get so sensitive after a while, you’ve entered some sort of blissful, exhausted daze that you can’t bring yourself to break away from.

Afterwards, you’re lying next to Sunghoon, your head resting on his chest and grazing your fingernails up and down his arm while he plays with your hair. You’ve somehow managed not to fall asleep despite the tiredness filling your entire body, and you and Sunghoon talk quietly, the sound of the rain outside like a peaceful background song. You listen to him describe his dream of opening a dance school someday and choreographing professionally, then he listens as you talk about all the places you want to visit and the things you want to learn about the world. You share childhood memories and awkward first kiss anecdotes and compare your relationships with your parents and the similar sort of pressure they put on your shoulders, albeit for two very reasons.

“My dad especially, he just doesn’t understand that dancing can be an actual profession. He sees it as some kind of hobby I’ve had since I was a teenager and that it’ll pass soon when I realize I can’t make a living out of it. He completely ignores the fact I get paid more in three months here than in half-a-year with him, but he doesn’t mind taking the part of my salary I give our family when I come back, that’s for sure,” he chuckles humorlessly. “I’m scared he’ll think I’m betraying him if I don’t take up his carpentry business.”

“I was top of my class in elementary school, and my parents thought that meant I was the brightest little girl in the world and would grow up to achieve great things,” you explain in a joke-admirative voice. “And even if they tried not to say anything, I could see the disappointment on their faces when I brought home a B or was ranked third at a test. I’m happy I got into Yale, and that they can afford to pay for my studies, but it’s just gonna be even more pressure for four more years.” After a beat, you decide to add, “I can only forget about all of this when I’m with you. You just make all of my worries disappear for a while.”

The conversation takes a slightly sentimental tone as you tell each other what your first impression of the other was. You admit sheepishly to Sunghoon that you were attracted to him as soon as you saw him dancing with Chaewon that first night, and that you hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him after he danced with you, even though you found him a bit of an asshole the first couple of days he taught you the dance. You tell him you were sure he hated you at first, and he reveals that he didn’t at all.

“But I can see why you thought that. I just… I had never met anyone like you, Baby. Someone who thought she could just show up somewhere and decide to help a stranger out for no other reason than to help them out of the kindness of their heart. I didn’t know if you were the most foolish or the bravest person ever. And yeah, I’ll admit, I wasn’t the nicest to you at first. I kinda have this thing against… against rich people, I guess,” he says, chuckling softly. “For me, a wealthy person is like Max, or Jay, or all those ladies here. They use their wealth to get you to do what you want. But you’re not like that, and it took me a while to understand that. I’m sorry,” he finishes, pressing another kiss to your hair.

“No, no, it’s okay… I’m sorry they’ve all treated you like that. You deserve better.” He thanks you quietly and a comfortable silence settles between the two of you for a few minutes and you’re close to falling asleep when Sunghoon calls out your name.

“Hm?”

“What’s your real name?”

You raise your head to look at him and flash him a big smile. It’s been ages since someone asked you that, most people not bothering to question your nickname.

“It’s Y/N.”

“Y/N…” he echoes, gazing at you lovingly. “It fits you perfectly.”

You press a gentle kiss to his lips in response, and you think it’s gonna end at that, but Sunghoon pulls you back in right as you’re about to lean out, and you know you’re done for. You’re still extremely sensitive but that only adds to the pleasure of him filling you up, intertwining your fingers with him as you make love, his thrusts slow but deep and your bodies pressed flush against each other. Your heart is bursting with something that you can only recognize as love.

That night, as you’re on the verge of falling asleep, your sister says something that jolts you awake.

“I’ve decided to go all the way with Heeseung,” she says, a hint of a smile in her voice.

You snap your head towards her. “What? Seeun, no, you shouldn’t-”

“I’ve already thought about everything. I want it to happen on the night of rehearsals, I know what I’ll wear-”

“No, Seeun, listen, you can’t do it with Heeseung, I’ve already told you he’s bad news!” you whisper-scream, trying to get some sense into her head without your parents overhearing.

“Who else with, then?” she whisper-shouts back.

“Just- I don’t know, but not with him, it needs to be with someone you actually love, someone you can trust-”

“I can trust Heeseung. I do trust him - more than I trust you, actually,” she says, the conversation taking another turn.

“Seeun-”

“No, Baby. You don’t actually care about this, or even about me. All you care about is that you’re not Daddy’s little girl anymore. He listens when I talk now.” She turns her back to you with a huff.

“Seeun-” you try again, but she’s already done talking.

“Goodnight.”

You want to find a way to stop your sister from wasting an important experience like having sex for the first time on a guy like Heeseung, but you also know that once she’s set her mind to something, it’s hard to stop Seeun from doing it. Maybe this will be a lesson for her to learn from, you think, trying to reassure yourself.

The next afternoon, when your parents are busy playing cards with another couple and Seeun is off somewhere with her friends, you sneak off to visit Sunghoon in his dance classroom. He has an hour free in between classes and you use that opportunity to mess around for a bit. You put on a song you both love and dance together whichever way you want, acting out and lipsyncing to the lyrics. You have fun teasing him by swerving your head when he leans in for a kiss or trailing your hand along his arms, shoulders and back.

The sound of loud footsteps coming up the stairs spoils your fun, and you quickly position yourself face to the mirror and pretend you’re practicing basic mambo moves while Sunghoon heads to the record player. The one and only Jay stands at the door and seems to falter for a second at seeing you here.

“Hey, Baby, taking dance lessons?” You simply nod at him. “I could teach you kid,” he says, mirroring your moves and dancing a few steps until Sunghoon makes the record scratch, stopping the music abruptly. Jay’s arms drop to the side and he gives you a look as if to say “check this guy out,” and you try not to roll your eyes at him.

“Sunghoon,” he says, walking towards him with all the confidence of a boss talking to his employee. The addressee simply raises his chin at him, pretending to busy himself with the record player. “My grandfather put me in charge of the talent show, and I’ve been thinking about the final dance. I’d like to uh, you know, do something different-”

“Yeah?”

“Move with the times-”

“Yeah? That’s great, I’ve got plenty of ideas-” Sunghoon says, speaking so quickly he cuts himself off, but Jay’s smile drops instantly. “We’ve been working on something with the staff, it goes like-”

You watch in the mirror as Sunghoon dances a step you’ve never seen before, and it looks really cool but Jay shakes his head, gesturing at Sunghoon to quiet down like he would a kid, as if they weren’t the exact same age.

“Woah there, you’re way over your head, boy.” Sunghoon stands up straight once again, jaw locked tight. “I was thinking, instead of doing the last dance to the mambo, how about, this year, doing it to the pachanga?” Jay asks, looking at you with a smile and nodding, as if he’d just said the most revolutionary thing ever.

“Right,” Sunghoon says coldly, bursting Jay’s bubble.

“Well,” he says, clearing his throat, “you’re more than welcome to do the same tired number as the previous years, but I’m sure that next summer, we’ll find a dance instructor who’s-”

“The pachanga,” Sunghoon cuts him off, raising his voice over Jay’s. “Great idea, Jay, let’s do that.”

A satisfied smile grows on Jay’s lips as Sunghoon turns back to the record player, and he struts back towards you. When he’s close enough, he leans in and says conspiratorially, but still loud enough for Sunghoon to hear, “He’s, uh, a bit hard to get through to sometimes, but the ladies seem to like him.” He doesn’t realize that you’re one of said ladies. “Make sure you’re getting the full half-hour you’re paying, kid,” he says once he’s at the door, and slips out on that graceful note.

Sunghoon’s next class takes place on the gazebo, so you accompany him there, trying to keep up with his long strides made quicker by his frustration. “God, I just hate that guy, he has no idea what he’s talking about. He wouldn’t recognise a good idea if it hit him in the pachanga,” he huffs angrily.

“But can’t you just talk to him? I’m sure he’d listen if you’d just tell him-”

“Didn’t you see what happened, Baby? He won’t listen. I can’t get everything I want just by asking, he’s the one with the money, with the power, I can’t do anything-”

“But it isn’t right! You have to fight harder-”

“That’s not how it works for me, Baby-”

You let out a small gasp, interrupting Sunghoon whose head pivots towards you, but you take him by the shoulders and bring him down to a crouch next to you. He follows your gaze to find your father, leaving a building with Heeseung and Seeun. Your dad brings his arm around Heeseung and shakes his shoulder in a fatherly manner while Seeun looks at them with a smile.

Sunghoon’s muscles tense in realization - you don’t want to be caught with him, especially not by your father.

You’re completely oblivious to this, and stand back up when the three of them are out of sight. “Alright, I think they’re gone,” you say, and only realize what you’ve done when you see the tight expression on Sunghoon’s face.

“Fight harder, huh?”

You just messed up real bad. “No, Sunghoon, I was planning on telling him, I just haven’t yet-”

“I don’t believe you, Baby. I don’t think you’ve ever had the intention of telling him,” he says, shaking his head. His eyes look down at you harshly, and it hurts so much more now than when you’d just met.

“Sunghoon, please-”

“I gotta go. I’ll see you later, Y/N.”

You watch Sunghoon’s shrinking figure, cursing yourself for your cowardice and for your inability to do exactly what you preach. Your father was already so disappointed in you for simply being friends with Sunghoon, so if he knew what you were actually up to, he might go and disown you.

A few hours with no one to spend them with get you thinking. You had always thought your father was the best man on earth. Funny, loving, kind, fair. But you now realize it might not be so - he is prejudiced towards people who aren’t like him and isn’t forgiving of others’ mistakes. He made you believe in a world where everyone should be equal, but he himself doesn’t treat everyone the same.

You also hate what this is doing to Sunghoon. You, who had told him he deserved everything he wanted, weren’t even capable of holding his hand proudly for everyone to see. So, for Sunghoon’s sake as well as for your own, you have to tell your father how you feel for Sunghoon, and put up a fight if he tries to stop it.

But first, you had to find Sunghoon and apologize. It’s nearing dinnertime, and he shouldn’t be working anymore, so you go look for him in his room. He isn’t there, so you head to his dance studio, then the gazebo, and anywhere else you can think of where he might have classes. But he’s nowhere to find, and after half-an-hour of running around, your last option is to go ask Chaewon where Sunghoon might be. At least, you know she’ll be in her room, still recovering.

You take a second to catch your breath then knock on Chaewon’s door, then wait until she calls you in to open the door. “Hey, Chaewon, have you seen Sunghoon?” you ask, only realizing after you’ve said the words that it might be rude to be so direct, but you don’t have time to apologize because your eyes shift to the other person in the room, who is, of course, Sunghoon himself. He stands up from his seat on the armchair in the corner, looking at you with an unreadable expression. He could be anywhere on a scale where one extreme is ‘he hates you and never wants to talk to you again’ and ‘he has never been so relieved to see you’ and you’d have no idea.

“Can we, um, talk? Outside, if it’s okay?” you ask, eyes darting back and forth between Sunghoon and Chaewon. She smiles and jerks her head towards the door, silently telling Sunghoon to go with you. He purses his lips and nods, following you outside and closing the door behind him.

He rests his palms on the banister of the front porch, looking out at the lawn and the resort buildings in the distance. You stand behind him, bringing your palms up to his arms and kissing his shoulder. He closes his eyes and sighs, basking in your touch despite himself. “I’m sorry, Sunghoon. I’m sorry.”

He turns around, gazing down at you with that unreadable expression on his face. “It’s okay. I understand.”

When he kisses you, the relief in your bones is like nothing else, better even than coming home to your bed after a long, tiring day, or than getting a good grade on a test you thought you’d failed. Your arms wrap around his neck while his find their way to your waist, and you revel in the closeness of your bodies and the taste of his lips, like mint and something uniquely Sunghoon that you can’t ever get enough of.

But unfortunately, you stay long enough in this position to attract the attention of a one-man audience. “Damn, guess I picked the wrong sister,” you hear Heeseung chuckle, and when you pull away from Sunghoon, you see that insufferable smirk on his face. How you wish you could just smack it off of there. “Didn’t know you put out like that, Baby.”

It all happens so quickly, you don’t have time to understand what’s going on, let alone stop Sunghoon from jumping over the banister. He stomps over to Heeseung, grabbing him by the collar and shaking hard.

“Repeat what you just said, I dare you,” he says in a low, menacing voice, face close to Heeseung’s. The latter’s smirk falters for just a split second before coming back, as if incapable of not looking like an arrogant asshole for more than a few seconds at a time.

“I said,” Heeseung starts, “that I hadn’t thought Baby was so fucking easy.”

Heeseung has barely finished speaking that Sunghoon has raised his fist back, ready to strike the insolent expression off of the boy’s face. It’d be satisfying, that’s for sure, but it wouldn’t be worth risking his job, so you call out his name and make him stop in his tracks. He doesn’t look back at you, though, just keeps his hard gaze fixated on Heeseung, breathing heavily in anger.

“Sunghoon, please,” you repeat, pleading with him.

“So, what’s it gonna be, loverboy?” Heeseung teases, but Sunghoon just drops his fist and pushes him away, making him stumble a few steps back.

“You’re not worth it,” Sunghoon practically spits, sending one last cold look his way before walking back to you.

You don’t care enough to check how Heeseung reacts, just watching Sunghoon make his way back to you, relieved nothing happened. He stands in front of the banister, the height difference allowing you to hug his head to your chest and you press a kiss to the top of his head, whispering in his hair that you’re proud of him.

Soon afterwards, you have to head back to the building where the talent show will happen. He could do it anywhere else, but Sunghoon decides to plan out his performance in the same room, using the excuse of needing to see the stage just to stay around you.

You’re painting some sort of fake coconut tree while competitors rehearse their performance, your sister by far the loudest of them. You try not to cringe as her dissonant voice reverbs around the room, but nobody pays her too much attention. It’s hard not to steal glances every two seconds at Sunghoon, and you tell yourself that he just looks especially good today in his tight black t-shirt and black jeans, but you also know he looks good everyday. His gaze also strays towards you more often than not, and you try not to burst into giggles every time your eyes meet, not wanting to raise any suspicion.

This room is also where a group of men play their games of poker, and since it was big enough to host all of you, they had decided to stay there even through the preparations, sure that it wouldn’t disrupt their game.

The not-staring takes on another level of difficulty when a lady you recognize as Vivian Kim leaves her spot standing behind her husband at the poker table to make her way to Sunghoon, walking in a fashion far too languorous for your taste.

From where you are, you can’t hear exactly what she says, but it’s not hard to guess - an invitation to spend the night with her while her husband is busy, one last time before she leaves the resort and goes home.

Sunghoon stays silent but that doesn’t seem to deter her, and she flashes him a lurid smile before walking back to the poker table. He turns his head to check if you’ve seen what happened, but you look away from him and back at your coconut tree, hoping the jealousy you’re feeling isn’t written all over your face.

Vivian’s husband calls out Sunghoon’s name, waving him over good-naturedly. You watch once again as Sunghoon walks over to the table and as Mr Kim pulls out dollar bills from his wallet. “Tonight’s the final poker tournament, so how about some dance lessons for my wife?” he asks, and you can’t tell from his tone whether he thinks that dance lessons really are what his money is paying for or if he knows what’s actually going on.

Sunghoon takes the money and Mr Kim smiles at him, returning to the game, but Sunghoon just stands there, staring at the bills in his hands, then to Vivian, behind him to you, and finally back at Mr Kim. “Thanks, Mr Kim, but I’m all booked up for the rest of the week ‘cause of the show, so I don’t think it’d be fair to take the money.”

Mr Kim nods as Sunghoon hands him back the cash, saying he appreciates his honesty. Vivian looks at him, eyes wide, obviously surprised at his sudden refusal. Sunghoon walks back to his seat, sending a small smile your way, and you try your best not to gloat.

In the past few days, it’s become a bit of a habit to sneak out of your bungalow and rush to Sunghoon’s when your family has gone to sleep. Except tonight, what you don’t know is that Seeun hears you, because she’s planning on doing the exact same thing and paying Heeseung a visit. You’re already with your own lover when she heads out of the room, skipping in excitement and anticipation the whole way there. She’s applied lotion to her entire body, sprayed perfume to her neck, wrists and ankles, and has read all the sex advice columns of her favorite magazines - she’s more than prepared for this.

She reaches the door. Takes a deep breath in, stands up straight. Calls out, “Heeseung, it’s me!” but no answer comes. So she opens the door slightly, and almost drops her bag at the sight in front of her, gasping loudly. She has just enough reflex to close the door again and rest her back against it, taking a few seconds to let it sink in before running back to her bed, where she promptly explodes into tears.

Now more than ever, she wishes her sister was here, whether to comfort her or to say “I told you so.” She wishes you were here to help her make sense of finding Vivian Kim and Heeseung naked together in his bed when he had spent weeks making her believe he wanted to be with her and her only. She wishes you would curse him out and call him all the names she wants to but doesn’t have the courage to.

But unfortunately, you’re not there with her. Instead, you’re with Sunghoon, laying together in bed, your head resting on his chest and your legs intertwined. You’re both spent from a night of lovemaking and from your shower that was supposed to be innocent but quickly turned steamy. You wake up at dawn, knowing you’ll have to go soon but heart breaking at the thought of tearing yourself from Sunghoon’s warm embrace. You press soft kisses to his neck and whisper his name, trying to wake him up gently. His eyes stay closed as he tightens his arms around you and pleads with you to stay just a little bit longer, and you’re not strong enough to say no.

“I had a dream earlier where your father called me ‘son’ and put his arm around me like he did with Heeseung earlier.” His morning voice is raspy from sleep and sends butterflies straight to your stomach.

“I’m sorry, Sunghoon,” you hum. “I’ll talk to him today. I’ll tell him about you.”

You feel his chest rise up then down as he sighs. “I thought about it, and I feel like it’d make things even worse if he knew about us. He just seems to think I’m a bad guy, for some reason, and me being with his daughter will only make him hate me more.”

“But you’re not a bad guy. You’re the best guy,” you say, voice slightly whiny. You’re too sleepy to come up with a better reply, and it makes Sunghoon chuckle.

“Thanks, Baby.” He presses a kiss to your hair, and it’s become such a familiar gesture that you’re not sure how you’ll live without it once you go home.

It’s not long before you have to head back to your bungalow, and Sunghoon walks you outside, slotting his lips with yours for one last time this morning and making plans to meet up later. You don’t pay attention to anything other than him - not to the slight breeze picking up, or the sun rising, or the staff bungalows, off to the side from Sunghoon’s. But not paying attention means not noticing a figure standing on one of those staff bungalows, not seeing her eyes squinting at yours and Sunghoon’s embrace, first recognising him, and, once her initial shock wears off, recognising you. Because of course, just like you, Vivian Kim has to leave Heeseung’s bungalow before anyone notices - except that in your case, someone notices you.

And the consequences of it appear only a few hours later, as your family are having a late breakfast with Max and Jay. When the conversation first begins, you don’t think it’ll be of much importance to you.

“You know that feeling when you look at a patient and think he’s all fine, but then you get his x-rays and something’s completely wrong?” Max starts, addressing your father. “That’s exactly what it is to find out one of your staff, a trusted one at that, is a thief.”

“What happened, Max?” your father asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“Mr Kim’s wallet was stolen,” Max simply says, sighing. Jay jumps on the opportunity to explain the story himself, leaning in conspiratorially.

“It happened yesterday night when he was playing poker. One minute, his wallet was right there in his coat pocket, hanging on his chair behind him, and the next, it wasn’t.” Your sister lets out a small gasp.

“Vivian says she saw that dance kid Sunghoon walk by,” Max continues, and your head snaps up at the mention of Sunghoon’s name. “So we go and ask him if he’s got an alibi, and he says he was in his room alone all night, reading.”

Jay snorts. “There is not a single book in Sunghoon Park’s room.”

The whole time, you’re shaking your head slightly, unable to believe that Sunghoon might be wrongfully framed for this. You turn towards Jay, a pleading expression on your face. “Listen, there’s been a mistake, there’s no way Sunghoon did it-”

“There’s been similar thefts at the Sheldrake and even here. Three wallets stolen, and now Mr Kim’s!”

“No, I know he didn’t do it-”

“Stay out of it, Baby!” Jay snaps at you. You look at him in disbelief, because of the way he just talked to you, because of what they’re accusing Sunghoon of, but above all because it’s inconceivable that your parents ever wanted to set you up with a guy like him. Entitled, judgmental, unkind.

But you can’t just stay out of it - this concerns Sunghoon, and if you can stop it from happening, you’ll do everything so that he doesn’t lose his job over a false accusation. So you turn towards your father and Max, and plead Sunghoon’s case.

“I know Sunghoon didn’t take Mr Kim’s wallet, I know.”

“How can you be so sure?” your father asks.

“I-I can’t tell you, but Daddy, please, you have to trust me.”

Your father sighs, turning his attention back to his plate. “I’m sorry, Baby, but I can’t.”

“But- it could’ve been anyone else,” you continue, looking at Max now that your father avoids your gaze. “Maybe it was- oh, maybe it was that little old couple, the Schumachers, I saw her with a couple of wallets-”

“The Schumachers? Impossible,” Max refutes as your father furrows his eyebrows at you, raising his voice slightly.

“You don’t go around accusing innocent people, Baby!”

“But I saw them, I saw them at the Sheldrake- you said something was stolen at the Sheldrake, right?” you say, turning towards Jay again, your voice growing desperate.”

“Listen, Baby,” Max cuts in, voice calm but firm, “I’ve got an eyewitness and the kid has no alibi. Come on, Jay, let me show you how to fire an employee.”

You catch his wrist before he can turn away and gulp, preparing yourself for what you were about to say. “Wait a minute. I know Sunghoon didn’t do it, I know it, because he was in his room all night, and I know that because,” you pause for a second, risking a glance at your father, “because I was there with him.”

The table goes silent. You can feel yourself weighing down under the heavy gazes of everyone seated. After a few seconds that feel like an eternity, Max clears his throat and awkwardly says, “Right, well, we’ll investigate some more in light of these news-”

He’s cut off by the screech of your father’s chair being roughly pushed back. You watch as your father leaves the room, steam coming out of his ears, and you can only hope revealing the truth will be worth it in the end.

After giving your father some time to cool off, you find him in the empty gazebo, looking out at the lake. The water is still except for the parts where ducks dip their heads in and back out. Even now that the rain has stopped pouring every day, clouds still render the sky a blinding white, and the sun only appears now and then when they part enough to let a ray through. There’s a slight breeze that makes leaves flutter around, and you need to tighten your light cardigan around your shoulders.

You know he sees you approaching, but he keeps his gaze fixated on the lake, even when you call out to him.

“I told you I wasn’t lying about Sunghoon,” you start. “But I’m sorry I lied about the money. I’m not proud of myself for that, you know. But you lied too,” you say, and he finally looks at you, awaiting an explanation. “You told me everyone deserved a fair break, but you meant everyone like you. You said I could change the world, but you meant by becoming a lawyer, or an economist, and marrying someone from Harvard!”

He closes his eyes as if in pain, then looks back out to the lake, staying silent. “I made a mistake. There’s things about me you don’t know, and things you might not like, but I’m in this family too, and if you love me, you’ll have to love my faults too.” Your voice shakes and your eyes start to water. Seeing your father’s eyes do the same only adds to the difficulty of saying what you want to say.

“Because I love you, Daddy, and I’m sorry I let you down, but you let me down too!” Your voice completely breaks on those last words, and you turn away, letting your feet guide you wherever before your dad can hear the sob that escapes your throat. You know your dad’s silent treatment won’t last for long, so you leave him in the gazebo to think and cry as much as he needs to.

Your body must have developed new instincts, because soon enough, you find yourself in Sunghoon’s cabin, unsure how you even got here. His things are still there, which reassures you of the fact that he hasn’t left yet. You pace back and forth in the room for a few minutes until your emotions suddenly come crashing down, all the stress and tension and strung feelings, leaving behind only exhaustion. You lay on Sunghoon’s bed, thinking you’ll just close your eyes for a few minutes. But when you open them again, they fall on Sunghoon’s face, and you have no idea how long you’ve been there.

“Sunghoon?” you murmur.

“I have been looking for you all over,” he says, crouching in front of you, and gives you time to sit up and rub the sleep out of your eyes. “You were right about the Schumachers. Fingerprinted their glasses. Turns out they were wanted in a bunch of other states for theft too. They found them when they were already trying to leave the resort,” he explains, and your smile grows wider and wider as he speaks.

“Oh my God, that’s amazing! I knew it’d work out!”

But Sunghoon diverts his gaze down, unable to match your euphoric expression. “I’m out, Baby.”

You quickly put two and two together. “They fired you anyway because of me.”

“And if I leave quietly, I get my summer bonus,” he says sarcastically.

Your anger makes you stand up, walk to one corner of the room then back, your voice rising on its own accord. “So I did it all for nothing, then? I hurt my family, you lost your job anyway - it was all for nothing!”

“It was not for nothing!” Sunghoon exclaims, volume matching yours. “Nobody has ever done anything like that for me!” He searches your eyes for the reassurance that everything that happened this summer was worth it, but he only finds sorrow in them.

“You were right, Sunghoon,” you say with a sad smile, voice lowering to a hum, “you can’t change anything no matter how hard you try.”

“No, Baby,” he says, walking towards you, “I don’t want that from you, you hear me? You can. You can do whatever you want.”

Your gazes stay locked in each other for a few painful moments until it becomes unbearable and you have to look away. “I used to think so too.”

There’s nothing left to say. You watch silently as Sunghoon begins packing the few belongings he has in two small suitcases and a rucksack, then help out when the passivity starts to make your muscles ache. He hasn’t got much, so he’s done in just a few minutes, and you don’t realize you have tears pooling in your eyes until Sunghoon himself notices and wordlessly takes you in his arms.

You’re heading to his car when he suddenly stops in his tracks, saying he has something he needs to do first. You don’t question it, just agree to wait for him. It’s not like you’ve got anything better to do anyway.

A few minutes later, unbeknownst to you, Sunghoon is knocking on your cabin’s door. Just as he’d hoped, your father is the one to open the door, squinting his eyes meanly at the young man behind it as soon as he realizes who he is. Your father stays silent as he stares Sunghoon down, making a chill run down Sunghoon’s neck. He clears his throat before speaking. “Doctor, I-” he starts, already cutting himself off to take off his sunglasses. “I’m going anyway, and I know what you must be thinking-”

“You don’t know anything about me,” your father interrupts, shaking his head in disdain at Sunghoon. “Anything at all.”

Sunghoon had really wanted to stay calm and focused, to just say what he wanted to stay, but now that he’s leaving, he has no reason to put up with the blatant disrespect and contempt of the clients and higher-ups any longer. “I know you want Baby to be like you. An admirable person, the kind people look up to, but if you could just see, she’s already like that-”

“I know my daughter far better than you do, so don’t you tell me what to see,” your father practically barks, unable to contain his anger. “What I see right now is someone who got his partner in trouble and sent her off to some butcher, then moved on to a younger, innocent girl like my Baby.”

Rather than frustrated, Sunghoon’s eyes grow tired and sad. There’s no fight left in him anymore - he can see he won’t be able to change your father’s mind, there’s no point even trying. “Yeah, I guess that’s what you would see,” he murmurs before walking away, back to you, the only person who’s ever wanted to truly understand him.

And then it’s goodbye.

While you were waiting, you kicked pebbles, brooding over the fact that your already shortening time with Sunghoon was getting cut off even more. But as soon as you see him, those thoughts evaporate, and you’re left with bittersweetness in your mouth. You spent the most incredible summer with him by your side, and even though it’s coming to an end, maybe the experience and the memories are all that matters.

Sunghoon closes the trunk when he’s done packing it, and walks over to where you’re standing, back against the passenger door, arms crossed over your chest. He rests his forearm on top of the car and neither of you are able to look the other in the eye for fear of emotion overwhelming you.

“Guess we took them all by surprise, huh?” you say, trying on a light-hearted tone to dissolve the tension in the air.

“Guess we did,” he chuckles quietly, risking a glance up at you. Your eyes meet and before you can break down, you turn your body towards his, nesting your face in the crook of his neck. He presses a kiss to your hair like a hundred times before and it’s enough to make your heart break.

“I don’t know what I’ll do without you around.”

He rests his chin on the top of your head. “You’ll just have more time for card games and croquet,” he jokes, but you can’t laugh. “And Jake and Chaewon will still be around.” It’s silent for a few more minutes, and you try to commit the feeling of him against you and the smell of his skin to memory. “I’ll never be sorry,” he finally says, voice muffled by your hair.

“Neither will I,” you whisper against his neck.

He inhales deeply and tears himself away, gazing down at you sadly. With his thumb, he wipes a tear as it drops down your cheek, and presses his lips to yours in one last kiss, tasting the saltiness of your heartbreak. “I’ll see you around, Baby,” he says against your lips, forehead resting against yours. But he can’t linger - it would only make this impossible moment even harder.

Your vision is too blurry for you to see properly as he walks to the other side of the car and disappears in the driver’s seat. In a matter of seconds, his car becomes a fuzzy black dot in the distance, and you’ve no choice but to walk back to the place that made you discover love only to rip it from your hands.

The three days until the talent show feel like eternity. Counting down the minutes until you leave doesn’t make time go by any faster, but you don’t feel like doing anything else. You hang out with Chaewon and Jake and their friends when they’re free, going back with them to the staff main quarters one night, and even though the music is the same as the first time, Sunghoon’s absence changes everything. You can’t dance without imagining his hands on your waist and his voice guiding you through the steps.

Seeun is also a lot nicer to you. She tells you what happened with Heeseung, and it’s like your shared love troubles bring you closer, reminding you that you’re not so different after all. As you get ready to go watch the talent show, she sits next to you on the bed, offering to do your hair. But then she takes a strand of it in her hands, trailing her fingers through it, and looks at you with a soft smile. “You know what, I think it looks perfect just like that.”

You mirror her smile and drop your head to her shoulder. You stay like this for a few seconds, words unnecessary to understand each other. “You’ll do great tonight, Seeun. I can’t wait to watch you.”

“I know,” she replies, making you both giggle. “Now let’s go, it’ll start soon.”

You’re not surprised to see that your parents have chosen to seat you in a corner, trapped between a wall and your father. Practically the same thing, you think, but you’re wise enough to keep the comment to yourself.

The performers have gathered in a line on the stage, your sister included, to sing the resort’s last day song as a conclusion to the show now that Sunghoon isn’t here to do the final dance. Max even gets his own solo. The song goes on for far too long to your taste, so you take the time to look around the room.

The lights are dim, save for the ones on the stage so that the focus of the audience stays on the performers, and wall fixtures next to the exits so they can be found easily. Chairs have been brought to the center of the room right in front of the stage while tables line the walls, candles adorning each one. Staff don’t get seats - instead, they stand at the back of the room, their backs against the wall as they watch the stage with boredom written all over their faces. You catch Jake’s eyes and he winks at you, a mischievous smile on his face, and you chalk it up to his usual playfulness.

Heeseung walks near your table, and your father stands up, calling out to him. He gets something that looks like an envelope out of his pocket, handing it to him. “Good luck in medical school, son.” Heeseung takes the envelope, looking down at it with a smile, and your father rests a hand on his shoulder.

“Thank you so much, Doc,” Heeseung beams. “And I also wanted to thank you for your help with the Chaewon situation, I guess we’ve all gotten into messes like these, huh?” Your father stands with his back to you, so you can only imagine the way his smile falls and his eyes harden.

“What?”

Heeseung’s smile falters slightly and he chuckles awkwardly. “I-I thought Baby told you… Look, it’s what Chaewon said, but I’m not sure, you never know with girls like that, they could pin it on anyone-”

Your father snatches the envelope back from Heeseung’s hands, glaring at him, and walks back to his seat next to you without a word. It’s only now that you understand your father’s dislike of Sunghoon - he had been certain Sunghoon was the one who had gotten Chaewon into such trouble. How could you have missed that? All this time, you thought it was just because Sunghoon was part of the staff and didn’t come from your world. Regret and frustration bubble up in your stomach. So many misunderstandings could’ve been avoided if only you had known what your father thought.

It’s only after a few minutes that he breaks the silence. “I’m sorry, Baby.”

You take a deep breath in. “Thank you, but I’m not the one you need to apologize to, Daddy.”

He turns his head to look at you. “You’re right. You’re right,” he sighs.

Just then, Jake walks past your table and towards the stage, disappearing behind the curtains on the side. You lift your head, trying to see what he’s up to, but the sound of the doors at the back of the room opening and closing loudly catches your attention. It seems to catch everybody’s attention - you hear small gasps and small murmurs of a familiar name, and your mind directly lands on the possibility, but you don’t believe it until you see it standing right in front of you, a hand reaching out to you - Sunghoon’s here.

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

You take his hand and let him guide you away from the table. You’re so enchanted by seeing him again that you barely notice your mother having to keep your father from stopping you. Together, you climb up the small set of stairs, walking past the performers and standing in the middle of the stage, the music stopping abruptly. His voice booms throughout the room when he speaks.

“Sorry for the disruption folks, but I always do the last dance of the season. This year, I was told not to. So I’m gonna do my kind of dancing with a great partner. Not only is she an amazing dancer, but she also taught me that people will stand for other people no matter what it costs them, and about the kind of person I want to be myself. Miss Y/N Y/L/N, everyone.”

Whoops emerge from the back of the room where the staff are standing and you watch as Sunghoon walks to the side of the stage, discarding his leather jacket and exchanging a nod with Jake. The music starts to play - it’s a song you’ve heard before, a song you know well because you’ve danced to it many times with Sunghoon. It’s a song you love.

He walks towards you, a smirk on his face, eyes heavy with desire. He places his hands on your waist, your own coming up to his forearm, and dips you backwards in a circle, which elicits more cheers from the dancers. He then stands behind you, imitating the starting position of the dance for your performance at the Sheldrake. The music picks up, and after that, it’s like magic. You and Sunghoon know exactly what to do, a mix of the choreography he’d taught you and of other moves you had picked up when you just danced together for fun. All the steps and turns come to you as if you know this dance by heart, and the whole time, you’re looking into each other’s eyes as they shine with happiness.

Sunghoon makes you spin away from him, and, your arm extended between you two, brings your hand up to his lips and places a delicate kiss to the back of it. Then, he jumps off the stage, prompting gasps and cheers from all around the room, and makes his way while dancing to the back of the room, where the dancers join him. Seconds before the second chorus is about to start, some of them run to you and help you off the stage, and Sunghoon nods at you from the middle of the room. So you run to him, gathering momentum until you reach him and he picks you up, lifting you from the ground up into the air, and you manage to keep your bird-like position for a few seconds. A huge smile breaks on your face as everybody cheers, your mother and sister clapping excitedly and even your father looking at you, astonished, proud.

Sunghoon brings you back down slowly, grinning as he gazes at you with only love in his eyes. “I knew you could do it,” he whispers.

The staff starts to invite the guests to dance with them, pushing chairs to the side and getting people to stand up. Jake shows Seeun how to move, reminiscent of the way Sunghoon had done with you, your mother and Jay dance together, and the whole room turns into a dancefloor where couples and small groups can let go and move however they want to.

You and Sunghoon head to the exit to find a quieter place, but your father calls out to you before you can slip away. “I found out you weren’t the one to get Chaewon in trouble.” Sunghoon simply nods. “I was wrong. I apologize,” he says solemnly, and the corners of Sunghoon’s lips tug slightly upwards.

“Thank you, Doctor Y/L/N.”

Your father’s eyes drift to you, and his polite expression turns affectionate. “You looked great up there, Baby.” You sigh, relief washing over your whole body and alleviating the weight on your heart. You let go of Sunghoon’s hands to wrap your arms around your father’s neck, and he takes you in a brief but tight hug.

“I’ll let you two go now. I need to find your mother, haven’t danced with her in ages. That’s something else I can thank you for,” he says, smiling down at you.

You watch him walk away for a few seconds until Sunghoon takes your hand in his again, and you slip out the doors to the front lawn. Outside, you close your eyes and take a deep breath of fresh air in, laughing for no reason other than simple joy when your eyes meet his.

He leads you to the gazebo and brings his hands to your waist again. The song is nearing its end but you can still hear it drifting through the open doors and windows of the room. You know that even when it’s over, it’ll keep playing in your head - and in your heart.

Just like you’ll always keep Sunghoon there.

You move slowly to the rhythm of the last chorus, gazing into each other’s eyes. You want to enjoy this moment for what it is, but the fact that you’re leaving tomorrow won’t leave your thoughts. This might very well be the last time you and Sunghoon ever dance together, or ever see each other. You can give each other your address and send letters, or exchange home phone numbers and call, but how long will that last? You’ll go to college while he goes home and starts working with his father again, or finds a way to fulfill his dream.

He probably sees the sadness in your eyes and brings you closer to him. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to - you know the same thoughts are cramping his mind. Words are unnecessary, and promises are futile, so for now, you forget everything else, and focus on the sway of your bodies and on his hands holding you tight against him.

Resting the side of your head on his shoulder, you look up at the night sky. The stars are shining bright, unbothered by any clouds, and the full moon gazes down at you protectively. Even when you’re apart, you and Sunghoon will still sleep under the same moon every night. You may be just one of the many love stories she’s witnessed, but you dare to think that yours is a special one, one that can’t be reproduced, one that is uniquely yours.

You continue to dance even when the song is over, letting your bodies bask in the moonlight.

fic taglist: @jaetaimjadore @sleepingsag permanent taglist: @ozymandia-s @bbujiikseu @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 © asahicore on tumblr, 2023. please do not plagiarize, repost or translate my works. feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!

#sunghoon smut #enhypen smut #sunghoon angst #enhypen angst #sunghoon fluff #enhypen fluff #sunghoon x reader #enhypen x reader #sunghoon fanfiction #enhypen fanfiction #sunghoon au #enhypen au

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tbzhub · 7 months

Text

Just Go Fuck Him

Pairing: photographer!Lee Hyunjae x afab!reader

Summary: Hyunjae moves back into his childhood home and old feelings and memories come up.

Warnings: MDNI, reader has scars, brief mention of childhood trauma, brief mention of surgeries, flashbacks, a smidge negative self-talk, hyunjae is the rizzler, smut... creampie, pet names, yada yada

Rating / Genre: M, neighbor au, childhood crush au, fluff?, slight angst (it’s really not THAT bad), lots of pining

WC: 8K (2K+ words for the smut scenes)

Artist Note: @everynewiee Enjoy! Special thank you to @the-boy-meets-evil for reading this and giving me the best fucking commentary. You're a gem and I probably would not have posted this if you hadn't stroked my ego. Love youuuuuu. If there's a typo I'll get to it eventually

m.list tag list

The living room was quiet in its typical offputting fashion as you sat around with your parents; no one saying anything as there were no conversations to be had and nothing playing on the television since no one would pay attention anyway, a phone captivating its user as everyone sat in their respective places. Any interaction at this point would feel almost disrespectful and annoying, disrupting the usual routine of your and your parent’s day.

Your favorite place to cocoon was on the right side of the sofa, wrapped in a plush blanket while you doom-scrolled until you eventually needed to walk the dogs. This is how your days were spent since your college graduation, making your parents the only ones on the block who weren’t empty nesters. Maybe that explained why you never went out— there was no one to go out with. Everyone else seemed to blossom rapidly, moving away and starting lives too hectic to return to their childhood homes on a regular basis while you sat at home, wrapped in blankets, feeling left behind.

Feeling left behind wasn’t inherently a negative thing, though— and it wasn’t really a feeling either. Acknowledgment: that’s what you’d describe this part of your life as— the acknowledgment of being a late bloomer, the acceptance of being the last flower waiting to bloom. The last person to leave the nest, as some would say, and that fact was totally okay with you because, in truth, it was okay for you to spend your days the way you pleased. There was no reason to run out and chase after what everyone else was doing just to keep up, to avoid loneliness at the risk of getting hurt.

Maybe it wasn’t just an acknowledgment; perhaps being a flower that’s yet to bloom guaranteed safety from a world so wide with new people who didn’t know you and old people who’d changed so much that you didn’t know them at all. You certainly weren’t close with anyone that you’d grown up with, and when you’d run into them at the odd holiday party that you were forced to attend, that fact was always highlighted awkwardly and sometimes painfully. There’s something to be said about standing silently in a circle full of adults that you used to run around outside with as a child, as wild stories are passed around, and accomplishments are one upped by additional accomplishments. You’ve watched enough cliques coalesce in real time, cliques that you were a part of as a child but somehow couldn’t squeeze into as an adult… and to say the least, it gets old. Thus, you cocooned, you doom-scrolled, and you became content with the silent life you’d curated with your parents.

So the living room is as quiet as it always was, and the day would drone on as it always did, and you’d be just fine not rocking the boat until it was time to go to bed and do it all over again tomorrow.

But sometimes the boat needs to be rocked, and the loud knock that’s heard does the trick in making your mom flinch in her seat, and your father crane his neck to the rather unexpected sound.

You, on the other hand, do not react because a knock at the door— regardless of how foreign, is never for you. The shifting of your parents getting out of their seats and the creaking of the floorboards underneath their feet does nothing to pull you away from your phone because, again, no one is knocking on the door for you, and you’d never entirely inherited your nan's natural curiosity.

It’s not until your mom comes back into the living room with her head peeking out from behind the foyer wall as she calls out your name that you finally get up from your favorite spot on the couch. The action is done begrudgingly, but your mom swears someone is here to visit you, and her smile is vast, so at the very least, you would appease your mom and be polite.

The thing about people-pleasing was that you never knew where you’d end up. You could set out to be polite to some unexpected guest to appease your mother and end up staring face-to-face with your childhood fucking crush. This wasn’t hypothetical; this was actually happening, and you were currently wearing drab black sweatpants.

He says hi first, hugging you at the front door as your parents invite him in for tea, and you stand there looking like a fucking idiot troll whose soul has just left their body. Specifically, you were internally screaming as you said hello and tried not to look like you were combing through your hair with your fingers.

“It’s been so long, Hyunjae. How’s your mom?” Your mom asks as she heads into the kitchen to start the kettle, and you look down at your hands as he responds to her.

He’s still just as polite as he used to be when you were kids, and that pisses you off.

“It’s so lovely of you to visit,” you hear your dad chime in, and you want to scowl because you felt quite the opposite. Who visits someone they haven’t spoken to in well over half a decade out of the blue without even a single warning? How were you the only person put off by this rogue visitation?

“I thought you were a travel photographer. What are you doing back here?” You ask, and really, you wish you could tell him to leave because this was too much, and you could feel the memories starting to stew inside your brain. You could feel the heat rising in your cheeks as you looked up at his ever-charming smile, and all you wanted to do was flee to your room.

“I moved back. I missed home.”

Hyunjae’s return meant your parents weren’t the only non-empty nesters anymore, which should make you feel better about yourself, but it doesn’t. It makes you feel like a child again and not in a way that should feel safe or warm and fuzzy. It makes you remember your childhood with him as your next-door neighbor. It makes you remember your childhood in general, and it makes you remember all the shenanigans that the two of you got up to together. All the silly poems and doodles you’d write about him in your journal growing up start to whisper around in your mind. All the conversations you’d have in your backyards pull to the forefront of your brain. Core memories flash like you’re watching a synopsis of your life thus far when you close your eyes after turning in for the night.

You slowly began to remember just how easy it was for you to grow attached to the boy that lived next door…

Hyunjae was a few years older than you, but he was always sweet, unlike the boys his age who lived in the neighborhood. Even in your younger years, it was his kindness that really set him apart in your mind. He was one of the few older kids who played nicely with the younger kids instead of ditching or excluding them or stealing their toys.

When you fell and scraped your knee trying to ride a bike for the very first time without any training wheels, he was quick to run inside his house to get a bandaid and a small bag of ice. He had kissed your bandaid-covered knee in hopes that it would get you to stop crying, and at the time, you thought the gesture was ludicrous; he wasn’t a mom, so there was no way that he could have the ability to wipe away someone’s pain with the simple press of his lips.

That was the day that you learned it wasn’t just mothers who held such a magical power

So you were putting effort into your looks to walk the dogs now... Nothing crazy— just making sure your hair wasn’t frizzy and that your clothes weren’t wrinkled before you left the house. You hadn’t run into Hyunjae yet, but it was bound to happen, and you wouldn’t be caught off guard when it did.

The dogs were slower than usual to round the block this afternoon, but you didn’t mind, enjoying the album you were listening to as you admired the cotton candy-like clouds dashed across the beautiful pale blue sky. For someone who spent such a massive chunk of their time indoors, you really did appreciate being outside.

Apparently Hyunjae felt the same way. You saw him outside for the first time since he came back, sitting on his front porch with a camera in his hands as he presumably took shots of the sky above. This was perfect actually. You could skitter by unnoticed. With your headphones over your ears and a fancy digital camera concealing most of his face, there should be this shared agreement that deterred one from interrupting the other for the sake of exchanging pleasantries.

As you move closer, your house getting more prominent in your field of view, you’re reminded that dogs don’t give a fuck about made-up social contracts. Yours pull on their leashes to get to Hyunjae, one barking, and that’s enough to steal the man’s attention away from snapping the shutter.

Damn. Your streak of avoidance shattered.

He smiles when he sees it’s you and waves with the most earnest expression on his face, and for a brief moment, you forget how to walk like an able-bodied person, legs feeling like mush and mind going blank as his inviting eyes settle on you and your dogs.

“One foot in front of the other. Smile like a sane person. Don’t let him sense his sheer power over you.”

You repeat the mantra in your mind as you let your dogs pull you closer to him, nearing his front porch with bated breath and a weak smile. It's those wooden steps at the entrance of his house that get you, the ones that harbored far too many sweet core memories. As you sit beside him on the landing, you can’t help but think of every single time that you’ve sat here in the past.

“Hey,” He says, wrapping his arm around you briefly in a friendly, one-armed hug before he sets his fancy digital camera far away from the dogs’ reach.

Your hello is soft and shy, but you didn’t stutter at the physical touch, so you’d consider that a small win.

“So you came home just to take pictures of the sky?”

He snorts at your question, “I already told you why…

“I got tired of the world at large. Plus, there’s more than enough beauty around here. The familiar things deserve to be photographed, too.” He admits simply– as if the sentiment is genuine common knowledge. He’s smiling down at you, and for a second, maybe it was a delusion, but you honestly felt like he was talking about you specifically.

“Watch. I’ll show you what I mean.”

He reaches out for his camera and begins to snap pictures of your dogs, petting them and scratching behind their ears. One of your dogs must secretly be a Hyunjae simp because he can capture her dopey smile perfectly.

You silently watch as he goes through the pictures, his smile widening, and he leans close to show you the one that must have tugged at his heartstrings. It’s a picture of your dog, face cradled in Hyunjae’s large hand, her eyes practically shining with glee, and she has the cutest doggy smile to match.

You giggle, face breaking into perhaps its first genuine smile in such a long time. “This is perfect. I have to show Mom. I’d love a copy if you don’t mind?”

When you look up from the camera, you notice just how close you are, invading his personal space unwittingly, and a blush rises in your cheeks as you quickly lean away to create some tangible distance.

He only hums in agreement before shutting his camera off again and making eye contact with you. “I’ll send you a copy later tonight. Has your number changed?”

When you finally get home, your cheeks hurt from smiling so hard, and the spring in your step is undeniable. You let the dogs off their leashes and put away your headphones before practically skipping to your bedroom.

You flop on your bed, feeling weightless and energized from the crumb of interaction... This could become a problem, an addiction— could a person become addicted to another person? Regardless of the answer, you squealed in bed, covering your face in your hands as you let every single positive emotion flood through your body. Your legs kick in the air, and you feel giddy, high on the love and infatuation of a crush a decade in the making.

Oh, you were so fucking doomed. Hyunjae needed to either move away or express his intent to marry you as soon as possible because every feeling you’d shoved down had come back in full force, plus interest.

A knock on your bedroom door makes you freeze mid-tizzy, and as the door creaks open, it's your mom’s head that peeks into your room, and the smile that graces her lips looks nearly childlike. She wanted to gossip, you could tell.

“I saw you sitting over at the Lee’s. It’s been so long since I've seen you two sit outside on his porch steps like that.” She says, and immediately, your face goes blank. Any traces of giddiness is sucked right out of you in exchange for bashfulness.

Vibe ruined. You felt so exposed.

“What? I’m happy. You two used to be so close growing up, and he was such a sweet kid. It’s just nice to see…” she trails off before finally taking the hint and leaving you alone to writhe in your newfound angst and embarrassment.

Your mom was right, though. You spent ample time on the Lee’s front porch growing up.

When everyone had gotten old enough to where the playing field was level, and the neighborhood kids could all get off the school bus together, it was common to hang out in a large group after school. Sometimes, this entailed sitting around and talking. Still, most of the time, this led to adventuring around the block and getting into what could only be labeled as dumb, child-appropriate shenanigans.

It didn’t take long for you to bow out of these afternoon activities in exchange for seclusion, sat at your front door doing your homework, reading a book, or maybe drawing. You didn’t want to partake in what everyone else was doing.

Hyunjae had been the one to start the unspoken tradition by randomly sitting on his porch one day instead of running out to play with everyone else. You noticed him outside, but your head is inside a book about horses, and frankly, what someone else did on their porch was none of your adolescent business.

But that day, he called you over, asking if you wanted to sit with him, and when you explained that you were reading a book, he was quick to respond, saying the same thing.

“We don’t have to talk. Just sit next to me.” That was his persuasive pitch, and it worked.

That day, you sat side by side on his front porch steps, one reading a picture book about horses and the other reading a Spiderman comic book. When he noticed you struggling to sound out an unfamiliar word, he broke the comfortable silence to help you.

That's how it started, the many sessions of keeping each other company on his wooden steps. That’s probably the true catalyst of your friendship, him calling you over and you obliging his request, sitting side by side on wooden steps instead of running around with the other neighborhood kids.

Gradually, this evolved from a mini reading club to you bringing art supplies over to paint together, him helping you with your math homework when it got tough, or even him simply reading a chapter of his library books to you with your head laid against his shoulder, eyes closed as you pictured the fictitious world that Hyunjae was describing to you.

The Lee’s front porch steps slowly became a second home to you, and as you both grew up, experiencing life in new and complicated ways, sometimes the only thing that helped you get by was sitting on those steps with Hyunjae by your side.

The coming days felt slow; your typical routine of couch cocooning left you unsatisfied, and you found yourself counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds until you could walk your dogs outside. Which was silly because you were a grown adult; you didn't need to find an excuse to go out… but you did want an excuse to run into Hyunjae again.

Which again— you were a grown adult, and you could take life by the balls and knock on his front door, say hi, and invite yourself in. You weren't going to do that, but at the very least, you acknowledged that plan as a viable option: baby steps and all that.

In your defense, though, you didn't want to make a fool of yourself, and you were scared. So much has changed over the years since you’d last appropriately spoken. You had so many unanswered questions, and you felt like the elephant in the room, the elephant that you’d birthed, still hadn't been addressed… You didn’t think that you’d earned the right to rogue, unannounced visitations in the same way that Hyunjae did.

As of right now, you are settling on the waiting game. Hyunjae sent you the picture of your dog, just as he’d promised, but you haven't seen him outside since. At this point, the ball was in the universe’s court, and you hoped to be favored kindly.

Today, you decided to bring your pinning to a different location, settling on cleaning your bedroom instead of wistfully thinking about Hyunjae as you stared out your living room windows. You would give your room a real deal deep clean; organize and clean out your closet, vacuum, feather dust, wipe down your bedroom windows, and toss out anything that hadn’t been used in three years— the works.

You were moving through these tasks with music on blast, shimmying and singing along while you harbored a spray bottle in one hand and a cloth in the other. No area was safe for dirt or dust in your room. You were intent on cleaning until your room was interior design magazine-level spotless, and the next inanimate victim was your window. You pushed back the curtains and drew the blinds to reveal the dusty glass pane.

Wow, this should get done more often.

You attacked the window pane with cleaning spray and started wiping, swaying to the beat of the bass-heavy song that played through your speakers, and soon you're doing more dancing than wiping. You get lost in the song, singing into the window as if you were in a music video as you run the cleaning cloth over the glass like it was a prop.

Then you notice Hyunjae standing in his bedroom window, and you halt. How long had he stood there? How much of your theatrics had he witnessed? You remove your hand from the glass, and your face twists up in humiliation.

He crosses his arms, eyebrows arching upwards, but the rest of his expression seems impassive before he finally bursts into a fit of laughter, causing you to do the same. Your embarrassment dissipates as he claps his hands to applaud you for such a lovely showcase, and you playfully bow.

This moment wasn’t the first time that one of you has gotten caught being weird in the recesses of your bedrooms by the other, but it’s been so long that you can’t help but giggle. Some things really don’t change, and you’re glad that, at this point, getting caught by Hyujnae feels the same way as it did when you were younger. No judgment, just a short shock of embarrassment followed by playfulness and laughter shared between good friends.

Hyunjae’s been back home for over a month now, and you were still… dragging your feet when it came to acknowledging the obvious. You were being stubborn, and you were starting to annoy your mother. She, so badly, wanted to play matchmaker. Yet, you wouldn’t give her the satisfaction, insisting for the nth time that you did not like Hyunjae and that he did not like you. She’d roll her eyes and drop the matter, but she always muttered something under her breath. Then you’d act like you didn't hear, just like she’d act like you hadn’t spewed such a bald-faced lie.

You did like him, though. You more than liked him, and that’s what startled you most. To want someone in so many ways... The concept was so new to you, and Hyunjae made pining over him refreshing.

There were parts of it that were innocent and parts that felt like carnal desire. You wanted to talk to Hyunjae every day like you used to— to spend time with him every day, just like when you were kids. There was this familiarity in his presence that was soothing, and yet most days, he left you feeling drunk off the feelings and needs that you’d developed for him.

He was sweet, and he made you laugh, but at his baseline? Hyunjae was a flirt that left you flustered all the time.

It’s the looks he gives you, the curve at the corner of his lips when he’d notice you short-circuit from one of his sly compliments, or the intense eye contact he’d give you while you spoke. It was the way he’d playfully nudge you as you sat beside him on his porch steps, and it was most definitely the cheeky smile he'd flash at you when he was jogging around the block with his shirt off. With all of that, you were starting to look at him differently, and you found yourself appreciating him in ways that you’d never paid attention to before.

When had he gotten so irresistibly attractive? Has he always been this undeniably sexy?

He’d gotten stronger, bulkier. It only took a few shameless glances in his direction while he was outside, gearing up for a run, to notice just how toned he was. His back muscles were lean. His arms looked so firm… like he could protect you with them or wrap them around you as he drilled nothing but raw pleasure into your body. The thought alone made you shiver, and it was becoming damn near impossible to look at him in a friendly way. Exceptionally not with his lips so perfectly crafted. He had lips that could easily hypnotize you— and they did often. You’d try your hardest to focus on his words just to fantasize about how sweet and kissable his lips were.

Right now, you were stuck between reality and a daydream as you stood outside listening to Hyunjae speak. You’d crossed paths as he was coming in from a late evening jog, and you were heading out to walk the dogs. You watched the way his tongue ran along his bottom lip slowly, and then your eyes began to trail down past his bare chest. Before you could fall deeper into your thoughts, heat spread across your chin, and your face got tilted upward for you to meet Hyunjae’s gaze.

“Like what you see?” He guesses, calling you out playfully, and your reaction time is slow to it all.

You barely register getting caught as you focus on the sudden physical contact, the way his hand cups your chin firmly, and the warmth that his fingers provide to your skin. His touch lingers as you stare up at him with a facial expression displaying nothing but need. How could such a simple gesture cause you to buckle so intensely? If you tried to speak right away, you might let out a moan.

You have to take a step back to regain your composure, and your hand tightens around the leash that you're holding.

Fuck.

For a moment, you’d even forgotten all about your dogs. They needed a walk, and here you were eye fucking Hyunjae outside his childhood home. Your words are mumbled and short as you try to slink away, stepping to the side to get around him on the sidewalk.

“My bad.”

That’s all you could say. It was the lamest thing to come out of your mouth in a while, but your dogs could be your escape from such an awkward situation.

His hand grabs your wrist, though, stopping you from completing one of your little vanishing acts. You can barely hear him over your rapidly beating heart. All you can make out is that he’ll text you when to come over, and there's something else about going for a drive.

Hyunjae kept taking casual side glances your way while you sat together in his car. No one was talking, and you could tell he was gearing up to say something ridiculous. The smirk that graced his mouth was your leading indicator, and the suspense killed you. The lull in your conversation only heightened your anticipation as you tried to relax into the passenger seat, sitting silently and with thick tension.

“You never answered my question, you know.” His words come out so nonchalant that you nearly misunderstand him.

But you could play coy, too, so you take a long sip from your drink to keep him waiting.

“Hm?”

The eye roll he gives you is comical and dramatic, and he feigns offense as his hand covers his heart.

“You forgot that fast? Wow, dude. Check me out, and then forget all about it. I feel used.” Even as the words pass his lips, he’s smiling, his eyes creasing, and the rise of his cheekbones are very telling. Hyunjae just loved to see you squirm in the hot seat.

“I don’t know what— did you just call me dude?” His phrasing finally registers, and you scoff. Was this a date, or did you just get painfully friendzoned?

His eyebrows quirk upward, and the smirk along his lips turns devilish momentarily as he hums, eyes intently on your own.

“I’m sorry. Would you prefer something more forward? I could call you baby… there's also babe, angel, sunshine. Buttercup if we’re feeling frisky. Darling is a favorite of mine, but anything’s on the table, really.”

Your nose scrunches up at his blatant teasing. The man was straight up toying with your emotions. “Just f-forget about it.”

“Whatever you say, Sweetheart.”

His words bounce around the car before striking straight through you. The cup in your hand clatters clumsily into its holder as you drop it.

So much for keeping it cool.

“Ooooh, so that’s the one. I’ll remember that.” He says through a chuckle and a smug grin as he reclines further in his seat.

“You know you didn’t have to bring me all the way out here to tease me. You were doing a pretty good job from the comfort of your own home.”

You tried to sound dry and aloof, but you started to buzz with anticipation. The feelings that you’d kept hidden, albeit poorly, would be pushed and prodded to the surface, thanks to Hyunjae and his charming smile.

“That’s not why I brought you out here. I actually wanted to talk. I’ve missed you.” He admits, reaching out to touch your shoulder tenderly.

“Hyunjae. We’re neighbors. You see me every day.” You assert, facial expression going deadpan as you stare back at his unwavering flirtatious gaze.

He sighs at that, mind seeming to go to a faraway place before he speaks up again.

“It’s more than that. I miss how close we used to be. We haven’t hung out alone like this since the summer before my senior year of high school. It feels like decades have passed and…

“It felt like it happened out of nowhere. It was like one day, we were close. I’d say we were best friends, and then the next day, you woke up and decided that wasn’t the case anymore. Why? What did I do?”

There was a gleam of hurt in his eyes that caused your bottom lip to jut out as guilt struck you. Hyunjae was right. You were close. He was your favorite person, and you were his. He was ever-present throughout much of your life, and then you ghosted him. You could pinpoint the exact moment when things changed, and you’d decided to stop being his friend.

You were a teenager riddled with insecurities, and instead of talking to him about it— or talking to anyone for that matter, you’d made the conscious decision to become reclusive. You thought that you needed to detach from someone that you, for the longest time, considered was your one and only gift from the universe growing up.

You purse your lips together before opening your mouth to speak, but doubt settles and seeps into your bones. “I don’t know how to explain this without sounding dumb.”

Hyunjae shrugs, “Just say it. Dumb or not. We’ll piece everything together as a team.”

His eyes were soft, and his hand went to rest on your knee, giving you all the comfort and safety that you needed to explain yourself.

“Um… obviously, I have a crush on you, right? Like, let’s move past that fact fast.” You pause to read Hyunjae’s reaction, but he only gives you a small smile while his hand reaches for yours, lacing his fingers through your own.

“A-and… I guess I knew that even back then. I mean, yeah. I had a huge fucking crush on you back then. Oh god, it was bad. It's just as bad as it is now, honestly. But when we were in high school, I started developing all these insecurities. I started noticing that other girls looked different from me. They didn’t grow up getting used to the hospital like I did. They didn’t have these long surgical scars on their legs like mine. You remember that part of my life, right? Your mom let you visit me after my first surgery when I was super young.”

Somewhere along the way, you shifted in your seat to stare out the window as you spoke, unable to hold eye contact and show vulnerability simultaneously.

“I didn’t realize it then because I was so young… I just wanted to feel better, but my body was branded with all this trauma. The scars on my thighs documented it all. It was hard going to gym class. The locker room was awful; I’d feel so insecure, and then I’d have to think about you constantly. All the girls knew you, and they’d talk about how hot you were. All. The. Time. And because I was your best friend, they’d ask me about you all the time. I was ‘popular’ but only because they wanted something from me. I couldn’t deal with it. All these beautiful girls with perfect, flawless skin constantly asked me about the guy that I’d liked for so long.

“I could not deal with another school year being seen only as the gateway to Hyunjae. I spent that summer in my room crying and wishing that things were different. That I was different, that I'd wake up and these scars would be gone. That I could finally get the guy that I’d wanted for so long… Obviously, that never happened. So I thought that if I put you and our friendship behind me, maybe I could, at the very least, move on because why would a guy like you want someone so far from perfect.”

You did it. Hyunjae is finally caught up and no longer left in the dark. All that was left to do now was listen to his response. You feel firm hands grab at your waist, and you're awkwardly pulled out of your seat until you're straddling Hyunjae’s lap.

“Thank you for sharing all of this with me, but… is that what you really think? That I wouldn’t want you because of something like that?” He’s looking up at you with tears threatening to spill from his eyes, and all you can do is nod meekly.

“I hate that, you know. I hate knowing that you spent an entire summer crying, and I was right next door, and I didn’t know.” His hands fall to your thighs, squishing them in his hold gently as he processes all of this information.

“I can’t even joke about how down bad we’ve been for each other because right now I’m shocked.” He goes on, sighing heavily before chewing on his bottom lip.

“My mom raised me right. I can reassure you that I would never care about something like that. I know, all too well, how to appreciate and treat a good woman. You’ve always been beautiful to me, and you’ll continue to be. Always. No matter what. Those parts of you are gorgeous, too, because they’re a part of the bigger, breathtaking picture.

“I don’t want to miss out on any more time, okay?”

Before you can grace him with a response, his lips are on yours, and his hand is pressed against your back as he pushes your body closer to his.

It was the kind of kiss that made you realize just how lonely you’d been. Urgency and desire ran straight through your veins to pool at your center, and you felt like you were melting into the man below you. You could stay like this forever, straddling Hyunjae’s hips while your tongue collided beautifully with his. He kissed you like a thirsty man dying for a drink. Faint gasps leave your chest whenever he pulls away to breathe to dive back in and fuse his mouth with yours again.

So this is how Hyunjae’s lips feel. This is how it feels to be kissed by him.

You both become lost in the kiss, and his hands begin to roam. Warmth spreads across your lower back as one of Hyunjae’s hands snakes its way underneath your shirt to caress your skin, and a shiver flows up your spine. Your fingers tangle into his hair, anchoring yourself to this moment as your hips roll. That’s when you feel it.

“Oh.” You breathe out.

The tent in his pants nudges against you perfectly as you're coaxed into a steady grind by the firm hand pressed along your back.

“Feel good?” He asks, pulling away to look up at you with glossy lips and messy hair. Your nod is an eager one as you try to lean down, eyes closing as you search for his lips again while Hyunjae leans into you, pressing kisses to your neck instead.

You feel his free hand creep up to your thighs as you continue to chase after the friction his crotch provides. Your skirt slowly becomes bunched up, cool air hitting your thighs, and you freeze, shyness and insecurity washing over you.

“J-jae…” You stutter out in a whisper, grabbing his face in your hand to stop him from looking down.

There’s a look of understanding on his face, but you also see a glint of something else in his eyes. “Wanna come back to my place, Sweetheart? I can think of some ways to help you get comfortable.”

As promised, Hyunjae made you feel safe and comfortable. He asked for permission before peeling a new article of clothing away from your body each time. He litters soothing touches and gentle kisses to any freshly exposed skin as he gets you undressed fully. When you’re completely bare, he’s keen to comfort you, making a point of looking you in the eyes before sneaking a glance down to your chest briefly.

“Just focus on me, okay?” He says, voice as soft as cotton while his hand comes up to stroke the side of your face sweetly.

He leans back to take off his shirt, and even though you’ve seen him shirtless more than a handful of times, you can’t help the whine that leaves you. Your eyes trail down his toned torso and settle expectantly on his hands that fiddle with his jeans. You were about to learn something new about Hyunjae, and you were paying very close attention.

He was big, and you sink your teeth into your lower lip to stop the moan that tries to punch out of you. Your heart pounds heavily in your chest as you stare blatantly at every part of him before your wide eyes finally lift to meet his gaze.

“It’ll fit.” He reassures smugly, and you roll your eyes at that.

“When did you get so cocky?” You sass through a tease as you're pushed backward onto his bedsheets.

“Don’t be jealous, Sweetheart. You’ll be full of cock soon.” He tosses back, causing you to shudder.

He hovers above you for a moment, caging your body in between his strong arms as he looks down at you with fondness in his gaze while he admires your beauty. He leans down to kiss you on the lips before moving down your body.

His lips press against every part of your body on his trek down your chest and past your stomach. When he gets to your thighs, he takes his time, closing his eyes as he kisses every spot, running his tongue along the blemishes that make you doubt yourself. He alternates his love and affection as he slots himself between your legs, nipping at one thigh before pressing a wet kiss to the other.

You feel weightless already. There's not an ounce of nervousness in your body as Hyunjae worships the parts of you that you thought you disliked the most. You felt cared for, cherished, and like you were the most enticing person in the world. The tingling sensations travel closer and closer to the apex between your thighs until you let out a gasp that quickly morphs into a whimper.

“Jae—

You're cut off by a moan as Hyunjae’s tongue swipes up your wetness in one languid motion, causing a jolt of pleasure to dash through your body. He hums into your pussy as he runs his tongue from side to side, parting your folds and tasting you hungrily before he slots your clit between his lips. You lurch forward, and he reaches one arm up to press you back into the bed, resting his hand on your stomach. He pushes your thighs farther apart with his free hand; his grip is tight around your thigh while he buries his face further into your pussy, tongue unrelenting as he sucks on your clit in tandem with the flicks of the wet muscle.

You didn’t know how to move through life after experiencing something life-altering like this. Hyunjae’s mouth made you feel unreal. His tongue could easily be labeled the 8th wonder of the world. All you could do was softly moan his name like you were reciting a prayer as he worked you over.

The bed dips as he shifts his positioning, stopping his ministrations for a minute, and when you look down, you notice just how drenched his chin is because of you, and you shyly close your legs.

“Y-you don’t have to contin—

He cuts you off by forcing your legs apart and looking up at you purposely while he settles between your thighs again.

“Why would you deny yourself something we both know you want?” He challenges, tongue sticking out to ghost over your glistening pussy, and the delicate warmth that the barely-there touch provides is enough to have you whining in need. You push his head back down, hoping he’ll just shut up and go back to town. He does, but not without having the last word.

“Knew you couldn’t resist me,” he teases, words slurred as he tries to talk between sloppy licks. His tongue remains flat as he laps at your pussy to make you fall apart.

When you seem close, with moans flowing out of you ceaselessly, he sinks into you, tongue massaging your spasming walls as he fucks you with his mouth, and that’s all you need. Your face grows hot, and you start to quiver; your thighs begin to falter, and Hyunjae has to hold them steady with his large hands as your orgasm swallows you whole.

“Oh FUCK.”

You will never be the same. Your body throbs with pleasure, and you shake through the most powerful feeling that you’ve ever encountered in your life. You’re speaking only in incoherent babbles as Hyunjae continues to tongue fuck you until the sensation is far too much for your pussy, and you have to push him away. You look up at him breathlessly, eyes unable to stay open for more than a few seconds at a time as you come down from such an intense finish.

“God bless you, Hyunjae.” You finally say, still twitching from your nerves getting lit on fire.

“I take it I did pretty good, hm?” He points out with the cockiest grin while he wipes his chin, coating the back of his hand in your essence. His eyes drift away from your face to check you out, and his face melts into a genuine smile.

“Your body is perfect to me, by the way. Every single part of it. Every minor detail.” He reassures, voice coated in sincerity as he trails his hand along your thigh, thumb running across a faded scar.

Goosebumps rise on your skin as you turn your face away from him, with a blush peppering your cheeks. “It’s your turn…” You add, letting your legs fall open for him.

“Our turn,” He corrects as he turns your face to look up at him.

“You ready, Sweetheart?” He asks while he hovers above you, and you can feel how warm and heavy he is against you, prompting you to nod your head yes.

Hyunjae sheathes himself inside you slowly, causing you to groan blissfully as your eyes fall closed. He feels so good. The stretch is just right, and as he buries himself deep inside you, it’s like you’re being split open, but in the best way. Your hands rest on his shoulders as you adjust to his girth and length. When you finally open your eyes, you're met with the sight of the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen trying his hardest to hold himself together.

“You okay, Darling?” You ask in a teasing whisper while you take in Hyunjae’s state. He looks tense, his teeth are abusing his bottom lip, and for shits and giggles, you clench around him and he hisses.

“You’re incredibly tight.” He says through gritted teeth before he exhales. He rears back, his eyes flutter closed for a moment, and you hear him curse under his breath.

“I-it’s like your pussy is choking my cock…” He mumbles before he leans down to kiss your neck and tries to press forward again. You hear him whimper softly, and it’s the most alluring sound you’ve ever heard, and it's all because of you.

“I feel good?”

“You feel so. Fucking. Good.” He praises through a pant.

His hips start to roll against yours as he finds a steady pace to fuck you with, and soon his bedroom is filled with a mixture of moans and skin slapping against skin. His body weight presses you further into the bedsheets, and you feel like you’re being surrounded by love and warmth as every fantasy that you’ve ever had comes true.

Hyunjae’s strong body lays flush on top of yours, and his fingers lace through yours while he rocks into you harder with precise movements. His other arm goes under your body to tilt your pelvis upward as he begins hitting you at a new angle that pulls a cry out of you. Your legs tighten around his waist, needing him closer and deeper as you’re fucked into oblivion. Each powerful thrust has you sliding up the sheets, and your pussy clamps down on him whenever his cock drags out of you. You felt stuffed, filled to the brim, and you missed him when he reared back, leaving you nearly empty for half a second at a time.

Praises were mumbled against your skin while he plunged into you. You had the best pussy. You were doing a good job; you’re taking him so well. You felt incredible. Hyunjae’s words sent you to the edge, and all you could do was gasp and moan as you came undone. Your walls flutter and spasm as you arch your back, screaming his name out for the neighborhood to hear.

“J-Jae,” you whimper, lip trembling as Hyunjae molds your body to his fat cock.

“I know, Sweetheart… Relax and enjoy it.” He coos softly, coaching you through your second orgasm.

His hips don’t slacken; they do the opposite, speeding up as he hammers the sweet spot deep inside you repeatedly until something inside you snaps. You writhe underneath him, and your fingers tighten around his own as you fall into bliss. Hyunjae’s eyes are glued to your face as your mouth drops open, and a long, drawn-out groan leaves your body.

“That’s right, baby. Keep going.” He says through a grunt as he starts to chase his high.

He shifts, lifting you into his arms while his cock stays buried inside you. You're positioned upright, body going limp against his muscular thighs as he continues to drill into you, massaging your walls at a merciless pace. One large bicep stays wrapped around your waist, and his free hand snakes between you both to rub against your clit as if he could get you to cum a third time. You’re just a brainless lump of whimpers at this point as your head rests against his sweaty chest.

“I’m close, Sweetheart. I know you can do it again, come on, baby.” He pleaded, voice ragged as his thrusts turned desperate.

His moans get more prominent, and when you look up to meet his gaze, Hyunjae looks fucked out beyond belief, lips parted, and hair a disaster on top of his head. You muster up enough energy to kiss him on the lips, swallowing all his pretty noises and whimpering against his plush lips. You feel his hips stutter. Then heat spreads inside you, and you shake as he fills you with cum while you experience another earth-shattering orgasm.

You're both tired and sticky. The bed sheets are hardly halfway on the bed, twisted onto one side, but neither of you seems to care. You collapse onto the bare mattress with Hyunjae’s cock still hidden inside you. When he finally pulls out, your dripping pussy adds to the mess on his bed. He lays down beside you, immediately pulling you in for a cuddle.

“You’re going to stay here, right?” He asks, looking down at you with a hopeful gleam.

“Of course. Even if I wanted to go home, I couldn’t deal with a walk of shame right now. My legs don’t work. I’ll leave tomorrow afternoon when I have to walk the dogs.” You answer through a giggle.

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baratiddyappreciator · 19 days

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Can you please do the baki boys for the first time meeting their S/Os child that is either from a past relationship or just adopted a while back. I really feel like Restu and Koshou will not really have a general idea of how to interact but they're really trying to get along ^v^

P.s the kid really like dinosaur to the point that they start calling the baki boys different dinosaur names 💕

Oh this wins for the cutest ask I've ever gotten!! Thank you!!! I'm operating off of the basis that they know the reader already has a kid and that this isn't just a "oh btw I have a child. Surprise!" type deal. Also I am SO SORRY that this took so long lmao.

Baki:

Awkward as hell. He knows you have a kid, and you'd been talking about introducing them for a while but he was so worried that this kid wouldn't like him and that you'd leave him because of it, but He apparently had literally nothing to worry about because he immediately got roped into playing with your kids toy dinosaurs in a dramatic re-creation of the moment the meteor hit, and they then proceeded to throw a temper-tantrum when it was time for him to leave. Safe to say, Baki stayed the night.

They bond very quickly, to the point where Baki just full on accepts "yes, this is fatherhood, I am prepared for fatherhood, this is my child as well." He isn't the step father, he's the father that stepped up. He's fiercely protective of your kid, and nobody, not even his father, is going to mess with them if he can help it.

Speaking of Yujiro, he throws a bit of a fit that Baki so quickly takes in another man's child because "The Bloodline Must Continue" but he gets over it pretty quick, seeing this one as more of a practice run for Baki for when it comes time for him to have his own kids, because surely this is just temporary... Right?

He introduces the kid to the other fighters in the arena. By the end of introductions, this kid has gained several uncles and a few grandpas. At that point, just accept that you're going to have a lot of people in your house spending time with your kid. Which, on the plus side: free babysitting, and you kid will literally be the safest person in Japan. Possibly the whole world if they can win over Yujiro enough to be seen as respected, but too pathetic to even think of fighting.

If they do wind up pestering you for another sibling, they're going to have to wait. Baki's got no problem with making them an older sibling, but he's barely an adult himself. That can wait until he's got some stuff sorted out on his end and you've both had the chance to have a long talk about your future together.

Learning about your kids love of dinosaurs is something that benefits Baki because he also loves dinosaurs and he can take the chance to flex that he's eaten t-rex meat before. If your child is given the opportunity to watch Baki fight, they'd probably nickname him after some form of dromaeosaur, likely velociraptor because he may be small but he's damn deadly given the chance. Bonus points if they have trouble pronouncing it, like kids often do, so it just sounds garbled in that cute way.

Hanayama:

It takes a while for him to agree to meet your kid. Not because he's scared, but because he's not nearly patient enough to be near kids for extended periods of time. If your kid is rowdy and loud, there is a very high chance that Hanayama will simply ignore them given the chance, but a more mellow child wins him over pretty quickly. Especially if they're happy to just sit there and chill out for a while, though his boys don't mind roughhousing with them if they need to get some energy out. Hanayama is an intimidating man, and likely even more so in the eyes of a child, but if they can be brave and trust you then they gain a staunch protector.

It's a slowly established bond, but once it's in place it's unbreakable. Even if you and Hanayama wind up splitting, he's going to be in that kid's life. He's at every event, big or small. Even if he gets dragged into a fight, he's normally ale to finish it up quickly enough to still make it on time as long as they don't mind him looking a bit rough and not picking them up as eagerly because he's probably at least a little bit sore. This kid now has not only a super tough father-figure, but a large system of uncles and cousins too!

Said uncles and cousins are also incredibly devoted, you will walk into your own home and find them just chilling with your child like "Oh tell uncle Kizaki how your day was! Any trouble?" Just know that if they're ever bullied... Well, simply put, no they won't, because that gets very swiftly shut down by the bullies parents. Nobody wants to deal with the yakuza, this group especially considering how scary Hanayama can be when those he cares about are put in harms way.

He's reluctant to bring the kid around other fighters purely for the reason that he's not there as much as the others. He knows that he can keep them safe, but it's a matter of protecting both you and your child from any unfavorable individuals that might show up to challenge the other fighters, though they definitely get to know Baki because of how close he and Hanayama are.

Your kid can pester you as much as they want for another sibling, Hanayama's waiting for a few more years before he even considers having a kid, especially because they'd take up the mantle of the family after he's gone. While he definitely doesn't mind having a kid, he's nowhere near ready right now. In the meantime, they can play with the kids of the gang members have have them.

Your kid likes dinosaurs? Cool. He doesn't have any real strong opinions on dinosaurs. Granted, the first time your kid looked him dead in the eyes and told him that he reminded them of an ankylosaurus, he did feel a bit weak in the knees because nobody has ever basically outright told him that he's a tanky hard-hitter quite like that. He's happy to be their ankylosaurus, he loves the kid and that's pretty final. Besides, it's not like anyone's going to say anything to him about it.

Chiharu:

It also takes him a while to meet your child, but not because he doesn't want to or is nervous (he is nervous, but he won't tell you that), he's just a genuinely busy guy. He's got some stuff to get done, making sure that not only is he safe, but that you and your child are safe too. He does have enemies in his line of "work" that wouldn't be above using some pretty deplorable methods to get their point across. When he does finally meet your kid though, he's shockingly calm, eager to meet them and happy to be there! They want to play? Hell yeah, he'll get on the ground and playing with them within the first five minutes, and they are inseparable. He doesn't want to leave, he winds up sleeping on your couch, passed out watching a movie with your child. Land Before Time, specifically, because he has TASTE!

Bond established within five minutes. Really, all that needed to be said was "Hi! I like dinosaurs!" and Chiharu was won over. He bonds with kids so easily it's almost scary, but it's because he's got an incredibly sense of whimsy and can easily see things the way that kids do. You may see a messy pile of leaves, but Chiharu sees a potential castle. He's perfectly happy to take your child under his wing. He's honestly more of a cool older brother than a father figure, but he's got his moments of paternal wisdom, such as telling them not to lick batteries or stick a fork in the electrical outlets. Really, common sense things, but sometimes kids just need to be told not to do dangerous stuff.

Much like with Hanayama's guys, his guys don't mind spending time with your kid. That's their bosses adopted little one, and they're going to treat them like family regardless. That is their little buddy now, and nobody is gonna get between them and their little buddy. They'll always have a ride to and from school, they'll always have someone able to bring them snacks or lunch, and they have an entire army of bodyguards at their beck and call.

No hesitation, just "THIS IS MY MINI ME!! LOOK UPON THEM AND WEEP BECAUSE YOU WILL NEVER BE HALF AS COOL AS US!" And you know what? He's right. The two of them are cool, and your kid has become his mini-me. When they're old enough, if they wanted a tattoo, Chiharu would 100% take them to get one where he got his. It's good quality, and his partner in crime deserves only the best of the best! The other fighters will probably get attached too, because being around Chiharu is bound to increase the confidence of any child.

Your kid wants a little sibling? Well, shit, better start building that crib because he won't hesitate to give them exactly that. He'll take your opinion into consideration. If he could spontaneously pop out a kid himself, he would. Rest assured, him being unable to do this is a good thing, otherwise you'd both have about 10 toddlers to take care of on top of your own child. If you're persuasive enough though, you can convince him to just wait a little bit. Unless, of course, you are also spontaneous, in which case, congratulations, another child is on their way! Be it adopted or biological, this one will absolutely just wind up being another Chiharu 2.0, though if that's a good thing is up to you.

He'd probably get called Pterodactyl or something along those lines because of his back tattoo, but also: He's bird-like in his tendencies. He wears the nickname with pride though, and he doesn't need an explanation. Any nickname given to him by your little one is going to stick no matter what, and he wouldn't have it any other way. Hell, he'll even do his best to come up with a good one for your kid in return, his dino knowledge is, admittedly, very limited.

Katsumi:

Perfectly at ease, an absolute natural when it comes to stuff like this, despite never potentially being a father himself. Literally almost everyone loves him, so he's not too worried about your kid taking a liking to him as well, but that doesn't mean he won't try to win them over first. Bribes are brought and provided (with your permission, of course). Even if they like him right away, he's very quickly cemented as a favorite in their books because of all the cool stuff that he brought! He's not above getting on the ground and playing around with them too. Leaving them alone together is dangerous however, because you'll come back and Katsumi has taught your kid how to punch through a wooden board, and your coffee table is now less structurally sound than it was the last time you were in the room.

There's a very strong bond, but it takes a while to actually set in. Katsumi isn't worried about it being an instant thing, he knows that these things take time, probably better than anyone else, and he's definitely not going to push. That being said, he thinks he's doing worse than he really is. They don't talk to him about something because they got distracted and he immediately jumps to "oh god, they hate me, I need to call my dad for help because I can't have my beloved's kid hate me!" Even if it's your younger sibling being protective because that's just how kids can be sometimes. He immediately goes running to Doppo for help, only to basically be told to calm down.

Yeah, this child absolutely will be absorbed into Katsumi's friend group. They're going to grow up calling Katou and Suedo their uncles, and they're absolutely going to be able to keep up with their quips and jabs. Congrats, you're now raising a witty karate nerd and their three mentors. Of course, Doppo and Natsue are there to help if need-be, so you at least have reliable baby-sitters that are always willing to take the little one so you and Katsumi can go on a date or even if you just need a minute, even if it's just to sit down and not do anything for a hot minute.

This is his star pupil. Adults that have trained under him for months? Years? Nothing in comparison to the bond between Katsumi and his new partner in crime. And they do commit crimes. Innocent crimes, to be fair, but still crimes. One will distract you while the other steals food and snacks for the both of them. If they get caught, then they're making a break for it and you'll never catch up to them until they come back later with puppy eyes wanting more food, and you won't even be able to stay mad, because they just look so innocent and adorable (they aren't, they have committed crimes and will commit them again), so surely a little treat before supper couldn't hurt!

A sibling? They want a sibling? A niece or nephew?? His body is ready, he'll get pregnant if he has to. He doesn't care if it's impossible, his little baby will get whatever they want from him and they know it too. He's the worst at saying no, and eventually his partner in crime learns this. You're going to have to help Katsumi when it comes to letting the little ball of energy down easy. That being said, him actually telling them no will take a few years, though it's going to take a while for him to actually get the hang of it without feeling guilty.

Katsumi will most likely get called Stegosaurus, especially if he ever demonstrates his skills anywhere in front of this small, impressionable child. Is it to brag? Probably. Is it to show how cool karate is so they agree to take lessons? Mayhaps. Does he get upset about this? No, absolutely not, and the second this small human learns that Katsumi once fought a caveman, it's all over, they're gonna be asking a billion questions and Katsumi will barely be able to keep up. They'll convert him to the dark side (liking dinosaurs) in no time, just watch.

Jack:

He's so quiet. Just in general, yes, but beyond saying hi, he's not doing much initially, just sorta relaxing. There's no reason for him to get worked up, the kid's not going to be able to do anything to him, and he doubts that you'd ever leave him just because he was being himself around someone. As for the reaction to meeting Jack, there's most likely going to be either "WOAH! That guy's HUGE!!" and "Woah. That guy's huge." though after the first few minutes they'll likely realize that Jack is pretty chill. They'll most likely wind up sitting together and watching a movie, and because it's Jack he's going to want to sleep over so he can get his cuddles in before he has to go back to working out.

Any bond with Jack comes with the assurance that he's not going anywhere unless you either act like a jerk or unless you ask him to leave, and that's the same case for this child. All it takes is him being there during a few nightmares or rough days for them to realize that Jack is, simply put, there for them. He's going to be just as protective of them as he is of you as well, you're both a part of his family now and nobody is going to bother either of you on his watch. Once they get more comfortable with each-other, they'll likely rough-house a bit. Jack controls his strength well, and the kid doesn't have to worry about hurting him, so be prepared to just occasionally watch them get tossed onto the couch by Jack, only to run over begging for it to be done again.

Yujiro might give Jack a hard time about not having kids of his own and taking care of someone else's child, but Jack honest to god doesn't care. Yujiro can keep yapping at him, he's perfectly happy doing what he's doing, which is most likely enjoying a really nice outing with you, your kid as well as Baki and Kozue, he's not about to let his old man ruin that. One of the few times Jack might actually crack back at Yujiro, because while this isn't his kid, at least he's parenting. Will that start a fight? There's a decent chance Yujiro might be insulted enough, but it's the truth and deep down he knows it, so he can't really say anything.

Jack doesn't really care if he introduces them (and you) to the other fighters or not. These are good people who wouldn't hurt either of you, and if they were then you wouldn't even know about them. The first person he introduces the both of you to is Tokugawa, he needs to get the old man's approval to bring you two around to the arena on occasion, though Baki isn't long after for an introduction. He'll want all of the important people in his life to know about the both of you in case anything happens to him so you'll both be safe and taken care of. It's a morbid thought and he'd likely never say it out loud, but he likes to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

They want a sibling? They want him to give them a sibling? Well, he's conflicted about that one. On one hand, the idea of having a kid with you is fun, and he certainly doesn't mind trying even if it's not physically possible, but on the other hand: he really doesn't know if he can have kids. Not just because of the steroid abuse, but because of all the mental hang-ups he has about being an unwanted child. Would it be wrong of him to bring a life into this world? Would he be a good parent? What if they're sick, or his father does something to them because they're not strong enough? He's got all sorts of fears and concerns, but given time he'll come to you about them so you can both talk about it.

It takes a hot minute to figure out what dinosaur to nickname Jack, but eventually, given a lot of thought (and maybe a Jurassic World binge) they settle on Giganotosaurus. Because like Jack, this dinosaur is big and has a horrific bite, both powerful and fast, even if they aren't the strongest, much like Jack. Though Jack doesn't really know how to feel about being nicknamed after a dinosaur in particular, he does appreciate their knowledge and the effort they put into finding the right one to call him, even if he's not really one for nicknames. If they try hard enough, they can even get Baki on board with it. Jack will suffer the entire time, but he doesn't actually mind.

Kosho:

Awkward as all hell. He doesn't mind kids, he's just not good with them. Like, at all. He doesn't know what to do to entertain them, he doesn't know how to bond with them, he doesn't even know what they like doing other than being weirdly sticky all the time. He doesn't understand how or why, but it's a thing that they do. That being said, this kid is absolutely infatuated with him. No explanation, no reasoning, they just decide instantly that they want to be near him very often, and you're going to have to literally pry them away from him. It's like when cats find the one person in the room that don't like them and proceed to stick to them like glue. Doe she understand? No. Is he trying? Desperately trying, yes. Is it getting him anywhere? Nah. Do they still love him? Absolutely, take joy in his misery while it lasts, because he will eventually get used to it.

Kosho is pretty damn loyal. He cares for his people, and he likes to show that in his own weird way. He's like a cat, where he doesn't want to be given affection unless he's the one to initiate. At some point in time, he'll just walk past the kid while they're doing regular things to just pat them on the top of the head and then promptly walk away like he didn't do anything. If they try to hug him or lean into him, he'll act like they've burnt him, but he's not against the affection, he's just not used to kids trying to get closer to him and show him that they love him.

They never have to suffer through long and dragging on doctors appointments ever again. Given a little bit of time, both of the brothers will get used to them and be absolutely in love. Kureha is 100% willing to offer up fake doctors notes if it means he can get out of dancing around the awkward conversation between him and some macho man that refuses to admit that he's got a bright pink vibe up his butt and can't get it out. Speaking of, this kid is about to be traumatized by both Kureha and Kosho telling them horrifying stories about messed up stuff, but they're going to have fun while it's happening so I guess it's a win?

Does Kosho want to introduce this kid to the other fighters? Oddly enough, yes. He wants to brag about his new little buddy and flex that he's got the new fun cool person to hang around with. There's no hesitation, no second thoughts, he just shows up one day like "HEY FUCKERS LOOK WHAT I FOUND!! THEY ARE STRANGE AND STICKY BUT I STILL LOVE THEM!" Only for your child to just be sitting there shitting bricks because oh my god look at the size of that guy- Hey is that a caveman?? They eventually just sorta accept that Kosho is just going to show up at some points in time, and he may or may not be accompanied by a small borderline feral child, and that they may or may not have to endure (happily so) their shenanigans (talking about dinosaurs and about how cool they think all the fighters are).

Sibling? Yeah, nah, sorry kiddo. He's not too interested in having his own kids, and he's a bit worried about having another kid only for them to wind up going through a "I HATE MY OLDER SIBLING!!" phase that he went through with Kureha, not realizing that he is the exception and not the norm. It'll take a long time for him to realize that as well, but seeing the two of you interact if you're siblings does help him slowly start to figure it out. He might warm up to the idea down the line, but he's initially very against the idea and will outright deny ever wanting kids. He might never change his mind, because one might just be enough for him.

They 100% call him therizinosaurus. He cuts stuff with his nails, the connection gets made almost immediately. Does he enjoy being called a dinosaur? Not really, no. Does he appreciate the effort that was put into finding the right one that suits him? Absolutely, so they can call him a therizinosaurus all they want, he won't stop them. He never really gets the point of it, but he does appreciate their knowledge and will actively encourage their interests with random cool dinosaur things that he happens to find, be it while he's out on some adventure training or if he's getting groceries. Eventually he starts learning about dinosaur stuff against his will and just accepts that this is his life now.

Kureha:

He's not awkward per se, but he isn't super fond of kids, especially not loud energetic ones. He might warm up to them eventually if they are more energetic, but only be assured it's because they matter so much to you. He'll never admit that he was nervous before meeting them though, there's no way he'll ever tell you that he feared a young child holding the potential to ruin his relationship simply because they didn't like him. He played really nice with them for the first few months, and then he started being himself a bit more. They either get along just fine or they constantly butt heads about some things, either way, it's a playfully bitchy relationship where they give each-other a hard time to show that they care about each-other.

They will never have to worry about long wait times to get checked out for anything. Runny nose? Kureha's got it. Sore knee? He's got that too. Kureha is fully willing to spoil the living daylights out of this kid and he makes that very clear. They want dinosaur stuff? They get an exclusive tour of the paleontology wing of a museum and they get to raid the gift-shop for souvenirs after. Not feeling well? They've got doctors notes on demand. Lord help whoever manages to upset them, because Shinogi can and will give them the worst health scare of their lives. You've got a cough? Well, we took a chest x-ray and we found some weird spots so we'd better check for something more serious!

Kureha hangs around Jack often enough that eventually you'll just wind up adopting him into the family as some sort of uncle. If the kid struggled with bullies before, then the second Jack goes to pick them up from school that is over. They now have the cool massive scary uncle and the cunty scary father figure who just so happens to be a doctor. They literally can't do anything because if Kureha complains to their parents it's all over for them, especially since he's so well respected in the medical field. Otherwise, a quick call to Jack for a quick favor can really get things moving in the right direction.

Would he bring them around the arena? Not likely. He'll introduce them to Tokugawa, his brother and Jack, but the others aren't likely to meet them unless they happen to run into you all in public or at the hospital when you're visiting Kureha. Them coming around the arena wouldn't be likely until they're much older, like in their late teens or early twenties simply because he doesn't want to have to patch them up because they gain an interest in fighting. ESPECIALLY if Pickle is around. Jack, Katsumi and Retsu weren't the hardest to patch up, but it's not something he wants to do for someone that he's supposed to help raise.

They can ask him for a sibling all they want, his answer isn't likely to change from a firm no. Now if you want a kid, that's a different answer entirely, and it's more of a conversation he's willing to have because you're both adults and that's the healthy thing to do, but a kid asking him to bring another kid into the world? That's an automatic no. He doesn't even really want kids of his own simply because of how his family is (thank you Iya for the lovely lovely Shinogi brothers HCs I love you pookie) but he's open to at least talking about it and thinking about it for longer than five seconds. That being said, if he does agree for whatever reason, then he's going to be an absolute bitch about it, even if he was the one to initiate obtaining said child.

He expects to be nicknamed after some glorious majestic dinosaur, and then the kid hits him with the Synosauropteryx and he just needs to sit down for a few minutes when he finally looks the lil guy up only to realize that the only reason they chose that one in particular was because he's got red hair. It's a devastating realization for him, but please wait to bring out the chihuahua comparison, because he'll go from devastated to murderous in about half a second and you will NOT be able to outrun him. Pointing out that he's then proving you right will simply make him even angrier, and you will 100% wind up duct-taped to the ceiling, your kid will help him.

Retsu:

This man is a MOTHER. He is a MOTHER! He knows how to handle kids and he does so very well! How and where did he learn how to do all of this? No idea! He didn't help raise other kids, as a matter of fact, he was pretty much an only child the entire time he was growing up, but he does remember how he was raised. Despite him being a mother, don't be overly shocked if you come home one day and he's taught them how to kick a hole in the wall (that was not intentional and he doesn't know how to make them stop please help he is scared) and then there are also the random skills that they also learn from him passively. There's no fear, they almost instantly both click with each-other, the vibes are immaculate, it's like finding peace for the first time.

Retsu is nothing if not loyal to his loved ones. They want something? They've got it, and if he can't get it for them, then he knows someone that can get it for them in almost no time at all. Having his connections, stuff like that is child's play. They want an archeologist at their birthday party to tell them about their most interesting dig? Why not go to the actual dig site and help out? He can get that organized, he promises, just give him a few weeks to get all the ducks in a row, and he'll make this the best damn birthday party they've ever seen. How is he going to top it next year? Don't know, but he will. You just gotta trust the process!

He might take them back to the temple he was born and raised in to go meet some of the other Chinese Kempo practitioners he grew up with, though he doesn't really want to take them to meet Kaiou Kaku and his family, simply because he'd rather not put them in the potential path to be judged and treated poorly, as the old man can be pretty prejudiced, though he doesn't really have much to worry about because Kaiou Kaku is a father, grandfather and great grandfather, so he's used to kids not sharing his interests and is actually decently chill about that. It's a large family that, upon learning that Retsu has taken in this child, will do anything to protect them.

He'd be torn between bringing them to the arena or just keeping them introduced to a few people that he's close to, like Tokugawa and the Orochi family, though he might eventually just bring them with him because they pester him enough. He's decently protective and might be weary of Jack and Baki getting close to them simply because of Yujiro being... Well, Yujiro, but eventually he does give in and they wind up rough-housing with one of the brothers or Katsumi while he does something else, like fighting so they don't have to see him whooping ass. Though he does wind up absolutely thrilled that the others would care for his adopted child this much and he'll tell you as much with a big emotional smile and a tear in his eyes. You'll have to comfort him a little, he's easily made emotional.

A SIBLING?!? MY WORD!! Why are they asking HIM this question?! (He's stunned and shocked and oh my word he is appalled and doesn't at all realize that this means they see him as a parent and obviously parents are the ones who have kids right?) He's not really sure how to react other than a flustered and desperate request for your help please god he doesn't know what he's doing please help him. Once he calms down and thinks for a second though, he gets it, really he does. He's open to the idea as long as you're both stable enough in your lives to bring another one into the family. He's going to be just as good of a parental figure to this one, he promises, and honestly, he's one of the few people you can trust when he says that.

He doesn't mind being nicknamed after a dinosaur, he's actually highly flattered because of it and is incredibly proud when he gets to witness their knowledge firsthand! All of those late nights staying up with them to figure out what the coolest dinosaurs are were definitely worth it, because the one time he asks what dinosaur they think he is he gets hit with "Oh! You're definitely a Tarbosaurs!" A ruthless and efficient predator, thought to be a dedicated parent? That sums him up perfectly! He's got no problem calling them his little tarbosaurus either, even going as far as to learn as much as he can so he can occasionally drop interesting facts onto your childs head and watch them light up in excitement and delight.

Doppo:

He's done this before, he's willing to do it again. Younger kids are a bit of a challenge because he adopted Katsumi at a bit older, but he doesn't mind, he adapts quick. That and he's got a bunch of eager students that either know someone or are someone that works with kids and can do whatever he needs them to when it comes to child care. If he's busy for whatever reason, he knows that either Katsumi or one of the hired babysitters have them covered, especially if it's a date night. Katsumi's a bit old to be expecting a new sibling, but that won't stop Doppo. Truth be told, he did enjoy fatherhood and having someone looking up to him with that child-like wonder and amazement, so the first time he meets them he wants to immediately hit them with a wow-factor. And the fun part is that it works! Enjoy peace and quiet for the next six hours, because Doppo's got this covered! Go take a nap or get your nails done, you'll find them tuckered out and ready for a nap of their own when you get back.

Devoted and loyal aren't nearly enough to describe Doppo. You need him on the PTA? He's there, and he's getting things done! His name carries weight, and he uses that to his full advantage if he needs to. He did it for Katsumi, and he knows for a fact that the teachers and parents still at that school remember how he ruled the PTA with an iron fist, though he was always hidden in the background. They want to go to a museum with dinosaurs? He's organizing a field trip for the entire grade, and of course he's there as a chaperone to supervise and get some quality dad time in, just like he did with Katsumi when he was at the age where he didn't realize that that's what Doppo was doing.

He definitely is not letting Yujiro get wind of this one. That's the last thing he needs. This child is peaceful, interested in things like dinosaurs and learning, The Ogre would eat them alive, and there's no way he would ever let that happen. Baki is safe, Jack is a maybe, but Yujiro? Definitely a no. Absolutely not. If he sees him while out in public he's distancing himself from you and the kid just to be sure that you don't look associated with him in the slightest. He's not playing games, you and your kid will be safe no matter what, and if it means having you be whisked away by someone he knows to go back home and wait out Yujiro being... Well, his awful self, then that's simply going to be a factor. He'll let you know about that upfront though, so you know what you're getting into.

Oh he does bring them around the arena when he knows Yujiro isn't in the country. He's reluctant around Jack, but Shibukawa, Retsu and Tokugawa? They all meet his new kid, and they all weep because oh my god, they're so cute, and so clever!!! Tokugawa hopes that they'll become a fighting prodigy, much like Katsumi, but it only takes him about a month to accept that they don't really have an interest in that. They will learn Karate, because of course, Doppo wants to bond with them in his own little way and make sure they know how to defend themselves, so eventually someone will say that dinosaurs are boring and Doppo will bring them home crying laughing because someone said dinosaurs were stupid and they karate chopped them in the leg because they're wrong dinosaurs are cool don't be a dummy. Bonus points if it's some big showy fighter was trying to act hard and cool that immediately shut down once he got slapped.

A sibling? They already have a sibling! Katsumi is right there! They want a younger one? Well hell, Doppo's already in his fifties! It's a bit late to think about having another one, but yet again, if you ask real nicely he might consider it. In all seriousness though, he doubts that they'll need another sibling, they, as well as Katsumi, are more than enough for him, but if you say you want to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, he doesn't mind helping you achieve that goal. ;)

Oh he doesn't mind getting nicknamed after a dinosaur! As a matter of fact, he's entirely pleased by it. Especially when they decide that the perfect nickname for him was triceratops. Big, strong and intimidating. If he was a more insecure man, he'd be worried that he was scaring his new kid, but no, he knows that they feel safe around him. They wouldn't give him a nickname if they didn't! He wears his nickname as a badge of honor, and proudly brags about being seen as strong by his children. Katsumi might give him a hard time about it, but he's just jealous that Doppo got a cool nickname first.

#baki the grappler #baki son of ogre #grappler baki #baki dou #baki rahen #baki headcanons #baki hanma #hanayama kaoru #chiharu shiba #katsumi orochi #jack hanma #kosho shinogi #kureha shinogi #retsu kaioh #doppo orochi #natsue orochi #shibukawa gouki

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